Turn back with me now to the
book of James, chapter 2. What I want to talk to you about
this morning is the faith of God's elect. And here in this
chapter that I read to you a few moments ago, James said to someone, He may have been talking to me.
He might have been talking to you. But he was saying to someone,
you say you have faith. Every man in this place this
morning, every woman who's made a profession of faith, you say
you have faith. That's what you're saying. I
have faith. Now by grace are you saved through faith. Faith
is a necessary operation in the heart. Nobody is going to be
saved. Without faith, it is impossible
to please God. You are not going to please God
on the sideline somewhere. Without faith, this is critical. This is critical to the salvation
of your soul, and that is what James is talking about. And he
said, you're telling me that you have faith. You have faith. Well, there's two kinds of faith
described in the Scriptures. There's a living, working, obedient
faith. And there's one which is dead
to all virtue, power, and life. It's lifeless faith. One is the
gift of God. Freely given. Given to men who
are not even seeking for it. Given to them. Given to them
by the grace of God. Nothing that they did, nothing
that God foresaw down through the telescope of time, ignorant
men talk about. What they will do in the future.
That's not how it came. It was the free gift of God.
By grace are you saved through faith. And one is the gift of
God, freely given, begun of God, he said in Philippians chapter
1. Paul prayed for them and said, what God has begun, he said,
I'm persuaded that He'll finish. It's begun of God. It's maintained
of God. And it's finished of God. The
other is the work of man. He alone is the author of it
and the finisher of it. And he alone is the power behind
his profession. One is real and genuine. It's
real. It's real faith. It's the real
McCoy. Somebody said to me one time,
talking about a believer, another believer, he said, that's the
genuine article. That's the genuine article. And
one is. One is genuine and effectual
in the believer. And the others are cheap imitation
and a hollow useless form. One glorifies God in everything
that it does. It glorifies God. In the way
it comes, in the way it operates, in the way it hears, in the way
it understands. In its walk, it glorifies God. and the other glorifies man and
is an abomination to God. One saves. One saves. One kind of faith
that this Bible talks about saves the soul. This is the victory,
he said over in John. Even your faith. One saves. One is effective. The other is
a strong evidence of perdition and reprobation of God. Two kinds
of faith. Now understand my subject. I'm
not talking about a man's justification before God. Believers are freely
justified by the grace of God through the accomplished redemption
of Christ and not by anything that he does either before or
after conversion. Nothing. But what I am talking
about is justifying his profession of faith. What kind of faith
does this man have? Now let me tell you something.
I'm not playing games here this morning. If you come here to
play games, I'd assume you're going back home. I'm not here
to play games. One day, every one of us is going
to stand before the bar of God. And I'm going to be held accountable
for what I tell you, and you're going to be held accountable
for what you hear. And I don't want to look into
your face in that day and you say, you didn't tell me this. Oh, yes, I did. Oh, yes, I did. I'm going to tell you this morning,
and by God's grace, the next time He allows me to stand up
here, I'm going to tell you again. And I'm going to keep on telling
you, God willing, until they put me in the box. and buried
me beneath the ground. I'm talking about the justification
of your professional faith. I want to know, don't you? If
I don't have true faith, I want to know. Like Paul said, he had
a fear that while preaching to others, he might be found himself
a castaway. I don't want that. I want to
know. I want to know. If it cuts me
in half, I want to know. If it hurts my feelings, I want
to know. I want to know, do I have this saving faith? Do I have
the faith of God's elect? And how do I know if my faith
is God-given or the works or something that I just drummed
up? How do you tell the difference? How do you know? How is true
saving faith justified of God? in this world. Not justified by you. Paul said, it's a little thing
to me. Your judgment of me. That's a little thing, he said.
