in the book of James, James chapter 2 and verse 14. James chapter 2 and verse 14. We'll read down to the conclusion of the chapter. Thanks to Rebecca for playing for us this morning. James chapter 2 and verse 14. What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith and have not works? Can faith, or that kind of faith, save him if a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food and one of you say unto them depart in peace be warmed and filled notwithstanding you give them not those things which are needful to the body what does it profit Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead being alone. Yea, man may say thou hast faith, and I have works. Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there 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? Sayest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. You see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers and had sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. We trust the Lord will bless the reading of his precious word to our hearts this morning. There are many people sitting in churches this very morning around this country who are not going to make it into heaven. Did you hear what I said? There are many people even sitting in churches like ours, up and down this country today, who are not going to make it into heaven. We might call them nominal Christians. Sometimes they're referred to as pew warmers. People who profess Christianity, who would mark themselves as Christian on a census form, who will even tell others perhaps that they are Christians and that they attend a church, but are no more saved than the devil himself. I wonder, are you one of them? James is insistent that genuine faith must produce genuine results. This is a book of practical Christianity. He's saying that there's a kind of faith that saves, and there's a kind of faith that does not save. There's a kind of faith which produces good works. and a kind of faith that produces nothing of real value. There's a kind of faith which is genuine and there's a kind of faith which is fake and false and hopeless. Which kind of faith do you possess this morning? Do you have saving faith? Or is yours a spurious faith? Will your faith get you to heaven? Now as we peruse the passage we've just read, keep in mind that James is not challenging the man who claims that he is saved by works. That's not his purpose. No one is saved by works. Such a man is trusting in the wrong thing. He needs to abandon his self-righteousness and put his faith and trust in the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He needs to acknowledge that Christ died for him. and that his death is sufficient to the salvation of our souls. There is no hope for you if you think to yourself, well I'll be saved by being good. Because none of us are ever going to be good enough for heaven, and none of us can excel upon what Christ has done for us. upon the cross. So that's not who James is preaching to. He's not speaking to the man who believes he is saved by works. He's challenging here an altogether different person. He's challenging the person who claims to be saved, but who lacks works. That's who he's challenging. And to illustrate his point, James does a number of things, one of which he gives us a very practical example of someone who comes into the fellowship and has a particular need and we just bless that person and say well go in peace and be warmed and so on and we wish them well and we do nothing to help them. There's the example he gives. But he particularly points us to two very well known Old Testament characters, people with saving faith. And that's what you want to think about first of all this morning, those with saving faith. James calls to mind two characters, Abraham and Rahab. One's a man, the other one's a woman. One's a Jew, the other one's a Gentile. One is the friend of God, whilst the other one is numbered among the enemies of God. One was the patriarch of Israel, the other was a prostitute. What did they have in common, these two unlikely characters? Well, they both exercised saving faith in the Lord. Let's think about Abraham this morning. And we see his story is accounted for in verses 21 to 24 of our reading. Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered Isaac, his son upon the altar, seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. You see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. Now some people would say there's a discrepancy between the theology of Paul and the theology of James. They say, well, Paul teaches salvation by grace, but James teaches salvation by works. Well, I don't think that James does teach salvation by works. You see, you've got to ask yourself as you're reading this passage, when was Abraham justified? When was Abraham declared righteous before God? Was it when he climbed up Mount Moriah with Isaac, prepared to offer up his own son? Or was it before that? Well, if you understand and if you've read the book of Genesis, you'll understand that the events on Mount Moriah take place in Genesis chapter 22. But actually, Abraham is declared righteous. in Genesis chapter 15 and verse 6. In fact, James quotes that very verse there. And he says that he believed in the Lord and he imputed it or it counted on to him for righteousness. Genesis 15, 6. And Paul says exactly the same thing in Romans chapter 4 and verse 3. He says Abraham believed God and it was counted on to him for righteousness. And the word counted