James 1, I believe I left off in verse 20. The Word of God says there in 20, it says, For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. And that's a true statement, brother. I can't be upset with you and can't be upset with anybody else. Be angry, be in the wrong spirit, and have any power with God. It just ain't gonna happen. The impossibility. Can't please God, you can't either. It says, wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity and naughtiness. It says, lay apart all filthiness. Anything dirty, anything unclean. He's talking here to save people. Brother Todd, I know whenever I got born again that I still have battles in the flesh. I do. You do too. But most of that outward stuff has done been taken care of. The Lord took care of that. He's talking about those things on the inside, I believe. That's the things that I really have to fight. My battles most of the time is with me and it's on inward things. It says, lay apart all filthiness. Brother, if you see yourself against, if you're measuring yourself against me, you might look pretty good. If you're measuring yourself against Brother Danny, you might look pretty good. If you measure yourself against Christ, He said, put away all uncleanliness, all filthiness, all dirtiness. And I see myself this morning knowing that I'm filthy apart from Him. He cleansed me, He gave me new life, but this flesh that I walk in is still walking in a dirty world. And my flesh is still wicked apart from Him. Colossians 3 verse 8 says, but now you also put off these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. I was reading through some scripture this week, Brother Joel, and it didn't matter where I went, it looked like about any epistle, they were dealing with the same thing. It's all heart sins. It's all things with your mouth. Things down in your heart. There's not a whole lot about them being preached to about outward things. It's inward man, it's the inward man. And he says, in superfluity of naughtiness. That word superfluity just means an abundance or a superabundance of wickedness, depravity. And you think about a saved man, Brother Todd, but he's saying put it away. That word naughtiness takes the meaning of malice or ill will. is what it takes the meaning of. It does mean wickedness, it does mean depravity, but it takes the meaning of malice or ill will. And there's a whole lot in the scripture about that. I mean, you look at 1 Peter 2, verse 1, he said, Wherefore, land us aside all malice, and all guile, all hypocrisies, and envians, and all evil speakings. It's all tongue sins. It's all things down in your heart. He said, Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity and naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted Word, which is able to save your souls. Brother Keith, you receive something, that means you take hold of it. You take what's given to you. And that's the only way you'll get anything from God, He'll have to give it to you. That's the only way the sinner gets anything from God. That's the only way he can get anywhere with God. God has to come to him first. Saved a lot. If I'm going to get anything out of this word of God, I've got to go to him. He's got to give it to me. If you're studying your word of God at the house, it's the same thing. You're going to have to take what he gives you. Brother Keith, there's sometimes I want some understanding on some things that He's not ready to give me. And I won't get it. And you won't either. Until He's ready to give it to you. He says, receive with meekness. With humility, with gentleness of spirit is what meekness means. It says the engrafted word. That that's been implanted, that's inborn in you. The Holy Spirit does this work. That's how a sinner comes to know God. That's how his eyes are opened. The Word of God is put in him. That's how when a man of God preaches that we get help. The Word of God is placed in us. That good soul that's been broken, God does that work too. He uses a preacher. He might use another man, but he does the plowing. And then he plants the seed. It's all God. Every bit of it. But if that Word of God don't get in you, then it won't do you no good. And it won't do me any good. He says, Receive with meekness the engrafted Word, which is able to save your souls. The word able means it has the power. Brother Keith, it has the power. The Word of God has the power. Romans 1 verse 16 says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to Jew first and also to the Greek. Preaching the cross to them that perish foolishness, but to us which are saved is the power of God, 1 Corinthians. It takes the Word of God. You'll have to hear the Word of God. You'll have to hear it. I had to hear it. If you're going to get anything from God, He's going to have to speak to you, whether it's through this Word. You know, old Moses got spoke to by God. Abraham got spoke to by God. He's speaking to me today through this Word of God. Whether it's preached, whether it's taught, whether I'm studying there at the house, He's speaking to me through the Word of God. It says, Lay apart all filthiness and superfluity and naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted Word which is able to save your souls, brethren. It says, But be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only. A doer is one that performs an act, but one that does it. Brother Todd, If I'm given a command and you're given the same command and we both heard it, but the one that went out and