And then he calls for the attitude of true faith in verse 22.

What's the first word?

Repent.

And pray to God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you because I perceive

that you are in the gall of bitterness and you are in bondage to iniquity.

Welcome to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. I'm your host,

Phil Johnson. John MacArthur once said that even demons could sign the doctrinal statement of his church, and they could sign it honestly. So how could that be possible? Well, while it is true

that demons are evil and opposed to God, it's wrong to think that they don't believe profound

biblical truth, especially the truth about the

Lord Jesus Christ. Demons know exactly who Christ is, and yet they know nothing about peace and joy

and the blessing of salvation. That goes to show that believing truth about Christ is not

the same as having a true living faith in Christ. So how can you tell if your faith

is alive or dead? John is explaining that in his series titled, Show Me Your Faith. And now with today's

lesson, here's John. Let's open our Bibles to James chapter 2, looking at verses 14 through 20.

Now, what is the character of dead faith? This is what James wants to point out to us.

Let's look at our text. What is the character of dead faith? He gives us three marks of dead faith. Three descriptions of the nature of

dead faith. In verse 14, he first describes dead faith as an empty confession that has no benefit at all.

Remember 2 Corinthians 13.5, which says, examine yourselves whether you be in the faith,

and how do you examine yourself, not by looking at a point in time in which you went forward,

signed a card, or whatever, you examine yourself by looking at your life and seeing the product.

What do you see? Because what you see reveals what you are.

Empty confession is nothing but dead faith and dead faith is counterfeit.

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