there is a legal term or a financial term. It means to put to one's account. So Abraham at this juncture in Genesis 15 is absolutely spiritually bankrupt. He's got nothing to offer God and he believes the Word of God and he acts upon the Word of God and God in response causes Abraham to have new life and he imputes righteousness to Abraham's account as a gift of God. In other words, Abraham was justified by grace through faith apart from any works. But what was the evidence of Abraham's faith? How do you know that Abraham got saved? You see, people who say that James contradicts Paul say that because they fail to see that James is not referring to the moment that Abraham believed God, but rather to the moment Abraham offered up Isaac. They say, well, there's the point when he's saved. But that's not the point at all. What James is saying here is this. Was not Abraham our father shown to be justified by his works? Was he not shown to be justified by his works? Look at verse 22. He says, He's saying in effect, surely you can see that faith was at work in his actions, And that by works was his faith made perfect. And the word perfect is quite interesting in the Hebrew. It's the same word that is used in 2 Corinthians 12 and verse 9 when God says to Paul, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. What happens here is that God reveals his strength in Paul's weaknesses. Now Abraham's faith was revealed by his works. His faith was shown by real works. As one writer put it, Abraham was not saved by faith plus works, but by a faith that works. Does your faith work? Do you put your faith to work? Now the question remains in what way was Abraham then justified by works? Because certainly James says that. But in what sense is he justified by works? We've already seen in terms of declared righteousness he's justified by faith. But here's what I want you to see. By faith he was justified before God and his righteousness was declared. Now listen carefully. By his works he was justified before men and his righteousness was demonstrated. This is why we've got to be so careful sometimes when people get saved, particularly when they get saved out of very dark and sinful backgrounds. We've got to be very careful about rushing them to the platform and having them testify week in and week out. We've got to give it time. We've got to see if the faith is demonstrated. We've got to see if that profession is real. We've got to see if that person has really understood it, if they've really gotten it. Because here's the thing, friends, you could put a person like that on the platform one week, and the next week they're back out in the world where they were before. And the testimony is damaged. And so we've got to understand that by works we're justified before men. By faith we're justified before God. People won't take our testimony with any degree of credibility if our lives do not marry up with our profession. Moody says it this way, every Bible should be bound in shoe leather. In other words, he's saying our faith should have feet. We're supposed to go to work. You see, your neighbors don't read the Bible. Your unsaved neighbors, they don't read the Bible. They don't get up in the morning and open a little devotional book and say, well, what's the thought for the day? And read some scripture and some little anecdote that goes along with it. That's not what they do. The only Bible your unsaved neighbors read is you, is me. They're looking at your life and they're looking at my life and they're looking to see if there's a difference between the way we live and the way they live. They're looking to see how we deal with problems compared to how they deal with problems. They're looking to see how we treat people compared to how the world treats people. They're looking to observe and see if there is any contrast between what we say we are and what we do as we are. and how important it is, then that our life bears fruit, that we manifest works, and that we show ourselves to be Christians, not just by mere profession, but by practice. Notice verse 23. It says, And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and he was called the friend Notice that, isn't that amazing? He was called the friend of God. Now, faith introduces us to the Savior and it gives us the privilege of having the Savior as our friend, of becoming God's friend. And we usually think of this the other way around from how James has portrayed it. We usually think about the fact that the Lord is our friend. We sing, what a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. We sing the hymn, mine, mine, mine, in which the line is, thou art the sinner's friend, and I thy friendship claim. So why thy friendship claim? A sinner saved by grace. So we talk about the Lord being our friend. But here James's emphasis is not on the Lord being the friend of sinners, but of us being the friends of God. He says Abraham was called the friend of God. It doesn't say that God was called the friend of Abraham. No, Abraham was called the friend of God. For sure the Lord Jesus is our friend when we're saved, but are we his friend? Do you remember what the Savior said to his disciples? He said, You're not going to tell an employee the secrets of your heart. You're not going to let them in on your deepest confidences. He says, What a privilege it is that we have a friend in Jesus and we can take all our sins to Him and all our shame to Him and we can take all of our troubles to Him and we can