False Faith (Part 1 of 2)

The if you've ever believed something that later found was untrue. You know that lives off and leave a cradle of damage in their wake today on Truth for Life will find out why self-deception may actually be the most dangerous and damaging deception of all Alistair Beggs teaching part one of a message titled false faith invite you to turn to James and chapter 2 read from verse 14 as we pick up our studies this very practical and somewhat uncomfortable letter of James, at least so far. James chapter 2 in verse 14. What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds can such faith save him.

Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food, if one of you says to him go. I wish you well. Keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it in the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. Father as we turn to the Bible. What we know not teach us what we have not given us what we are not make us for your son's sake. Amen. Who would've thought that the 21st century would prove to be as dangerous as it is the end of the 20th century with the absence of the Cold War with the dismantling of certain nuclear threats. The word on certain people's lips, was that we now have things under control that there is no real need for further fear and that we're going to tackle a dangers in the streets as well as dangers in high places. Of course, none of that has proved to be the case.

The reverse is proved true. We live in a world that is increasingly perilous. It is significantly tumultuous and it is a mark of human existence that men and women's lives are as fearful as they are. If you simply Google 21st-century dangers and you will be able to spend the remainder of the day working your way through the high sounding academic papers, and various dissertations related to the fact of these dangers dangers that are part and parcel of terrorism confront us by the advances in technology, not least of all in the medical realm which make it possible to extend life and therefore to give it the die llama ethical dilemmas. The factor of disease itself. They renewed threats of nuclear holocaust as the major superpowers dismantle things and smaller powers avail themselves of them.

Indeed, if one wasn't careful and didn't have a Bible to read and didn't know that God was sovereign over the events of life, one might be tempted to curl up in a ball and simply relieve oneself of the pressures of our daily life.

But the reason I begin.

There is because as real as those dangers are and as significant as those issues may be all of them individually or taken together, pale in comparison to the danger addressed by James in these verses. What is that danger. It is this the danger of having a faith that is false. Three times in the space of 13 verses he makes it very very clear. First of all, in verse 17.

Faith by itself is dead. Verse 20 faith without deeds is useless. Verse 26 faith without deeds is dead. In other words, he sounds a warning note that has hints of Jesus words in Matthew seven. You may recall that in Matthew seven in the sermon on the Mount.

At one point Jesus says to those who are listening.

Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my father who is in heaven.

In other words, it is distinctly possible to be self deceived and to be self deceived in the issue of faith is of eternal significance. James is not unique in this respect other gospel writers. Other writers of the New Testament letters do the same thing.

For example, at the end of second Corinthian Janine turned to it. I'll read it for you. In two Corinthians 13 five Paul issues this great expectation examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you, unless of course you feel the test is he doesn't simply assume that might not be very kind in actual fact it is exceptionally kind. What would be unkind is to have such a presumption, and such an ass assumption as to sweep every follows professor into the notion that because they have an interest in and involvement with faith at whatever level they must somehow or another be part and parcel of God's forever kingdom now in the context of the opening chapter in some of this is reaching back in order that we might set the context whiter for ourselves as we returned to our studies. But if you look at verse 22 of chapter 1 James has reminded his readers that it is distinctly possible simply to listen to the word, and so deceive themselves. The danger of self-deception by simply coming along and listening. Whether it is listening to the teacher in the synagogue or whether it is listening to the one who brings the news of Jesus to bear upon their thinking and having made this distinction, he proceeds in verse 26 to address the individual who considers himself or herself as religious.

If anyone considers himself religious as James and yet doesn't have a controlled tongue.

Remember, doesn't have a compassionate heart doesn't have a clean life then they might want to take the test again just to consider one's self, within the framework is not sufficient, and James because he loves those to whom he writes warns them of what is a clear and present danger.

He also goes on to say that if you are a bunch of snobs. That's a paraphrase, but he says if you are a bunch of snobs. If you prefer people because of their color or their background or their intelligence or their wealth or the absence of the essay, then you need to take the test all over again to because the fact that you consider yourself to be a religious person I get. There is no evidence of that religious expression in the life of God work out in your community demands that you face the danger verse 14 of chapter 2. He's advancing the ball a little farther. What good is it, he says, my brothers, it might be equally my brothers and sisters.

