Saved By Grace Thru Faith . . . . . . . . Biblestudy June 2007

[Kat]

            June ‘07 Bible Study

         Saved By Grace Thru Faith
   [By Divine influence upon our HEARTS]

This is a part of my on going attempt to show you how everything is interrelated in the scriptures.  Everything comes down to one main objective - one main purpose - one thing, remember I’ve said that so often, it’s all ONE.  You study out any subject in the scripture and it all comes down to one thing…. it’s all ONE.

Jesus Christ was an individual and He did all these many many things and He has a Father and He has done all these wonderful things.  Yet He says, “I and My Father are ONE.” (John 10:30)  And I have said everything is ONE.

Eph 4:1  I therefore the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the vocation wherewith you were called,
v. 2  with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;
v. 3  Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

You know what unity means - unity means it’s all together, that’s what unity is, all together in one.  One purpose - one cause - one whatever, it’s unified. 

These churches of the world are out to create a unity between them.  I mean they would even try to create a unity between the Moslems and the Christians.  Give me a break, what fellowship has light with darkness, or what fellowship has darkness with darkness, how about that.  The unity already exist, we don’t create a new unity.  “Keep the unity of the Spirit,” there already is that unity.  We are encouraged to keep it, not create it, it’s already there. 

Eph 4:4  There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling;
v. 5  one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
v. 6  one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in you all.

It’s all ONE! 
So today I’m going to talk especially about - saved by grace thru faith.

I’ve said many times if something in true, the more you search, the more you check, the more the absolute evidence will show that it is true.  If it is not true, the more you check, the more you study, the evidence will show it’s not true. 

So Darwin had a theory and now thru the decades, at least 150 years, all the evidence has now been gathered and formulated and looked over and so on and so forth.  Since evolution, as it’s proposed by evolutionist, is that things came about through mutations.  Now the evidence shows that that’s not true.  The more we study it year by year, it shows more and more that it’s not true.  But if something is true, then the more you study it, it shows it is true. 

Now what I have challenged all these thousands of detractors on Bible-truths, is to quote one statement from any of 2000 pages I’ve written.  If my statement is wrong or false, give me two scriptures that show that.  Now I can do that with any heretics writing.  I can do that.  Give me a heretic and I’ll pick out a statement not to far into his sermon, that’s not true and I’ll give you 2 scriptures that prove it’s not true. 

Now I’ve thrown out that challenge to thousands of people, I would suspect over the last going on 8 years.  Not one has ever come back and said here’s your statement quote and here are the 2 scripture that prove it false.  It has never happened.  Now that doesn’t make me anything great, it makes the Word of God great.  If indeed we are believing the Word of God and teaching the Word of God and sticking with that, you see.  But someday maybe somebody will show me a quotation and then I will correct it. 

I have corrected a number of them on my own and there are others who have shown me a few things.  But they were not detractors, they were just people that said, ‘Ray you said over here…’ and I said you’re right.  The other day I said Dennis we need to add the word ‘only’ in there, so we put the word ‘only’ in there and it’s fine.  But none of these foul mouthed, evil spirited detractors have ever shown me that. 

Now I have said, 5 years ago or whenever I got started, that I believed the whole Bible is one giant parable.  That ‘one parable’ consists of what we are taught early in Genesis, that God says, “Let Us make man in Our image…”   If you read it in the Concordant it is a process, “creating is Elohim humanity in His image, in the image of Elohim creates (not created, c-r-e-a-t-e-s) He them, male and female creates He them.”  (Gen 1:27). 

It’s a process of creating them into what?  God’s image.  So I believe that’s true. 

I’m always trying to test the truths of God against the heresies of the world and against Christianity and so on and so forth.  I did that for a long time with the sovereignty of God and human choice - human will, you know free will and all that nonsense.  But I thought about that for many many hundreds of hours, to where I don’t think you can come up with a scenario that I have not thought about.  Because people always say, ‘well yea, what about this scripture or this or that…’  I’ve been there and done that and no, God is sovereign and man does not have a free will.

