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Now let us begin our study by reading the epistle of James once more, and chapter three. James chapter three. be not many teachers, my brethren, knowing that we shall receive heavier judgment. For in many things we all stumble. If any stumbleth not in word, the same is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also. Now if we put the horses' bridles into their mouths that they may obey us, we turn about their whole body also. Behold, the ships also, though they are so great and are driven by rough winds, are yet turned about by a very small rudder, whither the impulse of the steersman willeth.
So the tongue also is a little member and boasteth great things. Behold, how much wood is kindled by how small a fire. And the tongue is a fire, the world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defileth the whole body and setteth on fire the wheel of nature, and is set on fire by hell. For every kind of beasts and birds, of creeping things and things in the sea is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But the tongue can no man tame.
It is a restless evil. It is full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we the Lord and Father, and therewith curse we men which are made after the likeness of God. Out of the same mouth cometh forth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. Doth the fountain send forth from the same opening sweet water and bitter? Can a fig tree, my brethren, yield olives or a vine figs? Neither can salt water yield sweet. Who is wise and understanding among you?
Let him show by his good life his works in meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and faction in your heart, glory not and lie not against the truth. This wisdom is not a wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where jealousy and faction are, there is confusion and every vile deed. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without variance, without hypocrisy.
And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for them that make peace. And may God give us good understanding of his words. Now, as you know, we are currently studying the epistle of James under the general title, James's vision of the perfect man and woman. And we have been looking at some leading themes that James puts before us as he points to the characteristics that should mark a mature believer, and as he points to the difficulties which we shall have to overcome if we are to make progress along the road towards true Christian maturity.
On our first occasion, we noticed that the mark of a mature believer is that he or she is not double-minded when it comes to seeking the wisdom of God, that we may face life's trials and temptations aright. And on our second occasion, we noticed that similarly, the mark of a mature believer is that they do not deceive themselves or allow themselves to be deceived by that type of godliness and spirituality that may look well on the surface, but is a bogus spirituality that, instead of eradicating sin, allows it to continue.
Yesterday, uh, we thought how that a mature believer will be very careful not to indulge in social discrimination. Mature b- a mature believer will learn to value all his fellow believers equally as the Lord himself values them. Tomorrow, God willing, we shall have to deal with the difficult topic of worldliness that could divide our loyalty, so that one minute we want to love the Lord, but the next minute we are taken off our guard and swept away into loving the world, and thus behaving as enemies of God.
Worldliness will be the difficulty that we are told we must overcome on the road to spiritual maturity. And finally, on Saturday, if God will, we shall have to consider the provocation that evil is. We live in a terribly evil and unjust world that vexes our spirits. We shall need to learn patience in the face of evil and injustice and consequent suffering if we are to become mature believers. This morning, the difficulty that James puts before us, and which we should study, is the difficulty in controlling that little member of our bodies, the tongue.
It is a tiny member, James points out, but extraordinarily difficult to control, perhaps the most difficult member of all our members to gain control of. So much so is that true that James says, if any man stumbles, stumbles not in word, the same is a mature and a perfect man able to bride, to bridle the whole body as well. So the question of the control of the tongue is the topic that is, or rather should be, our topic for this morning.
But just at this point, we ought to notice that there is another topic that now begins to appear in the epistle by James. It is the topic of the Lord as our judge, and the judgment that one day we must face at his hand. And now beginning with this topic of the wrong of social discrimination, James interweaves this topic of the Lord as judge, reminding us that one of these days we must face the judge and submit ourselves to his judgment.
Notice, if you will now, take your Bibles and read with me how James interweaves this topic throughout all the other topics. In chapter two, we were studying yesterday the evil of social discrimination. Read with me again from verse eight onwards, and notice how James concludes this topic by reminding us of the judgment of the Lord. Verse eight of chapter two: how be it if you fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, you do well. But if you have respect of persons, you commit sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors.
For whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point, he has become guilty of all. For he that said, do not commit adultery, said also, do not kill. Now, if thou dost not commit adultery but killest, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak you, and so do as men that are to be judged, and judged by a law of freedom. For judgment is without mercy to him that has showed no mercy.
