Marks of a Cult (Part 4)

The Danger of Adding Works to Salvation

All right. We we have a lot to go over tonight, and I'm going to encourage you to have a Bible because tonight is an important night. As are all of our lessons, I would say, but it's important because of the subject.

You know, we've said that this looking at this video, the marks of a cult, they've said the marks of a culture that they add to the Bible, that they subtract from the Trinity, and then tonight we said or the video instructed that they multiply the works that are required for salvation.

So they add to the Bible, they subtract from the Trinity and they multiply the works required for salvation. Some of the most profound memories that I have in my few years that I've been teaching have been times when I have been confronted by people who do not believe in justification by faith alone.

And they're not all cult members. I have probably been accosted or questioned by as many people who would call themselves Christians who do not believe the doctrine of Sola Fide as I have those who are in cults.

I remember one of the one of the one of the times I did have a situation with a cult group, Jehovah Witness came to my house. Many of you heard the story before they came to our house and. Through a process, I had an opportunity to go outside and talk with them, and it was a man and a woman.

And they began to tell me about their Jehovah Witnesses beliefs, they didn't call themselves Jehovah Witnesses, they didn't introduce themselves that way. They simply had a one of their magazines and they handed it to me.

They began to talk and I said, well, I said, before you go any further, I said, you're a Jehovah Witness, right? And the guy said, well, yeah, he's sort of caught sort of caught him off guard. And I said, I said, let me ask you a question.

I said, let's say you came to my house today and I opened up the door and I had a knife in my back. I was dying, I fell to your feet and I was dying. I said, what would you say to me that would give me a message of salvation in the last minutes of my life as my life is escaping my as my soul is leaving my body?

What would you say to give me words of eternal life? And he said, well, what kind of life have you lived up until now? I said, probably not a real good one. I got a knife in my back. I said, so far, no good.

You know, I haven't done real good up until this point. And he said, well, the Bible says he who endures to the end shall be saved. I said, well, yeah, it's the end. So what you're quoting verses, but you're not giving me anything.

I said, see, the problem is, I said, you've come into my neighborhood, you've come to my house to share a false gospel of works, which is not a gospel at all. You have denied the grace of God, you have denied Sola Fide and faith in Christ, and you have come teaching a false gospel.

At this time, he was upset and he left. But the point is, what I'm trying to say is, as Martin Luther said, Sola Fide is the article upon which the church stands. Or false. It is the article upon which the church stands or falls and what is Sola Fide, justification by faith alone, justification by faith alone.

Anytime you hear the term Sola Fide, you are hearing the shorthand Latinized phrase or Latin phrase which references justification by faith alone. This was one of the reasons for the schism that happened during the Protestant Reformation, because the Roman church would not allow for this teaching.

The Roman church would not allow for such a thing to be broadcast within the church, because if man is left to faith alone, then he does not need popes and bishops and relics and and other things that he would worship or bow down or pray to.

If he's left to faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, what do we do with the other, with the rest of the pop and circumstance that we have created within the church? I remember, as I said before, it's not always the cults groups, though, that attack Sola Fide.

Justification by Faith Alone in the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

Sometimes it is misunderstood and it is attacked from within the church. One time I was preaching here, this is many years ago, I would probably say around 2005, 2006. It's been quite a few years ago now, and I was preaching on the parable of the publican and the Pharisee.

You remember that parable, the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee. Jesus said a tax collector and a Pharisee went to the temple to pray. The Pharisee went into the temple and he said, oh, thank you, God, that I'm not like other men, that I'm not a sinful man like these other men, that I tie it all of all that I receive.

I give a tenth of all that I receive and I don't do evil things. I'm not like that tax collector over there. And he literally points out the guy who walked to the temple with him, the guy who didn't even go in, but rather stood outside.

He said, I thank you, God, that I'm not like him, but I'm a good man. And what did the tax collector do? But he stood outside and Jesus said he stood outside and he beat his breast and he said, have mercy on me, oh, God, a sinner.