share our hearts with Him and He will hear us and He will answer in accordance with His will. But understand this, He is not just our friend, but we're His friend to the degree that not just can we share our burdens with Him, but He shares His purposes and His will and His word with us. He counts us in. He counts us as His friends. That's where Abraham was. Now think about Rahab. She's described here as a harlot, a prostitute. Probably Rahab was a temple prostitute. She was a woman who was involved in the most vile forms of Canaanite worship, and she would have used her body in immorality as an act of worship. And you know, when you think about that, doesn't the grace of God reach the most unusual places and touch the most unusual and unexpected people? Isn't it remarkable how God in his grace uses people that we would never think would even become his servants? And yet here's Rahab and she's listed here alongside the patriarch Abraham as a believer. And we're not told how Rahab became a believer. We're not told anything of her testimony. We just read of her in Joshua chapter 2 and we find that all she did there was that she hid the spies. And, you know, she comes to those spies and she says to them at that point, I know that the Lord your God, He is God in heaven and in the earth beneath. In other words, she says exactly what verse 19 says in this particular passage here in James chapter 2. Her confession is very similar to this confession. Thou believest that there is one God, thou doest well. So that's her confession, or her profession. She believed in the one God of Israel. And James says here, well listen, there's two ways of looking at this. You can believe in one God and say you believe in one God, you do well. But he says the devil also believes in one God, and at least he has the decency to tremble. He says there's some of you and you say you believe in God, but it makes no difference in your life, you still live like the devil. Monday to Saturday you live for the world, you live like the world, you look like the world, you sound like the world, you walk like the world, you go the places the world goes, you have worldly responses and worldly interests and worldly hobbies and there's no difference between you and anyone else. James says you believe there's one God, you do well. The devil also believes in tramples. But Rahab believed in one God. She says to the spies, there's only one God. It's the God of Israel. I know that the Lord, your God, he is the God in heaven above and in the earth beneath. And James' argument is going like this. You know, Abraham, or no, you know, Rahab was a believer. In fact, her confession was very similar to your confession. But was it her profession that proved she was saved? Is that the proof of your salvation? Mere words. No it was not. But rather her actions were the proof of her faith. Rahab not only said she believed, but she acted in such a way as to prove that she believed. Look at verse 25. Likewise also, similar to Abraham, was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, That is, works before men, when she had received the messengers and had sent them out another way. To paraphrase that, was she not shown to be justified by her actions when she took in the spies and sent them in a different way? The confirmation of her faith was really very simple. And yet with all, she risked her life in order to save the lives of those spies who came in from the camp of Israel. And by this one deed, God considers her to have proven the reality of her faith. Now, in these two people, James sets before us two different types of person, and he gives us yet two very real proofs, or marks, if you like, of saving faith. Now, here's the marks of saving faith according to James. Obedience and courage. Obedience and courage, he says, are the marks of saving faith. Let's think about the proofs of saving faith. He talks about obedience as seen in the life of Abraham. Let's go to Genesis chapter 22. Genesis chapter 22. Now keep in mind that God did not test Abraham in Genesis 22 to see if he was a believer, but rather he's testing Abraham really to try the authenticity of his faith, to give Abraham an opportunity to express his faith in a very real and tangible way. And you pick up in chapter 22 of Genesis in verse 1, it says, It came to pass after these things that God did tempt or try abraham and said unto him abraham and he said behold here i am and he said take now thy son thine only son isaac whom thy lovest and get thee into the land of moriah and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." Now notice how the Lord speaks to him there in verse 2 and how he builds up the task. Take now thy son. Everything that Abraham hoped for, prayed for, wished for was contained in that boy. He says, take now thy son. And then he emphasizes the fact that all of his hopes rest on Isaac. And he says, thine only son. And then as if to underscore all of that, he says, whom thy lovest. The one upon whom your heart is set. He says, take him up to the Mount Moriah. That's now the hill of Calvary. And he says, and there offer him as a burnt offering. What did Abraham do? Verse three. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and cleaved the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went on to the place which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son, And he took the fire in his hand and a knife, and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father. And he said, Here am I, my son. He said, Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went both of them together, and they came to the place which God had told them of. And Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do anything unto him. For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and he looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his thorns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-Jareh. As it is said to this day, in the mount of the Lord it shall be seen. Now, I want you to think about this test this morning, this trial of Abraham. And I wonder, have you ever come to, through such an experience in your life where God, you felt, has put you to the test, where He has tried your mettle, where He's wanted to expose the authenticity of your faith? Well, here's the thing I want to remember before we get further into this and think about this, that God not only plans the length of your trials, But He plans the depth of your trials. He knows just how much you can endure. Just how much you can take. You see the crucial question here is this. Did Isaac or God hold the preeminent place in Abraham's heart? Who had the priority? Who was number one? in Abraham's life. That's what God wants to know when he puts you to a test. He wants to know if you're going to put him first, if you're going to put Christ first, or you're going to put somebody else first, or something else first. Put your job first, put your bank account first, put your pleasures and your hobbies first, put your home first. What are you going to put above the Lord? And Abraham was put to this kind of test. And I want you to notice there in verse 3, that no sooner had Abraham received the command to go up Mount Moriah and offer his son an offering there as a burnt offering, he obeyed immediately. That's what it says. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and cleaved the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up and went unto the place which God had told him. He went. He obeyed. He showed who had the priority. He accepted the Lord's command and he obeyed immediately. There was no dithering. There was no delay. His response was instant. His response was immediate. I wonder how immediate your responses are when commands of God are laid at your door. You sometimes find yourself saying this old mantra, well, I'll just have to pray about that. No, if God commanded it, you don't have to pray about it. You have to obey it. If God told you to do it, there's nothing to pray about. You do it. You do what the Lord asks of you. Or we say, well, well, I'll do it in a little while. We put it off. You know, I must confess, my wife here, she is, I must confess that sometimes Hazel will ask me to do something and I'll say, I'm coming now. But when I say I'm coming now, it really means I'm not coming now. It just means I've heard you. Usually I'm delaying, I'm delaying, I'm trying to finish something. I'll say to her, I'm coming now. I don't know if she expects me to come bouncing down then to attend or whatever it is. I think she probably knows me well enough by now to know that I'm probably not coming now. But Abraham didn't do that. He didn't say, Lord, well, I'm coming now. I'll take care of it sometime." No, he answered him instantly. He went immediately to the task. Do you know one of Satan's strategies in our lives is to have us drag our feet when we have clear commands from God. Listen, there's a clear command from God today, a command to meet around this table and to honor the Lord by means of these elements, to sit around this table and to reflect upon the death of Christ, upon his broken body, upon his shed blood. The Bible tells us where to do that. Jesus commanded us to do that. And yet with all, many of us won't do it. We'll go home between services and head out the door and never sit at the table. If you're a Christian, you're commanded to be at the table. You should be at the table. You say, I'm not right with the Lord. Well, get right with the Lord. Get right with the Lord. There's no sense of righteousness in walking out still not right with the Lord. You should get right with the Lord. And let me say this, sometimes I think, and I say this kindly, sometimes I think that those of you who have young children are leaving to spare the rest of the congregation perhaps from disruption during the Lord's table. I understand that, I get that, I appreciate that. But here's the thing, I would rather your children were in the service, and observing you as parents partaking of the table, because God has given you a super object lesson in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. At what point do you introduce your children to communion, to the concept of communion, to the idea of the Lord's table? Are you going to wait until they're teenagers and say, now you can come in, as though we're some kind of secret society? No. Have your little ones sit beside you. You say, Pastor, they'll make a noise. Good. I don't care if they make a noise. I'd rather hear those noises, those little ones in the congregation. I'd rather have them there by your side, watching you partake in the Lord's table. And so is when you go home, they say, well, what was that all about? And you have an opportunity to explain. But God has commanded us, Christ has commanded us to observe the table. We've a clear command from God to be baptized. That's right at the heart of the Great Commission. were called upon to be immersed as believers. Do