So we saw about Abraham offering up Isaac.
That was not his salvation, but that was how he was justified before man.
And by the way, that's why that, remember that verse that I said was the confusing verse
in James 2 where it said, "Ye see then how that by works a man is justified and not by
faith only."
Here's the key word, how.
See, if you remove how, it would say, "Ye see then that a man is justified by works and
by faith."
You know, that's not what it says.
It doesn't say, "Ye see then how that by works a man."
You see then that by works a man is justified.
You see how.
What does how mean?
In what way?
Now you see in what way a man is justified by works.
And what is that way?
Before man, not before God.
Now you see how a man is justified by works.
It's not before God.
It's not salvation.
And a lot of people will say this, they'll say, "Well, everybody who has faith is automatically
going to have works."
Have you heard that?
"Well, faith without works is dead, so therefore if you don't have any works, that means you
don't even have any faith in the first place."
Here's what's interesting, you know, this Bible, it has some notes in it.
Now I prefer to have a Bible that's just the Bible, like my favorite Bibles just have the
text of God's Word.
But you know how a lot of Bibles, they'll have little notes and references and like
a study Bible?
Well, in this Bible that I'm preaching out this morning, it has a little three paragraph
introduction to the book of James, okay?
And listen to what it says, "Faith without works cannot be called faith."
What you just did, when you said faith without works, you just called it faith.
"Faith without works cannot be called faith.
A dead faith is worse than no faith at all."
I mean, it's just making stuff.
That's why you need to just read the Bible and ignore this dumb introduction.
Okay, but what I'm saying is that people will say, "Well, faith is always accompanied by
works."
Okay, then basically the statement faith without works is dead is meaningless.
What he should say is faith without works doesn't exist.
Wouldn't that make more sense?
I mean, if faith is always associated by works, wouldn't it make more sense to just say faith
without works does not exist?
Is that what he said?
No.
In fact, let's actually understand the intent that James chapter 2 has.
Who is it talking to?
Every chapter except one in the book of James, four of the five chapters starts out with
the term, you know, "my brethren."
You know, he starts out, "my brethren" in James 1 verse 2, James 2 verse 1, "my brethren,"
James 3 verse 1, "my brethren," James all throughout just "my brethren, my brethren,
my brethren."
He's constantly, and even in James 2, halfway through he gives another "my brethren."
You know, we're talking to the saved.
We're talking to believers.
And when he talks to the believers, here's what he says to them.
He's telling the believers, "You need to get some works to go with your faith."
Now listen, if faith just automatically produced works, he wouldn't even have to say that because
it'd be automatic.
It doesn't even make sense.
They're missing the whole point of the passage.
The whole point of the passage is to show your faith by your works and not to just sit
around, "Oh, I have faith."
Do the work because he's talking to people that are already saved.
And then people will try to turn James 2 into a salvation passage.
When James 2 is a get to work passage for people that are already saved.
Be like Abraham and don't just get saved like he did at age 75.
Go out and do the work at age 130.
And when we see the book of John, the only book in the Bible that even claims to tell...
I mean, obviously every book of the Bible, you know, you can learn about salvation.
Every book.
Because all the prophets give witness to the fact that whosoever believeth in him might
receive remission of sins.
So obviously every book deals with salvation.
But the one book that even claims to be a book to tell you how to get saved is the book
of John.
So these things are written that you might believe.
And what does he say over and over again?
Believe, believe, believe, believe, believe, John 3 16, John 1 12, you know, and then James
talking to people that are already saved, telling them, hey, you need to get off your
rear end and get to work.
And then people are going to say, oh, that's that that's teaching work salvation.
No, wrong.
But anyway, let's let's finish up here in Hebrews 11.