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Bro. Bill Nichols
We're going to pick up in the middle of James chapter two, and we'll pick it up about verse 14. I'm gonna read that first, and then we will talk about things as we go. Verse 14, what does it profit my brethren, though a man say he hath faith and hath not works?
Can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, can faith save him? I misread that. If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you saying to them, depart in peace, be you warmed and filled, notwithstanding, you give him not those things which are needful to the body, what does it profit?
Yea, a man may say thou has faith, I have works. Show me thy faith without my works, and I will show thee my faith by my works. Thou believest thou is one God, thou doest well. The devils also believe and tremble, but wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seeest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled, which said, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and he was called a friend of God.
See then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith alone? Likewise was not Rahab the harlot justified by works when she had received the messengers and sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
Let us pray. Most gracious heavenly father, as we come to you this morning, we honor you and we worship you. We worship you, the father, because you are the all in all. We also worship you as your son, the creator of the heavens and the universe and the earth and all that is in it.
We also honor you as the holy spirit, the promised indweller for all those that love God and believe him. As we come this morning, I would like to ask you to take the message that I'm going to read, the message I'm going to deliver, and mold it into the message that you want each one of the listeners to have.
And take each one of the listeners, take each one of us and mold us into the kind of person you want us to be, a person as closely resembling Jesus Christ as it is possible for anyone on earth to resemble Christ.
Bless us and keep us. Go through this message today in the one to follow. Bless us and keep us safe and secure in thee. And we know that all things work together for good to those that love him and keep his commandments.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So we have now reached the fifth test presented in the book of James, entitled The Test of Righteous Works. This was always for me, one of the hardest sections, to relate to what I had, the preconceived notions that I had about work and about faith.
And I was torn because I believed, and I still do believe, that salvation is by grace alone. But then, you know, you had this aspect of James seemingly talking about the necessity for works. And I didn't really come to a full understanding, and maybe I don't have a full understanding yet, but my understanding, I believe, is better today than it was last year, after I've gone more diligently through James, after just having done Hebrews.
So we'll begin with James chapter two, verse 14, and begin breaking it down verse by verse. 14, what doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not words, can faith save him?
I saw something this time through that I had never seen before. The little word say. This is the key to the entire passage. James does not say that the man has faith. He only says that he says he has faith.
So read it again. What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith? Now you add to that the rest of the statement. No works accompany that faith. And you come to the point that the question can fairly be asked, does that man have the kind of faith that can save him?
To clarify, that question can be rightly asked this way, or can rightly be asked of anyone who continually lacks external evidence of the faith he routinely claims. So if anybody routinely claims he has faith, then there should be something that indicates that.
Paul in Ephesians two makes it abundantly clear salvation is the gift of God, and it is not something you can earn by the works that you do. I'm gonna read this passage twice in this lesson, but this time I'm going to kind of break it down.
Ephesians 2, four. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love for which he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, he hath quickened us together with Christ. Now think about that, dead. When you're dead, you're unable to perceive anything, you're unable to do anything.
If you are dead, then you're unable to do anything. So works are totally out of the picture. He doesn't leave it that way, he goes on to say, by grace are you saved. Another way of saying that is, by the unmerited favor of God, you are saved.
Has nothing at all to do with anything that you do. By grace are you saved, and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Jesus Christ. Now some of you may wonder, why in the world would God go to all that trouble?
And if you think that, just continue reading. That in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Jesus Christ. We don't deserve anything, and he is gracious enough, and he loves us enough to give us more than we can possibly imagine.
There's a song going around today, I Can Only Imagine, and I love the song, I listen to it very often, but it's not quite right. It's not I can only imagine, it's I can never imagine. I can never imagine all the things that the Lord has in store for me, nor can you imagine the things that the Lord has in store for you.
Everything that you can possibly imagine will be exceeded by the gift that God gives you. That in ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
For by grace are you saved, there it is again, for by grace are you saved through faith. You had something, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. But if you have been saved by the, but if you have been saved the grace of God, by the grace of God, you will show it, and the question is how?