And what did Jesus say? Very important phrase. If you look at this story, what did Jesus say? It says it was the tax collector who left justified. That word is in the text. It doesn't say he left in a good position or that he was righteous.

It literally uses the phrase that is so important. He left justified and not the other man. And Mike, my and when I was preaching the sermon, I said, what was he justified? I said, was he justified because he was a good person?

No. I said, was he justified because he had done good works or because he had brought a tithe? No, he was justified by faith alone. And we look back to what? We look to the man on the cross who stood beside Jesus, who hung beside Jesus rather, and he said to Jesus, remember me when you go into your kingdom.

And Jesus said, truly, truly, I say unto you that on this day you shall be with me in paradise today. Thou shalt be with me in paradise. Right. Jesus gave him that statement that because of your faith, the demonstration of your heart's change has come and shown that you are righteous before God.

It is not worse, but justification is by faith alone. Anyway, I preached the sermon. I talked about the Pharisee and the public. And I got to the back door and as I always do, I was shaking hands with everybody as they left.

And this man walks by, I've never seen him before, haven't seen him since. Not surprised he didn't come back. I get a lot of that, but he walked by the door. He shook my hand and he kind of pulled me in close and he said, you forgot.

James 2, 24, now, for a moment, I did forget James 2, 24, because I could not in my mind. I know James 2, 24, I do have it memorized. But when somebody does that to you, when somebody just spits a verse out, a lot of times your brain pulls a complete blank.

And at that moment, I didn't know what he was talking about, because when, like I said, I'm right there in the back door, I just preached the sermon. You know, my gas is gone because I use it all up on preaching.

I'm running on empty now, I'm standing back there, I'm tired, I'm shaking hands. And he says, you forgot James 2, 24. And I said, the dumbest thing I could have responded. I was young, still am, but I was young enough to say, which verse is that?

Because I really had for that moment forgotten. And he said, well, the Bible says we are not justified by faith alone. That we are justified by works and not by faith alone. And that actually is a is a version of James 2, 24.

And I immediately I remember it was like a flood flew into my mind and I was able to provide a response to him right then. And I was able to say, listen, you know, you have misunderstood that passage.

I said the whole of the New Testament teaches justification by faith alone. And we have this one passage that we have to understand in light of the others. It took me a second to interact with him. But anyway, he just kind of turned up his nose and walked out.

I found out later he was a minister from the Old Disciples of Christ, which is the group that, you know, this church used to be established or associated with. And and the Old Disciples of Christ and the Church of Christ and others, they did not teach justification by faith alone.

They do not teach imputed righteousness. They do not teach what the Bible says about salvation, in my opinion. Am I saying they're a cult group? I'm saying they are missing a vital part of the gospel.

They are missing a vital part of the gospel. So tonight, in response to this five year old dilemma, we're going to exegete James 2, 24. This happened five years ago. I've exegeted many times since then, but I felt like a story needed a happy ending.

So I told you the story. And now we'll have a happy ending. And we'll go look at James 2, 24. So turn to your Bibles and let's go to James chapter two. I will admit this, and this is something that that oftentimes I think is surprising to people.

The term justification by faith alone does not show up in the Bible, neither does the word Trinity or many other many other words that we use. So I wouldn't concern myself too much with this. However, I will say this.

The only time the word faith alone is ever used in the Bible is here, James 2, 24. And it literally says not by faith alone. So if the Bible literally uses the phrase not by faith alone and we're sitting here saying it's by faith alone.

Yet the Bible says it's not by faith alone. We better have either a preponderance of evidence or we need to throw this passage out. Right. We either need to have a preponderance of evidence that what we're saying is actually in line with what this says.

Or we need to give up what we've been saying all along or just give up what the Bible says entirely, because the Bible says not by faith alone. And we've been shouting faith alone. We need to have an answer for that question.

And we do. And it's not a hard answer. It really is not a hard answer. James, chapter two. With all the fuss that has been made of it over the years, and even Martin Luther, even Martin Luther had a fuss about the book of James.