But he said, I stand before God. And God justifies the faith of
His elect in this world. In this world. How can I know if my faith is
saving faith? Well, this is the primary subject
of the book of James, and I want this morning as best I can to
set this truth before you in as plain and as simple a manner
as I know how. And the first thing I want us
to look at is what the Holy Ghost has to say to us about this faith
that cannot save. James tells us first that this
false faith is alone. It's alone. God's not in it. God's not in it. He's not in the man who has false
faith. His faith is alone. It's a workless, fruitless, powerless
faith. That's what it is. God's not
in it. And I tell you this, when God's not in something, there's
no power in it. There's no glory in it. It's
not effectual. It's not effectual. And then secondly, James chapter
2 verse 20 calls this kind of faith dead. Sinners hate that word, don't
they? Dead. One fellow said, dead,
dead, dead. That's all that preacher knows,
dead. That's all the Word of God has to say about them. They're
dead. You who were dead in trespasses
and sins, you at the quick and who were dead, they're dead. Has no life about it, no movement
in it. It just kind of lays there like
a corpse. And then thirdly, and also in
verse 20, James calls those who had false faith vain men. They're vain because they walk
in the vanity of their minds and vain because false faith
is glorifying to the flesh. Vain because it puffs men up. And it's vain because it's powerless
to save their soul. Can this kind of faith save the
soul? Is the faith of God's elect no
more than just a get-out-of-jail-free card? Is that what it is? Well,
I believe so. I'm not worried now. I'm not
going to go to hell. Is that all it is? Is the faith of God's
elect save him from hell but still leave him in it? Is that
what it is? Does it deliver him from the
penalty of sin but then leaves him in its captivity? Turn with
me to 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. I'll tell you what Paul said
about it. He said, should we just continue
on in sin that grace may abound? That's what he was charged with
all the time, telling folks. Here's what he said about that.
He said, God forbid. God forbid. In Paul's first letter
to the Thessalonians, he wrote and told them how he knew their
election of God. Now, I can tell you, And if I
had time this morning, I could take you over to the book of
Peter and several other places and I could show you this. But
I've said it to you enough where you ought to know it. That election,
the elect of God are manifested by their faith. By their faith. That's how they're known. By
their faith. And Paul saw some things that
persuaded him that they had true saving faith, which is how God's
elect are identified in this world. Now let's look at what
Paul said he saw. When he looked at these men,
he saw their faith. Now let's see what he has to
say about it. First of all, verse 5. He said, Our gospel came not
unto you in word only. They were not just simply convinced
of a point of doctrine or a fact of the truth. Now, to be saved,
to have saving faith, you must be convinced of the facts. You
must hear the truth. You must do that. But that's
not the end of it. That's not the end of it. This
gospel comes in power. In power. And He said it didn't
come unto you in word only. There must be a coming of the
truth and an acceptance of the doctrine. But this is not the
end of it. He said, Our gospel came not
unto you in word only, but also in power. What does that mean? What does that mean? This Word
came in power. What is that talking about? Hold your place there in the
Thessalonians and let me read you something over here in Ephesians
1. Paul prayed for the saints at Ephesus that God would open
the eyes of their understanding and enlighten them concerning
the vast treasures of their inheritance in Christ and God's inheritance
in them. Now listen, and what is the exceeding
greatness of His power to usward who believe. What is this power? What in the world is He talking
about? Faith is the fruit of regeneration. It's the result
of a new creation. It's the breaking of the chains
of that old Adamic nature and the captivity of the mind and
heart. And you don't have the power
to do it. The Ethiopian can't change the
color of his skin, and the leper can't change his spot, and you
that are accustomed to do evil can't do good. It takes the power
of God to break that. To break that generation. You
must be born again. Those chains of that old Adamic
nature must be broken. And they're going to be broken
when the gospel comes in power. Because when it comes in power,
it regenerates. It regenerates. Paul told young
Timothy, God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power
and of love and of a sound mind. And the gospel, which is the
seed of regeneration, is said in the scripture to be the power
of God unto salvation. That's what he's talking about.
Faith comes in the power of God. It has power to transform. Power
to create. Power to humble. Power to make
willing. You'll be willing in the day
of my power. His people will. What makes them
willing? Everybody else ain't. Huh? They made willing in the day
of His power. Power to preserve. Oh my! How many times a day? Huh? Like a sleepy man going down
the road, wandering here and wandering there, back and forth.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. That's what the hymn writer
said. Prone to leave the God I love. Why don't you? Because
there's power of God in you that preserves you and keeps you. And to Him that's able to keep
us from falling. It's got power to preserve and
to hold and power to resurrect in that last day. That old dust
is all that's left in the coffin. The body's gone, the bones are
gone, there's nothing left in there now but dust. Job said
this, he said, though after this flesh, these worms devour this
body, he said, yet in my flesh, on this earth, I'm going to stand
and see God. How are you going to accomplish
that, Joe? Through the power of God. He's
going to raise these vile bodies and give us one like unto His
own. Our gospel came in power. And listen, He said it came in
the Holy Ghost. Are you back there with me now,
back in 1 Thessalonians 1? It came not only in power, but
it came in the Holy Ghost. Well, what's that mean? Does
that mean they all had apostolic gifts and went shouting and healing
folks and talking in tongues? What's that mean? This gospel
came in power and it came in the Holy Ghost. Does that mean they all lived above
sin? What's that mean? The gospel came in the Holy Ghost.
