Now, if you'll take your Bibles
and turn to the book of James, and just put a marker there. I'm going to be skipping around
through the book. And I've taken my text from James
2, verse 24, and I've titled it, Justifying Faith. of justifying faith. And I want you to look at several
passages of Scripture here, so just put a marker there between
the first and second chapters here in James. One of the men
had asked me last week a question. It's been on my mind off and
on all week. If salvation is not according
to our works, The apostles say that time and again, that it's
not. Paul said, by grace are you saved
through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of
God, not of works, lest any man should boast. That's pretty clear,
isn't it? In Romans, I think it's chapter
11, where he's talking about the election of the saints. He
says it is an election of grace. And if it's not altogether of
grace, if anything in works comes into it, then grace is no longer
grace. Or if it's all of works and grace
enters into it, then it's not altogether of works. These two
things do not mix. I want you to understand that
before we get into the study this morning. Grace and works. Salvation is by grace. by grace, not of works, lest
any man should boast. But if salvation is not according
to our works, and Paul says that it's not, and I've quoted you
several places, then what is James talking about when he says
faith without works is dead? It's hard to explain, isn't it,
when somebody just puts it point blank to you. If salvation is not of works,
then what in the world is James talking about when he says faith
without works is dead? It's dead. Now, let's begin here
in James 2, and let me read with you the verses that he was inquiring
about here in James 2, beginning with verse 14. What does it profit,
my brethren, Though a man say he hath faith and hath not works."
Now, hear what James is saying. He's not talking about a man
who has faith. He's talking about a man who
says he has faith. There's a big difference. What
does it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith
and hath not works? Can faith save him? Can this
profession save him? If he stands and says, I'm a
believer, if he walks down an aisle and shakes some man's hand
and says, I agree with what you say, can that save him? If he comes down here and joins
the church and prays a prayer and sits in the front pew and
sits there for ten years, can that profession of faith save
him? That's what James was asking. Can that save him? Can this kind
of faith save him? Now listen to this, verse 15,
James chapter 2. If a brother or a sister be naked
and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to him, depart
in peace and be warm, Notwithstanding, you don't give
him those things which are needful to the body, what does it profit
him? It's not going to profit him.
Even so, faith, if it hath not worked, is dead, being alone.
Now, don't drop this picture. I want you to get this picture
in your mind. Here's a man, like blind Bartimaeus. He's sitting
out here on a blanket, and he's filthy, and he's dirty, and he's
blind. And he's sitting there on this
blanket, and people go by. People go by and say it. And
you come by this man and you say, well, hope everything goes good. And
you just turn around and walk away. Did that do him any good? He's
blind. He's a beggar. He's dependent
on what you give him. That man in front of the temple
when When Peter came up to the temple,
he asked for alms. He was a poor man. They carried
him up there. He had to be carried up there.
And he was put in front of this temple. And this man here that
James is talking about, just get this picture. His ribs are
hanging out. He's hungry. He can't work for
it. He's in a bad shape. And you
come over and for a show of benevolence, you put your arm around him and
say, I hope everything works out. And then you just walk away. You done Him any good? Alright, now apply that to what
James is saying. You come before God, and you're
a beggar, and you're hungry, and you got no strength to earn
this thing. You got no way to get this grace. And God says, hope you be saved,
and walks away. That do you any good? That do you any good? Does that
kind of salvation do you any good? Doesn't do you any good,
does it? Neither does that empty profession. Neither does that empty profession.
Man is in need. He's eaten up with a cancer.
Sin has permeated his being. He don't need reform. He needs
life. He don't need somebody to straighten
him out on a few points. He needs to be born again. Sin
reigns in his heart and only the strong man can come in and
take it over and boot him out and spoil his goods. A profession
of faith will do this man no good. None whatsoever. That's why I don't stand up here
on Sunday mornings and try to talk you into one. That's why
we don't have altar calls. That's why we don't sing 29 verses
of Just As I Am and tell you a sad story about a dog and try
to get you to come down the aisle and make a profession of faith
that you'll hang on to until your dying hours. Because it
won't do you any good. Now let me give you three things
this morning here from this book of James concerning the faith
of God's elect. First of all, it's a hearing
and perceiving of the truth. And the truth is that there's
nothing in us worth saving. Now come on, what good thing
have you ever done in your life? Some of you here are at a pretty
good age. What good thing have you ever done in your life would
you like to enter into glory and hold up before God and say,
this is why I want you to love me? You can't even sell it to
me. We can't even sell our good qualities
to our neighbor. But we're going to hang on to
something and we're going to take it up before God? Come on. There's nothing in man worth
saving. Nothing in him. Salvation is
not a reformation of doctrine. Demas was a Calvinist. He was a Calvinist. And he persuaded
the Apostle Paul because he loved this present world. His Calvinistic
doctrine didn't do him any good. He was straight as an arrow.
