Non-Evident Faith

If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warmed and be filled, and do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? It doesn’t mean anything if there’s no demonstration of love. That kind of faith, without works, he says in verse 17, is dead because it exists in isolation. It’s not a saving faith. Someone, in verse 18, may well say, you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith without the works.

How can you do that? You can’t. Show me your faith. If somebody says to you, show me your faith without doing anything, what are you going to show him? You’re not going to show him anything. You can’t see faith, it’s an invisible thing. So James says, I will show you my faith by my works. That’s the only way true faith can be demonstrated. Oh, you say you believe in the oneness of God. You believe that there is only one true God. Good. You do well. The demons also believe, and they go one better.

They shudder. Are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? Isn’t it interesting that he says the devils believe, the demons believe. Not only do they believe, but they believe enough to be frightened, which means that it’s a genuine belief. And what they understand is that damnation awaits them in a lake of fire. They believe that. They have a kind of non-saving demon faith. They tell us a lot about saving faith by providing an opposite. Let me just take you through that for a minute. What is, what is the faith of demons that doesn’t save? Well, let me look at it this way.

First of all, it has knowledge. It has knowledge. The demons know God’s nature better than any men do, because they know God. They were there in heaven before they fell. They’re far more intelligent than men are, and therefore they have greater capacity to grasp the greatness of God. So they have not only from experience, but from the sheer power of their intellect, more to bring to the table of knowledge than we do. Furthermore, they’ve been alive since they were created at the time of creation, so they’re very old, which means they’ve accumulated a massive amount of experience.

Both by personal knowledge, having been in heaven, by intellectual capacity, and by millennia of experience, they understand God’s nature. They have seen more of God, and more of God’s works than all humanity combined. Furthermore, they have knowledge of the saving power of Jesus Christ. They’ve seen that too. They have seen the power of Scripture. They understand that what the Bible says about holy angels and fallen angels is true. They understand what the Bible says about man is true, what it says about heaven is true, what it says about hell is true. Some of them are already in an abyss.

They understand all of that. In fact, I’ve often said this. All demons are fundamentalist. I want to quickly say, all fundamentalists are not demons, but all demons are fundamentalists. They’re all Bible-believing fundamentalists. Furthermore, they have a supernatural knowledge of the invisible and eternal realm, which makes the first point. No amount of knowledge is proof of salvation. No. Amount of knowledge is proof of salvation. Secondly, no amount of belief in that knowledge is proof of salvation. The devil is orthodox. He believes all of it. Because he knows it’s true, the devil has the right theology.

Thirdly, no amount of fear of God’s judgment and wrath is proof of salvation. The demons are afraid. You remember, when they were cast out of the swine by Jesus, they said, please, please don’t send us to the pit. They live in fear. That’s why it says in this chapter of James that they shudder, verse 19, or they tremble. No amount of knowledge, no amount of belief in that knowledge, no amount of fear of God’s judgment and wrath is proof of salvation. Fourthly, no amount of guilt for sin is proof of salvation.

You can feel bad about your sin. You can feel convicted about it. I believe the demons feel guilty. That’s why they shake. And they know they are justly condemned to hell. That’s why they said to Jesus, don’t send us to the abyss. They know they’re going there. They know they deserve to go there. They understand completely their revolt and their rebellion. They deserve punishment, and they know it. But even that guilt is no proof of salvation. And I would suggest to you perhaps a fifth thought. No amount of desire for salvation is proof of salvation.

I would imagine the demons in hell, in torment, bound, would cry out for deliverance. But according to Revelation 1, only Christ and Christ alone has the key, and he will not unlock the place of their eternal torment and let them out. No amount of knowledge, no amount of belief in that knowledge, no amount of fear of God’s judgment and wrath, no amount of guilt for sin, and no amount of desire for salvation is necessarily proof of salvation. I’ll go one beyond that. No amount of religious experience is proof of salvation. You want to know who are the most experienced creatures in the universe in religion.

Who are they? Demons. All the gods of the nations are demons, the Old Testament says. Wherever you have false religion, you have demon authorship and demon involvement. Paul said to the Corinthians, every time you go back to these idle feasts, you go to the table of demons. That’s what he says. You can’t come to the table of the Lord and then go to the table of demons. He was saying all that idolatry is demonic. Satan is disguised as an angel of what? Light. And his ministers appear disguised as angels of light.

They work in the area of religion. They are disguised as ministers of light. They’re very experienced in religion. No amount of experience in religion is proof of salvation. And I suppose I could add this. No amount of knowledge of the superiority of Jesus Christ is proof of salvation. They know he’s the king, they know he’s superior, they know he is the Lord. That’s a demon faith that doesn’t save. Now we can take that and transfer it into the human realm. A lot of people who have knowledge, some people have so much knowledge, Hebrews 5.12 says, you should be teaching by now.

Hebrews 6, as we saw this morning, says, you’ve tasted the heavenly gift. You’ve been partakers of the Holy Spirit, partakers of the Word. You’ve heard it all, seen it all, signs, wonders, miracles. You’ve heard the gospel, you have the knowledge, you’re not saved. And secondly, there are many who believe the truth. John 8, I just read to you. Many believed on his name. But they weren’t real, because they didn’t abide in it. They’re not saved. There are many who fear God’s judgment. A lot of people fear God’s judgment. A lot of people are afraid to die, scared to death when they come to the time of their own demise.

Thank you for joining us in this exploration of non-evident faith. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].