Well, it means this. It means it's effectual. That's
what it means. It means He applied the blood
of Christ to these guilty conscience. And He brought the assurance
of it into our hearts. You can't do it. Did you know
that? I hope the Lord will give you
ears to hear me this morning. You can't take the blood of Christ
and apply it to your own conscience. It takes the Holy Spirit of God
to do that. He applies that guilt. You can't
shake that guilt. You can't get rid of that guilt.
You can work and do and give and live and believe. You can just go on and on and
on with the things that you can do, but you can't get rid of
that guilt. The Holy Spirit of God must take
the blood of Christ, that sacrifice and sufferings of Christ, and
anoint your conscience with it. And when He does, He takes away
the guilt. Takes away the guilt. Stand before
God faultless. Faultless. And then listen to
this, verse 6, 1 Thessalonians 1. We're talking about how did
this apostle look at this church, this group of believers, and
he said, I know your election of God. Huh? Well, here's the next thing he
said. He said, you become followers of us and the Lord. When the
Holy Ghost takes up residence, He first overcomes the strong
man. Isn't that what it says in Old
Matthew? He overcomes the strong man. You can't take him down. Huh? You can't wrestle him down. I
used to hear men stand up in that old Nazarene church my daddy
took me to and they talking about tackling and wrestling with sin
and wrestling the old man down and all. That's a bunch of garbage
what that is. It takes God to take him down. And when God moves in, the Holy
Ghost is God, isn't He? God takes up residence in the
soul. He first takes down the strong
man, and then he spoils his house. He takes his goods. You can read
about that over in Luke 11. And then listen to this. Know ye not that to whom ye yield
yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye
obey? Did you not know that? Whether
of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness. Whose servants
are you? Who owns the house? Who sits
as the head of the house? If he takes that strong man down,
he's head of the house. He rules and he reigns. Sin, he said, shall not have
dominion over you. Does it have dominion over you? For ye are not under the law,
but under grace. Oh, preacher, I'm not saved by
works, I'm saved by grace. Not if that grace don't reign
or not. You better hear me. Grace reigns. Grace ain't a point of doctrine.
Grace is who God is. And God moves in, and He reigns
in the heart. He sets up His throne in the
hearts of God's elect, and He reigns there. Does that mean
we're not tempted? No. Does that mean that we're
not overcome by sin? No. It doesn't mean that. But
I'll tell you this, sin don't have dominion over you. It don't
have dominion over you. David sinned. Samson sinned. All these old men. You can go
back and find a hundred of them who sinned. St. Peter sinned. I told you the story down there
in Galatia, how he come down there and he sat there and eating
barbecue with them, eating pork, which they were forbidden to
have. And he was sitting over there eating his pork chop. And
then James and some of the big wigs from Jerusalem come down
and he just kind of slid over in the seat. And he went over
there with them. And then here's some more of
the brethren that had been down there ministering and preaching
to these Gentiles. And all of a sudden, they was
drawn over there. And Paul said, now wait a minute.
Wait a minute. He withstood them to the face,
didn't he? And Peter didn't say a word. He didn't say a word. He took his correction. Why?
didn't have dominion over him. That's why. And whether you're talking about
Samson or Solomon or whoever you want to talk about, David
and Bathsheba, you can go on and on and on with the old patriarchs
of God who sinned, but I'm telling you this, sin didn't reign in
them. God come and convicted him. You
remember that prophet standing before David and he told him
that little story and David was infuriated about anybody that
could do such a thing and he said, you just tell me his name,
just tell me his name. He was ready to set him on fire,
burn him at the stake. Prophet took his finger and pointed
him right in the face and he said, thou art the man. God brings His sheep back to
Himself. Sin shall not have dominion over
you, for you are not under the law, you are under grace. What
kind of grace? Reigning grace. Living grace. Do you see the difference? I'm not saved by works, I'm saved
by grace. And that grace reigns. Listen
to what Paul says here in Romans 5. As sin hath reigned unto death. How does sin reign? You can't
resist it. It's that simple. You can't resist
it. Can you? Some of you are able
to admit what you are and some of you aren't. But I'm telling
you this, you know I'm telling you the truth. You can't resist
sin. Sin just dominates. And he said, as sin hath reigned
unto death, dictated, overruled, even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. For
the Holy Ghost abide, grace reigns supreme. And men and women are
conquered by the Spirit of Christ through the preaching of the
gospel. And when He brings His work and begins that work in
them, His first work is submission. It's submission. He makes them
to bow. He makes them to see that they
had no strength and they had no power. And He makes them submit. And they submit to the Word of
God, and they submit to the gospel of His grace, and they submit
to God's messengers, and they submit themselves to one another. There's no other way you're going
to do that. But God establishes the reign of His grace in your
heart, and I guarantee you, you'll submit yourselves one to another. Because you know what you are. Verse 6, they received the Word
in much affliction. Now listen to me. Those of you
who truly believe have been and are now and always will be afflicted. Afflicted. Your enemies, our
Lord said, shall be them of your own household. Those that you
hold most dear, those who are closest to you. And not only
them, but the world. If you were of the world, our
Lord said, the world would love his own. But you're not of the
world. You're in it, but you're not of it. I've chosen you out
of it. And they'll persecute you. The world will afflict you. Everybody
who becomes acquainted with what you believe will afflict you.
