Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Ep. 233 - True Saving Faith

Transcript

Ep. 233 - True Saving Faith · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:04
  Speaker 1: If you don't have that faith, I mean you're trusting in your own works, because there's nothing left.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: It's one or the other.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: You're either trusting in God, the object of your faith, and it's not about our great faith, it's the object of our faith.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: So either the object of your faith is yourself or it's God.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: And if it's yourself, well then it's done by the law.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: You have to achieve, you have to attain, you have to lay on beds of nails, you have to knock on doors, you have to memorize religious rites.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: But when it's grace alone, through faith alone, by Christ alone, which is revealed in scripture, alone to the glory of God alone, we realize that no one can boast in the presence of God.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: God is the God of the world.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Give Papa a cup of proper coffee and a copper coffee cup.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: It's like bitty bottle, eat a bottle.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: Bit a bit, a bit a bottle.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: A big black bug bit a big black bear, A flea and a fly flew up in a flu.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: Is this alliteration?
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: Is that what it's called Tongue twisters?
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, a happy hippo hop, then hiccup.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: The number one according to the Guinness Book of Records, is the sleek sheep, slick sheep, slick, sleek, sleek sheep.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: Like it's the hardest one to say yeah.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: I can't say it.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: Can you say it right?
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: The six sleek sheep, sick?
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: I think that was it.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: I got nothing you did.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: I don't even know what you just said.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: It's an Arab sheep, he's got a sheep and it's sleek and it's sick.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Why didn't you say that I couldn't be better?
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I liked that one.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: I was trying to find it because you probably said it wrong, Ray.
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: I hear the wood one.
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: How much wood would a woodchuck if a woodchuck woodchuck woodchuck woodchuck?
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: As much wood as a woodchuck if a woodchuck woodchuck woodchuck?
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Ah, man, I was so close.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: You know what.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: I've shared it before, but it's a good reprisal for the Arabic one Sit-to-sit-tock-bel-ham-am and me sit-to-dab-it-sit-tock-fi, sit-to-dab-it-sit-tock-fi, sit-to-dab-it-sit-tock-fi, sit-to-dab-it-sit-tock-fi, sit-to-dab-it-sit-tock-fi, sit-to-dab-it-sit-tock-fi.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: It's my grandma and your grandma in the bathroom.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: That's so true.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: Why do Arabs?
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: do stuff like that oh man Wild man, that's what it means in scripture.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah A synonym for cinnamon is a cinnamon synonym.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: That's a good one.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: All right, friends, enough of that stupidity.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Here is a comment from Chrissy 3.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Having fun learning the Bible.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: This is great.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: They really make learning the Bible so fun and interesting, which is so important.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: They really draw you in.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Once you start listening, you can't stop.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Great group of blessed men teaching us and helping us get closer to our Father in Heaven.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Thank you guys so much.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: I truly appreciate it.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: This is great.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: Please, you can't stop quite often.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: I can't Someone help me?
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Stop, mark, how are you?
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: What are you watching?
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: on your computer.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: What are you doing, Mark?
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at the tongue twisters.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: Now I'm looking at tongue twisters because I got nothing.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: We've moved on, man, we've moved on.
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah that's the way I work though Did you find the sleep?
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: Six, no, but I saw Betty Potter bought some butter but she said the butter's bitter.
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: If I put in my batter it will make my batter bitter, but a bit of better butter will make my batter better.
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: So it was better, Betty, but her body bit of better butter.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: Ray, have you not memorized that that?
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: was smooth.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: No, that was great, yeah, smooth operator.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: All right, friends.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: This podcast is brought to you by.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Faith is for weak people, responding to the top 20 objectives to the Bible.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Who wrote that book?
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: Good one.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Ray name.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: One thing from that book five, four, three, two one.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: H1.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: That was really good.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Make sure to check it out, friends, and along with the Living Waters among the evidence study Bible all at livingwaterscom.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Oscar, should we pay you for that contribution?
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: I think you do.
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's true, I forgot.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's true, I forgot.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Well, friends, we are, yes, continuing.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: I know maybe you're thinking I want this to be over now.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: I'm sure, I'm sure, like a dentist visit.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: Oh, the only podcast is like a dentist visit.
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: Get it over.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you're enjoying the what is the Gospel series.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: This is the fifth episode.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: You've heard who is God?
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: The fall of man, jesus of Nazareth, grace alone, of course, probably with different titles in the podcast platform.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: And today we're going from grace to faith.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: This is Faith Alone.
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: Welcome to Faith Alone, our fifth installment of the series what is the Gospel?
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: My name is Oscar Navarro and I have with me Easy Mark Spence and the infamous Ray Comfort.
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: Welcome, guys.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having us, Oscar.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: It was very kind of you to give us this gracious invitation.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's great to be here, oscar, infamous, infamous, that sounds familiar for me.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what you said.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: My mother said about someone.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm happy to be here.
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: Likewise.
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: Thank you, guys.
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: I have nine questions laid out for us in regards to the series title or, I'm sorry, the title of today's discussion Faith Alone.
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: Let's get right into it.
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: Question number one since we just got off of Grace Alone, I thought it'd be important to explain the difference.
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: What is the difference between grace and faith?
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: Well, I think faith is the cube that delivers the oxygen, that saves.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: Grace saves us, and it comes to us by faith.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: That's what I think.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: What do you think, mark?
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: I love your analogies, ray.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: There's nobody like you when it comes to I mean that's great, you're brilliant, I absolutely love it.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: You know, grace is God's unmerited favor to the infinitely ill deserving.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: We start speaking of soligratia, that it is grace alone, that you cannot add anything to it, that it's unmerited, it's undeserved, it is a gift from God.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: And then we begin to dissect that, if you would like, ray's talking about solifidae, it is faith, faith alone.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Now, faith, faith in whom?