acted on it, that's the doer, right? The other ones are here only. He said, but be ye doers of the word. That's me, that's you. There'll be hundreds of thousands if not millions of people step foot into an assembly place today. And they're going to hear a man stand behind a pulpit and preach or teach. And some's going to do it just because it's their duty and some people's going to do it because that's what they've always done. Some people are going to do it to make them feel better about themselves, but they're going to walk right back out the door that they came in, and they're going to go out exactly the same way. And I've done it here myself, and if you'll be honest, you have too. But here the Word of God says to be not just a hearer, but a doer. In Romans 2 verse 13 he said, For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. Jesus said in Luke, Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? He said, I'm not really your master. I'm not really your Lord if you're not listening to me. A servant obeys its master. It does. If not, he's not a servant to that. That's not really his master. And we're not much of Christians if we don't listen to what God has to say from His Word. When a man of God is standing and preaching, When someone's delivering a message from God, a person stands up testifying, got the Holy Ghost on them, God's speaking to you. And here He's telling us to be a doer of the Word, not just a hearer only. It says, deceiving your own selves. Brethren, if we ain't living and acting on what we're hearing, then we're deceiving ourselves. We're living a lie. If I'm not following what I'm hearing, then that Word of God hadn't ever gotten down into my heart. It's not been engrafted in me. If I come in the back door and sit down on a pew and I could say amen all day, but if I don't do what the man of God's preaching about, then it did me no good. I can go right back out the door and still came in the same exact way. Brother, I'm a hypocrite. If I'm doing that, and you are too this morning. I was thinking about, as I was reading over this the other day, Brother Joel, we really are, we are what we do. It ain't what we say, we are. A Christian will be Christ-like, because that's what he is. I have to remind myself when I see somebody doing wrong, why in the world are they doing that? They're a sinner. That's what they do. And if I come in the back door and I hear a man of God preach and I don't ever listen to it, I don't ever heed the Word of God, then I'm a hearer and not a doer. He said, if you think different, then you're deceiving yourself. He said, for any be a hearer of the word, not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass. He said, if any be a hearer of the word, not a doer. One that hears it every week, never puts it into action. He said, he is like a man beholding his natural face in a glass. The word behold means to observe, to give you understanding. His face in the glass, that takes the meaning of a mirror. Something to look in, something that's going to give you a reflection of what you're seeing, what's in front of it. I walked in the bathroom this morning and I did look in the mirror and brethren, I had to come back. This is no joke. I walked in the bathroom this morning. I looked at myself and I turned around and walked out. And I had to come back later and look again because I didn't even pay attention to what I looked at. And that's what he's saying here. That man that's a here only, he's seen it, but he didn't pay no attention to it. It's right here that he sits there and hears it, but he's not listening to it. My wife talks sometimes and I hear she's talking. Brother, I don't know what she's saying. She'll tell you that. I'm just being honest. I mean, all you men's done that. I'm trying to hear it. I don't know why it got lost somewhere in translation. That is exactly right. You ain't interested. But brother, we're all guilty of it. He said, if you ain't hearing the word of God, if you're not being a doer of it, then that's exactly what you did. Brother Keith, a mirror will show you every blemish, every fault you have. If you'll look at it and pay attention, it will. It'll show you the good as well as the bad. It shows you what's there, what's in front of it. It don't hide anything, it don't change anything. It just shows you what's there. But you gotta be attentive to it. And this word of God is our mirror. And it lets you see who you are. It is. It shows you the good, it shows you Christ, and it shows you who you are. I remember whenever I was under conviction, I remember I knelt to pray that day. I remember seeing Jesus Christ in my mind's eye, brother, I could see it. I'm not saying I had a vision, but God let me see the cross, and let me see what Jesus did for me. And brother, I remember seeing Him in His glory, and just seeing, like Isaiah said, I think it was in 6, where he said he was high and lifted up. and to see that a holy and righteous God took that from me, took all my shame, that it was my shame that put him there, it was my sin that hung him on a cross, and to see how holy and righteous he was and that he did that for me. And that's what the word of God does for us. It shows us Jesus Christ high and lifted up. Everything is under his feet. He has all power and all glory. All honor should be given to him. And then he says to us, Brother Todd, I can see me and I can see all the hypocrisy in myself. Brother Danny, not that I want to be a hypocrite. I don't go