Maybe not to your face, but he will behind your back. You know
about that guy over there? He's a nut. He's a nut. I've never heard anybody say
what he said. I've never heard such things about what he believes. The power of the Holy Ghost is
such that it breaks these natural bonds and unions and overcomes
every obstacle and it leaves you with the joy of Christ in
your heart. What else does he tell us about
this saving faith that manifests our election of God? Well, he
tells us in verse 7, we become living examples to all that believe. All believers hear the same gospel. The same gospel. They are all indwelt by the same
Spirit. They all believe on the same
Christ and worship the same God. What He does in one, He does
in all the rest. So that we become examples of
God's saving grace in Christ. That doesn't change with geography. That doesn't change with the
age. It's the same. It's the same. Otherwise, what
in the world was Paul talking about over there at Ephesians
when he was talking about the unity of spirit and the bond
of peace? Or Peter when he writes about
the common faith, like precious faith. Well, what are we examples
of? Are we examples of mercy and
grace? Are we examples of the power
of God? Are we examples of submission and humility? What are we examples
of? We're examples of all those things
and more. And more. Verse 8. He said, from you sounded out
the Word of the Lord. Let me show you something here.
When God the Holy Spirit comes in power with His Gospel and
does a true work of grace upon your soul, you will both realize
and desire for others to hear this Gospel. A doctor told me one time I had
strep throat. And I had to go through the agony
of having my throat swabbed. Have you ever had that done?
Feel like somebody took one of these big mops and stuck it down
your throat. You just gag and choke and it's
got some kind of scarlet-looking liquid on there and he swabbed
your throat all up with it and it's got antibiotics in it and
all that. But he told me, he said, if this ever begins to
happen to you again, he said, take some Proxide. You know what
Proxide is. Mix it about 50-50 with water
and gargle with it. He said he'll kill it right now.
I've told everybody in the country, everybody I hear that has a sore
throat, I tell them, get you some Proxide, mix it, and they
look at me like, what? It'll kill a sore throat right
now. I found out the cure, and I want everybody to know it.
Don't you? I found out by experience the
saving grace of God. I found it out in my soul, in
my heart. I want everybody to know. And
Paul said, when you're like that, he said, that's an evidence of
your election of God. That's an evidence of true saving
faith. He said, from you sounded out
this gospel. Now I tell you, if the gospel
is nothing but a point of doctrine, You're not going to put your
heart and soul behind getting it out. But when you experience
the power of God within you, then you're interested for everybody
to know. And that's what Paul's talking
about here. And then in verse 8, he said, Your faith, the God
Word, is spread abroad so that we need not speak anything. I
don't need to say anything about it. It speaks for itself. All
that knew these men and women knew that their lives had been
transformed. They might disagree with their
doctrine, but they couldn't disagree with what happened in their lives.
Their lives were transformed. They weren't the same people
they used to be. He wrote to them and he said,
and such were some of you, but you're washed. You're washed. They become better workers, better
citizens, better fathers, better mothers, better employees, better
civil servants. They adorned the gospel with
their good works, not to obtain salvation, but to evidence its
power and beauty. What if one of you men went to work and then Something
happened, you couldn't work that day, and you said, well, I'll
run down here to Bass Pro Shops and shop a little bit before
I go back home. And you're down there, and you
come out, and you come out there on that boardwalk, and there's
your wife. And she's dressed up like a harlot. And she's walking down there
flirting with these men and just being unseemly out in public. Would you tolerate that? My friend, we're the bride of
Christ. And he talks about that over
in the book of Hosea, don't he? He talks about, she was a harlot.
