May it please almighty God to
bless us together this morning as we meditate in his holy word. Let's turn to the chapter that
we read, which is the epistle of James and the second chapter,
and we'll read verse 20. the epistle of James chapter
2 and reading verse 20. It's quite a short verse. But
wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead. James, in his epistle, writes
many statements which are very straightforward and very easy
for us to understand. And we're thankful that we have
statements in the Word of God to direct us in our life today.
And so here we have a very important statement that James makes when
he tells us, faith without works is dead. It's very easy for us
to separate those things and think that we have faith and
don't have to worry about works. And the reverse is true, we can
have works and think therefore that we don't have to worry about
faith, but the reality is both of these things are true. And it's interesting that James
tells us, he speaks and addresses a person as a vain man. He says, but wilt thou know,
O vain man, and that word vain really means foolish. So we could
read it, but wilt thou know, O foolish man, and what that
really means is often we've avoided recognising the truth of God's
word and therefore are being foolish. And that occurs in so
many statements. We tend to think that we can
treat the Bible as we want to interpret it and we can include
the bits that we think are good and suitable to us and cut out
the bits which we think are irrelevant to us. But the reality is that
God has written this great volume of truth for our instruction
and that it may be used for the benefit of our eternal souls. So it's not just a book like
some people say are fairy tales it is indeed the very Word of
God and I often think and I tell you as you know that we have
that wonderful statement in the 17th chapter of the John's Gospel
where We have that record of Jesus praying to his Father. It's a wonderful prayer. And
in the second verse, Jesus says to his Father, Thy word is truth. And therefore we should recognise
that everything contained in the Bible is true. And therefore
all of it has really a relevance to your life and my life. And we should take it that way
as we read it. We should think, well, how does this word, this
verse, this chapter, this book, apply to me? And we shouldn't
pass it off and think, well, it doesn't apply to me, but the
Word of God does apply to each one of us. And so here we have
this statement, and we shouldn't think when it's, I'm not, of
course, a foolish man. We're left to ourselves. We are
foolish, because we often interpret the Word of God wrongly. And
what a blessing it is, therefore, if we recognize that God speaks
to us, but wilt thou know O vain or foolish man, that faith without
works is dead. So what that means is that you
and I need faith and you and I also need works which go along
with faith. They're not separate, they are
really together. And again, perhaps the great
question is, well, what is faith? Well, we're thankful that the
Bible tells us what faith is. And if we turn to Paul's epistle
to the Hebrews and the 11th chapter, it starts off with a definition
of what faith is. And it tells us this, now faith
is the substance. And this word substance can also
be translated as realization. And perhaps it makes more sense
if we use that Now faith is the realization of things hoped for
and the evidence of things not seen. So that is what faith is
described as. Faith is the realization of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, and also We might say
it's the ground of confidence. Faith is the ground of confidence
of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. And the Word
of God, the Bible, tells us a great truth, and that's this, that
we, if we are the children of God, we walk by faith and not
by sight. And of course, Naturally, we
want everything to be seen. We like to observe things. And
we don't like to think that we have to rely upon God-given faith. And so to think of that, we walk
by faith, and not by sight is an important and relevant statement
for us today. So what a blessing it is when
we combine these two things together, faith and works. And we should realise that works
are really those things which God directs us to do, those things
which he speaks to us. and encourages us in and it may
be as the Word of God is applied to our hearts and we realise
God is speaking and we're not to turn away from it and say
well I don't think that's relevant to me really because we don't
want to obey God's Word but you and I have a wonderful privilege
to have God's Word and it is a wonderful blessing if you and
I desire to obey God's word. And that is to carry out those
directions that he gives to us. As we read the Bible, we will
realize we have a glorious history in the Old Testament of the children
of Israel. I'm sure you know that they commenced
with God's servant Abraham and they multiplied greatly and they
went down into Egypt. God took them down to Egypt to
be with Joseph who provided accommodation for them there and they stayed
there for 400 years and then they went out of Egypt and they
crossed the Red Sea And after 40 years in the wilderness, they
then came into the land of Canaan, the prophet promised land and
the surrounding countries which existed at that time. So God
indeed was with his people and God directed his people and the
same today. And what did they do? They walked. by faith. Abraham walked by faith
and you and I are not exempt from that situation. We today
also are to walk by faith. God has laid before us in the
Bible the path and the journey of the people of God. It's not
the same journey, of course, in one sense that Israel did
in the Old Testament. But nonetheless, we still need
God to be with us, and we still need God to direct us, and we
still need to obey God. See, the great sin, really, of
Israel was that they did not obey God. God gave them wonderful
commands. He gave them, of course, Ten
commandments. And he gave them many other commands
and told them what they should do. And what did they do? Very
often they rebelled against God. And they really said in their
hearts, we will not have this man, God, to reign over us they wanted
to do their own thing and they rebelled really against God well
God will not allow us to walk in an opposite direction a contrary
way to what he tells us and we have the Word of God as a great
and glorious book of direction for us and we are to follow the
directions and we are to obey the directions which are given
in the Bible. And not to think, well, I don't
think I need to follow that. I think I can please myself.