What good is it, brothers and sisters, if anyone of you claims to have faith claims to have is very important that you read the Bible as it is there and and and it helps you that the King James. If you're using it is confusing on this because it seems to be setting faith against deeds is not what he's doing.

What good is it, my brother, if a man claims to have faith and has no deeds in such a faith save him. What kind of faith a professed faith that is false know when I find myself in my study, saying out loud false faith.

I realize I made a note to myself. Make sure when you say that that you articulated as best you can, because it may come out wrongly, it would be easy for it to get jumbled on the way out and it made me think of what it would like to say false face. If one had a lit because false face comes out as follows faith.

I see you have a false faith false face. If you have a list. This is not to embarrass anyone who has a list is just to let you into the way my mind works and so I sat for a little while at my desk going false faith, but that's a false faith, not a false face and so on. But what intrigued for me was a recollection deep in my past and that wasn't Halloween in Scotland.

Please don't write to me about Halloween, but I'd Halloween at Halloween in Scotland we would go to the store and we would buy naught a mass but I'll false face. That's what we asked for and it was a little plastic phase may be Mickey Mouse or Minnie mouse or whatever was in an elastic band behind it with the two things it actually was the same year and you and you wore that no one thought for a moment that you were Mickey Mouse you are seeking to conceal the reality of what was behind by the falsity of what was before but everybody could tell there was no real is real reason for alarm. But while that distinction is patently obvious and harmless.

James is alerting his readers to a distinction that may not be so patently obvious and is actually incredibly harmful. He is addressing the possibility the danger which is attached to that which closely resembles the real thing but still experience it is fake. It is false, it is dead when my friends in Michigan last year was so excited because he was going to the Chicago Bears to to see them play in in Chicago and although he and his English friend had no tickets for the game. They were delighted to let me know that they knew where to go in Chicago and a you could find these tickets and really good ones. Even, you know, three hours before the game and he proceeded to purchase tickets at significant cost which given magnificent seats. He put them in his pocket and went to brunch brunch is the eight and look forward to the game. They congratulated one another on how smart they were not to have gone through the routine channels, but to have been able to pick up these magnificent tickets when they presented them at the turnstile gentleman said please come with me and he drew him into a side room and the policeman I gave them the 9th� on where they had purchased these tickets because they were false and there would be no entry into the stadium on their basis.

Big deal.

So you miss a football game, but if you think if I think that we can, as it were present a false statement of faith in the entry way to heaven and have it accepted were not reading our Bibles.

That's what makes this so significant. That's why this danger is so real I don't think there would be many in this congregation right now who are in danger of thinking that by certain good deeds that we might do that we would find acceptance with God, we might be devoid of that danger.

And of course that's good, but we may be dangerously unaware of the possibility of seeking to take refuge in a faith that is false.

Thomas mentioned in an earlier generation referred to it as that little something that looks like religion and he went on to describe the individual who appears in charge at the summons of the bell to repeat words because others do the same to hear what is delivered from the pool but with little attention or affection unless something occurs that is suited to exalt itself or to soothe conscience and then run with eagerness back out the door and into the world again is amazingly up-to-date. Isn't it here is hundreds of years before saying the thing that I'm facing in my congregation is this that I have a vast crowd of people who come many of them listen, with very little attention and very little affection. The only way you can get them to listen. He says if you will exist is if you will exalt their self-esteem or if you will seek to sue their conscience and our words in 21st-century terms, if you will tell them that they're great and if you will tell them that they're okay. Why are there arenas this morning in the continental United States with 30,000 people in them listening to preaching.

I'll tell you why because the preaching says two things over and over again.

You are great and you are okay. And James says no we are not and if somebody tells you that you are you better be aware of that individual. Take the test. He says what good is it if a man claims to have faith and there is no evidence in his life. Can that faith save him from hell. It's a rhetorical question and answer is categorically no, it can. I know I won't.

You see why it's so dangerous to be in the place where the Bible is taught.

Why is so dangerous to be in a church where the pastors make an honest endeavor to teach the gospel to explain that who Jesus is and what he has done is the basis of forgiveness and our only hope of heaven and to press upon men and women, the need to trust in that Jesus do realize that there is less significance in the opposition of a pagan then there is in the lawlessness of a false professor who has just a little something resembling the real thing after quote Manson is to recognize that this is not a unique and pressing contemporary problem. It's been true in every generation.

The presence of people within the framework of the external church who profess to be believers, but who are not genuine believers in here in the United States.