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Faith is a beautiful word because when we begin to dissect this word, it is the end of self.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: The reason why this is going to become so important in our discussion here today is because it is going to strip away any and all false religions using this word alone, because all of man-made religion will try to add to that grace.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: I mean Mormon, as we talked about, that we are saved by grace plus all that you can do yes, after all that you can do.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Then we'll throw in a little mixture of grace, but with faith it's completely different.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Faith is trusting in someone else entirely.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: So, though we receive grace as an unmerited, undeserved gift, faith, as Ray is talking here, is the vehicle by which God delivers that grace to us.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: And obviously it's summarized in Ephesians 2, 8 through 9, 4 by grace you've been saved through faith, and that's where that vehicle comes in.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: It's been described, I think best, as faith being the jump from the high-rise building that's burning into the net.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: That is the grace of God.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: It's the net that saves you.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: He's just trying to beat my analogy.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: That's all these trends.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Well, you know I mean, when you got it, you got it, but you know, so it's yeah, it's the jump, it's the demonstration of trust in that net that is your salvation.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: And even that, I believe, is Ephesians 2, 8, 9 tells us, is a gift of God and is something that only God, through His Spirit, can do in us.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, If you don't have that faith, I mean you're trusting in your own works, because there's nothing left.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: It's one or the other.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: You're either trusting in God, the object of your faith, and it's not about our great faith, it's the object of our faith.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: So either the object of your faith is yourself or it's God.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: And if it's yourself, well then it's done by the law.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: You have to achieve, you have to attain, you have to lay on beds of nails, you have to knock on doors, you have to memorize religious rites.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: But when it's grace alone, through faith alone, by Christ alone, which is revealed in Scripture, alone to the glory of God alone, we realize that no one can boast in the presence of God.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: And I really like that.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: I think I love the way it says in Book of Romans, chapter 4, verse 1 of the book.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: It says Abraham staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, being fully persuaded that we're God of promise.
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: He's able to just perform.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: Abraham's faith gave glory to God.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: A young man came to see me once.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: He says, ray, you're a man of great faith in God.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: And it sounds like a compliment, but it wasn't a compliment.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: It's like someone coming to me and say, ray, you've got great faith in your wife.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: Who's the compliment, to me or my wife?
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: It's to my wife.
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: If I've got great faith in her.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: I trust in her integrity.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: She's honest, you can rely on her and when we have great faith in God, the glory is given to God.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: Abraham staggered not at the promise of God, strong in faith, giving glory to God through his faith in him.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: So I think there's a huge misunderstanding, especially among the unsaved, as to what faith is.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: Do you have faith in God?
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I believe that he exists.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: No, we're talking about trusting his integrity.
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: You know what?
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: Let's get into that, because that's the next question.
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: Then let's define faith.
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: What is faith?
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: Faith is the substance of assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: Hebrews 11, 1,.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: I think yes, so yeah.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Mark.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Well, people have defined it differently.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: I mean there's so many colloquialisms out there.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: You know faith has just simply taken God at His word.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: You know Tozer said faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: You know all of these will begin to work when you begin to deal with, within the realm of soteriology, in the study of salvation, it's merely trusting God, taking Him at His word, that he initiated and he's going to complete, that everything belongs to Him.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: That it's not of work, so you can't boast.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: It has to be completely upon the finished work of Christ on the cross.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: And it was received and it was accepted because we know that he rose from the dead.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: You know some people say I find just so hard to have faith, and they don't realise they're insulting God.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: If I said the same thing to them, I'd just find it so hard to have faith in you.
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: They'd probably smack me in the face.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: And yet they think it's okay to say I find it hard to have faith in God, probably because he's not seen.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: But he's got His promises he's given to us and we exercise faith every day.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: When the doctor gives you a couple of pills, he says, take these every two hours.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: You don't say, well, I want them dissected and checked on our microscope so you're not trying to kill me.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: You have faith.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: You trust your life to a doctor.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: You trust your life to a pilot.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: Every time you're getting a plane you trust your life to a taxi driver.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: You don't know that he's not going to go crazy.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: And so even in here we're sitting on stores, trusting ourselves to stores.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: So everything we do is inherently connected to faith.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: Even having breakfast, you put milk on your cornflakes.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: You're trusting there's no glass in the milk.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: That's been stringently made, and same with the cornflakes and everything you've got.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: Everything you do is mingled with faith.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: And when we talk about faith in God, we're talking about trusting in His promises.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: And you know the word faith has been so diluted by the world.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: You hear it mentioned in songs.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: In fact, earlier today it was just running through my mind.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: You've got to have faith.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: The faith, the faith.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've never heard that one.
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: Never heard of that one.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's the guy that died.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: What's his name?
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: He did George Michael.
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: Yes, that's right yeah.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know it's thrown around.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: You've got to have faith.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: You know, believe, keep the faith.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: There are so many kind of Go and wash your faith leash.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: It's obscure right.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: You have hope and hope, and there's no substance.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Faith without an object is completely and utterly void and bankrupt.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: So faith is a total, complete trust and abandonment to the object of your faith.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: And in our case, as Christians, when we're talking about faith in the salvific sense, it's faith in the fact.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Salvific oh, is that a new word?
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: for you.
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: That's beautiful, yeah, isn't that?
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: beautiful Salvific in the sense of our redemption.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: It's total, complete, absolute trust in the finished work of Christ.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: And you think about what Paul talks about in Romans as it relates to Abraham.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: You know he believed God and that faith was accounted to him as righteousness, and so that's what it comes down to.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: And this is important, I think, to point out as well, because there's so much debate and controversy, as Mark said, in the soteriological realm of how did God move, how does God save, and so on and so forth, and Christians debate vigorously over this.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: But we can't forget what scripture says in regards to how even faith is a gift given to us by God and acts.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: It talks about how those who are appointed to eternal life believed.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: And we can get into the minutiae of how God works specifically in his sovereign hand and will, and so forth, but the bottom line is we understand that salvation is a work of God and that even that faith is preconditioned upon God working in the lives of people and his appointing to salvation.