Mercy glorieth against judgment. So to enforce this lesson against social discrimination and to help us to give heed to it and behave ourselves as we should, James now reminds us that one of these days soon we must stand before the Lord Jesus as our judge. Now in chapter three he's going to talk to us about the use of the tongue. Notice how he introduces once more the topic of judgment. Be not many teachers, my brethren, he says in chapter three verse one, knowing that we shall receive heavier judgment.
I must remember, as I stand before you this morning, to guard my tongue. For one day, I must stand before the Lord as judge as to how I have used my tongue. In chapter four again, James is going to talk to us about the danger of worldliness and how that worldly desires can so work within us as to lead to strife and bitterness and envies and jealousies and evil behavior, even among believers.
And he thinks it wise in that context to remind us once more of the Lord as judge. Look at chapter four verse eleven: Speak not one against another, brethren. He that speaketh against a brother or judgeth his brother speaketh against the law and judges the law. But if thou judgest the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. One only is the lawgiver and judge, even he who is able to save and to destroy. But who art thou that judgest thy neighbor?
James is urging us to remember that we're not the judges. Let's pause before we are tempted to judge our brethren and remember that one day we must stand before the supreme judge. And similarly, in chapter five, when he is urging us to be patient in the face of this world's evil and suffering, he says in chapter five verse nine: murmur not, brethren, one against another, that you be not judged. Behold, the judge standeth before the doors, and very soon the door will open and the judge will enter, and we shall find ourselves standing before our blessed Lord as our judge.
This is, I know, a very solemn subject and liable to dampen our spirits more than the weather. But it is obviously a topic that we cannot afford to overlook. It fills such a large part of James. It is so closely tied with these practical matters. Indeed, if we were to slide over it and neglect it, we should be robbing ourselves, shouldn't we, of one of those great helps and incentives to a life of spiritual maturity. It is a tremendous help, as it is a solemn incentive, that in these various avenues of life, I remember that one day I must stand before the Lord Jesus as judge.
So that from this morning we are first to devote ourselves to this topic, and that will probably mean that from now on our studies, as advertised on the leaflet, will begin to get out of phase. But this is so supremely and generally important that perhaps it won't matter if the other studies get out of phase. Should we then take as our motto this morning the advice that James gives us in chapter two verse twelve: So speak you, and so do, as people that are to be judged, judged by a law of liberty.
It seems to me, I must say, that we evangelicals could do with reminding ourselves of this topic now and again. Perhaps for failure to remember it, we evangelicals sometimes have gone astray and brought public disgrace upon the Lord, as in past years, the sad occurrences by the so-called TV evangelists in America. You will see sometimes the very way we preach the gospel fosters this idea that we won't have to stand before the Lord Jesus as judge. He is our savior, we say.
And we tell the unconverted, now look here, my good man, decide tonight. Tonight the Lord Jesus offers you himself as your savior and as your advocate. If in some foolish response you were to reject him as your savior, tomorrow maybe you would find the door closed against you, and you would meet the Lord Jesus then finally, not as your savior, as your judge. Receive him tonight, that you might know the Lord as your savior and advocate, and not know him as your judge. And of course, we know what we mean, don't we?
And as far as we mean it, our gospel is true. We are pointing out that because the Lord Jesus has died for us and bore the penalty, borne the penalty of our sin, then there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. There is no penalty. We shall never have to bear the terrible curse and penalty of sin, for Christ bore that penalty for us when he was forsaken of God at Calvary and bore our sins in his body on the tree.
But then, we would be wrong, wouldn't we, to give the unconverted person the idea that once he's trusted Christ, he will never have to face Christ as judge in any sin. That would be untrue. We need to balance then our preaching by the other side. If you call on him as Father, says Peter, one Peter chapter one, who judges every man according to his works without respect of persons, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear.
The Father judges. And while we're on the subject of not discriminating between one and another, Peter reminds us that when it comes to judgment, God is no respecter of persons. It doesn't matter whether you be an apostle or whether you be a Christian private citizen. Doesn't matter who you are, be you rich or poor, be you a young convert or an experienced and mature elder, it makes no difference to God when it comes to his judgments. The Father judges without respect of persons, says Peter, and he judges every man according to his work. He's right to judge, hasn't he?