out of my way and try to be that way, but he lets me see it. I was reading through this scripture this week and God let me see some things. The mirror of the Word of God showed me, hey, this is where you're at. I thank God for preaching. There's been a lot of time, a lot of men used to preach Word of God to my heart. And God's done that and God showed me things. But I can be at the house and this Word of God will still show me the same thing. As long as the Holy Ghost is there with me, then He can show me. The Bible says, for he beholdeth himself and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. It's made mention of this. He sees himself, he goes on about his day. The Bible says, and straightway, that's immediately, right away, he forgetteth what manner he was. The word forgiveth means that he forgot. It also takes the meaning that he's oblivious to or he just don't care. He isn't concerned with what he saw. And there's been times I've read the Scripture and I've heard preaching and I wasn't really concerned with what I heard. I really wasn't. But the mirror was showing me what it was. And it'll let you see it. But there's been times I don't want to see it. There's been times you not want to see it. But the mirror still shows what's there. He says, but whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty. That word looketh into means to look carefully into, to inspect, to peer into. He's wanting to see something. He's trying to get something out of it. He says the law of liberty, the perfect law of liberty. We will know the word perfect in this context means complete. the whole thing. It says the law of liberty, a law is a precept or a command. And we're not talking about the law of Moses here, not talking about the Pentateuch, the books of the law. We're talking about the law of liberty, the law of God. It's talking here about the gospel. He's talking about Christ and His finished work, His complete and finished work, His perfect work. Brother, if you look into the Scripture and you look into the Old Testament law, it does nothing but bind you and put you under bondage. But Jesus Christ didn't come for that. He came to give you liberty. The perfect law of liberty here is Christ, the preached word of God, the gospel of Christ. Jesus came and in John 13, he said, a new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. A law is a precept, a commandment. Jesus said, I give you a new one. Love like I love. In Matthew 22, he talked about, he said, love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and love your neighbors as yourself. But he said if you hang all those other commandments on them too, the whole of the law, if you love God like you're supposed to and love your neighbor like you're supposed to, all the rest of that stuff will fall in line. Here, Jesus ain't talking about, or they're not talking about a new set of rules. But it's talking about salvation and righteousness through Christ. Hear the law of faith. I believe that's what it said over... Pray for me, I still got a bunch of congestion. Romans 3.27, he said, where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of what works? Nay, it ain't works. It ain't anything you can do. It's the law by the law of faith. Brother, if you look into that perfect law of liberty, that's Jesus. It's Jesus Christ and his finished work. It's following Jesus' commandments. Loving your neighbor as yourself. Loving God like you're supposed to. Loving like Jesus loved. I looked up the word law and it said the observance of that which is approved of God. Brother Joel, by that definition, the law of liberty is just living in Christ. If you're living approved of God, you're living in Christ. You're living in the Holy Ghost. You're living in Jesus Christ. Romans 8, 2, he said, For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. I thank God for the law of the God. I thank God for the Scriptures that showed me that I didn't need to sin. I didn't need to steal or kill. That all points you to Christ. It all shows you who you are. But it also binds a man down. Puts him under bondage. And you'll never be free in that. John 8, 32, he said, and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. He said, but whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, if you'll remain there, if you abide right there in Christ Jesus. He said, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work. He said, if you remain right there in Christ, if you'll remain full of the Holy Ghost, You can live like that, brother. Well, you can't, but he'll live through you. Yeah. It says he shall be blessed in his deed. Brethren, if we could not think about today, not think about all the things that's going on in this world, not thinking about, I start a new job tomorrow morning, but I don't want to think about that here. I've got issues and I mean, there's things that we need to take care of her at the house but I don't want to think about that here. I want to be focused in living for Christ right here and see what I can get this morning. See what I can bring. What if the what the lord wants me to do today? What the lord wants you to do today? not carried away by false doctrine, not carried away by He said, he being not a forgetful hearer. He didn't forget what he heard. He didn't just come in and sit on a pew and play on his phone or pick at his fingernails and do whatever else that he's thinking about what he's going to eat when he got home. But he's paying attention and he's