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: I love that scripture doubles down on it.
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: It's a grace and it's faith and both are a gift.
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: It's like a double down.
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: This is by God's work and God's work alone.
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: I wanted to point out that the discussion over what faith is, you know, you guys pointed out really well that there's confusion and there's different meanings going around our culture today and unfortunately nothing has changed.
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: This is a part of the huge argument during the Reformation against the Roman Catholic Church, and the reformers, looking through the scriptures, found three defining qualities about what specifically a saving faith requires, and you guys touched on, I think, two of them already.
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: First is faith and knowledge.
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: Although faith is not identical to knowledge, it is not devoid of knowledge.
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: Saving faith does not happen in an intellectual vacuum.
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: So faith alone is not ignorance or superstition.
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: That's masquerading as faith.
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: Faith is rooted in knowledge and that's that.
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: Knowledge is the content of our faith.
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: You'll hear people say today it doesn't matter what you believe, so long as you're sincere.
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: That's ridiculous.
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: That's not saving faith.
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: That's not justification by faith alone.
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: That's justification by sincerity and passion.
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: That's not the faith that we're talking about here.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: It's like in Hawaii and having faith you're going to New York in some direction.
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: The second thing is faith and ascent.
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: The second essential element of saving faith is intellectual ascent.
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: Ascent involves assurance or conviction that a certain proposition is true.
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: It's not just putting your hope in something.
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: It's like if easy were to say, I will destroy Oscar at basketball.
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: That's a dead faith, obviously Right.
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: He has faith in himself and he has a hope that that is true.
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: That's what we call a leap of faith.
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: We cannot decide or be convicted simply by the gospel.
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: We have to know that it is true.
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: Or another way of saying it is saving faith is believing in what we know to be true.
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: Having a living faith is believing in a living and risen Christ.
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: The last thing is faith plus, which refers to the root and the heart that faith takes on.
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: Faith, the faith in scripture, changes a man from the inside out.
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: It changes what he hopes in, what he believes in.
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: Most importantly, it changes the desires of a man.
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: This is a powerful living faith.
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: Again, the Reformers defined it through scripture as faith in knowledge, faith in ascent and faith plus or faith in a change of desires.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: Let me just bring some simplicity to this small words.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: There's different levels of faith and analogy we've used for many years as a little kid looking at a heater and the Father says, don't touch the heater, it's hot, the kid at the moment believes the heater is hot.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: When Dad goes out of the room he's got this intellectual belief.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: Who reaches out and touches the heater and the second his flesh burns, he stops believing the heater is hot.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: He now knows it's hot.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: He moved out of the realm of intellectual ascent to an experiential faith, knowing, and that's what you're talking about before.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: We have a faith that knows because we trust in God's promises.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: And we know, as Hebrews tells us, without faith it is impossible to please God.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: And that's so important to remember and this may be a bit of a rabbit trail here in that regard.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: But that aspect of believing that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him, that is so key for the Christian who's been saved by grace through faith, that element of understanding that there is indescribable reward and passionately seeking after the Lord.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: And I think Oscar will touch on that a little later when you talk about faith and works and how that all comes together.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: But I've heard it said once you know that Christians make the mistake of thinking that God is as equally passionate about each one of his children, and that's just not the case.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: God equally loves all this children and God equally desires to see the sanctification of all his children.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: But I believe God is drawn toward his children who diligently seek after him and he works on their behalf in distinct ways.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about Christians.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: I'm not talking about, you know, unbeliever versus believer, but those who have been saved and walk in that faith that God diligently.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: God will reward those who diligently seek him and will pursue him passionately.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: They're going to see God move in wondrous ways and in through them.
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: Our next question is is faith learned, gained or given?
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: It's given.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: Obviously it's a gift of God.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: You know, years ago I was driving my family and I saw a package on the road and I stopped and backed up because I saw a package on the road and jumped out and it had gone and so I crawled under the car looking for it.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: And as I crawled under the car I saw a piece of string running from the ditch up into a two-story window and realized some kid was doing what I used to do to drivers You'd hide in the bushes with a piece of string around a package and when he stopped you'd pull it in and watch him making an idiot of himself.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: But whenever you get, we used to call that car fishing, car fishing, car fishing oh, it's wonderful.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: Anyway, when you get something in your letterbox, a mailbox with a little tube of toothpaste or a little cookie, a little sample, it's got strings attached to it.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: There's always strings.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: They want to attach strings to your wallet, but with the gift of God, no strings are attached.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: In fact, the Scriptures use superfluity or superfluous statement to make that point.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: In the book of Romans, I think, three times it says the free gift of God is eternal life.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: Free gift, that's superfluous.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: You don't need.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: If something's free, it's a gift.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: If it's a gift, it's free, but it combines those two words to substantiate this is totally free, no strings attached.
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: It's given by God, because of God's kindness.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: And then I would say, as you parse it a little bit obviously it's given, we know that, there's no question.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: But also the understanding of the gospel that leads us to learn its nuances and its truth is a part of it being given.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: And when something is given, something is also gained.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: But the root and foundation of it is the fact that it is given by God, and as it's given, we learn it.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: As it's given, we gain it.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: And yet again it traces its roots back to the root.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: And I don't have any trouble with that.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: Do you have any trouble with that, Mark?
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: No, I think what I have trouble with is when I begin to write my mind around the idea of why, right?
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Why is it given?
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Now?