Well, that's exactly what Israel did, and many people have. They've
done what they wanted to do. They've pleased themselves, and
therefore they've walked in an opposite direction to Almighty
God, and they've been judged because of it. Israel was judged
because of it. Very solemnly, Israel was judged. And God left them. And eventually, if you follow
the account in the Word of God, because they worked contrary
to God, they were taken captive by the Chaldeans and they were
taken down into that town of Babylon. They had to leave Jerusalem,
their home, and Jerusalem, their home, was destroyed, and the
beautiful temple, and the walls around it were broken down, all
because they disobeyed God. So, my friends, today, you and
I need faith to believe God's Word and to obey God's Word,
and to desire to obey God's Word, and to keep His Word. And therefore,
we need faith to do this. Now, the 11th chapter to the
Hebrews, which we've just mentioned the beginning, the first verse,
it has a wonderful account of all those, or some of the worthy
people who are recorded in the Old Testament. who walked by
faith. God gave them faith, and they
obeyed that faith. And the chapter tells us, without
faith, without faith, it is impossible to please Him. You see, it's
not even possible. It's impossible to please Him. And we're told, for he that cometh
to God must believe that he is, must believe that as you and
I come to God and pray to God, we must believe that he is the
almighty God. He is the ruler of the universe. He is the creator of the universe. He's not a little God. And therefore,
we're told, for he that cometh to God must believe. It's not
optional. It's not something that you and
I can decide, well I think I'll believe that, and I think I won't
believe that. It's not optional. For he that
cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a reward
of them that diligently seek him. And that's a grand statement,
isn't it? To think of that. And you and
I must realise that God is God. He is the creator of all things.
He is the mighty God. What a great blessing to know
that He is high and lifted up and what a wonderful truth it
is. And we have some statements about
this mighty God and it's good actually to be able to read these
statements and to recognize what they tell us. We can read them
in the book of Psalms and we have a very wonderful statement
in the 48th Psalm which directs us to the greatness of God and
it's always important for you and me to realize how great and
how important and wonderful God is. And the 48th Psalm tells
us, great is the Lord. That's how it commences. And
greatly to be praised. God is to be praised in the city
of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Remember that,
great is the Lord. There's two other psalms which
it starts very similarly. Great is the Lord and also in
the Chronicles you can read the same words and it's good to recognise
that God is great and greatly to be praised. What a wonderful
thing it is if you and I have faith to believe in the truth
therefore of God's Word. Now in this 11th chapter We have
a whole list, I'm not going through the whole list today, of those
who were blessed with faith. But just to pick out a couple,
first of all, we have Noah. Noah, who was blessed with faith. And we're told here, by faith,
Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, In Noah's day, up to that time,
it would appear there had never been rain on the earth. There
had always been a mist and a dew which had come down and watered
the earth. But we read here, Noah being warned of God of things
not seen as yet, because Noah was told that God would send
a flood. And we can imagine him thinking,
How can that be? How can a flood occur? Well,
he was moved with fear because of that and God told him to prepare
an ark. We won't go into the details
of that but you can read about the details of the ark and as
we know it was a very very large boat which was able to accommodate
the animals and Noah and his wife and his sons and their wives.
and they were delivered from being drowned as the rest of
the world was on that occasion. So we're told here, And Noah,
being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear,
prepared an ark for the saving of his house, by the which he
condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which
is by faith. What did Noah do? Well, Noah
was given faith to believe what God told him to do, and then
he did the works. He built the ark. He built the
ark. And when you think of that, it
was wonderful faith that God gave him. Because first of all,
they'd never seen rain. Secondly, therefore, they'd never
seen floods. What was the point? therefore
of building a great big boat. Well, it took him a hundred years,
a long time, and we can recognize, couldn't we, how many jibes he
would have got by people asking, what are you doing? Well, I'm
building a boat, because I've been told to by God, and that's
because he's going to flood the earth. Well, he must have endured
no end of mockings, wasn't he? And sometimes today, you and
I may be faced with the reality of being mocked when we tell
people that we believe the Bible. We believe the Bible is true.