Well, Peter goes on to explain why we are to pass the time of our sojourning here in fear, in view of the fact that God will judge. He says, you see, you have been redeemed from your empty manner of life, your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers. You've been redeemed by the most costly thing in all the universe. You have been redeemed by the blood of Christ. Christ has bought you, says Peter. Christ has bought your time by his blood. God has been waiting for you for an uncharted eternity.
All the long ages has he been waiting for you. And here you have your brief seventy years of time sojourning here in fear. Half of them, perhaps some of you have already wasted. You didn't get converted till you were thirty five. Has half of them gone down the drain? And you've got thirty five years left. And the Father has bought those thirty five years. Bought them with the blood of Christ. He won't stand kindly by and watch you fritter them away. Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear, says he, knowing you were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, and that the Father will judge critically how we use the time of our redeemed lives.
The Father judges. We must all appear, says Paul, before the judgment seat of Christ. The blessed Lord will judge. When and how and what will they judge? There is, we gather from the New Testament, just let's us remind us of the topic. There is a present judgment. um One Corinthians chapter eleven discusses it in some detail, as Paul warns his fellow believers at Corinth not to abuse the Lord's Supper, to come and eat of it unworthily, failing to recognize and deserve the body.
That, said Paul, if you do, will bring down upon you the Lord's judgment. Now, if we would judge ourselves, if we would discern ourselves and confess our sins, then we should not be judged. But if we will not, as believers, cooperate with the Lord in discerning our weaknesses and faults and confessing them, discerning our false attitudes and seeking the Lord's grace to put them right, if we will not judge ourselves, then the Lord will judge us now. When we're judged, we're chastened of the Lord, that we might not be condemned with the world.
There is a present judgment of the individual. There is a present judgment of the church, is there not? Says Peter in his first epistle, chapter four, the time has come for judgment to commence at the house of God. If the righteous scarce be saved.
Under the solemn and holy judgment of God. Where shall the unrighteous and the ungodly appear? We have a very big example, do we not, of judgment beginning at the house of God in the book of the Revelation. Chapters towards the to chapters twenty of that book tell us of the solemn judgments that shall fall on the world at the end of this age. Chapters one to three depict our blessed Lord in the solemn robes of a judge, walking among the candlesticks that are his churches, judging them.
It is, I say, not a thing that we should shun, surely. As we thank the blessed Lord for being our savior, should we not praise him for being our judge? That he who died for us may come alongside us in life and gently but firmly and solemnly point out our mistakes and waywardness and tell us how we may be delivered from them. It was a solemn moment, was it not, when the blessed Apostle John saw the risen Lord? He saw him in all his glory, his face shining as the sun shines in its strength, and in that instant fell at his feet as dead.
The man who, as often has been observed, leaned on the bosom of the blessed Lord Jesus at the Last Supper, seeing him now in his risen glory as judge, was overcome almost to the point of death. Thank God for the blessed things that he heard and felt in that moment. He said he came and he laid his right hand on me, saying, fear not, I am he that liveth and was dead, and I'm alive forevermore, and have the keys of hell and of Hades, write therefore. In those moments, John learned the secret of being able to stand as a believer and face his judge.
This all-glorious Son of God, now in resurrection, has the keys of death and hell, not certainly to unlock the gates of it to let us in, but to let us out. And in virtue of his death and his resurrection, and the guarantee of his eternal salvation, he gives us the strength to stand and face his judgment and listen to his criticism. And in our listening and in our obeying is abundant treasure of reward. There is a present judgment.
There will be a future judgment of the believer, will there not? We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ to receive the things done in the body, whether good or bad. Once more, let us remind ourselves that no believer will ever be lost. The very passage in one Corinthians three that talks about that coming judgment of the believer assures us of that glorious fact. If any man's work survive the Lord's criticism, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved.