you remember when Peter led the entire family and household of Cornelius to Christ? Right after they trusted the Lord, the Bible says, Peter commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Right there, right then, they were commanded to be baptized. You know, we've got into a place now in this time and in Baptist churches where you've got to agonize over the matter of baptism and you've got to go and pray about it and have six or seven or eight or nine weeks of counseling and get ready as if somehow or other we're going to do some terrible thing to you. Listen, be baptized! Jesus calls you to be baptized. You say, well, I'm afraid of the water. Listen. I don't know how many people I've baptized, but you have my word before the Lord, none of them have ever drowned. None of them. I've never conducted a funeral of somebody who drowned in the baptismal tank. It's never happened. Now, there could be a first. And some people I may have liked to have drowned, but I've never drowned any. And I don't know any other pastor who's ever drowned anyone. I've never sat around with pastors and they said, you'll never guess what happened to me yesterday. What? I was doing a baptism, drowned a person. There's never a conversation that's taken place. You say, I'm afraid of water. I guarantee you, you'll go home alive. Unless you have a heart attack or something. No, no, no, that's no excuse. You do what the Lord commands you to do. You do what's right. You see, that's the test. Is your faith authentic? We want to know. God wants to know. We've a clear command to be a witness. The Great Commission isn't an option in our lives. The sharing of Christ isn't something we can pick and choose. No opportunity has afforded us where to open our mouths and speak of the Lord and talk to others of Christ. Are we obedient immediately to the Lord? What have you done with the Lord's commands today? Notice Abraham not only believed immediately and instantly, but he obeyed believingly. Think of it. With the mountain of sacrifice now looming in the distance, Abraham was able to focus on worshipping the Lord and trusting in his ability to raise the dead. In fact, Hebrews 11, 19 tells us that because Abraham believed that God had the power to raise the dead, even though no one had been raised from the dead at that point, because Abraham believed that God had the power to raise the dead, he was quite satisfied to sacrifice his own son Isaac, knowing that all of the promises of God rested in that young man. He was quite happy to sacrifice him, believing that God would be faithful to his word, and that even if Isaac was put to death, God would raise him from the dead in order to keep his word. That's called believing faith. It would be well said that faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible, and receives the impossible. Well that's what Abraham did that day. I wonder, do we do that? Notice he obeyed immediately. If you look there in verse 3, it's very clear how meticulous he was in his preparations. He saddled his ass, he cleaved the wood, he built an altar, he bound Isaac, he took the knife. He didn't shrink from one single detail and God blessed him and rewarded him for it. This is what James is referring to when he says, Was not Abraham our father justified by works? In other words, did he not prove the reality of his faith when it offered his son Isaac upon the altar? Is your faith real? Is your faith marked by instant and faithful and wholehearted obedience? Is God challenging you, maybe even this morning, in some way that he challenged Abraham years ago? Is he testing your priorities? Is he saying to you today, listen, who comes first in your life? Who comes first? I'm going to tell you something, God will never settle for second place. He'll never take a happy second. God always wants the priority. Obedience is proof of saving faith, but courage is proof of saving faith. If we go back to James in chapter 2 and verse 25, And we look very briefly at the life of Rahab. And it says, likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works. Just as Abraham was, this patriarch was not. This prostitute also justified by works when she had received the messengers and had sent them out another way. Here's a woman who proved the reality of her faith by an act of courage. Rahab didn't just say she believed, she showed she believed. She didn't just say it, she showed it. And she showed it by jeopardizing her life. When she welcomed the spies into her home, and protected them, and hid them, and then sent them out a different way so as they would not be captured. True saving faith cannot be hidden for long. She demonstrated the reality of her faith by works, and those works took courage. You know, when the world wants you to adapt to its standards, when the world presses you to accept its worldview, when the world leans upon you to enjoy its pleasures, to live by its morals, how do you respond? Do you capitulate and compromise? Do you give in and surrender for the sake of popularity or peace? Or do you stand tall like Mordecai, like Daniel, like Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, like Stephen before the council of the Sanhedrin? Do you stand tall and say, you know what? Do what you will and say what you will, but I'm standing for the Lord. And I'm not going the way of the world. I'm not going to do the things that you're pressurizing me to do. I'm not going to be the person you want me to be. And I'm not going to say things