So anyway a few weeks back, before the conference, I got to thinking about how almost everything it seems, God would say that it “is so” or “it was good.”  But then I though when He created Adam and Eve did He say, let Us make man in Our image and it was so?  Did He say, it was so?   Well I couldn’t wait to get to my Bible to check this out.  So I’m reading;

Gen 1:3-4 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.  And God saw the light, that IT WAS GOOD:

It was like He said, it was good.

Gen 1:9  And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and IT WAS SO.

Gen 1:10  And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that IT WAS GOOD.

Gen 1:11  And God said, Let the earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed, and fruit-trees bearing fruit after their kind, wherein is the seed thereof, upon the earth: and IT WAS SO.

That one threw me, “Let the earth put forth…”  We read God created - God Made - God did, and now He says “let the earth bring forth”?  What is that?  Let the earth do it?

Anyway, I don’t know how far to go with this.  How do we correlate 15 1/2 billion years, that they say the universe has been here and 5 billion years that the earth has been here, to Genesis that which says God created the heavens and the earth in 6 days.  How in the world could that ever be correlated?  One has got to be flat out wrong, maybe not.

Gen 1:12  And the earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, wherein is the seed thereof, after their kind: and God saw that IT WAS GOOD.

Gen 1:14-15  And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years:  and let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth: and IT WAS SO.

Gen 1:18  and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that IT WAS GOOD.

Gen 1:21  And God created the great whales, and every living creature that moveth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind: and God saw that IT WAS GOOD.

Whales?  No, I afraid that does not fit there.  That’s another thing I might go into, “the great whales”  What was it that God created there?  The “great” part is right, great - awesome - awful - terrible, but the whale part is not right. 

Gen 1:24  And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind: and IT WAS SO.

Gen 1:25  And God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground after its kind: and God saw that IT WAS GOOD.

Are you following that?  It was good - it was so - it was good - it was so - it was good - it was so - it was good - it was good - it was so - it was good.

Gen 1:26  And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the foul of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.
v. 27  And God created man in His own image (Hebrew says - So creating is God humanity), in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.
v. 8  And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the foul of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the face of the earth.
v. 29  And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food:

“So We are creating man”  Adam and Eve right?  This is the full description of it, it’s the major session of it in chapter one and then we go into every beast of the field.  Then we go into some other subject.  What happened to ‘it is so’?  Well I can see it’s not there, because it was NOT SO.  It wasn’t yet good. 

He skipped right over that and He talks about the animals, the beast and every creeping thing.  I’ve given you every herb of the field for food, now it is so.  Now all this food I’ve given you, every beast and cattle for food and it was so. 
But the biggest of all in this whole creation story, the creation of Adam and Eve.  The creation of humanity and it wasn’t so, nor does it say it was good.  Why?  To me it is so obvious…. it’s not complete!  This part was not complete.
 
The animals were made like they were suppose to be made and it was so.  Adam and Eve were not made the way it was suppose to be and it was NOT so, it was NOT good.  This is the whole purpose for human existence... we are not yet complete!  It is not yet so, neither is it yet good. 

When you turn on the news on CNN - World New - Fox News - MSNBC and see what’s happening today, do you think it is good out there?  It’s not good.  This human race on this earth is not living like they were made in the spiritual image of God, for sure.  So He said, “Let Us be making (the process) man into Our image,”  but it was not so. 

Now God calls out Israel as a nation.  He said, I’m going to choose this group of people over here.  He started with Abraham, then Isaac and then Jacob.  Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, then the 12 tribes of Israel and then the children of Israel.  He choose those people out and He’s going to make a great nation of them and show the world how to live, right.  But they didn’t obey God.  They didn’t fear and obey God, why?  What was the reason, why didn’t they? 

He called them out and said I will give you My laws and so on, if you will fear Me and walk in My ways and statues.  I will conquer all your enemies, you will be blessed in the city, blessed in the field, you will have these wonderful things.  Your children will be healthy, you’ll have plenty to eat, everything will be wonderful.  But they didn’t obey, they didn’t fear God.  They did not obey, why? 