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: The foundation as to God giving it deals with the condition of man, because man, in his unrepentant self, he is dead in his sins and his trespasses, he's not seeking after God, he is darkness, he has no desire to seek after God, no desire for the word righteousness, and because he is in this state, this condition of hating God, has to start with God.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: God has to initiate this relationship, because man will never initiate it, because he's dead, and a dead man cannot even cry out for help.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: So God initiates.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: It's a gift, it is a gift of faith, and that's why, because of the condition and the scripture is asked a rhetorical question what have we got that we didn't receive Everything eyesight, brain, taste buds, skin, blood, bone.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Even my free will is from God, so I have no trouble resting in the sovereign tip of God about anything you know, when you think about the depth of the gospel just as Christians pausing long enough to fix our gaze on it, it's overwhelming.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: You know, this morning a brother and I were texting about the gospel and I said to him your text has greatly stirred my soul this morning.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: I praise God that you are experiencing the joy that has been bubbling in my own heart as you fix your gaze on the glorious gospel of light and life.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: What a grand, robust and divinely conceived gospel it is.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: If 10 trillion men put their heads together for a hundred quadrillion years, they still couldn't even come close to conceiving and creating such a beautiful, chivalrous and love-soaked gospel.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: And that's the gospel that God quickens us to have faith in.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: I mean seriously.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Get all the men and all the history of the world together and give them an infinite amount of time.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: They couldn't even come close to conceiving anything as divine and beautiful as a gospel.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: I mean seriously, like you just and I went on to tell my friend that you know, the spirit bears witness with his spirit that the gospel is divinely wrought and as scripture talks about.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: You know, we know his spirit bears witness with our own and so it's like, as Christians, we can.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: There's no way this could have been conceived by man.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: It's so contrary to anything man would have ever conceived or, by his own self-interest, would even think of.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: You know so.
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: Love it.
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: I love.
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: In last session you use the word monogistic and I think it's a great word of describing exactly how this works.
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: It's God who is at work, and this is why I am challenged a little bit.
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: Or it just I pay attention when someone says I brought him to the Lord, or that guy brought him to the Lord, or I've brought in hundreds to the Lord by doing this.
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: I know that they I hope they don't actually mean what they're saying, but it stands out to me because to God be all of the glory.
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: You know it's like when we go out and evangelize.
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: It says if I'm a construction worker and I take my five year old son with me to work to build a high rise tower, in my son's mind he's doing a work, he's building a tower, but the reality is I gave him a plastic hammer and he went out there and just kind of hung out while I did the work.
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: Right, and to God be the glory man.
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: We get to go to work with our Heavenly Father, but it's him who's doing the work.
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: And so how many people have I brought to salvation?
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: Zero, not one, and not all of the time.
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: I've seen people come to the Lord, and I've seen God use me as an instrument, his redeeming hands, but I've never once brought anybody to a saving faith.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: Amen.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's important to remember.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's so many cliches we throw around and you know we have to be gracious.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: We threw them around ourselves at one point, but you know phrases like you know I found God.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Or you know right, he wasn't the one who was lost.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: Oh, God told me that's a very popular one.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: God told me never to say that.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so that was good stuff.
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: Next question Can faith and belief and unbelief or doubt, can those coexist?
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: I don't think so.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you guys remember it might be too young but when Ronald Reagan was in power, he had a saying that was very popular for about three years, given to him by a Russian, english-speaking woman.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: It was trust but verify, and that was the relationship between America and Russia.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: We trust you but we want to verify, and that's the ridiculous.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: If you trust someone, you don't want to verify.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: If you verify, it means you don't want to trust, and the trust that we have doesn't want to verify.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: We don't doubt God's integrity for a second.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: We wouldn't call Him a lie.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: He that believes not has made Him a liar, and so, no, I don't think they can go together, doubt and faith, and you'll see Jesus rebuking his disciples again and again for their doubt.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: He says have faith in God.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: As it relates to faith at the point of conversion, I think that it's impossible for that faith to be commingled with doubt, because it's again such a divine work when you think about conversion and transformation in the new birth and again being that it's given by the Lord, I believe that that's a complete faith untainted by doubt.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: But if the question arises, could a Christian who has come to saving faith in Christ ever battle with doubt or struggle with certain things?
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, as Ray just echoed there, yeah, definitely, I think that's a possibility.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: But as it relates to salvation, I think no, that that and James talks about as well the importance of faith being free from doubt, even when it comes to us trusting the Lord, when he says if you lack wisdom, ask of God, who gives Solomon generously, without reproach.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: But I'm asking faith without any doubting.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: For you, Doubts is like the waves of the sea tossed to and fro, and so it is important that we seek to fully trust in a God who's fully trustworthy.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: We see that Abraham was the father of our faith in that sense, and he was so commended by God because he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but he is fully persuaded that we're God of promise.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: He is able to perform, and the wonderful thing about God's promises is he's able to perform them.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: He's not a man that he should lie.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: I can say to one of my sons I'll buy you a car for Christmas and I can.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: At that point in October I'm planning to, but suddenly terrible financial difficulties come my way and I can't fulfill my word.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: I just can't.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: I've got huge debts.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: I can't perform what I said, but God is always able to perform that which he says yeah, you know Spurgeon, in dealing with doubt and the believer, he said I believe that the happiest of all Christians and the truest of Christians are those who never dare to doubt God but take his word simply as it stands and believe it, ask no questions, just feeling assured that if God said it, it will be.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: So.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: You know the.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: You think if you want to grow, if you want your muscles to grow, your muscles have to be ripped, they have to tear.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: If you want your faith to grow, your roots need to go down deep.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: You know, same thing with a tree A tree's roots need to go down deep looking for water.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: And what kind of a Christian are you if you don't experience trials, if you don't experience tribulation and persecution?
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: But how about rejoicing in advance, knowing whom these trials come from, knowing that God will allow different things and circumstances to happen in your life so that you become pliable and usable in the master's hand?