Okay, I'm getting a phone call on another thing. I'm gonna let it kind of go through its motion, and then I'll continue back, and I'm gonna read what I just read and restate the comment that I made about it.
Here we go. 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, if you have been saved by the grace of God, you will show it.
How? Your works will show it. He continues. For we are, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. You might ask, how am I so certain that the believer will do good works?
Does every believer do good works? Well, I would say not all the time, but some of the time, and hopefully most of the time, and as we become stronger and stronger in Christ, it will be more of the time.
Oh, we'll be tested. We'll get to that later. We'll be tested, and we will fail some of these tests, but the believer will ultimately always pass the test and show himself to be righteous, not because of himself, but because declared it, because God declared him to be righteous.
Your works will show it. How am I so certain that believers will do good works? Because God not only ordained salvation, he also ordained the good works. Therefore, we can fairly say that works are not the cause of salvation.
They are the evidence of it. Verse 15 of James, chapter two. We've made it through one verse, but if a brother or sister be naked and destitute of food, and one of you say unto them, depart in peace, be you warmed and filled, notwithstanding you give them not those things which are needful to the body, what does it profit?
So what James does is he illustrates his point by comparing faith without works to words of compassion without acts of compassion. It's not enough to tell somebody to be warm. You might need to give them a coat.
It's not enough to say be filled. It might be that you need to give them a biscuit. Works of compassion show the attitude of compassion. Like faith without works is dead, words without acts of compassion are equally dead.
Jesus makes his own comparison. If you will, go with me to Matthew, chapter 25, verse 31. Matthew, chapter 25, verse 31, and you will get Jesus's own take about who is righteous and who is not. When the son of man shall come in his glory and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of glory.
And before him shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from another as the shepherd divideth his sheep from his goats. That's not the nation separated from one another. That's the people in the nations separated into sheeps and goats.
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, come, ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
I'd like to dwell on that first just a few seconds. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. What kind of kingdom is that? Is that a real kingdom? Is that a physical kingdom?
Is that a spiritual kingdom? Is that a kingdom that's present now? Is that a kingdom that's present sometime in the future? Well, there is a kingdom internally. There is a spiritual kingdom. There is a kingdom.
This is not that though. This is the kingdom that will exist when the son of man comes in his glory and all the holy angels with him. And he is sitting on his throne in glory. He is telling these people, go into this kingdom that I have prepared for you.
Now, when did he prepare it? And for whom did he prepare it? He prepared it for the ones that are going to inhabit it. And when did he prepare it? Before the foundation of the world. Before anything was created, the kingdom was prepared.
Okay, we're now to verse 35. For I was a hunger and you gave me meat. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you took me in. Naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me.
I was in prison and you came to me. They saw a need and the need was met. Now, the last time we had a class, we had this as one of the items that I put in my statements. Rather than aligning oneself with the world and the things of the world, a believer should align himself with fellow believers.
And when should he align himself with fellow believers? In the times of blessings, when everything is going well, you should align yourself with other believers and everything is going well. But also in times of testing.
Keeping in mind that in the testing of your fellow believers you are being tested as well. The fellow believer might pass the test and if you don't do what you should do, if you don't align yourself with him, you will fail your test.
He'll pass his and you'll fail yours. I'll give you this though as an encouragement. If you're a believer, you will eventually pass your test. You know why I know? Because I didn't select you, you didn't select yourself, God selected you.
And because he selected you, he will see to it that you pass the test. Sometimes some of us are harder headed than others. Some of us take more discipline to get us to move to the spot that we can pass the test.
But fortunately for us, all believers will pass the test. These righteous ones that Jesus is speaking of in this passage, the sheep, they pass their test. Verse 37, then shall the righteous answer him saying, Lord, when saw we thee a hunger and fed thee?
Or thirsty and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger and took thee in? Or naked and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick or in prison and came unto thee? And the king shall answer and say unto them, verily I say unto you, in so much as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.
Now Jesus turns his attention to the unrighteous. And you'll see not only a different statement, but a different reaction from the unrighteous. Here we go. Then shall he also say to them on the left hand, the goats, depart from me, ye cursed, into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.