We have vast numbers of individuals in inflated church memberships, claiming that because they had some point in their lives, raise their hand or walked on island trusted Christ, they are genuinely in Christ there is no interest in the Bible, no zeal for their unsaved friends and neighbors no call to holy life. In fact, they are indiscriminately the same as they are non-Christian friends. What is the Bible say about will resemble the right of the Hebrews is very clear.

He says that God disciplines his children and he says if you are not disciplined, then your illegitimate children and not true children.

Who is he writing to. He's writing to the framework of the church in the same to them. You better make sure where you stand in relationship to these things and James having listen so clearly to his brother Jesus on so many occasions. Initially without being a believer comes to the same issue himself, but I think our contemporary circumstances at a little touch of lying to this one. When you think about what we are confronted with on a daily basis in the media example the need. We are told for everybody to have equal respect for every quote faith community and a preparedness to listen often without reservation to each person tell us about their faith journey faith, in whom faith in walked faith in faith itself. In other words, everything is validated on the basis of the notion of faith per se that is not what the Bible is talking about concerning faith here what James is talking about is saving faith. It is faith in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is the faith which brings a man or a woman into the confidence that although I have no basis upon which to stand before God that because of what God has done in Jesus and because I have come by his grace to entrust myself to Jesus that it is this then which forms the basis of my acceptance with God and it is in my lifestyle that I give evidence of the basis for my faith when we study the end of acts and we look to Paul constantly defending the faith and finally going up before Agrippa in the presence of Festus and I it is it does your heart good just to reread Paul and defending the faith in all of these things before Festus and Agrippa and Felix and so on and is in acts 26 in case you want to read it for homework. Paul is right in the in the midst of his expression of of faith and in Jesus and at this point. Luke says Festus interrupted Paul's defense, you're out of your mind Paul.

He shouted your great learning is driving you insane. I'm not insane, most excellent Festus.

Paul replied what I'm saying is true, and reasonable, and then he draws the king in.

He says the king probably pointing to them to Agrippa. The king is familiar with these things and I can speak freely to him. I'm convinced that none of this has escape his notice. You know you may not be getting a Festus, but I'm sure Agrippa is coming right along with because none of it is being done in a corner and then he addresses the king directly and he says King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets, I know you do. And the king says do you think that in such a short time, you can persuade me to become a Christian seat. Agrippa understood exactly what Paul was saying. Paul was not sick. Do you believe the prophets do have some kind of faith that's terrific. That's terrific when you could take some faith-based initiatives in your kingdom. Maybe you can describe your faith journey to a few people at a garden party or sonic made. Maybe you could you establish a little faith community. No, no, Agrippa gets it clear I know we are trying to do. Paul you are trying to get me to believe in this Jesus of Nazareth and poses as exactly what I'm trying to do. Why because there is no saving faith outside of Jesus of Nazareth seat is entirely logical given the thesis and that's why James recognizes if I write to these people and they believe that simply because they're saying the same words singing the same songs doing the same things that somehow or another they are in the faith, and they're not, I will answer to God on the day of judgment and their blood will be on my hands out of the prophets in the Old Testament we see in the Bible but not everyone who professes faith in Jesus actually has living saving faith timely warning from Alastair Berg about the danger of silk deception listing to Truth for Life. Today we want to invite you to help the next generation nurture a living saving faith. If you have a student in your family who may be, is headed off to college, how about including a copy of the new city catechism in their next care package.

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We want to recommend to you a book titled little pilgrims big journey part two this is an adaptation of John Bunyan's book, the Pilgrim's progress part two. If you're not familiar with the fact that Bunyan wrote a sequel to the original Pilgrim's progress. Part two is about a character named Christiana like Christian in the first book she undertakes her own challenging journey to the celestial city as part two story has now been retold for children. Your kids will enjoy the adventure of this captivating allegory the teachers about the ups and downs of the Christian life.

If you request a copy of little pilgrims big journey part one which we offered on Truth for Life. Earlier this year. Don't miss requesting the SQL. Your children will love this next adventure little pilgrims big journey. Part two comes with a coloring book sure to request both when you give a donation to Truth for Life. Just click the image on our app or visit Truth for Life.org/donate or if you prefer you can call us at 888-588-7884 and Bob Lapine. How can you be sure that your faith is genuine.

Saving faith will find out tomorrow. The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Learning is for Living