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: What was the person right who says God, I want the white picket fence, and the white picket fence only, and I don't want you to do certain things in my life to make me uncomfortable.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: I learned early in my Christian walk to simply trust God and I, like Corey Ken Boom, she would underline the promises of God and then she would put a P next to that promise when she would see it fulfilled in her own life.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: And slowly, one after another, she was seeing God keeps his word and everything.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: So you have person after person, believer after believer, who says all right, god, please provide for me, please provide for me.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Yet in his promise he says I will supply all your needs according to my riches in Christ Jesus.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: And people begin to still want to go back to that really elementary verse.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: And we should, we should go to God's word.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying how many times does God have to say it?
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Which ways does he have to say it in order for us to believe it?
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: I personally have not doubted my salvation since the day I was born.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: I just God said it.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: I believe it, that settles it.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: That was it, and I thank God for that.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: It was a faith given to me, and I know a lot of other people that don't waver as well at the promises of God.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: They just they believe it, they accept it.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Let's move, let's go forward, let's march.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: This isn't a playground, it's a battleground.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: It's not a playing field.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: It's a battlefield.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Let's move forward, let's get over the elementary things and this really is.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: And Ray wanted to say something.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to ask you a question.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: She wrote a P, corrie, ten Boom.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: What was the P for?
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: It was a.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Oh, it was actually a P and a T.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: So P was a promise, okay, and a T was a try.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: So she would find the promise and she would highlight it and she would put a P that this was a promise of God, and then she would put a line and put a T when it was tried and proven to be true.
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: Oh, that makes sense.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love what the hymn writer or the songster wrote.
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: If Jesus said it, I believe it as word.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: It cannot lie.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: If it's written in the Bible, I'll believe it till I die.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: Though the mountains be removed and cast into the sea, god's word will stand forever, throughout eternity.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: That's great.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: I like what EZ pointed out, in the sense that a Christian who stumbles at times it's not a sign that they're not saved, but is a sign as though it's time for repentance.
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: And I think back to Mark nine.
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: You have a father bringing a paraplegic son before Jesus to be healed.
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: Jesus asks, tells, asks him if he believes, and the father's response is sincere and he says Lord, I believe, help with my unbelief.
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: So there in that guy's life there's belief and there's an element, a type of unbelief, and yet God, jesus, granted it to him and his son was healed.
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: Or another thing that I think of is faith the size of a mustard seed.
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: We'd be able to move mountains right.
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: Raise your hand.
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: If you've ever moved a mountain.
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, all of us in this room and anybody we've ever known has faith smaller than a mustard seed.
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: So in there there's faith, but it's not the fullness of faith on the other side of eternity.
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: It's a faith that's growing.
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: It's a faith that Romans one tells us that God gives it to us day by day, and we act out that faith and obedience.
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: So I would just say to the believer who at times doubts or is uncertain about certain things, that's where that living faith in the promises of God can still hold you up.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: I think this is probably anthropomorphic, but stop sniggering, it's a fence because they used a big word.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: But we can impress.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: It seems that we can impress God with our faith.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: Remember, the Centurion had faith in Jesus and Jesus turned into the crowd and says I have not seen such great faith in all of Israel.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: And Jesus was impressed with his faith.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: And I know that if someone says, ray, I've got faith in you, it just makes me feel good.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: It does, someone trusts me, makes me feel good.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: And so if we have no faith we cannot please God.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: But when we have faith we can please Him.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: We can make God smile.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: You know I love in the context there, I love, I love, love that text there with the Centurion.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: There's two places in scripture where it talks about where Jesus marveled.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: One was he marveled at the Centurion's faith.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Now, he wasn't even a Jew, he wasn't even a Jew, marveled at his faith and then later on, when he came home to his hometown, it says that he marveled at their unbelief.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, so the two times where God marvels, right, it's either at your faith or at your unbelief, and I love the fact that God can marvel at one's faith.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: That is given by him.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: And you know the importance too of recognizing that our faith is not groundless, right?
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: I mean you think of Jesus and the disciples.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: He gets in the boat with them, they're crossing the Sea of Galilee and he begins to talk about the Leaven of Herod and the Pharisees and they're like, oh no, we forgot to bring bread.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: They only had one loaf right.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: And they start freaking out.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: And Jesus says hey, wait a minute.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: When I fed this multitude, how many baskets full of leftovers did you take up?
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: And they answered.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: And when I fed this multitude, how many baskets full of leftover did you take up?
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: And they left out.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: And he said having eyes do not see, having ears do not hear?
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: And do you not remember?
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: And it says at one point in one of the gospels that their hearts had become hardened.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: And so God has given us a perfect track record of faithfulness.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: He's a God in whom we can have full faith, and we need to, because our problem is forgetfulness.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: When has God not met our needs?
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: When has God not brought us through every trial and tribulation?
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: When has God not been fully present in his love and grace and mercy?
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: So, in terms of our faith, as it relates to daily trust in the Lord and our lives and so forth.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: We need to remember he is a faithful God.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: We can put our faith in him fully and trust him.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: The other wonderful thing is that it's so simple.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: Unless you become as little children among virtue of children as total trust.
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: You can tell a child moon's made of cheese and he'll believe it with all his heart.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: And God gives us promises and we just become as little child and say well, I believe, I trust you.
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: I wanna speak for a minute to that family member or friend who maybe spent a significant amount of time as an atheist and now they're coming to a saving faith for the first time.
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: Cause that was me.
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: I was there at one point, as you guys know, and there was a season where I'm assured of my salvation.
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: Yet I had a lot of questions that were unanswered and uncertainties, and anytime that I spent nights just wrestling with all of the junk that I spent the last seven years or so filling my mind with those nights I came down to just having obedience in the little amount of faith that I had, which was God.
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: I don't know the answers to these questions, but I know you do.
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: I know you have an answer to them and in your time they'll be revealed to me.