Oh, thank God for the statement. How can he be saved if all his works are burned up? Because salvation never did depend upon our works. Salvation is a gift, and once given, is altogether unforfeitable and cannot be lost. He himself shall be saved. While we rejoice in that security, let us not forget the other part of the picture. He shall be saved as through fire. As though a man was sitting in his house at night and suddenly, to his amazement and shock, found the whole thing had burst into a conflagration of flame around him, and ran for his life without any, any pausing to pick up even his greatest treasure and escape with his life from a house that was burning around him.
Paul pictures the possibility of someone, some believer, coming before the Lord and finding his life's work go up in flame under the Lord's judgment, saved himself, but saved like Sodom escaping with his skin out of Sodom while his life's work goes up in flame. What then will be the issue when we stand to be judged at the judgment seat of Christ?
When the judge, who as James reminds us, stands already at the door, bids us enter, and we stand before him. You will say, perhaps, Mr. Preacher, what will be, what will be examined then is our work for the Lord, and we shall be given rewards for our work. Here comes Mr. Smith, and the Lord will say, how many tracts did you give out, my good brother? Oh, ten thousand and fifty six. All right, you get a reward. Here comes Mr. Brown. How many tracts did you give out? Oh, uh, uh, sorry, law, I didn't give any.
I was too busy. I, I was interested in fishing. Oh, too bad for that. You'll say, you mean literal fishing. Ah, I see. Yes. Well, all right, you, you don't get any reward. Pass on. And that's all it will be. It won't be like that, will it? Huh. You know, the school I went to, there were a lot of very doubtful characters, me included, of course. And there was a prize giving at the end of the year, you'll see. At each form, there were three prizes. I think the, the, the, the best one would cost three and six in those days, but that's beside the point, you'll see. There were three prizes, and out of a form of thirty five boys, there was only three that were going to get the prize.
You know what the a- the reaction of that was on many of the chaps? They didn't bother to try for the prize. They said, who would, who would waste a summer evening swatting up chemistry, ha, when he could be out playing cricket, and all for trying to get a three and sixpence prize that he mightn't even get at the end anyway. They didn't bother. They enjoyed the cricket and scraped through the exam in the end. It didn't bother them at all that they didn't get a prize. And you know, some believers could take that attitude, couldn't they? Well, of course, the real keen chaps like John Spears, they'll get a reward, of course. But me, I- I'm not in that line of country, you'll see.
I- I- I- I haven't got the time, really. I like other things, and even if I tried to get a reward, I mightn't get it. So, so bother the rewards and let the apostles and John Spears get it. But that would be a shallow view, wouldn't it? Sure, we should be rewarded for our work for the Lord. Sure, we should be rewarded for our sacrifice for the Lord, and the going rate is marvelous, isn't it? No one has left children, parents, home, and so on, and sacrificed for my sake, says the Lord, but what shall get a hundredfold, that on the, on the stock exchange, a hundredfold is ten thousand percent.
And it's not merely the man who's gone forth and left his darling wife at home, is it, that gets the reward, but the darling wife at home who's let her husband go to the elders meeting night after night, to preaching the gospel around the countryside and whatnot, and forfeited what as a wife she had a right to have. She too shall be rewarded ten thousand percent. Oh, there will be lovely rewards. We look for the Savior and his bright reward, but not merely for so-called spiritual work, surely.
Paul, Paul reminds the slaves in Colossians chapter three that they can work for the Lord even under their grim taskmasters. They can work and do their hoeing of the sugar beet for the Lord, and from the Lord they will get the reward of the inheritance for their daily work. And then, of course, it won't be simply our work, but our behavior. There is a solemn passage, isn't there, in one Corinthians nine where Paul has been describing why he goes even beyond the call of duty and goes the extra mile, surrendering his lawful freedoms so that he may win more converts and therefore share the rewards that the gospel is reaping in the world.
And he uses the illustration of the Olympic Games and says, you know, in a race, there all the runners run, but only one gets the prize. Let that be the quality of your running in the games, that when the Lord comes, you receive the prize. And then he adds this, says he, you know, I keep my body under, rigorously disciplining my body. Why so? Why, lest my body got out of hand. And perhaps even being tired and exhausted by my preaching, I let my body go astray.