I stopped there a minute in the other section and said, to whom was the eternal kingdom promised? And when was it prepared? And for whom was it prepared? I'd like to make the same statement here. For whom was the eternal fire prepared?
It was prepared for the devil and his angels. When was it prepared? Before time began. When did it become your future to enter into this everlasting fire? That was prepared for whom? For the devil and his angels.
When did you join that group? If you're a goat, you joined it when you refused the general call to God. You refused it by the way you reacted to Jesus Christ. If you did not accept Jesus Christ as your savior, if you don't believe and if you don't love him, then you chose your lot.
And so he tells these people, he shall say to them on his left hand, depart from me, ye cursed. Who cursed you? You cursed yourself. Prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was a hunger and you gave me no meat.
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger and you took me not in. Naked and you clothed me not. Sick and in prison and you visited me not. A need was seen here as well. That need wasn't ignored.
And again, remember from last lesson, rather than aligning themselves with believers, these unrighteous ones align themselves with the world and the things of the world. And as a result, they failed their test and they continue to fail it.
And shall they also answer him saying, Lord, when saw we thee a hunger or a thirst or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them saying, Verily I say unto you, in so much as you did it not unto one of the least of these, you did it not unto me.
And these shall go away unto everlasting punishment, but the righteous unto life eternal. Okay. We're not really set up. I'm not really set up here so that I can get comments real easily. But if any one of you have a comment or a question, punch it through to Brother Ben or me and I'll try to get through and see if I can see your questions as we go along.
I apologize for doing it this way. If I've got an audience, I can look at them and use them to bounce questions off of, but it's more difficult here. So I apologize too. Well, I'm gonna continue back to James.
Even so, faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Just as professed compassion without action is not really compassion. If you say to someone, be warm and you don't give them a coat, you're not really compassionate.
Professed faith without works is not really faith. Verse 18. Yea, a man may say, thou hast faith and I have works. Show me thy faith without my works and I will show thee my faith by my works. You need to know, the only way you can show your faith to anyone in this world, the only evidence that you have that can be seen by the world is the works that arise from the faith.
Jesus, God, can see and understands those that have faith and those that do not, but the world can only see what you do. So the only evidence you have that you can give the world for your faith is your works.
Verse 19. Thou believest thou is one God, thou believest there is one God, thou doest well. The devils also believe and tremble. My paraphrase is this. You know there's one God, that's good. The devils know that also and tremble.
Sure, they know that there's one God. They even believe that there's one God, but they don't love that one God. They hate, they don't love, they hate. They hate God, they hate you. And they do well to tremble because not only do they know God, and they believe that God exists, they know their final destination.
So they know, they believe, they hate, they hate God, they hate you, and they tremble because they know their final destination. One final word with regard to this verse. While it's necessary to know that there's one God, that's not sufficient.
It's not enough to know there's one God. It's not enough to know and to believe there is one God. What is necessary is to know, to believe, and to love that God. I decided to this point, just to throw Romans 8, 28 into the mix.
You can't say this one too many times. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. So all things, even this COVID -19 variant of the Delta variant of the COVID virus is something that works together to good for those that love God.
Everything, all things, all things work together for good. But not, they don't all work together for good to all people, just to those that love God to them that are called according to his purpose. And that, I venture to say, is all of us that are listening in today.
Verse 20, back to James, verse 20. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead. James MacArthur gave me this piece of advice. James is not comparing two different kinds of salvation.
He's not comparing salvation by faith to salvation by works. What he is comparing is two kinds of faith. He's comparing saving faith, which is followed by good works, as ordained by God. If you have saving faith, you will do good works because God ordains it, to dead faith, devoid of any works.
Now we're to verse 21. Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Now, when you read that, you may forget. That's not the first time that Abraham showed his faith.
Remember when Abraham offered Isaac his son on the altar? This was late in his life. This was after his son was around 20 years old. This event occurs much later, many years later, than the time when Abraham first exercised faith and was declared righteous.
That was what I said. I probably needed to have said that this way. Remember this event occurred many years after Abram first exercised faith and was declared righteous? Abraham was not called Abraham at this point in his life.