Deu 5:29  Oh that there were such a HEART in them (heart? What for? For what purpose?), THAT THEY WOULD FEAR ME, AND KEEP ALL MY COMMANDMENTS ALWAYS, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!

So what was the problem?  Heart!  They didn’t have the heart! 
Now when we speak about the heart….. I got this email, and he’s talking about the heart and he’s talking about the organs of the body and he says, it’s the brain.

But the brain is the heart.  Oh they say, 'now your really talking nonsense Ray.'  When we talk about the heart, we’re talking about the feelings, the deep feelings.  We say, ‘I love you with all my heart.’  You don’t say, I love you with all my kidneys or I love you with all my pancreas or I love you especially with my gallbladder, no.  When we say heart we mean the seat of our emotions. 

Now, actually in the NT it’s bowels, more than heart it’s bowels.  Because when you get a very powerful emotional feeling or trauma or whatever, you get the feeling in your bowels, which is pretty close to the heart.  You know you say, ‘you make me sick to my stomach’ what does that mean?  ‘You hurt my heart,’ see.  Your emotions get all cramped up, where?  Here in your stomach, but it’s because it’s up in your heart, they all go together.  So the heart - the head - the mind - the brain, that’s where it’s at.  Not the literal physical heart.  So our biggest problem is our heart.  Notice what Jeremiah said;

Jer 17:9  “The heart is deceitful above all things…”

That is the seat of human emotions, “is deceitful about all things.”  In Jewish society’s publication of the Old Testament they say, “and is exceedingly weak.”  Which is true.  In the KJV and others it has “desperately wicked.”  Rotherham has “incurable.”  I mean it is just a fatal disease, incurable.  v.9 “…who can know it?”  is what it says. 

Now how weak and wicked is this heart?  In Genesis 1, God created humanity and in verse 6 we have....I don’t know how many maybe a couple million people, I don’t know what the population was, but it says in chapter 6.

Gen 6:5  And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Boy that is saying a mouthful.  Everything - all things, all of their very thoughts and aspirations were wickedness and evil and it was continually, nonstop.

What I want to show you is it’s all One.  All this stuff is One thing.  If we could understand that, boy all the complications of the scriptures and all these things would just become so much more simplified. 

Rom 11:20  Well, because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Be not high minded, but fear:
v. 21  For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not you.
v. 22  Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in  His goodness: otherwise you also shall be cut off.
v. 23  And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again.

Branches of unbelief... because of unbelief were broken off. 

So in the book of Romans, the apostle Paul is writing to the Romans.  Now the Romans were the empire that was controlling Palestine, these are Gentiles.  He says because of unbelief they are broken off and since some were broken off and you being a wild olive tree was grafted in among them.  So don’t boost yourself against the branches that were broken off, because God can break you off too.
 
But the reason God broke off the branches from the vine… you know Christ is the vine, but the reason the branches were broken off, is UNBELIEF!   
Now but less the Gentiles get too haughty, go to verse 32.

Rom 11:32  “For God hath concluded them ALL (Israel & Gentiles) in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all.”

So they are all in the same bucket, they are all in the same wagon here, they are all in unbelief, the Jews and the Gentiles.  But here He doesn’t use the word heart, He talks about unbelief.   

Deu 5:29  “Oh that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear Me, and keep all My commandments always, that it might be well with them…”

Then here He says, they were broken off in unbelief.  Is there a correlation here?  So which is it, what is the problem?  Is it a bad heart or unbelief?  It’s both.  It’s obviously both.  Now here is a scripture that will bring it all together in Hebrews and then I want to show you a little deeper meaning of these words…heart - grace - belief.

Heb 3:10  Wherefore I was grieved with that generation(Israel), And said, they do always err in their heart: And they did not know My ways;
v. 11  So I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter into My rest.
v. 12  Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any one of you an EVIL HEART OF UNBELIEF, in departing from the living God:

There it is!  They go together.  "An evil heart of unbelief" will cause you to go wrong and do wrong, just like the whole nation of Israel has done and basically the whole world.  An evil heart ‘of’ unbelief, it doesn’t say an evil heart ‘and of’ unbelief.  It is just ‘of’ unbelief.