And fell into sin. And brought disgrace upon the gospel and upon my own testimony. You say, what would happen then, Paul? Would it matter? You'd still get your reward for all the work you've done, wouldn't you? No. Not necessarily. I keep my body under lest, having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified. Possible for a preacher, isn't it? Let me listen to my own words.
To tell the unconverted that they need to get saved and stop their evil way of living. And then for the preacher himself to fall into sin. And show that he's not a hundred percent genuine in his preaching. We can be disqualified, says Paul. Take the matter what James has been discussing with us. The way we treat our brothers and sisters in Christ, the way we value them.
It's easy to lay down the law as a preacher, isn't it? And to bask in the undeserved thank yous of the congregation. And then in daily life, to spurn believers because they haven't got our knowledge, and make cutting remarks about, oh, they know very little, and disparage believers. Do you suppose, my brother, that just because I've taught the theory, but in practice have not valued my Christian brothers and sisters as I should, that when it comes to the judgment seat of Christ, Christ is going to give me a position of authority in his kingdom.
Oh, you say I should be different then. I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I shall, I shall value everybody as I ought to. Well, if you want to reign then, you better start valuing them now. Because if we misbehave now, the danger is it could disqualify us from the reward of our work later on. That being then such a solemn matter, let us turn to examine these passages in James, where he discusses the principles of judgment that apply now and will apply then.
And we take up in the chapter that we were studying yesterday, James chapter two, and from verse 8 onward. Here are the standards set out before us. Here are the standards by which we are judged now and shall be judged then. And here are the principles according to which that judgment will proceed. First of all, he says in verse eight, how be it if you fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, you do well. But if you have respect of persons, you commit sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors.
So here James calls us to observe the fact that we as believers are expected to observe the law. Oh, here comes a commotion of theological voices. That's James, and you shouldn't take that too literally because Paul tells us that we are not under the law, we are under grace. We don't really have to take the law into account as we live as believers, but hard, hard, sir. James believe in, believes in grace as much as you do. Remember what we were considering yesterday as to how, how we got converted and how we were born again.
He said it was of his own will that God brought us forth. We owe it to his sovereign grace and to his sovereign will, and not to any merit on our part whatsoever. Certainly we are not under the law in order to get salvation. And secondly, we are not under the law as a principle, are we? You say, what do you mean by that? Well, law as given at Sinai, for instance, was not just instruction, not just advice. The law of Moses came alongside you, and it didn't say, now look here, I've got a suggestion or two to make.
Uh, now look, wouldn't it, don't you think, be a a a good thing on the whole, uh, if you were to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, you know? Have a go at that and see how you get on with doing that, and uh, do the best you can. No, the law didn't speak like that. The law said, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with every ounce of your mind, soul, heart, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself, and if you fail, I shall curse you. Well, thank God, in that sense, we are not under law.
We have another principle of life, do we not, as believers? We are led by the spirit. There is no penalty. We shall never be lost. God does not hang over us, hold out the flames of hell, and say, get to it, my dear redeemed believer, get to it, or you'll suffer the curse of the law and the pangs of hell itself. No, there is no penalty. We have another motivating power, the blessed Holy Spirit within. But let us not forget what even Paul says. The purpose of God's salvation is nothing less than this, that the righteous demand of the law shall be fulfilled in us.
That is God's objective. And when it comes to that righteous demand of the law, here James describes it. He describes it as the royal law, meaning the law as expressed by the king, the kingly law. The Jews regarded the Old Testament law as king, but we as Christians, as we think of our blessed Lord's commandments, he is the king, is he not? This is his royal law. This is the law of his kingdom. You hope, my brother, to get a reward and reign with the Lord Jesus when he comes again?
Of course you do. Then, if you want to reign in his kingdom, you'll have to reign according to the laws of the kingdom, won't you? The royal law. And the royal law proceed. Well, thank God, in that sense, we are not under law. We have another principle of life, do we not, as believers? We are led by the spirit. There is no penalty.