I'm going to read from Genesis chapter 12, verse one, Genesis 12, one, the following. Now, Jesus had said to Abram, get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred. I'm going to read that again. And from thy kindred and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show you.
I'm going to stop and make a comment there. Understand this, Abraham is still Abram. Abraham is still Abram at this point in time. Abraham is showing faith. Abraham is showing faith a lot of times, but he's not showing complete and total faith as he will show later.
We'll get to that in a few minutes. Now, the Lord had said to Abram, get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show you. And I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee and make thy name great.
And thou shall be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee. And in thee, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him.
And Lot went with him. And Abram was 75 years old when he departed out of Aram. There's going to be a lot happening to Lot and to Lot's wife and to Lot's daughters and to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
All of those were intended in the purpose of God. God didn't change his mind about what he was going to do. But you kind of wonder what would have happened if Abram had been more completely obedient to God and left Lot behind.
Oh, God's work would have been done, but it might've been done a different way. In any case, Abram departed. And as the Lord had spoken, as the Lord had spoken unto him and Lot went with him. And Abram was 75 years old when he departed out of Aram.
And Abram took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered and the souls that they had gotten in Aram. And they went forth to go into the land of Cana. And into the land of Cana they went.
And Abram passed through the land and to the place of Shishun and to the plain of Moriah. And the Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord appeared to Abram and said, unto thy seed I will give this land.
And there builded he an altar unto the Lord who appeared before him. So that was not the first evidence of faith. I guess the first evidence of faith was when Abram left his home and went to Haran. And then the second show of faith was when he went from Haran into the land of the Canaanites.
And now is another demonstration of faith on the horizon. After these things, this is Genesis 15, one. After these things, the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision saying, fear not Abraham, fear not Abram.
I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said unto Lord God, what wilt thou give me seeing I go childless? And the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus. And Abram said, behold, to me thou hast given no seed.
And lo, one born in my house is mine heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came unto him saying, this shall not be thine heir. Eliezer is not going to be the heir. But he that shall come forth out of thine own bough shall be thine heir.
And he brought him forth abroad and said, look now toward the heavens and tell me the stars if thou be able to number them. And he said unto him, so shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for righteousness.
So Abram believed in the Lord and the Lord counted his belief as righteousness. Little bit stronger offer of obedience. Now, when we get to the next offering, he is now Abraham and he's now offering Isaac.
And Isaac's offering will demonstrate the genuineness of his faith and the reality of his justification before God. James is emphasizing the vindication before others of immense claim to salvation. James' teaching perfectly complements Paul's writings.
Salvation is determined by faith alone and is demonstrated by the obedience to do God's will and that alone. I'm gonna reread Ephesians 2 ,4 just to kind of refresh your memory. But God who is rich in mercy for his great love for which he loved us, even when we were dead and sins hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace are you saved and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Jesus Christ.
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 for we are his workmanship created in Jesus Christ unto good works, which God had before ordained that we should walk in them.
So now back to James chapter two, verse 22, says thou how faith wrought with his works and by works was faith made perfect. In this case, what it means is made perfect means made complete. Faith was made complete by works.
Verse 23, and the scripture was fulfilled, which said, Abraham believed in God and it was imputed unto him for righteousness and he was called the friend of God. John MacArthur adds this, because fallen man is morally and spiritually bankrupt with no redeeming merit at all before God, nothing he can possibly do in himself and by his own power can make him right and acceptable before the Lord.
I probably would add to that, not only is he moral and spiritually bankrupt, but in one sense, he is dead, unable to do anything. It is for that reason that salvation has always been possible solely through the pure graciousness of God.
Working through a faithful response to his grace. It is not that the Old Testament men were saved through the law and that in the new, they were saved by faith. This is still MacArthur talking, at whatever point in the unfolding revelation and work of God, men may have lived or ever will live.
God requires nothing of them for salvation except true faith in him. Hebrews 11 makes it abundantly clear that both before and after the law was given at Sinai, salvation was by faith. Remember, Abraham believed in the Lord and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.
We just read that. Verse 24, see then how that might work, say man is justified and not by faith alone. And again, MacArthur says this, James's point is that the overall pattern of life, Abraham faithfully vindicated his saving faith through his many good works.