I get so many emails, thousands of emails from detractors, it’s “Ray can’t you read, don’t you know that there is a fire that is going to torture people and on and on.’  Why want they read what I have to say?  Why do they just read a couple of phrases and say heresy - heretic - evil.  Because they want to believe that there is a fire that will torture most of the people for all eternity.  You say how could anybody want to believe anything like that?  They have an evil heart.  Their heart is evil and they are unbelieving.  They don’t believe the words of God and I’ve said this many times, they despise the words of God. 

But they say, ‘oh no, you despise them.’  And I say no, you do.  It says God will not have any to perish, all will be saved.  Then they say, ‘No that only means that He desires them to be.’  No, He will have all of His desires too.  And nobody has ever answered that, nobody ever came back and said, ‘no He won't.’ 
They say that word ‘will’ means desires.  I say excuse me, since when are God’s wishes and desire weaker than His will.  He said I will perform all my good pleasures, all My desires, whatever I say it’s going to come back accomplishing something, it never goes out void, never.

Isa 46:10  declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done; saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure;

Isa 55:11  so shall My Word be, which goes out of My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall certainly do what I sent it to do.

If He says it, it will happen.  If He proclaimed it, it will happen.  Does God’s Word say He does not wish that any will perish, but that all will be saved?  Is that God’s Word?  Yes.  Will it come back void, that all will be saved?  Well the church says, ‘well absolutely it will come back void.’  They despise the Word of God. 

Forget whether eonian means eternal or not for the moment.  There are plenty of scriptures that says they despise.  Why?  Evil heart - unbelief.  They don’t believe and they have an evil heart that wants other people to suffer.  I mean how crude can you get?  How crude can the human heart be?  I mean I like to see justice, when people do things wrong and they get caught.  I’m glad they get caught.  These guys that molest little girls and stuff, I’m so happy when they get caught.  That’s fine and they should suffer for that and be punished and judged for that.  But you don’t put them in fire for trillions of years, come on that’s over the top nonsense.  But there are billions of Christians who believe that and they want to believe it, they like to believe it.  It gives them comfort and joy and pleasure to believe that God is going to torture other people for all eternity.  Unbelievable, just unbelievable.



Eze 36:26  A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.

Of course when God goes from a heart of stone, to a heart of flesh, He is actually talking about Spirit.  But the contrast is between a heart of stone and a heart of flesh.

2Tim 1:9  “Who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own PURPOSE and GRACE, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,”

He saves us and calls us not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace. 

[Kat]

What I wanted to do today…. I’m starting to get into it now, though all this other stuff is good.  What is grace?  He saves us by grace, what is it? 
Basically grace means gratuitous, okay.  In Spanish we say gracias.  What does that mean?  Thank you.  Grace means gracious, it’s gratuitous, a favor, it’s a gift, it’s free, gracias, okay.  But it doesn’t end there with just being gracious, favor, gift and so on. 

How in a theological way, do we apply the word grace, when we say we are saved by grace?  What does that mean, we are saved by grace?  How does it save us?  What is the connection there, between being saved by the word grace?  How does the word save us?  Well if the word grace means gratuitous or free, then we could say we are freely saved or it means a favor or gift.  We are saved as a gift from God.  It’s a gift from God, He saves us.  That is true, but let’s ask this question….. look in Luke, this is speaking of Jesus Christ.

Luke 2:40  And the child grew, and waxed strong, filled with wisdom: and the GRACE of God was upon Him.

What does that mean?  If grace is what saves us from our sins, if that’s the big thing and that is what is taught in the church, you know we’re saved from our sins, we’re saved from death, we’re saved by grace. 
 