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: I don't know if we wanna call that doubt or uncertainty, but the bottom line is, with that amount of faith is what kept me going and, by the grace of God, my mind was put at ease through meeting Godly men and through reading Godly books and et cetera, et cetera.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: Virgin said, faith may swim where reason may only panel.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: And often you can get into places where I can't reason this.
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: But I'm gonna trust God, so I swim through it.
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: Well said, yeah.
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: How is faith alone, how is the faith alone gospel different than the Roman Catholic gospel or the pop culture Christianity of our day?
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: You know, the scripture alone has to be the litmus test that we will use to decipher something to be true or false.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: It always has to.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Well, that's why it's scripture alone, right soul scripture.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: We have to fall back on whatever scripture says, and the RCC will not do that.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: The RCC, the Roman Catholic Church, will have a whole slew of traditions.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: They will have sacraments, from the Eucharist to baptism, to their confession and everything else.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: And what happens is they begin to add to the finished work of Christ, even with the Eucharist.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Even with that, they're crucifying Christ all over again.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: And there's this anticipation, there's this hope that they're gaining and earning the merit of God through what they do.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: And that is the antithesis to what scripture has to say.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: That is so far beyond anything that God ever intended for a man, you are dead, let me do the work, say by grace, through faith, not of yourself, there's nothing you can do to make me smile.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: We don't serve God to gain his acceptance.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: We are accepted.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: Therefore, we serve God.
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: Interestingly, the Roman Catholic Church affirms justification by faith.
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: They do.
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: They do not affirm justification by faith alone, that's right, and the distinction comes down to the instrumental cause.
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: So they believe that it's faith, baptism and penance penance, meaning an outward expression of repentance, is the thing that saves a man, and this is a quote from Roman Canon 24.
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: This is the response of the Roman Catholic Church writing to the Protestant reformers.
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: If anyone says that the justice received is not persevered and also increased before God through good works, but that those works are merely a fruit and sign of justification but not the cause, let him be an enathema.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: Wow, you know I get the chills in a bad way when I hear that, and I've read that several times.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: I've shared it with Catholics.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: I personally grew up Catholic, so did not.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: And you know it's such a terrifying place to be where you find yourself in opposition to the very word of God.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: And someone asked me the other day what would you say to the Pope if he came into your house and sat down with you and I said you know what?
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: I would ask him to just read through the book of Romans with me and just explain to me these indisputable passages of scripture where it makes it clear Paul says look, if it's a faith that no longer works, otherwise faith is no longer faith.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: If it's forks, no longer faith.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Otherwise, works is no longer works.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: You know, to him who doesn't work but believes in him, who justifies, you know, I mean, it's like all throughout and it's such a terrifying place to be Within Catholicism.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: Oftentimes it's viewed as humility to say, well, I don't know if I'm saved, it's up to God, I'll find out on that day.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: But that's not really humility.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: What's implicit in that is let me see if I can do enough good works for God to therefore grant me everlasting life.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: And that is completely in opposition to all that.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: Scripture says that we are saved by grace, through faith, that not of yourselves, it's a gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast If I could speak to the Pope, I'll ask him if I could preach off his balcony.
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: Please, Mr Pope, just for a few minutes.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: You throw gospel tracks.
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: Of course, million dollar bills, hosea 4.6,.
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: My people are destroyed through lack of knowledge, and read the whole verse.
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: It's a lack of knowledge of the law and that's what makes the difference when it comes to the self-righteousness that people have, and I've seen so many people's eyes light up when they say, well, I know I'm a sinner, but I'm trying to balance it out.
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: And then when you take it to civil court or criminal court and say, try that in a court of law, it makes sense to them.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, if they're guilty, what are they gonna offer the judge?
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: The only thing I can do is fling myself on his mercy.
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: So it's essential to give people knowledge from the law to show them that they're heinous criminals that have sinned against the judge of the universe, and anything we offer him is an attempt to bribe the judge of the universe and garb and not be bribed.
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: The sacrifice of the wicked is the nomination to the law.
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: All we can do is call upon his mercy and grace, and that's what we're talking about.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: In Romans 3, 28, ray, it says we hold that one as justified.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Here's that word justification.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: You are declared righteous Right.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: So we hold that one as justified by faith, apart from the works of the law, and this flies in the face of Roman Catholic Church official teaching and in Galatians 2, 16, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Even we have believed in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified In the whole of Romans, I mean the first eight chapters just keep saying that again and again it's not by the works of the law, it's through faith alone.
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: And the Roman Catholic formula goes like this faith plus works equals justification.
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: The Protestant Orthodox historic evangelical gospel that's been around since Acts and before says faith equals justification and works.
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: And interestingly, it's not just the Roman Catholic Church that preaches this, but pop culture.
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: Christianity preaches the same exact thing.
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: The prosperity gospel is works-based.
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: Even though it's this high promise of a good life, it's works-based.
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: They say do this and get that, stop sinning and you'll be forgiven, tithe and you'll get rich.
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: In other words, you do this and here's the result.
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: But, as we've been discussing, faith is merely a gift that's given by God and everything else follows.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: You know, what you just said flies in the face of our culture in the Sanless Area and a Socialistic community, you know, where everything's just given.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: But we have been taught as hardworking individuals that we do something, we're going to earn something and because I work hard I get a paycheck.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: You know the wages of sin is death and we leave it there and we forget that.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: So we have to kind of go against the American pop culture idea really, which is I work hard, I get this, unless you're in that Socialistic community where I want everything handed to me for free.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: So when you're referring to what you're referring to, it is what religion has done right.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Religion is really man's attempt to get to God and Christianity is the father's attempt to get to his creation.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: I think the prerequisite for faith is an unworthiness.
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: You think the Centurion said to Jesus I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: Same with the prodigal son.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: I'll go to my father and say, father, I'm not worthy.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: The self-righteous person says I am worthy, I deserve this.