We shall never be lost. God does not hang over us, hold out the flames of hell, and say, get to it, my dear redeemed believer, get to it, or you'll suffer the curse of the law and the pangs of hell itself. No, there is no penalty. We have another motivating power, the blessed Holy Spirit. But let us not forget what even Paul says. The purpose of God's salvation is nothing less than this, that the righteous demand of the law shall be fulfilled in us. That is God's objective.
And when it comes to that righteous demand of the law, here James describes it. He describes it as the royal law, meaning the law as expressed by the king, the kingly law. The Jews regarded the Old Testament law as king. Now we as Christians, as we think of our blessed Lord's commandments. He is the king, is he not? This is his royal law. This is the law of his kingdom. You hope, my brother, to get a reward and reign with the Lord Jesus when he comes again?
Of course you do. But then, if you want to reign in his kingdom, you'll have to reign according to the laws of the kingdom, won't you? The royal law. And the royal law proceeds according to this ancient scripture. This has not changed. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. This is the royal law. Says, uh, James, therefore, remember this, that the law that we are called upon to observe is not a thing in which it is enough to do one part and neglect the other part.
He goes through the argument that you've heard many an evangelist use, whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point, he has become guilty of all. For he that said, do not commit adultery, said also, do not kill. Now, if thou dost not commit adultery but killest, thou art become a transgressor of the law. And how many of us have preached it to the unconverted, wanting to bring them to repentance? We've spied Mrs. Malaprop in the congregation, and she's so full of her good works, we think this would do her good, a real dose of medicine that would get her thinking. And we say, you know, it's no good if you have kept the whole law and you come short in one, then you've come short, you have broken the law, you are guilty of all.
And my dear good religious woman, the plain fact is you are a sinner, a hell-deserving sinner on the way to hell, because even if you've broken only one of the ten laws or one of the one hundred and ten, or the six hundred and twelve, you would still be a sinner and lost. Yeah, but now and again, it it it it can be, uh, quite a healthy thing to preach our gospel sermons to ourselves, you know. It's like going into the house next door, you know. It's built on the same design as yours, but only the other way round because it's a semi-detached, of course, and you go in and it looks kind of different, doesn't it, when you see your own house from a different sort of angle?
And sometimes gospel sermons, when they're applied to the believer, they kind of look rather different. And James is talking to believers here. He's talking about the royal law, the law that comes from the king, and it's not a less standard than the Old Testament is used. Our blessed Lord himself declared there were two great laws that embodied the principles of the Old Testament law. The one is thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy mind, heart, soul, and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself is the second one. On this hang all the law and the prophets, said our Lord.
And then he reinterpreted it, didn't he? A new commandment, said he, I leave you. Not just that Old Testament law, loving your neighbor as you love yourself. I leave you a new commandment that you should love as I have loved you. Oh, what height of a law does the blessed Lord put before us? The Apostle John, recalling his contemporary believers to this standard, said, now look, my brethren, in enunciating once more this law, this royal law, we have to love our brethren.
It's no new commandment, I'm telling you. This is not some new super duper modern recent invention in Christianity that screws up normal Christianity to a deluxe edition. No, no, no, no. This is ordinary basic stuff. This is the word that you heard right from the very beginning. A man doesn't love his brother. A man hates his brother. He's not a believer. This is the basic law, the royal law. And you'll say, says James, don't try and argue, will you?
Well, that's a little bit of the law I don't keep, you know, I'm not good at that, and so I've tried and I, I fail on that, so I, I don't bother about that. I do keep the rest, you'll see. No. Lose one little bit out of a bar of Nestle's chocolate, and you've still got the rest, haven't you? And the rest tastes good, and ninety five of chocolate is better than none, yeah? And you say, well, I'm very good at prophecy, you'll see, and I, I'm very good at church organization. Marvelous. This little bit about loving, well, yeah, well, I'm not that type, you know, uh, and so, uh, I don't come up to that, but, um, you'll see. But I'm a marvelous preacher. You are?