And people mock us and say, you don't believe that book. It's
a lot of fairy tales. We've had that, of course, on
our market stall. Many times people have come and
told us that, well, it's only fairy tales. It's not true. Well,
we're thankful if you and I can believe that the Bible is true.
When Noah was given faith and also he was blessed with doing
it, that which God told him to do. So we hear this statement
that faith without works is dead. Well his faith wasn't dead, it
was very much alive and therefore he built the ark. And then the
next case, and it's the only other case we'll speak about,
is a case of Abraham. Abraham, of course, was the father
of Israel. He was the one that God sent
out from Ur of Chaldees, and you may look at that as well,
because there he was in this town of Ur, and God told him
to go out of Ur. He didn't tell him where he was
going to send him. That's not easy, is it? You imagine someone
today saying to you, well, you must leave your home and you
must go away from it. Well, where am I going? Well,
I don't know. He had faith to believe that
God indeed would direct him. And of course, God did direct
him. And he was blessed with that
faith. And we're told by faith, Abraham,
when he was called by God, to go out into a place which he
should after receive for an inheritance. Obeyed. And he went out not knowing
whither he went. He walked by faith. God gave
him faith to believe. And he obeyed. There was the
works. So we see in Abraham's case,
It was so wonderfully true and he walked by faith and with works. He didn't walk by faith without
works and proved that the situation was dead. And then we're told
about the life of Abraham and it's just worth pondering it
because he had a wonderful life of faith. His faith was greatly
tested. And today we may think, well,
we can believe, well, you can be sure that our faith today
will be tested by God. The words that he may encourage
you and I by and speak to us, and we may think, oh, well, that's
good, now I can press on in this way, and then perhaps we find
that that word is being tested. Well, God does. test his word
and it's good that he does and why is it good that he does well
we don't want to be deceived do we you know the devil's very
good at making up words to try and deceive us and therefore
it's good to be tested in our faith that the words that God
gives to us are from him and they're not from the devil and
they're not wrong words, they're not words that we've made up,
but they're God's words. And so we read of Abraham by
faith, he sojourned, that means he lived in a land of promise
as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and
Jacob, the heirs with him, of the same promise. For he looked
for a city with hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. What does that tell us? It really
tells us that Abraham was looking beyond this life. He was looking towards that eternal
habitation that God has prepared for all his people. Well, that
was the truth with regard to Abraham, and he was given faith. He looked for a city which hath
foundations, whose builder and maker is God. And then, as you
probably remember, if you're familiar with this account, that
of course he hadn't got any children. He married Sarah, his wife, and
he hadn't got any children. And he was getting old. Well, we're told, through faith
also, Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and
was delivered of a child when she was past age. That's the
age of childbearing. Because she judged him faithful
who had promised. Well, she was given faith. And it's good to realize that.
there she was an old lady and God promised that she would have
a child and she did have a child. Through faith also Sarah herself
received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child
when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had
promised. So we see the faith given to
believe that she would have a child and therefore sprang thereup
even of one, and him as good as dead, as many as the stars
of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the seashore
innumerable. Isn't that a really great and
wonderful statement to rest our faith on, to realise here was
a man of God who, we might say, laughed at impossibilities, but
said it would be done. And so we're told here, these
all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having
seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced
them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on
the earth. We see in a statement like that,
faith and works. The works was believing that
what God had said would come to pass. These words, and were
persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they
were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. And clearly, what
did they do? They confessed these truths with
their mouth. We read in Romans the 10th chapter
about confession. and confession has to be with
our mouth. So there is that which is observed
by people and they recognise it and it is therefore a performance
of that great truth of works which we find here so necessary. And just pressing on a little
bit further with Abraham, where he says, and for they that say
such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And again,
it's good, isn't it, in our lives to ponder that. In our lives,
do we declare plainly that we're seeking a country? That we're
seeking a heavenly country? where God lives and reigns and
confess that we're not on this earth forever, this is not our
home, this is not our abiding place of rest, but we're seeking
one to come and we have a wonderful example therefore in Abraham. He says, but now they desire
a better country, that is, and heavenly. Wherefore God is not
ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them
a city. And then he goes back to Abraham,
just to confirm his faith and his works. By faith, Abraham,
when he was tried, offered up Isaac. Now I'm sure you remember
but it's worth just reiterating of course that God honoured his
promise to Abraham and to his wife that they would have a child
and they did have a child and they called the child Isaac and
he was of course that child of promise but God had also as we
