I want us to do a little studying
this morning on the subject of faith. I suppose there's as much confusion
about faith as there is about any subject, and I'm praying
sincerely that I may be able, in the power and wisdom of God's
Spirit, for His glory and for our good, to clear the air just
a little bit on the subject, the faith that saves. Now let's
turn to Romans 4, Romans 4, verse 3 through 5. The apostle Paul
was a strong advocate and apostle and proclaimer of justification,
pardon, salvation through faith alone. That was his message. He preached salvation not by
work, not by good deeds, not by law, not by joining the Not
by doing the best you can, not by keeping the standards of morality,
but by faith and faith alone. That's what his message was.
In Romans 4, verse 3, he said, What saith the Scripture? Abraham
believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Abraham's faith was counted for
righteousness. He believed God, and therefore
before God he was as holy as God. He was without blame, he
was accepted, holy, completely accepted of God through faith,
by faith, because of faith alone. That's what he's saying. Now
look at the next verse. Now to him that worketh, it doesn't
matter whether it's humanitarian work, or the work of the ministry,
or the work of the mission field, or the work of the law, to him
that worketh is the reward, that is his heaven, his eternal life,
not reckoned of grace, but of death. Now God's not in debt
to anybody. And what you're saying when you're
trying to work your way to heaven is that you're obligating God
to pay you a debt He owes you. And God doesn't owe you anything.
And Paul said, any man that is working to get to heaven. Now
you've heard this, well, we're all working for the same place.
Here's one that's not. Under God, believe me, I'm not.
I don't want to fall in with this outfit here. I don't want
to claim that God's in debt to me. No, sir, I'm in debt to God.
I'm a debtor to grace. God's not in debt to me. So if
you're working for that same place, if you say we all are
working for the same place, just say we're all but Henry working
for the same place, because I don't want to be included in that group
at all. Because my salvation is by grace
alone, not of debt, and I don't want to be identified with anybody
who's got God in debt. Is that clear? If anybody else
wants to join me, you're welcome. But I don't want in that crowd
there. Now look at the next verse. but to him that worketh not,"
and this is me, "...to him that worketh not, but believeth on
Christ, that justifieth the ungodly," that's me again. His faith is
counted for righteousness, and that's what I want, righteousness.
And it only comes by faith, and it comes not through works. And
this is where I want to fall in verse 5. Now you take your
place in verse 4 if you want to, but verse 5 is where I'm
going to pitch my tent and establish my habitation. I don't want anything
that comes as a result of man's puny, feeble, fickle, fallible
work. That's all there is to it. Now
that's Paul's message. If you think that you're working
for heaven, if you're working to make yourself accepted before
God, you're trying to put God in debt. But to him that worketh
not, who declares his works to be nothing, his righteousness
to be filthy who says that God owes him nothing but the wages
of sin. His faith counts for righteousness. Now, Ephesians 2. Let's look
at Paul's message again. Ephesians 2. Now, if you'll stay
with me, I think I can help you. In Ephesians 2, verse 8, here's
Paul again. For by grace are you saved through
faith. By grace, by the unmerited favor
of God. That's what grace is. Grace is
unearned, unfought, unmerited. It's the free gift of God. It's
the unmerited favor of God. And that's the way you're saved,
through faith. Not apart from faith, but through faith. And
that's not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Faith
is the gift of God. It's God that worketh in you
both to will and to do His good pleasure. Can you read that verse,
think about that verse again? It is God that worketh in you.
Somebody says, I believe it's God that works in us to do His
pleasure. I think God gives us the ability
to do His will. He also gives you the will to
do His will. Read it and listen to it again.
It is God that worketh in you both to will, to will and to
do His good pleasure. By grace are you saved. Now look
at verse 9. It's not of work. lest any man
should boast." That's pretty clear, isn't it? All right, let's
turn over to the book of James, and here's where the clouds roll
in, and here's where the smog begins to rise, and here's where
the difficulty presents itself. But, brother man, you don't believe
a man can believe on Christ and live like he pleases and go to
heaven. Is that what you're preaching? No, sir. That's not what Paul's
preaching. That's not what the Bible's teaching.
And therefore we get into this works thing. Now look at James
chapter 2. In James chapter 2, verse 17,
verse 19, Thou believest that there is one God. Thou doest
well. The devils also believe. Believe
what? Believe there's one God. And
they tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man,
that faith without is dead. Was not Abraham our father justified
by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
It looks like these two fellows are contradicting one another,
doesn't it? Well, we know that's not true. The Bible cannot contradict
the Bible. No scriptures of any private
interpretation. It is interpreted as a whole.