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: That's so true.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: But again, it's all shrouded in this almost false humility, you know, because it's not viewed that way in an objective sense by the person who's stating that.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: It's more like oh let me see what God, if God is gonna be merciful to me, but it all comes back to, am I good enough on the basis of my own merits?
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: You know what it is.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, we try to be good enough and what happens is we come across these people on the streets.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm gonna have to give up these things.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to start being good.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to start doing a certain amount of things to earn the merit of God.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: And God is not asking us to clean our lives up.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: He's commanding us to lay our lives down.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: There's a difference.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: So the transformation comes from within.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: It comes from within and not on the outside.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: God cleans up the out, but he starts off by doing that on the inside.
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: And he gives you a new heart which decides that wanna please him.
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: I delight to do your will on my God.
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: That's what I couldn't believe.
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: When I became a Christian, I was all consumed with wanting to please the God that gave me life and proved his love for me in Christ.
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: You guys are sort of answering the next question, which is what is the relationship between justification and faith.
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: Do one of you wanna kind of provide a?
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: We know the Westminster Confession.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: In chapter 11, part paragraph two, it says faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ in his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: Someone once said justification is the main hinge on which salvation turns.
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: So yeah, faith is the means and the tool and the cause of justification and salvation.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: I think the big mistake that's made by people that hear Christians like us talk about the fact that we're saved by grace, through faith, that not of ourselves, is that they get this sort of antinomy and perspective that what we're implying is that a salvation that has been birthed through faith doesn't demonstrate works.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: And it's so important to remember what scripture talks about.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: I think I may have cited it in one of the other sessions that we discussed, but you have to remember what it says Ephesians 2.8 and 9.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: We've quoted that already.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: For by grace you've been saved, through faith and not of yourselves.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: It's a gift of God, not of works.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: Us anyone should boast.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: And then verse 10, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: And then, when you look at Titus 3, for we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lessen pleasures, living in malice and end, behateful and hating one another.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: But when the kindness and the love of God, our Savior, toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Savior.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: Having been justified by his grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: And then he says this this is a faithful saying.
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: In these things I want you to affirm constantly that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: These things are good and profitable to men.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: And I love the balance of that.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: I mean he emphasizes not of works of righteousness, which we have done, but remind those who have believed in God, those who have been justified, those who have been saved by his grace, to maintain good works.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: He says man, reiterate this constantly, tell them to maintain good works, why these things are good and profitable to men.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: So a true saving faith that is wrought in God's grace is gonna produce good works.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: And it goes on, and Titus to say that he wants to sanctify for himself his own special people who are zealous for good works, those, if true saving faith exists, that'll be the barometer, that'll be the evidence that you have in your life because you're manifesting good works.
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: You know there's batteries in your flashlight, because the light shines.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: That's evidence there are batteries.
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: They were no longer generated by God, because your light shines Good works.
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: Jesus said so let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven, or who is in heaven.
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: One thing I hate I just I hate it is when I help somebody and I can't give the glory to God.
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: You know, you do good works but you can't sound.
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: I'm doing it because I'm a Christian.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: I'm not trying to earn my way to heaven, you know, and so we want to give glory to God by good works.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: And those works earn overflow of the outflow of being grateful, yes, of being thankful.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: You know, william Barkley said there are two great days in a person's life the day we are born and the day we discover why we were created in the image of God, to know the one who is willing to know all about us and forgive us and give us this relationship with him and the hope of heaven.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Right, that's remarkable.
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking of James 2,18, in which James says you have faith and I have works.
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: Show me your faith without your works and I will show you my faith by my works.
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: And he does not say I will show you my faith and my works.
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: He says I will show you my faith by my works.
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: It's like someone saying I'm a good chef and James is going okay, let me taste your food, yeah.
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: And I think and to touch on this, because I think any Roman Catholic listening right now will say aha, look at you, you're avoiding what James says.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: Right, that without faith, works, or without you know where faith is dead.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: Faith without works is dead.
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: And you know what he goes on is that can that faith save him?
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: Right, and where he goes on to say it's not just by faith but by works.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: But he's clarifying there what he means, that it's a faith that is manifested in genuine works.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: And this is the one thing that I love about that passage in James Show me your faith without your works.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: I'll show you my faith by my works.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: To me, it's such a confidence in that faith is not some ambiguous sort of amorphous and hard to grasp things Like do I have faith?
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: Am I?
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: He's saying, listen, show it by your works.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: Right, I mean, how do I prove I have faith?
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: Well, I may feel like I don't believe God's word is important and that it's valuable, but, man, I'm in it every day, consistently and faithfully.
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: I'm showing my faith by my works.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, prayer, does God even hear my prayers?
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: Is it really valuable?
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: But I'm on my knees every day and I'm crying out to God and I'm praying, I'm showing my faith by my works, and that can bring rest to a Christian's heart.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: It's like am I demonstrating faith?
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: Well, no, or am I?
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm carrying it out by proving it and what I do.
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: Paul and Romans sorry, paul and Romans is going through a definition of justification when he's talking about faith alone.
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: James is not trying to define justification.
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: He is speaking directly towards an antinomian dead faith.
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: It goes back to what we said earlier.
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: He is describing the difference between a living faith and a dead faith.
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: A living faith produces good works.
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: It's like what we said faith equals justification plus works.
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: It's not faith equals justification period.
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: It's faith equals justification and works.
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: You know we often forget that good works are a legitimate form of evangelism.
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: I remember years ago I shared a door with a barber.
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: He had a door here.
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: I had a door here See the radio and I had scripture all over my window of my shop.
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: I had John 3, verse 1-16, and three-inch high lettering on the front window of my shop.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: I had scripture posters on the doorway and the barber next door told me when people came in for a haircut or a shave they'd say to him what a nut next door.
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: And they wouldn't say any more.