that you want me to say. It takes courage. Especially today. In this world that is supposedly progressive. If ever there was a misnomer, there's one. Progressive. It's actually a world that's regressive. It's not a world that's going forwards. It's a world that's going backwards. It's a world that's going back to the time of Lot. It's a world that's going back to the days of Noah, days of violence and corruption. It's a world that is not progressing. It's a world that is regressing. It's not a world that is heading toward a utopia. It's a world that is heading toward the sure and certain judgment of a holy God. And in this day and hour, we need men and women who will stand for the truth and be a signpost for Jesus and say, I don't care what way the world is going. This is the way I'm going. That's what Rahab did. And I wonder, have you the courage to stand up to the crowd? Have you the courage to stand out from the crowd? Have you the courage to be counted for Christ? Are you counted for Christ in your workplace? Are you counted for Christ in your school class? Are you counted for Christ in your home? Are you counted for Christ in your community? Are you standing up and being counted for Jesus? Rahab did that. God says that showed that she was really saved. She had the courage of her convictions. Can you say as Joshua said, you choose this day whom you will serve. Were the gods which your father served that were on the other side of the floods, or the God of the Amorites in whose land you dwell, but as for me and my house, well listen, we will serve the Lord. Now what's the principle of saving faith? Here it is in a nutshell, verse 26. Saving faith always reveals itself by good works. Saving faith always reveals itself by good works. You know morticians. We have in our society people who are employed as morticians. They're very skilled, they're very able at beautifying and preserving dead bodies. And they do this by trying to make them look as lifelike as possible. I met a young woman some years ago in a church someplace, I can't remember where, but that was her job. She was a beautician. She beautified women during the week and she beautified corpses at the weekends. She went down and dressed people up when they were passed away. You know, as a pastor, I've seen many corpses over the years. And you know, when you're viewing bodies like that, and we have that custom in our society where sometimes you have a body viewing, you're looking at the corpse, people sometimes say the funniest things. One of my favorites is, doesn't he look himself? Like, well, who else is he gonna look? It's a bad time to dress him up like Elvis. Of course he's gonna look himself. But my favorite one of all is, and people say this all the time, Pastor, doesn't he look well? And I'm dying to say, well, he's dead. How sick have you got to be? You don't get much sicker than this. Of course, I'm usually polite, and I go, yeah, yeah, he looks well. But it's this kind of silly thing we say. Perhaps we're trying to temper the pain of our grief in that moment when we say that. But what's true physically is also true spiritually. People whose faith is dead sometimes should try to make up for it by acting like they're alive, by going to church, by singing the hymns, by saying amen at the end of the prayers, by dressing up nice on Sundays, by carrying your Bible, by doing religious things. You're dressing up a corpse. But the reality is, you're dead. There's no life in you. If there's no works, if your Christian life's not producing anything, you're dead. You're dead. I might say, well, you look well. Other people might say, doesn't he look well? Doesn't she look well? But the Lord might look at you from heaven and say, well, actually, that person's dead. You know, in the ancient world, when someone died or appeared to be dead, they would take a little mirror And they would hold it under that person's nose. And if there was a little bit of condensation marked on the mirror, then they would know that that person was alive, no matter how shallow their breath may have been. But if there was no condensation on the mirror, then they assumed and believed that person to be dead and they buried them. James does here exactly the same thing. Here's what he does. He takes the mirror that is God's word. And he holds it under our nose. And he says, is there any sign of life in you? Is there any mark of Christianity in you? Is there anything in you that would tell your neighbors that you're a Christian beside your profession? Is there anything real about you? If there are works, if our lives are different, If we're serving and doing so for the glory of Christ, if we're loving and loving for the glory of Christ, if we're showing the fruit of the Spirit because the Spirit is at work in us, then there are condensation marks on the mirror, so to speak. But if there's nothing there, dead. You're dead. Abraham and Rahab demonstrated life. The reality of their faith by their works. What does your life say about you? What does your life really say about your faith? Forget what your lips say. What does your life say? Is your faith genuine? Are you real or not? Are you authentic or not? Are you alive or are you dead? Is your faith active or inactive? Do you have a faith that works? Because friends, listen, if you don't have a faith that works, whatever kind of faith you have, it's not the kind of faith that will take you to heaven. May God bless these thoughts to your hearts this morning.