It saves us ‘from’ something doesn’t it?  If you are saved…. if someone is drowning in the ocean and you save him, you saved him from drowning in the ocean.  If a fireman saves somebody in a burning house, they saved him from being burned in the house, right.

If we are saved by grace, what is it saving us from?  What did Christ need to be saved from?  Did He need to be pardoned for anything?  Did grace cover His sins or something?  No. 

Well there is another aspect of grace.  You know we have all these words, gracious, graciousness, gratuitous, liberal, benefit, favor, gift, joy, pleasure, thanks, all of these are words. 

But even Strong’s uses a phrase defining grace that I think if we don’t see this we are missing a lot.  It ties in with the thing that I wrote 5 years ago or whenever, in part 3 Lake of fire.  It’s where I say grace is a verb. 

Here is the phrase Dr. Strong says for the definition of grace - DIVINE INFLUENCE UPON THE HEART.  Wow, what about that! Grace is divine influence from God upon our hearts. 

Well now, did Israel have divine influence from God upon there hearts?  No.  Listen the most times you will find grace in the Old Testament talking about anything or anybody, it’s Moses.  It’s always Moses saying, ‘oh Lord I hope I find grace in Your eyes.’  He just means favor. He says, don’t be mad at me, let me do right - let me find mercy - let me find favor - let me find safety - don’t get angry God, let me find grace in your eyes, it’s in there about 8 times. 

Never once in the Old Testament is anybody ever talked about being spiritually saved or received salvation by grace.  It’s just not there.  I mean even King David, if God had divine influence on his heart, the way it’s suppose to be, why would he go to his death bed squeaking out his last words to his son, Solomon.  Telling him how he wants him to kill all his enemies and make it bloody.  Does that sound like divine influence upon your heart, from God?  It doesn’t sound like that to me. 

That’s what grace is, divine - divinity - God - Godly influence on your heart.  But now we’ve taken grace out of the realm of a noun, into a verb, it’s doing something you see.  Of course I said that a long time ago. 

Jesus didn’t need grace for any pardon of anything.  But did He need the influence of God, divine influence on His heart?  Absolutely.  That’s why He could live the way He did, accomplish what He did, never give in to wrong motives and temptations and all that.  He had this divine influence of God on His heart ALL THE TIME. 

So then we read Paul says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace (divine influence upon the heart) which was bestowed upon me was not found vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I….” (1 Cor 15:10) 

“Yet not I”  what?  He said I labored, you know what that means, work.  I’ve ‘worked’ harder than all of them, yet it wasn’t I that works... right?  Notice it wasn’t I that was doing the work, but the grace of God which was with me.  The grace of God... what? 

These things are all understood, notice it, I am what I am by His divine influence upon my heart, which He bestowed upon me and it was not in vain.  But I labored more abundantly than they all labored, yet not I labored, but the grace of God labored.  That’s what it’s saying, can you see that?  So what is the grace of God doing in Paul’s heart?  It LABORS, it works.

It’s not some ‘thing’ like, ‘well I have the grace of God, that save me.’  They take that word and just tack it on the wall, ‘grace’ there it is, I got it.  God said I got to have it and there it is ‘grace.’  It can’t be in a book, it can’t be on the wall, it’s got to be IN YOUR HEART.  What does it do there?  IT LABORS - IT WORKS. 

Now let me read that again.

1 Cor 15: 10 “But by the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace  (divine influence on the heart) which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all (labored):  yet not I (labored), but the grace of God (labored) which was with me (labored).” 

There it is, the grace of God…. labors. 
 
In the Lake of Fire series I showed that grace is a verb.  We learn that when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord, 1 Cor 11: 32.  Chastening defines how God judges us.  Now we are about to learn something very profound here, if we can get it.

Titus 2:11  “For the grace of God that brings salvation hath appeared to all men,
v. 12  Teaching us….”