It's the message of God. What we've got to see is what
Paul is preaching, what Paul is attempting to do, and what
James is preaching and what James is attempting to do. First of
all, Paul is preaching justification by faith alone. He's declaring
the gospel. Paul is an apostle of the gospel
to the Gentiles. He wrote 13 of the 27 books in
the New Testament. And his message was justification
by faith alone. Now, James comes along. anointed,
ordained of the Holy Spirit, and defines faith. That's what
he's doing. Paul is declaring faith, and
James is defining faith. Do you see what I'm saying? Paul
is declaring salvation by faith alone, justification by faith
alone. And James, the apostle, equally
an apostle, equally sent of God, equally inspired by the Holy
Spirit, is destroying that error that I just spoke of that says
faith abideth alone, that faith is empty and without works. James is defining faith. He's showing you what kind of
faith it is that justifies it. Now, Paul is preaching what to
expect from faith as a result of faith. He says you get justification
by faith, you get pardon by faith, you get life from faith, you
get righteousness from faith. What to expect from faith? Now
James is preaching what to expect of faith. You see, Paul is telling
you what faith presents. James is telling you what it
produces. It's very simple, there's no
problem at all. Greater men than we are, much
greater, have found some problems with it. Martin Luther almost
wanted to do away with the book of James because he felt it confused
people's minds, but I don't think it really does. I think Paul
expresses faith, justified by faith alone, and I think James
defines faith. He defines it. He tells you what
kind of faith the faith that saves really is. Now then, young
people, there are several words in the Bible which express faith. Let me give you this. If you
have a pencil and want to jot it down, don't mind writing in
your Bible. Your Bible is your study book.
There are some white pages in the front there, and this is
something I'd like for you to put down in those white pages
if you want to, three words that express faith, three different
words used in the Bible. First of all, there's the word
believe. Now, all three of these words
express faith, the faith that saves. First of all is the word
believe. Now, when the word believe is
used in the Bible, it is to believe the record that God has given
of Christ in the gospel. That's what believe means throughout
the Bible. It's to believe or to accept the record that God
has given concerning his son. The Bible says that Christ was
born of the Virgin, I believe it. The Bible says that he lived
a perfect life, I believe it. The Bible says he went to the
cross and died, I believe it. The Bible says he was buried
and rose again, I believe it. The Bible says he ascended back
to the Father where he's at the right hand of God as our mediator,
I believe it. The Bible says that he's coming
back again to receive us unto himself, I believe it. And I
could give you many verses The Philippian jailer said to Paul,
What must I do to be saved? And Paul said, Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's accept the record that
God has given. Believe the record that God has
given. Believe that He's the Messiah, that He's the Savior,
that He's the One for whom we look, that He's the Anointed
One, that He's the Sin-bearer. To believe is to accept the record
that God has given concerning His Son. Look at our text again
in 1 John. That's what it says here in 1
John chapter 5. It says here in verse 10, He
that believeth, 1 John 5, 10, on the Son of God hath the witness
in himself. He that believeth not God hath
made God a liar, because why? He believeth not the record that
God gave of his Son. God has given us a record here,
and we believe it. Now that's what faith is, it's
to believe that record, and you call that intellectual assent
or agreement, that's all right. You can't be saved without your
mind, that's for sure. You can't call on Him in whom
you've not believed, and you can't believe on Him in whom
you've not heard, and you can't hear without somebody conveying
it to you. So to believe is to accept the
record that God has given concerning His Son. Now here's the second
word. In Ephesians 1, verse 13, we use the word T-R-U-S-T. Only trust Him. Only trust Him. He will save
you. He will save you. Only trust
Him now. What does it mean to trust Christ?
It says in Ephesians 1.13, in whom you trusted. In whom you
trusted. Well, you know what I think the
word trust means? I think trust has reference to the promises
in Christ. Trust has reference to the promises
in Christ concerning pardon, justification, acceptance, adoption. In other words, God says, if
you believe the record that I've given concerning my son, he died
on the cross for your sins and was buried and rose again. Do
you believe that? Yes, I believe. All right, trust
me to give you what I say. Trust me. Trust me. So we believe a person and we
trust him. We trust him, we put our souls
in his hands and we trust him with them. We cast our eternal
destiny in the hands of Christ on the cross, in the tomb, at
the right hand of God, and we don't worry about it, we trust
him. Now suppose, well, it's true, some men gave me some money
last week to give to the missionaries. I got it in my pocket. And I
hope they're not worried about their money. If they are, they're
not trusting me, are they? I just imagine these two men
that gave me that money and handed it to them and said, give that
to the missionaries for us. I'll just believe I've got enough
confidence in them that they're not the least worried about that
money. They know that every dime of it will get to that missionary
because they trust me. There's a man sitting in this
congregation that handed me $16,000 one time. I said, do you want
a receipt? He said, if I didn't trust you,
I wouldn't listen to you pray. Now, brother, that's true. I
trust Christ, and I'm not worried. I'm not afraid to die because
I trust him. I'm not afraid that I'm going
to hell. I trust him. I've committed my soul to him.
