"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." James 1:27

I suppose that there are plenty that regularly visit the fatherless and the widows. But that isn't pure religion. How many visit the fatherless and the widow in their afflictions? The world prefers the company of the healthy, wealthy and wise. Consider our Lord.  He came down from glory not to eat like he kings of this world, or to live in palaces and cavort with the rich and famous. He came to minister unto His poor and afflicted people.  He ate with sinners and traveled with publicans. He preached and filled the poor and those that hungered and thirsted after righteousness. He being the Great Physician healed all manner of afflictions. He raised the dead and made the blind to see and the deaf to hear. To some who appeared to be the most religious men of the times Jesus was a threat. To these Jesus was a troublemaker. Jesus Christ came to those that were the very poorest of the world. Jesus visited the poor and the fatherless and the widows in their afflictions. He is the author and the finisher of the faith and the originator of pure religion.

God's people are a poor and afflicted people. In the midst of His people God has done a work. God has made them rich and poor at the same time. They are rich, being endowed with the light of the knowledge of glory of God in their Saviour. They are poor because the see themselves as they are, sin sick souls.  John the Baptist said, "God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham". (Luke 3:8) All of Adam multiplied men have a stony heart. But God said that He will give His people one heart, a heart of flesh.  He will give them a new spirit and take out their stony heart (see Ezekiel 11:19). When they follow the leading of that one heart and that Spirit they will walk in God's statutes and keep His ordinances. God said, "I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord (Zephaniah. 3:12). The scripture doesn't say that pure religion is to simply spend time amongst those that have suffered loss. God said visit them in their affliction. God's people are the truly afflicted people. They realize that the walk of godliness in this world is a walk of the afflicted. But the born again never walk alone. Along with them is their Saviour, Jesus.  He will never leave them or forsake them. God gives His people faith to trust in the name of their Saviour. The three Hebrew children trusted in God when Nebuchadnezzar had them cast into the fiery furnace of affliction. There in their  afflictions, in the midst was a forth one, the Son of God. Pure religion is exercised by true worshippers. They are chosen of God and are afflicted souls in this world.

Again in the book of James we read, "If any man among you seem to be religious and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain." One who contends for the faith that was once delivered to the saints is not at absolute liberty to speak as he is moved. He is to speak according to the light and liberty God gives him. That will invariably be harmonious with the Scriptures. If he desires to declare that which is erroneous he ought to bridle his tongue. His own heart, his own experience should tell him that the truth is that which is on record in the Scriptures and that anything else is vanity and deception. How much vain religion is practiced today? How shall we know it is vain? It doesn't glorify God and it doesn't proclaim Jesus Christ. The true worshippers and those engaged in pure religion. They are comforted in their afflictions because they hear the gospel of the grace of God preached. September 15, 2005  Elder M. Hoogasian