That's basically what he's saying. My bride, I found my bride, I
took my bride, she was a harlot. But he didn't leave her a harlot,
did he? Huh? He sure didn't. He washed her. He bought her. He cleaned her
up. Husbands, love your wives as
Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it, that He
might do what? Cleanse her. Cleanse her. That's what Paul's talking about
here. I don't have to say anything about your faith. I can't clean
you up, but He can. He can. And then verse 9, they
turn to God from their idols. An idol is not just a carved
image or a molded figure. It can be one. But it also can
be an image of your imagination. And when the gospel comes in
the saving operations of the Spirit, Paul said it casts down
these imaginations and tears down every high thing that exalts
itself against the knowledge of God. Do you imagine a God
that loves everybody? Is that your God? Is that the
God in your mind that just loves everybody? He just loves everybody.
A God who wants to save everybody and some won't let Him. Is that
your God? A God who can compromise His
perfections to save sinners. Do you imagine a God who will
save sinners by His grace and then leave them in the hog pen
where He found them? A God who will tolerate you to
live the way you want to so long as you hold to a certain creed? Is that your God? Your God is
an idol. He is an idol. Our Lord said, if you continue
in My Word, then shall you be My disciples, and you shall know
the truth, and the truth shall set you free. And then last of
all, He tells us in verse 10 of 1 Thessalonians chapter 1,
that He knew their faith was the faith of God's elect because
they waited for His Son from heaven. Now this is not saying
that they all moved into a compound somewhere and gathered in a little
building believing His coming back was going to be immediate.
They weren't all huddled out in the yard in a big circle saying,
He's going to come back. That's not what this is talking
about. What this means is that they understood that in His second
coming they would receive the full benefits of their inheritance. A new and resurrected body joined
with a new and resurrected soul. The full perfection of God's
predestination of us to be conformed to the image of His Son. It means
they had a hope that transcended the grave. the hope of eternal life. It
means they perceived who sat upon the throne of glory and
were satisfied with his present reign until he saw fit to return. It means they were satisfied
with God's arrangement and all things present and future, knowing
the end and the virtue of his return. I'm telling you as clearly
as I know how to I tell you that any faith that has no effect
upon your life is a fraud. That's what I'm telling you.
If all you have is a doctrine, it's a fraud. It's a fraud. It's a fancy imitation of the
gift of God and it cannot result in the salvation of your soul.
Abraham's faith was justified when he left his father's house.
He packed up and left. That's all he'd ever known. And the Lord said He was taking
him somewhere, but He didn't tell him where he was going.
He packed up and left. Noah. Here's this man Noah back
here. God gives him a gospel that the
rest of the world laughs at, mocks it. But he stands there
and he preaches this gospel and he builds a boat. Nobody's ever
seen a boat. He builds a boat. And he said,
everybody don't get on this boat. Going to be drowned in the flood.
Flood? What flood? Well, it's going to rain. What's
that? You see what I'm saying? He was moved. That's what the
scripture said. He was moved. But I tell you, I know hundreds,
hundreds and hundreds. who would stand outside and fight
with you over the doctrines of grace, who never been moved. Never been moved. Takes God to
move. Takes God. Rahab the harlot's faith was
justified when she hid God's messengers in the house and helped
them to escape their enemies. And then listen to this here
in James 2 verse 26. He said, For as the body without
the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead. It's dead. What is dead faith? It's a tree with no fruit. It's
an ungrafted limb, he tells us in John 15. It's a tree, he tells
us in Matthew, not planted by the Heavenly Father. Every tree
not planted by my Heavenly Father is going to be rooted up. Every
one of them. Brethren, salvation is life from
the dead. It's sight to the blind. It's
cleansing to the diseased. It's pardon to the guilty. It's
freedom to the captive. It's salvation to the damned.
And you cannot have experienced these things in your heart and
go on like you were. Titus chapter 2 verse 11 said,
For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all
men, teaching us, it teaches, that experience of grace teaches
us that we should live soberly and righteously and godly in
this present world, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious
appearing of our great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Now
listen, he said, these things speak. Tell them! Tell them! These things speak
and exhort and rebuke with all authority. And these works are the fruit
of the Holy Spirit. They are not the cause of salvation,
but where there is no fruit, you might question the truth.
Isn't that what James is saying? He's not saying, here's what
faith is. He's saying, show me your faith
without your works. And I'll show you my faith by
my works. And we don't have any works,
do we? It's God who worketh in you both to will and to do of
His good pleasure. And when He does, folks see it. They see it. Our Father, I thank You for this
time, for this message, for this opportunity and for those that
you've gathered here to hear it. Pray that by your spirit
you'll take these things and make them alive in us, make them
a part of us, make them one with us. We ask it for Christ's sake. Amen.