Salvation is not moral reformation. The Pharisees was as clean as
a hound's tooth. Paul said, you think you got
something to glory about as touching the law? He said, I was blameless. Blameless. And yet these Pharisees despised
the Lord of Glory. Salvation is not turning over
a new leaf or pledging yourself to God. Ananias and Sapphira
sold their home and pledged all that they had to the Lord and
then held back part of it. And because they lied to the
Holy Ghost, they carried them out on stretcher. Salvation is not church membership. Judas was one of the twelve.
Not somebody that Paul chose or somebody that I chose, but
the Lord said, if not I've chosen you twelve and one of you is
a devil. Not in church membership. Salvation
is by the free grace of God and it comes by way of a new creation. That's how it has to come. That's
why it can't be of you. That's why it can't be of work.
It has to be of God. Because it requires life from
dead. deadness, just blackness and
corruption. He has to pull you out of that
mess and give you life. It comes by way of a new creation. And the book of James is not
dealing with a justification of the sinner by faith, but with
justifying what kind of faith he has. What kind of faith does
he have? If it's not a faith created in
life, it's not faith. It's just an empty profession.
And he begins in this book of James talking about trials. Trials
are allowed to come upon believers to prove their faith. Faith is
going to be tried. It's going to be tried. You don't
just stand up before God and say, well, I believe. I'm as
sure for heaven as if I was already there. We'll see. We'll see. Get in that furnace. Huh? Those three Hebrew children,
they said, we believe. He said, okay, we'll see. Open
the furnace door. Hmm. Maybe I don't. Get that lion's den. True faith is going to be tried.
Listen to this. James chapter 1, verse 12. Blessed
is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried, and he
will be, he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord
hath promised to them that love him." The coronation of a king
is when they put the crown on him. Isn't that the coronation?
They bring him in and he's chosen to be king. And they set him
up front and they go through all the rigmarole Royalty comes
in and sets you down, and all the soldiers go up and down,
and eventually comes time, and they bring that big old jewel
crown out, and they set it on his head. Now he's king. You
might have wondered before that, but you don't wonder after they
set that crown on him. We don't know anything about
kings in this country. We've got a different type of
politics, but under the old kings, they reigned. What they said
was lost. And this man was king because
he put the crown on him. In Hebrews chapter 1 it talks
about the excellency of Christ. And it tells you how they know.
In verse 8 it says, But unto the Son he said, Thy throne,
O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is
a scepter of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness
and hated iniquity. Therefore God, even thy God,
hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above His fellows.
When He had by Himself put away our sins, by Himself fulfilled,
exalted, and honored the holy law of God, when He had by Himself
accomplished the full will of God, God raised Him from the
dead and seated Him at His own right hand and put the crown
on His head. Now He is King. Now He is King. And you know what He said? Kings
and priests under our God. When's our coronation? Huh? When's our coronation? When He
puts this crown of life on your head. And you can't produce it, and
I can't either. I can't produce it. Blessed,
blessed is that man that endures temptation, for when he is tried,
he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised
to them that love him." That crown of life, that's how he
stands at temptation. That's how he goes through that
trial. That's why he resists evil, because
God put a crown on his head, that crown of life. It's not
a jewel crown, it's better than that. It's a crown of life, Russell. He told Lazarus, come forth!
And he'd come out of that tomb. He'd give him life. Crown of
life. I tell you, I went through my
life a dead sinner. Religious to the hilt. Stand
up and talk about it. Write articles about it. Go through
the Bible. Talk to people about it. And
one day God spoke life! There's a difference. There's
a difference. I know sometimes you think that
I'm angry at you when I get up here to preach. I'm not angry.
I'm just passionate about what I preach. I believe what I say. I know what I say so because
He's done it in my own heart. He made kings and priests under
our God, but you don't know you're a king until He puts the crown
on your head. loves righteousness and hates
iniquity. That life loves light and hates
darkness. How do we get this crown? Look
back here at James chapter 1. James said, we're going to be
trying. He said, I'm writing to some folks that I heard about
who profess faith. He said, you better know this.
See, this is a general epistle. He's just writing this out to
all these professed believers out all over the land. He said,
you better know this, you're going to be tried. You're going
to be tried. Look here in verse 16. He said,
don't err. Do not err, my beloved brethren.