What is doing the teaching?  Grace is doing the teaching.  It’s laboring - it’s teachings - it’s the divine influence of God on our heart, it‘s teaching us.  So it’s...

v. 12 ...TEACHING us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world (eon - age);

So when it says God judges us by chastening us in 1 Cor. 11: 32, the word chasten there is the Greek word ‘paideuō.‘  Then when God says He graces us, by ‘teaching us’ (Titus 2:12), the word teaching is the same word paideuo and it means - to labor, to work, to chasten, to punish, to teach, to educate.  There is like a dozen different words that this means, this ‘teaching.’  That’s what it does, it actually does something.  And the same way what it does for us, it will eventually do for the world.

Now that verse tells us that teaching us, denies ungodliness and so on.  That one word alone covers everything good and righteous that we could ever do or think.  I mean if it’s godly it’s right and good, it’s all in that one word.  Notice that this is a godly man, that says it all, I mean if he really is godly, he’s God like.  You can’t be God like and Satan like at the same time, you know that does not fit.  So this is a remarkable thing that grace teaches - educates - punishes if necessary - schools us - programs us and it teaches us to live godly- soberly - justly and righteously.  The grace of God teaches us to do all those things and God says His judgments chastens us.  It’s the same list of things, it’s the same chastening - gracing, they are the same thing.

Now we learn that we get the heart and unbelief here, 2 things.  Oh that there were such a heart in them (Deu 5:29).  Then in Hebrews 3:12 it says, I hope that it’s not found in you such an ‘evil’ heart of unbelief.  Those 2 go hand in hand. 

There is one other aspect to this thing of grace.  We saw it a little bit in Hebrews 3:12 that says, “… an evil heart of unbelief…”  Now you all understand that in the Bible when it talks about believe, that’s the verb.  Faith is the noun.  Faith and believe are the same Greek word, they’re the same.  What is faith?  It means to believe.  If you believe, you have what?  Faith.  They are both the same word, one is a noun, one is a verb, that’s the only difference. 

Look at Eph 2:8  “For by grace you are saved….”  Here is the problem, the church doesn’t know what that is and they don’t teach it and they don’t have it. 

They think it is a word that if you say, ‘I love the sound of that word, yes I like that word, I want to appropriate that word,  God says we are saved by grace, I like that, I want that word.’  ‘Okay I’m saved by grace, God says I’m saved by grace, and that’s God’s word, I’m going to put it on a t-shirt…. saved by grace, there it is I’ve quoted scripture.’

They don’t know what it means though.  They think it’s a noun, to them it’s like a gift.  Like here’s a gift, ‘oh for me.’  Yes.  ‘Well what did I do to deserve this?‘  Nothing it’s free.  ‘Oh a gift for me how nice.’  That’s how they look at grace, as a gift and underserved gift.  That’s all it is to them, a gift. 

That’s true, it is a gift, but sometimes a gift involves doing something.  Let me give you an example. 

Suppose my wife buys me a gift for my birthday.  It’s a gift, it’s not something you have to do or work for.  It’s a gift, it’s free no strings attached, it’s a free gift.  So what is this free gift?  It’s a Nordic Track or a exercise bike or whatever.  Well thank you for the gift, does it mean I have to use it (chuckle).  I’d just stick it in the corner and it’ll be there for 5 years.  When people come over and say, ‘what’s that.’  I’d say, it’s a gift.  They would say, ‘have you ever used it?’  I’d say, oh no, I don’t use it, I just look at it.  It’s a wonderful gift, my wife is so sweet, she bought me that gift.  But no, I don’t use it. 

Well guess what?  Grace is a gift, but it’s got to be USED.  Listen when something influences something, that means it does something.  If you are inspired about something, you either think or write or do something, that’s the proof of the inspiration.  So if something influences you it makes you think, say, do, work or something, are there is no influence.  We just read that faith is divine influence upon the heart and that grace teaches us the same that judging chastens us.  It’s the same Greek word. 

It’s interesting it says in Eph. 2:8, “for we are saved by grace….”  Well that’s great, that’s wonderful (period).  No, no period... comma, “THROUGH FAITH.”   Well shucks, we’re saved by grace through faith, okay.  Well what does that mean?  ‘Through’ is a channel. 