read, told Abraham that his seed, his children, would be as many
as the stars in the sky or as the sand upon the seashore. But
of course it had to start somewhere. And where did it start? It started
in Isaac. And then Abraham was told, and
he that had received the promises, was told to go and offer up Isaac,
offer up Isaac, his only son, his only son. And we can read
that in Genesis, Genesis 22, which is right at the very beginning
of the Bible. We can read the accounts of what
God said to Abraham and in chapter 22, it tells us this great and
wonderful truth. And so God came and told Abraham,
and he said, he came to Abraham and he said, Abraham, and Abraham
said, behold, here am I. And he said, take now thy son,
thine only son, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of
Moriah, and offer him there for a burn's offering upon one of
the mountains, which I will tell thee of.' Now that was a great
test of faith, wasn't it? Because God had honoured his
promise and given Abraham and Sarah, a child, Isaac, and now
Abraham's told to go and offer him up as a sacrifice. What was the response of Abraham? Abraham rose up early in the
morning, next day, rose up early in the morning, sat on his ass,
took two of his young men with him and Isaac, his son, and claimed
the wood for the burnt offering and rose up and went unto the
place of which God had told him. He didn't argue with God. He
didn't say, well, that's impossible. I can't do that because he's
the child in which all my religions tied up in, really. No. He didn't disagree. He very graciously
and wonderfully obeyed what God told him to do. And we should
always remember we have this as a wonderful example in our
life. God gave Abraham faith. And what do we see? We see it
being worked out. Works. They were combined. in a very wonderful way. And
so they went on. On the third day, Abraham lifted
up his eyes and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto
his young men, abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad
will go yonder and worship and come again to you. And Abraham
took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac his son.
And he took the fire in his hand and a knife And they went both
of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham
his father, and said, My father? And he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire
and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And what did Abraham respond?
It's a very wonderful response. My son. God will provide himself
a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went, both of them, together. He didn't tell Isaac that he
was the burnt offering. No, he His faith was in God that he
would provide. And so they came to the place
which God had told him of. And Abraham built an altar there,
and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid
him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his
hand, and took the knife to slay his son. Well, there was faith
and there was works combined together. And the angel of the
Lord called unto him out of heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, Here am I. And he
said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything
unto him for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou
hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.' And Abraham
lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, behind him a ram,
causing a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the
ram, and offered him for a burnt offering in the stead of his
son. And Abraham called the name of that place, Jehovah-Jireh.
As it is said, today in the mouth of the Lord it shall be seen. And the angel of the Lord called
unto Abraham the second time and said, By myself have I sworn,
saith the Lord, For because thou hast done this thing, and hast
not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will
bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the
stars of heaven and as the sand which is upon the seashore, and
thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. Well what a wonderful
account that is. And don't we see there very clearly
the outworking of this statement that we've got here in this verse
in James where we read, "'Wilt thou know, O foolish man, that
faith without works is dead?' So, Abraham is a wonderful living
example to you and me today of faith given to him to believe
that which God has said, and then works to follow that which
God had commanded him. So we see, don't we, so very
clearly the truth of these words and how relevant they are to
us today. So, but wilt thou know, O foolish
man, that faith without works is dead. And such a word is as
true today as it was in the day of Abraham. God's word doesn't
become old-fashioned. It doesn't become out of date.
It's relevant to you and me today. And God knows what he has in
store for each one of us in our lives. Each of our lives is ordained
by Almighty God in eternity past. Isn't that an amazing truth?
to think that many, many years ago, before time began, God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit determined who
would be born in this world the life they would live. And what
a blessing to know that God will give faith to all his people
to believe. Believe the great and glorious
truth of the gospel and then to follow his word and to obey
his word. And these two things do go together. As we read in this chapter, we
can't separate them, and we can't say, well, I have faith, and
someone else say, well, I have works. They go together. And the reality is, as we read
here in the conclusion, faith without works is dead. What that means is, if they're
divided, if we try and separate them, and only agree with one,
then it's just a false religion. It's just dead. There's no reality
in it. No, it's very sad, isn't it? Because Abraham followed
this pattern. And as we read here, was not
Abraham our father justified by the works? Without the works,
there would have been no justification. our father justified by works
when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar. It was a
great test of his religion. And we shouldn't think today
that we live in a different age and God won't test our religion.