Every good gift and every perfect gift comes from above. It comes down from the Father
of lights with whom is no variableness, neither shadow or turn. Of His
own will begat He us with the Word of truth. that we should
be a kind of first fruit to His creature, produced of His seed
and after His calf. Wherefore, my beloved brethren,
let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath. This thing of faith begins with
a new birth. There is no perceiving, there
is no understanding, there is no consideration of truth without
life. There has to be life. You won't
even have an interest until He gives you life. You won't even be interested. You won't have a hunger until
He gives you life. I made up my mind. If you did,
truly did, make up your mind, God made you will it. That old man doesn't have the
capability to hear. He doesn't have the heart to
hear, and he don't have a mind to perceive. In 1 Corinthians
2, Paul talks about this. He said, when I came to you here
in Corinth, he said, I know your background. You're Greeks. You're
philosophers. You've been raised in a philosophy
of this world. You've been raised in a wisdom
honored by all men. I know what your culture is.
I know what you're all about. And he said, when I came to you,
he said, I determined not to come preaching to you in the
wisdom of men, using the wisdom of man's words. I determined
not to do it. Because your faith cannot stand
in this wisdom. It has to stand in the power
of God. Because that's how it's going
to be tried. It's going to be tried. In verse 12 of 1 Corinthians
2, we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit
which is of God. And this Spirit here that he
is talking about, he is not talking so much about the Holy Spirit,
he is talking about what makes you you, your reasoning and your
ability to understand when he is talking about the Spirit through
him. And we receive not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit
which is of God. that godly reasoning, that godly
wisdom, that we might know the things
that are freely given to us of God, which things also we speak,
not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy
Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But, and
this is where I'm headed with this thing of the new birth and
its necessity, The natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God, for they are, or are perceived, you might say,
as foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned. Apart from a new birth, he never
will understand. He'll go right in one ear and
right out the other. He ain't got no interest. He'll talk to
you because you're you, and you know him, And he knows you and
he don't just want to make you mad and separate over it, but
he really don't want to hear it. And if you persist in telling
him, he's going to divide with you. I don't care if he's your
brother, he's going to divide with you. There's nothing, hear me, there's
nothing in that old man that's carried over into the new. That
old man stays the old man. He don't ever change. He's never
going to change. You can't reform Him. You can't
do anything with Him. He's just whatever He has been
at birth, that's what He's going to be until we die. He's not
going away. He's right there. And there's
nothing in that old man worth saving. There's nothing in that
old man carried over into the new. If any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature. He's a new creation. He's not
an old man talked into a profession. It's a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. That old man just keep on being
what he always was. His old lust will still lust
after the same things. His old heart is as deceitful
as it ever was. But in him and separated from
that old man is a new man. And that new man loves Christ,
and he loves light, and he loves goodness, and he loves his brethren. He loves something he could never
do before. He loves. He sees. He perceives. He hears. He reads this book. Read over there in the book of
1 John chapter 2 sometime. Read in there about these men
that come into a church of new creations, a church filled with
men born again of God's Spirit. And these men come in there with
that Antichrist mess of lies and deceit, and they start talking
to them, and John said, I ain't worried about you. You've got
an auction from the Holy One. You've got a new man in you,
and you don't need somebody to tell you that these men are Antichrist.
You know it as soon as you hear it. Why? Because you're smart? No. Because
you've been born again. And this new man bears fruit. There is nothing in this old
Adam nature that is of any profit to the soul. He says, As in Adam
all die. The first man is of the earth
earthy, and as are the earthy, such are they also that are earthy.
They bear His image. They think like He did. Walk
like He did. Reason like they did. There's
nothing in that old man worth saving. Alright, here's the second
thing. Salvation is life from the dead.
In Ephesians 2, verse 1, Paul says, "...and you hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sin." You see, we think sin is
a piece of paper up here, a little ledger up here You know, I stole
a pack of cigarettes or whatever. That's how we view sin. Sin is
what you are. You do these things because you're
born a sinner. It's as natural to you to steal
as falling off a boat or something. It's just natural. Natural for
you. Nobody has to teach a child how
to lie. They figure it out. They know
why. It's their nature. People are so shocked when one
of their kids steals something. Why are you so shocked? It's
their nature. I'm shocked when mine didn't.
I'm shocked. Natural. It's natural. Life from the dead, he said,
and you, as He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sin,
walking the course of this world, walking according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience." The spirit that now worketh. There
again, there is that reasoning and logic. That spirit that worketh
now in the children of disobedience. Among whom, verse 3, Ephesians
chapter 2, verse 3, among whom we all had our life story, our
behavior, our conversation in times past, in the lust of the
flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But
God, who is rich in mercy, and for the great love wherewith
He loved us, even when we were dead in sin, hath quickened us
together with Christ." Huh? Raised us up together in purpose. seated us at the right hand of
God in Him. By grace ye are saved. Verse
7, here's why He did that. That in the ages to come He might
show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward
us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not of
works, lest any man should boast. Now watch this. For we are all
His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works." Uh-oh. Calvinists don't like that part.