It’s like if you want to go from France to England and you can’t swim very well and you don’t have an airplane, you can take the train.  So this train is the grace, but how is the train going to get to England from France?  The tunnel.  They have a tunnel and that‘s the channel.  So you’ve got the vehicle and you have the channel to get there.  Without the channel to get there, well you can’t take a train across the water.  But they’ve got tracks in the tunnel and that’s the channel ‘through’ it. 

That’s the way grace and faith is.  Grace is this influence, but faith is the channel and a channel always does something, it channels something - shows motion - shows a destination.  So there’s a destination to being divinely influence by God on your heart.  That’s the grace and that’s free, it’s a gift.  But it doesn’t mean there is nothing to be done.  It’s like my wife’s exercise bike, it’s a gift, it’s free, but it’s meant to be used, you see.

So faith is the channel and faith is believing.  So you just have to believe, that’s something in your mind, that’s simple enough.  I accept your free gift to save me and I believe it, that’s it, good, all done.  No, not quite.  Because we read, “ The sum of Your word is truth…” (Psalms 119: 160(CLV).  You have to put it all together.

In Luke 6: 46 Christ says, “Why call you Me Lord, Lord.”  Listen, that’s faith.  If you call Him Lord, it means you believe He’s Lord, right, that’s faith.  So He says, why do you pretend to have faith in Me, by calling Me Lord, but you don’t do what I say?  See it’s a false faith, “you do not do what I say.”  It is a contradiction to say, you have faith and you don’t do anything.  Notice the rest of this verse in Ephesians.

Eph 2:8  for by grace (a gratuitous gift - divine influence upon the heart) are you saved through faith(believing and doing God‘s will); and that (faith) not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
v. 9  not of (our) works, less any man should boast (you boast when you do your own works).
v. 10  For we are HIS workmanship (His achievement - His works), created in Christ Jesus unto good works,

Do you get that?  Where it says “not of works,” but “for good works.”  Wait a minute is that a contradiction?  No, “not of (our) works” but “for (His) good works.”  There are works, they’re just not ours.  But we are of His workmanship.  Workmanship has the word ‘work.’  The Concordant translates it ‘achievement.’  When you want to achieve something it takes work.  Who’s doing the work here?  God is doing the work.  What is that work?  Divine influence upon the heart and then you do things. 

Eph 2:10  “… created in Christ Jesus UNTO GOOD WORKS, which God has afore ordained that we should walk in them.”

So there are works.

Rom 8:28  “And we know that God WORKS all (things), together for the good…” 

Then verse 29 “….predestined us to be conformed into the image of His Son.”

That is the whole thing.  What is the purpose of works?  To be conformed into the image of His Son.  What image is that?  The image of God.  So what is it that God is creating humanity in?  His image.  Was it completed?  No, it was not good, it was not so.  But it will be one day.  One day it will be so and it will be good.  God is changing the carnal physical human mind into His spiritual divine mind.

James 2:14  What doth it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but have not works?  Can faith save him?

He ask the rhetorical question, “can faith save us?”  Of course the answer is no.  That’s interesting, you know faith is talked a lot about, as we are justified by faith, especially in Paul’s writing, Rom 3:30, Gal 3:8.  We are justified by faith, but nowhere does it say in the scripture that we are saved by faith, nowhere. 

We are saved by grace.  It’s free, gratuitous gift from God, but it does something.  It teaches - it chastens - it educates - it is divine influence upon the seat of our emotions - thinking - plans - purpose - goals - aspirations and everything else.  It divinely influences that heart, you can’t help it, it does it. 

This just smacks free will right in the teeth.  According to true free will, God can’t make you do anything, you have to choose it on your own.  How can you choose to do good unless God divinely influences your heart?  You see, you can’t.  But the second you say He does, you’ve taken away man’s free will.  Now God is doing it.  What an evil contradiction this thing of free will and free choices is.

So he says in James, can faith save us?  Of course the answer is no.  We’re justified by faith, but we are not saved by faith. 