Well, let James tell you, if you read the whole law and offend in this, you've broken the law. The law is like a plate glass window, you know. Put a bit of granite through it, you shattered the lot. You say, that's exceedingly severe, isn't it? No, it isn't. Well, it is, but, you know, Paul would say the same. He said, you know, when it comes to using my gift for the Lord, if I had knowledge and knew all things, if I had faith, so I could remove mountain, and fell down on this, and had not love, I am, well, a seventy five percenter at least.
No, you're not. I am nothing. You feel the earth beginning to quake under your feet, so to speak. If I had not love, I am nothing. How carefully and honestly I must review my work before the Lord, mustn't I?
And in particular, if I want to pass his judgment in the coming day. For he's not going to have people occupying thrones in that day and ruling others that did not learn on earth to serve according to the basic principle of the kingdom. And then there's another principle of judgment according to this verse. So speak you, and so do, as men that are to be judged by a law of liberty, a law of freedom.
Why, we ask ourselves, does James call this law a law of freedom? All sorts of reasons are given, aren't they? And for time's sake, I choose the one that appeals most to me. I remind you of Romans chapter eight where Paul describes how God has gone about getting us to fulfill the righteous requirement of the law. And he said, what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as a sin offering, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.
For the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free. This is a principle of freedom. And you see, I shall be, notice the term, not helped by it now, that is perfectly true. That is a wonderful and glorious thing, but I shall be judged by it. You see, when I stand before the Lord, and he says to me, Gooding, why didn't you love your fellow believers as you should?
You pretended to teach them, but why didn't you love them as you should? Then in his justice, he will consider the question, could I have done it? And suppose I say, Lord, you know, I, I couldn't do it. He said, come, my child, you could, couldn't you? Certainly you couldn't have done it in your own strength. There was available to you the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
You could have done it, and you didn't. Our Lord, you see, is not a Pharaoh who requires us to make bricks without straw, is he? In the judgment, he will consider, could I have done it? And if I could have done it and I didn't, he must censure me, mustn't he? You say you are making out the blessed Lord Jesus to be very stern and demanding.
But I dare not lessen his holiness. But I'm delighted with the next principle that he enunciates. He says, the law of liberty, for judgment is without mercy to him that showed no mercy. Mercy glories over judgment. So we come to this great principle at, at the judgment seat of Christ. There will be. Now that could conceivably breed that that sounds very strange to you, because perhaps you have been attracted by that rather shallow definition that is sometimes bandied around.
People say, don't they, that grace, grace is giving people what they don't deserve. So salvation is by grace, you get the gift of salvation, although you didn't deserve it. And mercy is withholding what you did deserve, and you deserved eternal hell, and by God's mercy, you have been saved from it. Well, that sounds very nice and neat, doesn't it? But if you hold that definition, you'll say, well, why would any believer need mercy at the judgment seat of Christ? Well, let me first convince you of the fact, if I can, that you will need mercy at the judgment seat of Christ.
And the passage that tells us so is two Timothy, two Timothy chapter one and verse 16 following, where Paul says, the Lord grant mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus, for he oft refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chain, but when he was in Rome, he sought me diligently and found me. The Lord grant unto him to find mercy of the Lord in that day.
Those last three words put it beyond doubt. Paul is not praying that the Lord will show him mercy now in this life. Paul is praying that God will show Onesiphorus mercy in that day, the day when the Lord comes. And Paul gets his crown, in that day, praise that Onesiphorus may be shown, mercy of the Lord. So let us be clear. Mercy does not always mean withholding some terrible thing that you have merited. The word mercy in scripture is wider than that.
It means compassion. It is used, for instance, in the lovely parable of the Good Samaritan. You will see, who proved neighbor to him that fell among the thieves? And the lawyer replied, he that had compassion, he that showed mercy. So when the Good Samaritan came along, this man on the road who had been brutally, uh, assaulted by these thugs and brigands, the Good Samaritan was not withholding from the man something he deserved, was he? No, that isn't the meaning of the word mercy there.
It means that the Good Samaritan had compassion on him. He said to himself, the man is a Jew. If he was standing upright on his two feet and I came anywhere near him, he would spit in my face. So let me leave him then, serve him right. No, no. The good Samaritan had compassion. Poor fellow. When he bound up his o- his wounds with oil and wine. And amidst God's judgments, amidst the judgments of our blessed Lord, there will be mercy.