Martin Luther actually went as far and this is one of the places where I'm not. Martin Luther is my hero, but I think he lived in a peculiar time and he was a peculiar man. So not everything he did, I think, is worth emulating.

When I call him a hero, I think what he did was great. That doesn't mean everything he did or said or believed was worth emulating. One of the things that he did was he actually called the book of James the epistle of straw.

He said it was he said it just wasn't it wasn't strong enough to hold up on its own. The epistle of James is the epistle of straw. It was it was not it didn't contain enough information. In fact, he even questioned its canonicity at one point, a place where I think he went too far, to be honest with you.

However, when we look at James two and you look at particularly at verse twenty four, you have to look at everything within context. As I've said many times, you will never understand any verse of the Bible if you take only the verse of the Bible out and you don't apply it within its context.

I think the Bible say anything I want, if I'm if I'm only going to use one verse at a time and use it without its context, I make the Bible say God has feathers. Well, it says he girds us on his under his wings, you know, I mean, I make it say anything I want without exegesis, but exegesis provides for me proper interpretation, hermeneutics is required to come to a right understanding of what the Bible says.

So we're going to practice exegesis tonight. We're going to practice some hermeneutic principles and we're going to learn what James actually said in James chapter two on the subject, because this is where they'll go.

If you ever have a Jehovah witness show up and wake you up on Saturday morning, which they do all the time, if they ever come and wake you up on Saturday morning and you mention justification by faith alone, they'll go right to James two, twenty four.

So let's look at James two and we'll begin in verse fourteen and read all the way to verse twenty six, because that is within the context of James. Letter and within the context of the issue here and real quickly, what is James about?

Does he know Trump comprehend James about what? Well, it's about practical Christianity, living out our faith, not allowing our faith to simply be something that we say we believe, but actually something that we do.

It provides for us tests to see if what we say matches what we do. It really is a book of practical Christianity to simplify it, distill it down. That's what it is. And one of the most practical sections in the entire book is James two verses 14 to 26.

Faith That Saves and Faith That Is Dead

Because he begins with this question, he says, what good is it? My brothers, if someone says he has faith that does not have works. Now, before we go on to his answer, before we go on to the next question, he asks a very legitimate question.

What good is it to say you have faith and not have works? Well, let's think of it from a Paul line perspective, looking at the works of Paul. No one stresses justification by faith alone as much as Paul.

However, what does Paul say about faith and works? Ephesians chapter two, verse eight, for by grace, you've been saved through faith and that is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good. So we're saved by what grace through what faith in the work of Jesus Christ? For what? For good works. Let's go again. We're saved by grace for works.

We are not saved simply to sit in our holy club and talk about our faith and pat each other on our back because of our faith and to build each other's faith. We are saved so that we would work for the kingdom and do works within the kingdom.

That's what you're saved to do. The Bible says you have been predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. No one ever worked for the kingdom like Christ has. And you have been predestined to follow in the footsteps of Christ.

You have been predestined to do the works of God in the world and to work in the kingdom of God. That's your job. That's what you're supposed to do. That's what you're saved to do. Paul makes that point very clear.

So at this point in James, I mean, I know we've only read half of one verse. We're going to try to exegete it. We're going to try. We're going to go through the whole thing. But just just very quickly, when he says, what good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith and does not have works?

He's saying, what good is it to speak faith when our hands and our feet do not act in faith? And then he asked a very important question. Oh, very important question. He says, can that faith save him?

I will tell you this. I'll sit down and break this one down straight up. If somebody comes talking about justification by works and they'll say, see here, he says faith. He says, can faith save him? I say there is an article that faith that is in your Bible.

Right. When you read it, can that faith save him? Beloved, that is an important phrase. Huh? That faith is a type of faith that is not genuine. It's that faith, can that faith save him? What faith? Faith that is devoid of works.

Faith that is devoid of the confirmation to the person of Christ. Can that kind of faith save anyone? No. And I don't care how many of my pastor friends will tell you. All you got to do is trust in Jesus with your heart and never do nothing ever again.

And you'll be safe. Let me tell you something about that. That is the heresy of what is called easy believism. And it's a false teaching because faith will always produce works. And if it does not, it is that faith that does not save.