I trust him. Do you? That's what trust is.
It's to trust him. It's to give our souls into his
hands and rest. Rest in Christ. They that have
entered Christ have ceased from their labors and their worries
and their frettings and their trying on the on the treadmill
trying to get to heaven, they're rested. Sure, I fail, but he
can't. I fall, but he can't. I stumble,
but he can't. I trust him. And that's what
that means. It means to trust him. And that's
faith. Actually, if these men that I'm
taking the money for, if they don't trust me, they don't believe
me. I said I'd do it. And if they are worried about
it, they don't believe. So if you're not trusting Christ,
you don't believe, and therefore you're not saved. You've got
to trust Him. All right, here's the third word.
Now, here are three words that express faith. Here's the third
word, and that's the word receive. Now, here's where we're getting
into what James is talking about. Turn to John 1. It says here
in John 1. Now, this is not 1 John. This
is the gospel, or John's Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. All right,
watch this in verse 12. But as many as received him,
as many as received him. Now when we talked about belief,
we talked about receiving his word, didn't we? We receive his
word. We believe his word. All right,
when we talk about trusting, we're talking about receiving
his promises. and trusting him with our souls.
Now when we talk about receiving, actually, literally him, a living
person, to personally receive him. To receive him as our prophet,
to reveal God. To receive him as our priest,
to redeem us. And to receive him as our king,
to reign over us. So to receive Christ is to bow
to him. Barnard used to say the word
that ought to be here, that he likes best, is the word submit.
Submit. And that's what happens when
we really trust somebody, we submit to them. When we believe
their word, and when we trust their love, then we'll submit
to them. And they can, he can have us
body and soul and family and all things. And that's what faith
is. It's to believe His word, to
believe the record that He has given. It's to trust Him, to
rest in Him. And it's to actually submit to
Christ, to bow to Him, to submit to Him, to take Him into our
lives as our Lord and Master, our Lord and King. Now then,
here are some illustrations that will define faith. Let me give
them to you quickly, there are three of them. This defines faith.
These three words express faith. Now, these words define faith. Faith, true faith, that believes
the record, that actually trusts Christ, that submits to him,
that faith is going to produce something. First of all, it will
produce a secret and inner devotion. If we have a vital personal union
or relationship with Christ, it's going to produce a secret
and inner devotion. Let me see if I can illustrate
that. When you run around with the wrong crowd, you know what
happens? You find yourself becoming like
them. They curse and you curse. They
do these things and you do them. I've heard many people who submitted
to alcoholism and drug addiction say, well, I just got with the
wrong crowd. Well, how'd that affect you? Well, it made me
do what they did. And after a while I found myself becoming like
them. So the people you associate with,
you're going to become like them. If Jesus Christ, by faith, comes
into your heart and into your life and becomes your companion,
your Lord, and you have fellowship with him, you're going to become
like him. You see what I'm saying? True
faith will produce. It can't do otherwise. It produces
an inward secret devotion. If any man be in Christ, Paul
said, he is a new creature. Not he's going to be. He might
be. He could be. He ought to be.
I hear people say, well, Christians ought to do so and so. They will.
They are a new creature. Any man be in Christ, he's a
new creature. And if any man have not the Spirit of God, would
you buy this? If any man does not have the
Spirit of God, he's none of his. Do you believe that? Well, yes,
preacher, I have to believe that. It's in the Bible. All right,
turn to Galatians chapter 5. Galatians chapter 5. If a man
is saved, he has the Spirit of God, doesn't he? If a woman is
saved, she has the Spirit of God. If they have not the Spirit
of God, they're none of his. All right, Galatians 5.22. but the fruit of the Spirit. If a man has the Spirit of God,
he has to have the fruit of the Spirit. Now, it may not be in
full bloom. It may not be to the degree that
some produce it. You have apple trees that produce
great, big, beautiful, red apples, or golden, delicious apples.