Our Lord illustrated it, didn't he? On that lovely parable he spoke about rewards. The pa- the workers in the vineyard, the men who came at the eleventh hour. It wasn't their fault they hadn't worked. Nobody had employed them. If only somebody had employed them, they would have worked all day gladly. So when the man came out at night and said, uh, why aren't you working? They said, well, nobody employed us. Would you like to work? Work, they said? God would do anything to work. Standing around here doing nothing is that would be boring as stiff. All if somebody had employed us so we could work. Well, go and work then, said the master.
Go and work in my vineyard, and I'll give you whatever is, is, is right. They didn't wait to hear the terms. They veritably ran down the road for the sheer joy of breaking the boredom of doing no work, standing around twizzling their thumbs and being allowed to work. Yeah. When the time of payment came, the master called them first, and strictly speaking, they only deserved one twelfth of a penny, didn't they? Sheer justice would have said, well, you just worked one hour. These chaps worked twelve hours and they are to get a penny.
You only worked one hour, so you'll only get a twelfth of a penny. Ah, but at that decision, it wasn't sheer justice that prevailed. It was mercy. And they got more than they strictly deserved. For the Lord was good. Ah, what an insight into the heart of our blessed Lord it is. He'll never be less than just, but by his very nature he reserves himself the right to be more than just, to show mercy and to be generous.
And in the doing of it, he delights in it, delights to be merciful and not simply just. Oh, my brothers, I tell you, I'm glad it's so. For if when the Lord came to assess whether I was or was not able to do this or that, yes, the Holy Spirit was available to me, but then he was available to the youngest convert.
Would you say that the youngest convert, because the Holy Spirit is available to them, must overcome all their sinful tendencies overnight? We'll say, no, the Lord is merciful in his assessment of that, what was in fact possible to that young convert. And the Lord will be merciful. Trouble is, I'm not a young convert, you know. I have been a believer some fifty five or six years. I got less excuse, haven't I?
I. pray God that when the Lord comes and assesses my reward and place in his kingdom, he will be merciful. But that lays on me an urgent, urgent consideration. If I want him to be merciful to me, then I better start being merciful. Now, to keep it in the context, James was talking about the way we treat each other.
Here's this poor brother, we come back to him. Poor, you see. Good man. But it isn't merely that his suit is a cheap old suit and badly cut. He hasn't had a change of shirt for a long while, so it's a bit dirty and smells a bit. He hasn't had the advantage of culture. In his conversation is a bit tiring. His outlook is a bit restricted. His manners are difficult.
And what shall I do? Shall I put him up one corner? Or will it not move me to compassion, so that if possible, I love him all the more? Will I not have mercy? If I want, if I don't show him mercy now, and I stand before the Lord and he begins to examine my suit of clothes and the cut of my shirt, and the way I behave, as he comes to estimate my reward, then he won't have mercy on me.
So speak. So behave. As men and women that are going to be judged. The Lord loves to be merciful in his judgment. When it comes to our judging of the behavior of our fellow believers, God save us from an overly censorious and critical spirit. Remember how indignantly the Lord rebuked the Pharisees as they criticized his disciples for rubbing the corn in their hand on the Sabbath and would have condemned them as sinners. Said our Lord, gentlemen, if only you would learn what this means, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have, in fact, have condemned men that actually are not guilty.
But in your hardness of heart, you have added all sorts of rules to the Old Testament that God never laid down. And judging by your hard-hearted Pharisaical rules, you condemned those men as though they were sinners. They are not sinners, let me tell you, says Christ. They've broken your little rules. They've not broken any biblical s- commandments. They are guiltless. But gentlemen, pray consider, you come with your elaborate sacrifices to God and think you please him. You've not yet learned that God says, I will have mercy rather than sacrifice.
The Lord speaks to us by these solemn things. They come from our lovely brother James, and he says them solemn as they are because he loves them. They come from the Lord who died for us. The Lord who is our savior, but the Lord who is our judge. God help us to carry with us the exhortation, so speak, so do, as people who are to be judged by the law of liberty.