God will test our religion as to whether it's real or whether
it's false. And we can be sure of this that
if our religion is real, it will cost us something. It'll be a
test, the reality of it, and it will cost us something. It
cost Abraham something, didn't it? He had to obey the word of
God. He had to follow the Word of
God, and how wonderful it was that God appeared for him. And
he appeared, you know, in a very amazing way. We just read that
quickly, but he provided a sacrifice. He provided a ram caught in its
horns in a thicket. Again, I don't want to go into
the details, but it's just very interesting that When the Passover
was instituted, when Israel came out of Egypt, they had to take
a lamb as perfect as possible, without anything wrong with it,
without any scratches, without any cuts, without any deformities. It had to be as perfect as possible. And that lamb was caught in a
thicket, that would have been with thorns and briars, but it
wasn't caught in its body. So the body would have been marred.
It was caught by its horns. And the horns, of course, were
very strong and they wouldn't have been affected by any thorns. We see there a wonderful picture,
don't we? way back then of the Saviour in that perfect situation. The Passover, a lamb as perfect
as possible and therefore when Isaac was to be sacrificed he
was taken away and this ram was used as a wonderful picture for
us today of the Lord Jesus Christ standing in our stead and being
sacrificed in our place as that perfect sacrifice. Well, it's
very wonderful, isn't it? As you and I trace out the Scriptures
and we see the wonderful plan of God being fulfilled. Well, we bless God that Abraham
was given faith to believe and grace to work out the test of
that faith. So be not surprised, in our little
lives, sometimes we come into very testing places to test the
reality of our religion. That's really what Abraham passed
through. His reality of his religion was
being tested and how wonderful it is to know that we have a
God who still today tests our religion and the reality of it.
So we have a wonderful example in the Old Testament there of
Abraham and there are many other examples If you read that 11th
chapter of the Hebrews, to see all those who were blessed with
living faith. But you can also come to the
New Testament. And you might think, well, what
is there in the New Testament? Well, we have in the New Testament
a very wonderful and a very special case of faith given, and that
was given to one of the thieves that was crucified with the Lord
Jesus Christ. You will remember, I hope, that
of course, when Jesus was crucified at Calvary, there were two thieves. crucified with him, one on the
left hand and one on the right hand. And we have the account
of that in the 23rd chapter of Luke's Gospel, where we have
the account of these two who were crucified with Jesus. And we're told And one of the
manufacturers, or thieves, which were hanged, railed on him, saying,
If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. That's one of the thieves. The other one said, but the other,
answering, rebuked him, saying, Does not thou fear God, seeing
thou art in the same condemnation? He obviously had faith to believe. And he says, we indeed justly. He was being crucified. He didn't
complain. He said, we indeed justly, for
we receive the dear reward of our deeds. But this man hath
done nothing amiss. He was blessed with faith, to
see the purity of Jesus and to see who he was and to believe
who he was. That's a wonderful revelation,
isn't it? And he said to Jesus, Lord, see
how he addresses him, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy
kingdom. Faith was granted. Wonderful,
wasn't it? What did Jesus say? Verily I
say unto thee, today thou shalt be with me in paradise. So what do we see there? Very
simply, in those few verses, that thief given faith to believe
and to speak very clearly. of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
we see, therefore, his works, don't we? The other one, well,
he didn't believe anything. We see the wonder of God's amazing
grace. Well, we can thank God or we
can praise God that we still have today the same God, and
we still need, my friends, this same faith to believe. But we
must remember that faith and works are combined together. They're not separated. So you
can't have faith and just hide away and think, well, I've got
faith and I needn't say or do anything. We are to follow. We are to follow the great and
glorious example of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we are, as
the Lord tells us, to take up our cross daily and to follow
Him. We are to demonstrate whose we
are. We are a disciple, a follower
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're not to hide our religion.
We're not to pretend perhaps that we're not Christians and
yet underneath we believe we are. We are to follow the pattern
shown to us in the Word of God and to remember very clearly
these great statements, these great words. Indeed, as the earlier
verse tells us, what doth it profit, my brethren? Though a
man sayeth faith, and hath not works, can faith save him? The
brother or sister, or be naked and destitute of daily food,
and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed
and filled, notwithstanding ye give them not those things which
are needful to the body, what doth it profit? Even so faith,
if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. They are combined,
they are not alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast
faith, and I have works. Show me thy faith without thy
works, and I will show thee my faith by my works. Thou believest
that there is one God, thou doest well. The devils also believe
and tremble, but wilt thou know, O vain or foolish man, that faith
without works is dead? Well may we remember these words
and take them to heart and recognise the relevance of them to each
of our lives so that his name, God's name, may be honoured and
glorified. Amen.