They like to stop back there in verse 9. Verse 10 said, We
are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
And you're going to walk in them if you're His. And if you don't,
James says, oh, you've got a profession. It ain't going to do you any
good. You can't eat a profession. He said you can't wear a profession.
You can't survive on a profession. It takes life. It takes life. God addresses the needs of a
sinner, not just the logistics of it. And he did not say believe and
live. He said live and believe. Faith is a product of life freely
given by the grace of God. And it cannot be had as a debt
owed to you. It cannot be a favor won by you
or the result of something you do. It is grace that saves by
producing life in the man by the power of God. That's how
it goes. You can't muster it up. You can't
clench your fist and produce it. You can't even find peace
that way. Receiving that work, that man
is thankful. That man understands something
about free gifts. He understands his need and he
understands the grace of God that met the need. and is thankful,
not for a day, not for a week, but like that old bond slave
who was sold into slavery, but he got a good master, and that
master took care of him and provided for him and furnished him with
a wife and did all these things for him. He met every need he
had, and it come time for him to be set free, and he said,
you're free to go. He said, I don't want to. I don't
want to. Where am I going to go? The only goodness I've ever known
is right here. Why do I want to go out there?
Huh? I'm going to stay right here.
I love my wife and I love my master and I will not go out. Bring him to the door. Bore his
ear. Put the ring in it. He's a bond
slave. What James is talking about over
here is bond slave. People sold out. People redeemed. People have been called up from
the dead. Giving life! Bearing fruit! Believers! And brother, he said,
if you ain't got that, you ain't got nothing. All you got is a
profession. You're just a Baptist. You like to put that little badge
on there that says Nazarene, or Church of Christ, or Baptist,
or something else, Catholic. Put something on there and take
that up to glory and show it to God. It takes life. It takes life. Receiving that work, he's thankful.
He becomes a bond slave, a willing servant who loves his master
and commits his life to him. Commits his life to service to
the one he loves. Listen to what this says in John
1 in our studies there. You're going through this chapter.
You can read it when you get home. I just want to talk to
you about it. You're very familiar with John 1, I'm sure. But he
talks about this eternal Word who was God, who was with God
in the beginning, and without whom nothing was created that
was created. He's talking about the Lord Jesus
Christ. And it says He was in the world.
Not literally as a person. to that down there in verse 14.
But he's talking about he's in the world in that the world had
to do with his purpose of redemption. He was in the world in picture
and type from the very beginning. There was a lamb slain picture
in Christ clear back in the garden. There was a promised Redeemer
called the woman seed clear back in the garden. The very next
generation that comes along, there was a lamb on the altar
that's still talking about Christ. He was in the world. He was in
the world by testimony. He was in the world in picture.
He's pictured in everything that's in this world. Everything that
goes on in this world has to do with Him. Without Him was
not anything made that was made. He said all things were made
by Him and for Him. But the world knew Him not. And
he came unto his own. He called out this Jewish nation.
And he typified himself in their sacrifices and all these details
of the tabernacle and the temple and all these things. And he
came unto his own in that way as a testimony. But his own received
him not. But some of them did. Some of
them from way back yonder at the garden. Some of them from
over here out of this Jewish nation, some of them from over
here in this old Gentile world that didn't know anything at
all about God, some of them received Him. How come they received Him? They were born. Ain't that what
it says? Not of the will of man, not of
the will of the flesh, but of God. They were born. They were
born. That's my hope. How does this
new birth come? It comes when men hear the Gospel. When they hear it, they won't
explain it. I can't. I can't. I just know it so. I just know
it so. Turn with me over here. I think
it's in the book of 1 Peter. Here it is down here in verse
23. 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 23. Peter said, being born again,
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the Word
of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is grass,
and all the glory of man is the flower of the grass. The grass
withers, and the flower falleth away, but the Word of the Lord
endureth forever. Now listen, and this is the Word
which by the gospel is preached unto you. Huh? Book didn't mean anything until
God sent you somebody to tell you what it means. Declare His
glory. Declare His Son. Declare that
light. Ah! Born again. Born again. Just as new as when the sun come
up. Difference between light and
darkness in an instant gives you life. All of a sudden, man
starts to repent. Why? God put life in him. That's why. Put life in him. I can't understand it. I just
know it so. Just know it so. And I tell you, it's been my
experience, it's the experience of nearly every old writer I
ever read, every preacher I've ever met. Go ye, our Lord said, go ye into
all the world, preach the gospel. He that believeth and is baptized.
That baptism has to do with what James is talking about. He that believeth and is baptized.
He that believeth and that belief pushes on him an urgency of obedience
to Christ. He'll come up here and be baptized.
Yeah, he will. And he'll be saved. And that
man that believes not, He shall be damned. Those words are just
as positive toward His damnation as they are toward our salvation.
Same word used, shall.