wanting something from God. Brother Danny, I want something from God this morning. Didn't get to come to the house of God last week. Didn't come see my brothers and my sisters. Didn't get that fellowship. I needed that this morning. It was just a blessing just to walk in the door and see my pastor sitting up here. Just to be able to see him. Just to be around the family. That's a blessing. I've missed that this week. Want something from God. He said, he shall be blessed in his doing. The Bible says in Psalms verse 1, it says, Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, and nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in this law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. That's pretty blessed, brother. Pretty blessed. He says, ungodly or not so, but like the chaff with the wind dryeth away. That old chaff's just dry. He can throw it up in the air and the wind will just take it away. That's pretty dry. He said, no, he's going to plant us like a tree planted by the rivers of water. It says, Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. Brother, if you'll be a hearer of the Word, if you'll be a hearer and a doer, come wanting something from God. Continue therein, in that perfect law of liberty. He said he'll bless you. Your life will be blessed. Brother, I don't do this to be blessed, but God blesses you because you do it. There's no doubt. You're still in the flesh. I'm still in the flesh. I can still live in the flesh each and every day. Apart from the Holy Ghost and apart from His help and His grace and His mercy keeping me, I'd be just like any other man out in the world today. It's exactly right. And you would be too. But the restraining on you of the Holy Ghost keeps you in this way. You abide in this. You continue in this because of Him. And because of that, you're blessed. Highly blessed, brother. Brother, we could have just never even talked about any of this this morning and just started talking about the blessings of God this morning and we would have ran out of time this morning already. If we went down each and every row and just look at the blessings that God puts on us, not just physically, we wouldn't have had enough time if we just did physical stuff this morning. But spiritual, brother, the blessings down in my heart that I've had this week, when I've opened the scripture, whenever I prayed, and God, the God of heaven, the God of heaven, speak to your soul. What a blessing. What a blessing. God. God speaks to you. Lives inside of you. Abides with you. Wants to fellowship with you. What a blessing. I ain't felt good this week. A lot of us haven't. A lot of us got sick last week. God knows about that. But I've still been blessed in this week. I still was blessed last week. Couldn't hardly get up off the couch. Didn't have no energy to do anything. But God spoke to my heart and blessed me laying right there on the couch, brother. I didn't have to get down on my knees or rub some stupid rosary beads or some other nonsense. I didn't have to go through some religious action or go to a cult to get blessed by some priest. God of heaven come by my living room and blessed me laying right there. What a blessing. Thank God it's real this morning. He says, this man shall be blessed in his deed. Shall be. It's going to happen. Brother Danny, there ain't no other option. God said it's going to happen. If you'll be a doer of the Word, God's going to bless you. It's going to happen. He said, if any man among you seem to be religious. He says, if he seems to be, if he thinks he is, if he professes he is, If any man among you seem to be religious and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is in vain." He said if he's doing the outward works, he's coming to church three times a week, four times a week, however often you come, he's wearing his suit, he's wearing his tie, he claims to be a Christian, He said, if you can't bridle your own tongue. He said, you deceived in your heart. That word bridle means to be led by a bit. To guide with a restraint. And surely, brother Danny, there's times I have to restrain my tongue. Each and every day. Each and every day. There's some times I don't and I should have. We could all probably say the same thing. But like I spoke of earlier, a lot of this is those inward things in your heart. And it's those things spoken. He said, if any man among you seem to be religious, and browleth not his tongue, Brother Joe, they're coming in and smiling, shaking your hand, and walking out the back door and running their mouth about you. Or angry with, this brother didn't shake my hand, or that sister didn't say hey the way I wanted them to. Enviens amongst each other. Backbiting, strife, contention. Psalm 39 verse one, he said, I said, I will take heed to my ways that I sin not with my tongue. I will keep my mouth with a bridle while the wicked is before me. For Dan, there's a lot of times I see things. Lord help me, I don't bridle it like I should. There's sometimes I see things and the first thing you want to do is you want to snap at it. You want to tell them, well, that ain't right. You want to give them some scripture on it, but it ain't in the right spirit. That's just me. I'm just talking to myself. There's a lot of times. Well, that old saying, that old saying, if you can't say nothing right, don't say nothing at all, brothers. That's a pretty good one to stick to. If the preacher made you mad whenever you was preaching on something today, he steps on