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: They were just disgusting.
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: But when I got into drug prevention work he told me, called me and he says it's amazing, people are sitting in the chair and say do you want to find a job?
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: That young guy next door Because they saw my works.
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: And I remember years ago I suggested doing vegetable evangelism to our church.
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: We gave away bags of vegetables to 100 houses around our local church.
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: We had a letter that didn't say God bless you.
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: We just said we care about you and best wishes.
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: And people called up and they were crying over the phone.
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: One guy said I've been here 30 years.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: This is the first time the local church has ever done anything for me.
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: This is amazing.
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: It was a $2 bag of vegetables long time ago.
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: It was quite substantial.
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: But scripture says by so is the will of God that by your well-doing you put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: So it's legitimate to be an evangelistic Christian and be rich in faith.
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and let your light so shine among men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who's in heaven.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: That's what it can lead to.
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: But I just want to say one more thing on what I cited earlier in regards to what Ephesians says.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: He's prepared our works beforehand, that we should walk in them.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: And second, timothy 2 talks about how, in a great house, there's vessels of honor, dishonor.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: If anyone cleanses himself from the ladder, he'll be a vessel of honor, useful for the mass, sanctified, useful for the master, prepared for every good work.
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: I may have touched on this last time when we talked about grace, but if so, there's an update.
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: I love that whole concept.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: We're prepared for every good work and every good work is prepared for us.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: And as we walk along the path of life, there's these nicely, neatly prepackaged good works of evangelism and of faith and of love that we can enter into.
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: And we're ready.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: Divine convergence, that's right.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: We're ready for them, they're ready for us.
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: And boom, divine convergence.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: But right, mark?
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: We experienced this when we went to the Philippines.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: We're sitting on the plane and everyone's boarding.
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: We're in Manila, this guy's walking down and suddenly his eyes goes wide as saucers and he goes.
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: I can't believe it.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: You guys are from Living Waters.
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: We're like, yeah, and he's like, oh, I love the ministry and it was just really, really cool.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: So anyway, he goes.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: Well, I better go back to my seat.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: So he goes back to his seat and then he comes back and he looks at his ticket and he goes.
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting right between you guys, so he sits down and the whole way to the US not the whole way, but for a good portion of the flight.
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: We were able to counsel him because he had this very, very tough situation where he went to the Philippines to see his fiance who had cheated on him.
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: She got pregnant and he's like, what do I do?
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: And I don't know.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: So we were able to counsel him and the other day I was with a brother out to breakfast and we were reading a book together and it talked about divine encounters and got orchestrating things and I said, man, there's this amazing story with me and Mark in the Philippines and that and so anyway, that evening I go on my email.
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: The same day he sent me an email.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: He goes.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: I know it's been eight months, never heard from him until that day.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: He goes.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: I know it's been eight months.
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: I was rummaging through a drawer for some keys and I found your card and I just want to thank you so much for that.
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: Counsel gave me and he sent a picture of him and his new wife that he married a woman who loves the Lord.
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: So he was engaged, had to break it off with that lady, and then the Lord and it was just like wow, divine convergence, god preparing our works beforehand.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: It's a wonderful thing.
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: Well, thank you, guys.
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: Let's go ahead and wrap that up, and thank you for listening.
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: We hope this session has been a blessing to you.
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: Living waters exist to inspire and equip Christians and fulfilling the Great Commission, and everything we do is to that end.
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: Everything we do is made possible through our partners and their gifts, so thank you for supporting us, both financially and through your prayers.
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: God bless you.
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: Ray, what was the first thing you did after we finished introducing that episode?
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: Oh, I brought something up that was important to me.
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: I had to get it off my chest, I'm sorry.
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: Can you do it again?
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: No, oh yeah, that was nice, ray, you're excused.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: Excuse me, there you go.
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: Thank you, yeah, wow, guys, that was a blast to the past for sure.
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: Heck, I'm not done, I'm.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: I tried it in door.
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: That's probably eight.
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: We probably recorded these eight years ago.
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: Has it been that long?
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: No, no, no maybe seven years ago.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: No, maybe five.
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: Maybe four, no five would have been right before COVID and it was long before.
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: COVID.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, mark, sing your favorite faith song you got to have faith, the faith, the faith.
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: Why was that that same song, in my mind before I asked it?
• 55:52
  Speaker 5: Because we've done it for 20 years.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, faith is one of those things that people do not understand.
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: We hope you now understand it after everything we shared.
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: Giving you a faith lift.
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: Wait, was that a book?
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: No, yes, maybe.
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 56:11
  Speaker 5: You know, packer said, faith is the outstretched open hand.
• 56:14
  Speaker 5: I like that.
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you like that, Ray, you got it.
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: That would be a good book title Well faith lift, it's probably taken.
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, anyway, try it.
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: All right, friends, there you have it.
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: What about go wash your faith?
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: Go wash your faith.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, friends.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: There you have it.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: Faith is for weak people.
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: Respond to the top 20 objectives, to the Bible, the Living Waters Mug and the Every Study Bible all livingwaterscom.
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: Don't forget to please give us your comments.
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: Podcasts at Living Waterscom.
• 56:43
  Speaker 5: What you should really think about what you're going to say before you say it.
• 56:45
  Speaker 5: I've never said this before.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: Put the brain into gear before you put the mouth into action At livingwaterscom, what are your thoughts and comments?
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: Don't forget to please subscribe.
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: On whatever platform you listen, share it with others, leave us your comments.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us, friends.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: We'll see you here next time on the Living Waters podcast.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: I wonder if people think we put you in double speed.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: Probably no, no, no, no.
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: The Living Waters podcast, the ultimate cure for insomnia, where we still have no idea what we're doing.
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: Why are you laughing, right?
• 57:19
  Speaker 5: That's all normal speed.
• 57:20
  Speaker 5: That's crazy.