It is that kind of false faith that does not save. There is such a thing as false faith. And this is one of the things that the reformers made sort of a to do about. The reformers went as far as distinguishing between three types of faith.

I wrote them down so I wouldn't forget what they were. Because, of course, they didn't know how to do anything that wasn't in Latin because that was the language of learning. So they came up with a distinction.

They said, when you consider the idea of faith, when you consider the idea of belief, there are actually three ways in which you can mean. If I say I believe something, use that word believe. It has three separate ways it can be used.

The first one we called noticia and then assensus and then fiducia. Noticia is what? Means to take in knowledge about something, to take in knowledge, to take in knowledge is noticia. Assensus, to believe it to be true, fiducia means to trust in it, to trust in it.

Noticia, take in knowledge about something, assensus, to believe it to be true, fiducia, to trust in it. How do I understand that? Let's let's look at it from the point of view that I would say is real easy for me to understand.

And that is parachuting. I know exactly how a parachute works. I've seen it on television. I know what they look like. I know how they're made and by what materials they're made. I even have a little bracelet on that's made out of paracord.

So I know even what the cord looks like that hangs attached to the parachute. I know what a parachute is. So I have noticia, I have knowledge of it. I also believe that they work. No problem. I believe that if I were to jump out of an airplane at 5000 feet or 10 ,000 feet or whatever many feet they jump out of airplanes, I believe if I had one strapped to my back and I jumped out and I pulled the cord, it would probably save my life.

Yet, I don't trust it. Which is why I ain't jumping out of no airplane or off the side of no mountain or off the side of some skyscraper somewhere that these guys do with these base jumping parachutes on.

I have every bit of noticia. I have every bit of assensus. I do not have fiducia. I do not have the faith, the belief, the trust to take the step off of the building or the side of the airplane. I don't have it.

So when the Bible uses the Greek word pistis, when it uses the Greek word pistis, that is the root of the word pistoum. In other words, like it, it is the word for faith. Which one of these three do you think is the reference?

And this word is in a lot of, you know, a lot of verses that use the word pistis or pistoum. John, chapter three, verse 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that all the believing ones will not perish, but have eternal life.

Right. You know that verse. You know the verse here where it says, can that faith, can that type of faith. All right. What word do you think is being what type of this do you think is being referenced?

Huh? In this reference, I'm talking about saving faith. Which one of these is saving faith? Would you reference a saving faith? It's the trust aspect of it. It is not simply knowing that Christ claimed to be the Savior.

Neither is it believing that Christ was in some way a savior, but it is trusting in him as your safe. You see, that is what the Bible means when it says whosoever believes will not perish, but will have eternal life.

That's the type of belief that's being referenced. And this type of faith always is accompanied by works. But those works do not say those works accompany a life that is already saved. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God.

That is a past tense completed action. Having been justified, that is done. Having been justified by faith, we have peace now, currently with God through our Savior, Jesus Christ. So understanding that now we can read the text fully and in context, because we've already seen that he's making a distinction between real faith and that type of faith that doesn't save.

Notitia does not save, a census does not save, fiducia is what we would call saving faith. A lot of people believe Jesus is a savior, but have not received him as their savior. All right, so he goes on to say, he goes on to use an example.

James is great with examples. He says, if a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food and one of you says to them, go in peace. Be warm and filled without giving them the things needed for the body.

What good is that? I love that example because I've been there. Sometimes we don't know what to do for people. Sometimes this verse echoes in my ear when somebody comes to me and they say, my my best friend has died.

My my my kid is sick. I my money is gone and I don't have anything. Sometimes you don't know what to say. Sometimes you don't know what to do. But I don't think this verse is necessarily referring to that situation.

I think he's referring to the times when we do know what to do and we could do it. We choose not to. Somebody comes to us and says, I'm hungry. Well, I'll be praying for you. Why don't you be feeding me rather than praying for me?

Because I'm hungry and that the truth, shouldn't we be doing that? And that's what he's talking about. He says, if somebody comes to you and they're poorly clothed or they're lacking in daily food, they don't have enough.

