Aaron, here he reads Acts 16 verse 31, and he asked the man,
what does it say a person has to do to be saved?
The man responds, you have to believe.
He goes on to say, well, it doesn't say
you have to go to church.
It doesn't say that you have to be baptized.
He says, it states that you just have to believe.
Number one, it doesn't state that you just have to believe.
What's he doing here?
Well, number one, he's using one or two verses
to try to ignore the rest of the New Testament.
So he's really doing what's called proof texting.
You pick your favorite verse, you teach that to somebody,
and then you try to extrapolate
and ignore other passages to make your point.
I always tell people, when you see a passage like this,
Acts 16, 31, where he says, believe, right next to that,
right James 2, 26, where the Bible says,
faith without works is dead.
Faith without works is dead.
So he tells him to believe faith without works is dead.
So true biblical faith is going to involve
some works of obedience.
If you understand that,
it's going to clear up a lot of things.
And so he's trying to exclude everything else
based on the fact that it says, believe.
I would say again, next to believe, right James 2, 26,
faith without works is dead.
So it does not mean believe only.
The Bible never means believe only.
Faith, believe without works of obedience is dead.
And he even makes the reference in the verses preceding that
about them looking on the serpent in the Old Testament.
They had to go look on the serpent to be saved.
What if a guy's sitting in his tent and he says,
I've been bit by the fiery serpent,
but I have enough faith in this tent that God will save me.
Well, that man would have died
because God told him what to do.
If you believe God, you're going to do what God says.
Faith without works is dead.
All right, let's go.
What they believe and teach is this though,
if you really have faith, you're going to have works
because that's the evidence.
Well, let's go to the famous passage they love
to see if faith always is accompanied by works.
James 2, verse 20,
But wilt thou know, O vain man,
that faith without works is dead?
Now, this is a very famous verse they quote.
And they will quote this and say,
well, see, if you really have faith,
you're going to have works.
Then why does it say faith without works?
Faith without works,
meaning you can have faith with no works.
On the own verse they quote, yes, faith without works.
You can have faith without works.
They'll say, well, you cannot have faith without works
because the Bible says faith without works is dead.
It's like, what in the world?
It says faith without works.
It says right there that you can have faith without works.
Okay, now notice this.
It does not say faith without works sends you to hell.
It says it's dead.
It's a dead faith.
What is a dead faith?
A faith that doesn't produce works.
Let me ask you a question.
Let's say, for example, you try to turn on your computer
today after service and it won't turn on.
Try to get a fix and it won't turn on
and everything like that.
It's just not working.
Wouldn't we say that's a dead computer?
Does the computer exist?
Yes, but we'd say it's a dead computer.
Why? It's not producing anything.
Did you know that a dead faith exists?
Look, if I die right now, I have a dead body
and I'll be sitting right here, right?
I'll be lying right here.
Does that mean my body doesn't exist because it's dead?
Look, I mean, when you bury bodies
because they're a dead body, they exist.
The bodies are there.
It's just a dead body
because there's no life being produced, okay?
There's nothing being produced, but the body's still there.
A dead faith exists.
And what a dead faith means is you don't have works
accompanying your faith.
But that does not mean the faith doesn't exist, right?
People believe on Jesus Christ all the time
and don't have works.
And my proof that you can have faith without works
is the verse that they're gonna quote to you.
Faith without works.
There you go.
It does not say faith without works sends you to hell.