So when you come right down to it, when I asked you, what is grace and what is faith?  You’re tossing around these words and basically you’re all right.  Bob said love and it’s true, it’s love, grace is love.  Faith is love.  All these things ultimately are love, because God is love.  Whatever all these other things are that go out from love, you bring them back in, and it all comes down to one thing, it’s LOVE.

So we have the word grace... we have the word faith.  Each one has shades of different meanings and so on.  But they both do the same thing, don’t they. 

Christ says if you call Me Lord and Master, if you believe that, that’s faith... believing.  If you believe that I am your Lord and Master, why don’t you do what I say?  You see that?  Faith is doing. 

James says, faith without works or faith without doing is dead.  Of course some thinks that that contradicts Paul, who said we’re justified by faith not of works.  But that is too big of a subject to get into here.  But, no they are not contradicting each other.  One is emphasized one thing over another, more than the other.  But they both involved the same thing. 

They both quote that Abraham lived by faith.  That’s what it was all about faith.  Paul says Abraham had that faith before he was even circumcised, before he obeyed that ritual to be circumcised and so on.  James emphasized that, how did we know Abraham had faith?  Because God told him to sacrifice his son and he brought the knife and was ready to do it.  He proved his faith. 

But they both do something, all these things, they do something.  If we think of these words in theological terms all the time, you’ll never know what they mean.  They are very simple, okay.  Faith is you BELIEVE what God says, therefore you DO what God says. 

Grace is a gift, you don’t have it.  Now this is something you can’t conjure up, it’s a gift of God.  It’s always the grace OF God, it comes from God, there is nothing you can do.  You say, ‘well what about the faith we’ve got, that comes from us.’  No no no, it says in Eph 2: 8-10 “… faith; and that NOT OF YOURSELF, it is the gift of God;” 

The faith it’s a gift, the grace it’s all a gift, everything is a gift.  It’s all a gift of God.  It’s all faith, it’s all grace, they are all one thing.  Grace causes you to live rightly.  What does faith do?  If you believe God, you do what He says.  It is virtually the same thing.

Now what is the goal?  To make you like Christ!  What is Christ?  He is in the image of God.  So what does God want from us?  He wants us to be in His image.  Physical image?  No, spiritual image.  It is a spiritual thing that God is doing.

So then we have a whole host of words, which I’m going to cover in the next installment of the Lake of Fire.  We have words like repentance, now some people have a basic understanding  of what repentance means.  Regeneration, what does that mean?  What about renewing - redemption - remission - reformation - condensation - restitution - born again - holiness - transgression - intersession - conformation - salvation - damnation - condemnation - tribulation - indignation - reconciliation - justification - predestination - propitiation - sanctification.  What in the world does all that stuff mean?  Could you even begin to start giving me definitions of all that stuff?  I’m here to tell you, no not one.  But let me tell you something, most theologians could not either.  Well, since most of them went to a seminary and they could define those words.  But the one thing that they wouldn’t get, and I know this for a fact, the one thing that they wouldn’t get or understand or couldn’t teach you is, that they all mean the same thing. 

IT‘S ALL ONE THING.

Everything is heading in one direction.  God is taking man through this hell on earth for a purpose.  It’s necessary, but it all leads to one place.  He’s going to have an end result for the work of His hand.  He’s going to accomplish what He wants to accomplish out of the human race.  But all these words, indignation - reconciliation - justification - predestination - propitiation - sanctification, they all mean the same thing.  That’s what I’m going to show, in just one little segment of the next installment of the Lake of Fire.

So the more you study these scriptures, the more God opens your eyes to these things.  It’s not that complicated.  He only made it sound complicated, so that those who won’t obey, then it’s just all this fuzzy sanctimonious stuff that nobody can ever figure out.  It’s not that hard.  And all the words they are just different aspects of the same thing.

It’s not that hard when you understand the basic parable of the Bible.  That is God is making us into His image, through all this pain and suffering and everything.  It all has a purpose whether we understand it at the time or not.  It all has a purpose and it’s making us better and stronger and so on, for the end result.