And you have enough that you could share with them. And yet you say, hey, I'll be praying for you or whatever. Go and be filled. It's a joke. And this is James poking out of these things, that's not faith acting.

Because faith would be Christ to that person and seek to provide for their needs. He says in verse 17, he says, so also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. Beloved, he just defined his own term, that faith that he referenced earlier is dead faith.

What is dead faith? Is that a faith that was once alive and then died? No, it's a faith that never was given birth. It is dead faith. It's not alive. Still, I think I really think James is referencing that very important thing that oftentimes we forget about, which is often referenced by Paul, that we were once dead in our sins.

And I think when he talks about dead faith, I think he's saying that this is as much as a dead person can muster. They can muster that they can muster that. But isn't he saying no faith? Yes, that's what I'm saying.

He's saying they say it's a spoken faith. But it's not a true faith. It's a dead. It's false. It's not real fiducia. Absolutely. That's a great example of the parable of soils. He said some fell in the pathway.

They didn't even get a chance to do anything. The birds ate them up. Some fell among the weeds and it choked them out. Some fell in rocky soil, weren't able to spring up. But the ones who did come to the good soil, the seed that fell in the good soil produced fruit.

The fruit of the spirit, it produced work for the kingdom. But yet, have I violated anything? Have I violated the doctrine of Sola Fide? I have not, because we still say salvation is not what we do. It is what Christ has done in our place.

Our works are in response to salvation, not to earn it. And I don't think James has contradicted me on this. I don't think James is contradicting Paul. I don't think James is contradicting Christ. I think James is right in line with that, because James is simply making the point that there is faith out there that's not real, false, false, fake faith.

They spring up for a season and then they wither away. So Jesus said, how many people do we know have done that? They start going to church and they're the most excited people to be in church for a good week.

And then what? You couldn't find them. CIA couldn't find them. They bolt, not George Bolt, they run. And you couldn't find them with a GPS. All right. Now, I got to get to verse 24. And we're, as always, I'm chasing rabbits.

But someone will say, you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works and I will show you my faith by my works. Love that statement, because he's trying to make a point. He's saying, you say you have faith with no works.

How do I know? How could I possibly know that your faith is real if you don't if your faith doesn't produce any fruit? Show me your faith without your works. Guess what? You can't. However, I will demonstrate my faith by what I do.

My faith will show forth in a life lived for Christ. Does that mean it's saving me? Not at all. But it's demonstrating that my faith is real. I'm telling you what, this easy believism that has snuck into the church this last 20, 30 years is a false gospel.

I once heard a man one time very close to this, to our vicinity here, a pastor. He was on the radio. I was listening to him as I was driving. He said to his congregation at the time of invitation, which, as you all know, is the most important 20 minutes of the church.

These guys play it just as I am 500 times and get as many people down for it as possible, because that, my friends, is evangelism. No, it's not. I'm speaking tongue in cheek. Anyhow, he made the statement.

He said, come and receive Jesus. Even if you don't like him, you've still got him. Because he'll never leave you nor forsake you, even if you don't like him, you still got what kind of inane junk. Is that it is, yeah, even if you return him, he'll still stick with it's inane garbage, we do not preach repentance anymore, we don't preach genuine faith anymore, we preach notitious enough, a census is enough, and it's not real faith.

Abraham, Rahab, and Works as the Evidence of Faith

Verse 19, you believe that God is one. Oh, I love this one. I could spend a month here. You believe that God is one, you do well, even the demons believe in shudder. I met so many people that I've said, they said, well, I believe in Jesus.

I say, hey, the demons believe in Jesus. What do you mean? I mean, the demons believe in Jesus. That's it. I thought I was speaking English, but apparently I missed it. So we'll go again. If the demons believe in Jesus, belief in that sense is not faith.

This is why I think John 316 has really confused people. Whosoever believeth in him, not what it says anyway, in Greek is posthumous to own all the believing ones, all the faithful ones, all the ones who have faith.