You have other apple trees that produce apples, but they ain't
too hot, you know. But there are apples. They're
just little fellas. But they're still apples. And
the fruit of the Spirit is going to be produced in every Christian's
life, to one degree or the other. It's got to. But the fruit of
the Spirit, Galatians 5.22, is love and joy. and peace and longsuffering and
gentleness and goodness and faith and meekness and temperance against
such, there is no law. Now the man who has Christ, who
has faith and in whom Christ lives, is going to have a secret
inner devotion. He's going to have the fruit
of the Spirit. It's going to be produced in his life. Faith
not only produces inner devotion, but it produces works of love.
1 Corinthians 13, Look at this. Now, we don't perform just works
of duty. These are works of love. By this
shall all men know you are my disciples, if you love one another.
But in 1 Corinthians 13, I may speak with the tongues of men
and of angels. Somebody says, well, he must
be saved. He's such a great preacher, such
a great orator. That doesn't mean he's Well,
I might speak, Paul says, with the tongues, and that is with
the artery or with the ability of men and of angels that have
not love. Well, I'm a sounding brass and
a tinkling cymbal. I make noise, but it won't do
any good. And though I have the gift of
prophecy, oh, he's smart. He knows what's going to take
place in the future, and he understands the mystery. I hear these preachers
unraveling all these strange mysteries of the Word of God
and all this knowledge. and have faith so that I can
remove mountains, and have not love, I'm nothing. To bestow
my goods to feed the poor, and give my body as a marker to be
burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. So true
faith, saving faith, is going to produce from the heart affection. Affection. And that affection
will be for the Father, for the Son, for the Holy Spirit, and
for all men. Now, I was misquoted the other
day, I'm not going to tell when, where, how, anything like that,
but I was preaching a sermon and I said, if you can go to
the cross and come away hating anybody, really hating people,
you haven't been to the cross of Calvary and you haven't got
a glimpse of Christ. I was quoted as saying, if any
man goes to the cross and comes back hating his brother, then
he hasn't got a glimpse of Christ. That's not what I said. I said
hating anybody, and I believe that. Now, if hatred abides in
my heart, I'd better get it out, because Christ can't live where
hatred lives. I don't care if it's the black
people or the Jewish people or the communistic people or who
it is. I don't love their deeds, and
you're not supposed to love their sins, and you're not supposed
to tolerate their rebellion against God, but you cannot harbor hatred
in your heart. Jesus Christ on the cross prayed
for those that rolled the nails in his hands. He said, Father,
forgive them. They know not what they do. And
your greatest delight ought to be to see your enemy saved and
covet and earnestly desire their salvation and their prosperity
and the blessings of God to be upon them. Now that's so, and
this is the greatest test of faith that I know anything about.
And it's one we have to give some attention to. Now, here's
the next thing that faith does. It produces victory. See, here's
what James and Paul are doing. Paul is saying faith justifies. Belief counts for righteousness.
It justifies. And James is saying faith produces
something. Faith produces something. It
produces inner devotion. It produces love. And it produces
victory. In 1 John 5 verse 4, Yes, whosoever
is born of God overcometh the world, not without a struggle,
and not once for all. Overcome today, have to overcome
tomorrow. Overcome tomorrow, have to overcome
the next day. There's no discharge in this
war. There's no temporary law, it's always a battle between
the flesh and the spirit. Every saved man has a spirit
that cannot sin, and he has a spirit that cannot do good. Every saved
woman has a nature that can do no evil, born of God, begotten
of God, a divine nature. And every woman here that knows
the Lord has a fleshly nature that wars against that spiritual
nature. And that conflict will continue
until you lay aside that body of death, that body of sin, that
old nature, until it's put in the ground and you are only one
nature, and that is the nature of God. Now that's so. And this overcoming the world,
the old man has to be crucified daily. Paul said, I die daily.
Crucify the flesh daily. And this victory that overcometh
the world is faith. It's not my struggling that overcomes
the world and my holiness that overcomes the world. It's my
confidence in Christ that overcomes the world. And it's the victory
over ridicule. You know, Noah stood out there
on dry land and built a ship. And I know he got ridiculed and
mocked and laughed at and persecuted, but he believed God. It wasn't
a sign that he had that made him turn to those men and say,
mock me if you want to, but I'm going to build this ship. He
had no sign, he had the Word of God. And his faith gave him
victory over their ridicule and over their mocking. And you young
people are going to be mocked by the kids of this world. I
talked to a girl in Alabama who was the only one in her dorm,
200 girls, and only one who believed there was a heaven and a hell,
who believed that Christ saved sinners by his death on the cross.
One young girl. And don't you think it wasn't
tough. How could she stand the ridicule? How could she stand
the mocking? How could she stand the persecution?