your toes and best off not to say anything about the preacher. The best thing is to go home and talk to God about it. Pray about it. Lord, was that intended for me this morning? Lord, let me see that mirror of the Word of God. Let me see it on myself. Let me see where I'm wrong. But this flesh wants to open our mouth. It is. Brother Keith, somebody strikes at you, the natural instinct is to strike back. It is. The man of God is preaching to you out of love. It ought to be. Y'all not want to strike back. But not just him. Brother make you upset. Brother, we shouldn't do anything, say anything here or on the way home about our brother. We all love him, care for him. And if you think they was wrong in a way, then we all be praying for them. That God make it right in my heart and in theirs. I don't want anything to disrupt the service this morning. I don't want anything to come between us and the union here together. No. No backbiting, no strife, no contention. I love you, brethren and sisters this morning. I do, and I don't want anything to come between us. If I said anything to any of y'all that offended y'all, I'm sorry. That was never my intentions. A horse is led by a bridle. It's turned this way and that way by that bit in its mouth. The same way we ought to bridle our tongue and keep us from saying anything that might bring shame or dishonor to God or to His house. He said, if any man may seem to be religious and bright and not just hung, he deceiveth his own heart. He said, he's deluded. He's fooling himself. He said, this man's religion is vain. Brother Keith, that word vain just means it's devoid of truth. It's useless. It's of no use. It's of no purpose. He said, no matter how good you look, It don't. It doesn't. It doesn't matter what we pretend to be. It really matters who we are in our heart. Brother, you've said it a lot of times. You dare to have a jar with no label on it but had some jelly in it than a jar that had jelly labeled but had no jelly in it. That's exactly right. It's what's in a man. It's what's in a heart. He said, pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this. Pure religion. A lot of people think religion is a bad word to say. I mean, and I don't want to just be religious. And I know there's a bunch of so-called religions out there. But he said pure religion. That means clean, clear, free from any adulteration or hypocrisy. Brother Danny, you just get down to the basics. All those other things that you're trying to cover up, the disputes between each other, don't matter what's on the sign out there. He said, pure religion and undefiled before God. Undefiled means unsold, sincere, genuine. We're not talking about religious acts of this world, we're not talking about a lot of things that's going to happen today and meet in places around the world. He said pure religion and undefiled before God. Before Him. You want to know what religion is to God? Pure and simple, what it is to God. Is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows and their afflictions. to visit the fatherless and the widows. The word visit means to relieve, to look after, to help. But then that ain't me going to somebody stuck in a nursing home and saying, I'll pray for you and hope God blesses you. But that's ministering to their needs, whatever that is. Real taught, if you need to talk, then the best thing I can do to you is listen. If another brother or sister needs some money, I'm not saying it always is going to be money, but I think the church ought to help them out. I think they ought to do what they can to help their brother. They might not need nothing but for you to run them to the store. Help them however you can. You look at Jesus' life in the Bible. He went everywhere helping people. Everywhere. He didn't make every man rich. He healed the sick, raised the dead, gave the blindsight, fed them. He gave them their necessities. He said, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction. That's in their troubles, their distresses. Brother, it's the same as he talks later in the book of James how that faith without works is dead. Brother, you can say all day long, I'm a Christian, but if you don't ever do anything Christ-like, it don't mean anything. Brother Keith, if I know you're struggling, if I know you need something, and I have it in myself to help you, me saying, I'll pray for you, does you no good. He said, but to visit the Father with us in our afflictions and to keep Himself unspotted from the world. He said, if your religion is to God, you refraining from everything ungodly, you staying like you should be, not consecrating yourself from this world, but consecrating yourself to God. Keeping yourself unspotted. The word keeper means to guard. Real Joe, can I keep myself from sinning? I can guard against it. I can guard against it. It'll take God to help me to live this life like I should. But I can guard him. If I know something is a botherance or a hindrance to me, I can stay away from it. That's what I can do. That's what you can do. If you know there's somebody that's gonna get under your skin, I'm probably not going to go visit them right before I come to church. It's common sense. I don't want to sin. We'll be in prayer, and whenever I'm in the right spirit, then we'll go see them. But brother, I I hope it was a help to somebody this morning. It was a help to me at the house more than anything. Just simple truths from the word of God this morning, brother. It was a simple application.