Now it's present tense who are acting on faith. Now we'll have eternal life anyway. Oh, do you want to be shown you foolish? I can't read it again. Verse 20. I said, do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?

You want to be shown that you want to be proved that faith without works is really not real faith is really useless. Verse 21. Now, this scares some people because they get confused. He says, was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?

Well, that's scary, Pastor, because that that seems like you're taking a step away from justification by faith alone. And that, oh, this is this must have been what bothered Martin Luther. If you understand it in its context, it won't bother you, because, number one, the Bible says that Abraham was justified in Genesis 15, six.

Abraham believed God. He was justified by faith. This actually took place in Genesis 22, a good seven chapters later. And in the span of time, I believe it was, I don't remember how many years. I know it's 25 years from the time Abraham got the call to the time Isaac was born.

So Abraham was justified all that time. How then does it say he was justified by his works? He's justified by his works in this. His faith was demonstrated by his works. No person was ever given a stronger test of faith than was Abraham when he was said, take thou son, thy only son, whom thou lovest and sacrifice him.

No one, none of us was ever given such a thing. And yet he took his son onto the mountain, ready to plunge the knife into his chest. I mean, any one of us who are fathers shudder. In a few weeks, I'm going to be preaching on that passage.

It brings tears to my eyes just to think about being asked to do such a thing. Yet Abraham was willing to do that, and as such, could any of us say Abraham doesn't fit in this category? No, and as such, Abraham was demonstrated to us as being faithful, his faith, if nobody else's was real, his was real.

That's what James's point is. He's justified by faith in this, or justified by works in the sense that his works demonstrate he had true faith. It goes on to say, you see. That faith was active along with his works and faith was completed by his works.

And the scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteous to see. He even quotes Genesis 15, 6. He says Abraham was justified back in Genesis 15. Now, they didn't have numbers and chapters like we do.

He would have said, you know, at this passage, he was justified. But this event demonstrates his justification, it demonstrates his true faith, and he was called the friend of God. You see, then, that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

What does that mean? It means simply this. It means that if you say you have faith. And the desires for the work of Christ do not accompany that faith, know this, your faith is not real. That's all he's trying to say.

He's not denying justification by faith alone, because what is justification by faith alone really mean? It means that the work of Christ is what saves us completely beginning to end. And it is our faith in that that demonstrates to us that that work has been done for us and we're saved by it.

We're saved by the work of Christ alone. Anybody want to deny that one?

Yes, sir. Yes.

I think that, yeah, and to add to what you're saying, one of the most important parts of verse twenty four is when he says you see that Abraham was justified by works and not by faith alone, because that is what we see.

We can't see Abraham's faith, but we can see his works. I can't see your faith without your works. You can't see my faith without my works. No one here can see a faith that isn't accompanied by works.

But when I see you doing works for the kingdom with a heart that desires Christ, when I see that I can say confidently in my heart, there is a man or a woman of faith. All right. So that's verse twenty four.

And then he goes on to talk about Rahab, the prostitute, and he says pretty much the same thing about her. What did Rahab do? Rahab risked her life to bring the spies in so that the the Battle of Jericho would be won.

We see that, he says, and in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way. For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

Why James 2 Does Not Contradict Sola Fide

That's it. Where then do the cults err? Because this is what we've been talking about. Where do the cults err? They err in this. We say that works are the necessary outgrowth of faith. Right. We say that if we have faith, works will grow out of that and will bear fruit.

So we say, and go back and use the mathematical symbols, we say salvation equals works. If we are truly saved, we will work because it will be a part of our nature to do so. Our natures will be changed and we'll want to work.

What's the difference with the cult? They say works equal salvation. That is an entirely different. I mean, can you not see the difference? That is a massive paradigm shift to go from saying because we're saved, we'll work, to saying because you work, you're saved.

That's the danger. I love I love the book of Romans where it says this, it says, Blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven apart from works. I want to show you that. That's an important passage. It's in Romans chapter four.

I have to find it real quick. Verse six, Romans four, verse six. He's quoting David. He says, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.