Her faith. She had unquenched Undying faith
in Jesus Christ. It would not surrender. She knew
it was so. And it gave her peace. Now, faith
will give you the victory over blood relations. You come to
a knowledge of Christ and your kinfolks will give you a hard
time. But if any man loves the father, his mother, his brother,
sister more than me, he's not worthy of me. And they'll ridicule
you and find fault with you, and you desert the old family
religion, you know, and you don't say things like they say them
and do things like they do them, and they're going to fall out
with you. But faith will give you the victory over that and
keep you loving them. And then faith will give you
the victory over personal possessions. God came to Abraham and said,
Take that boy, the only boy you've got, and sacrifice him to me
on Mount Moriah. That was Abraham's faith. that
took him to that mountain to sacrifice that boy, that's what
James says. Abraham was justified by works
in the offering of Isaac. It wasn't works that justified
him, it was a faith that was willing to give up his son for
God's glory. If that's what God wanted, it's
all right by Abraham because he believed. Faith will give
you the victory over fame and wealth. Moses, Moses, I want
you to read this in Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 11. I can't quote
it right now, Hebrews 11, verse 24. By faith Moses, that's it,
when he was come to the earth, Hebrews 11, verse 24, when he
was come to the earth, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's
daughter. He chose rather to suffer the
affliction or afflictions with the people of God than to enjoy
the pleasures of sin for sin. allowed him to turn his back
on the throne, on untold millions, on fame and power. His faith
led him to refuse those things and go out to the backside of
a desert when he was forty years old, and sit out there watching
sheep until he was eighty years old. Faith did that. Would you say that Moses came
down Well, there was a sense in which
the people of this world thought he came down. He left the throne
for a desert. He left the wealth of Egypt for
the poverty of the shepherd's staff. He left the fame and glory
of the throne for the loneliness of the backside of the desert.
I say that old boy went up. I say he went up. He went out
of the slums into the very presence of God. But faith did that by
faith. Moses refused Egypt's pleasures
for God's presence. And it wasn't easy, nothing worthwhile
is easy. Think a man forty years old going
out after he'd been raised in the highest society and the best
circles and the best universities and lived in the palace and was
the heir to the throne. And he walked out of Egypt, but
he came back with God. And he tore Egypt apart. And
then the last thing, faith will give you fear over death. Turn
to 2 Timothy chapter 4. Faith will do it. In 2 Timothy 4 verse 6, Paul
says, I am ready, I am now ready to be offered. And the time of
my departure is at hand. I fought a good fight, I finished
my course, I've kept the faith. When our Lord Jesus Christ died
on the cross, he took the sting out of death. You know what the
sting of death is? You know what makes death to
be dreaded? What is there but a bee that you dread? It's sting. That's all. I don't mind these
bees flying around just so they don't pop me with that stinger.
There was a little black boy came running in one day and he
said, man, they said, he was just crying and holding his heart,
he said, man, they said a bee stung me. So Mammy got a pair
of tweezers, you know, and she fooled around and she got that
stinger out of his arm, put a little turpentine or something on it,
you know, and patted him on the bottom and said, Go on back out
and play, boy. He came running back in again, and, Mammy, that
same bee's after me again! She said, Honey, don't worry
about him no more. He done lost his stinger. He
can't hurt you. I don't know the scientific accuracy
of that, but I know death has lost his stinger. Because when
the Lord Jesus Christ died on that cross, he took the stinger
of death in his heart for me. And God Almighty is not going
to punish twice for the same sin. He's not going to punish
Christ on the cross for me, and then me in hell later on. I don't
have to face my death, it's been paid. And I'm not worried about
that old bee of death that flies around, waits on me, because
he done lost his stinger. And the only thing he can do
to me is kind of agitate me a little bit, you know. But he can't hurt
me. He can't hurt me. And so faith
gives you victory over death. Do you believe? Do you believe
this book? Do you trust Christ? Do you really
trust him? I believe the record, and I trust
him. He can do what he says. And I
don't only trust him, but I'll tell you this, I've put my life
and my soul and my eternal destiny in the hands of Jesus Christ,
and I've surrendered and submitted to him. He's my Lord and my Savior
and my hope. How about you? There are three
young people who are going to follow the Lord in baptism this
morning, and what they're doing is they're saying to this congregation
what I've just said. That's their testimony. When
Christ died, he died for me. When he was buried, he was buried
for me. When he rose again, he rose for me. And he ever lives
for me. And because he lives, I live.
And that's what they're saying about baptism. Baptism is death,
burial. We put the body under the water
because it's burial. And when the body comes forth,
you know what it's saying? It's saying that Christ is risen
from the tomb. risen with power over the death
and hell and sin and the grave. I'm rising to walk in newness
of life with my Lord. I'm going to walk with Him. I'm
going to walk with Him.