He wasn't good all the time, he wasn't perfect, but through his good works, he vindicated his saving faith. Above all else, by offering Isaac. When a man is justified before God, he will always prove that justification before other men.
A man who has been declared and made righteous will live righteously. Imputed righteousness will always manifest practical righteousness. In the words of John Calvin, faith alone justifies, but the faith that justifies is never alone.
Charles Spurgeon says this, the grace that does not change my life will not change my soul. And thank you for the comment, Mr. Pritchett. The grace that, Charles Spurgeon, the grace that does not change my life will not save my soul.
Likewise, likewise was not Rahab the harlot justified by works when she had received the messengers and had sent them out another way? John MacArthur goes on to say this, the second person James used to illustrate justification by works stand in stark contrast to Abraham.
She was a woman, a Gentile and a prostitute. Abraham was a moral man. She was an immoral woman. He was a noble Chaldean. She was the degraded Canaanite. He was a great leader. She a common citizen. He was at top of the socioeconomic order.
She was at the bottom. Yet Rahab is listed along with Abraham in that great gallery of the faithful in Hebrews 11 and was even in the human lineage of Jesus being the great grandmother of David. As for the body without, as for the body, I'm sorry, I misread that.
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. Now again, MacArthur, Abraham and Rahab's justification by works was not demonstrated by their profession of faith, their worship or ritual or any other religious activity.
In both cases, it was demonstrated by putting everything that was dear to them on the line for the Lord and trusting it to him without qualification or reservation. They were supremely committed to the Lord, whatever the cost.
It is in the vortex of the great plans, decisions and crossroads of life where ambitions, hopes, dreams, destinies, and life itself are at stake. Where true faith unfailingly reveals itself long before Jesus's crucifixion, Abraham and Rahab were willing to take up their crosses as it were and follow him.
They hated their life in this world in order to keep it in the world to come. And that's it. Somehow I think I left out something, but it's okay. Maybe I didn't, maybe I just flew too fast and didn't get it.
Okay, we did get it. In any case, are there any questions or comments now? I think I might can now bring them up.
Sure, Brother Bill. Actually, there's one here that I can pull up for you. Brian Christopher was asking if there is a parallel between the chapter we just finished reading, chapter two of James and the parable of the sower, specifically the passage in Mark chapter four.
And he said he always had a hard time pondering the seeds that fell on the shallow ground they would spring up and receive the gospel with gladness, but withered away once the affliction arose because of the lack of the roots.
So they were bearing no fruit or good works because their faith wasn't in Christ. So do you think there's any parallel there in that passage and in this James chapter we just read?
I think there are. And I think, and this is just my personal opinion and it's reaction to the question. It's not researched other than what we've done earlier on. I think that in the parable of the soils, there was only one good soil.
The pathway, seeds that fell on them were totally ignored. They were goats from the beginning. Those that fell on the soil and were choked out and did not do good works when trials and tribulations occurred, they attached themselves to the believers, but they really weren't totally convinced.
The only true soil I believe, the only true Christian I believe is the one that bears fruit. Now you gotta be cautious with that because we don't all bear fruit at the same time. We don't all bear the same kind of fruit and we don't all pass the test the first time it's given us.
I know that for myself, I passed, I failed many more tests than I passed, but praise the Lord, I passed some of them. And when I passed, the ones I passed, the Lord is good and gracious and will forgive me of all the ones that I failed because I belong to Him.
I don't think we truly belong to Him unless we are bearing fruit. I don't know if I got that clear or not. But that's the best I can do at this point. Brother David's probably online, he might can help you a little bit.
It makes sense to me, that's for sure. I'm agreement in terms of the soil as well. I mean, there being only one that is. But that's great, Brother Bill. I think, let me see here. I think that was the only question that hadn't been covered.
Yeah, I think we're good.
I think we're good to go, Brother Bill. Okay, in that case, I'm going to quickly offer a prayer and turn it back over to you. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day and thank you for giving us the technology to reach out and meet and greet people that are not physically present with us.
Bless us and keep us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.