Here in John chapter 4, we're
going to look at faith's spark, its flame, and its warmth. I pray you can walk out of here
tonight, that you can go your way, that means go home, and
have peace, trust in Christ, see in Him once more. Or maybe
for the first time, maybe for the last time, that you took
home with Him. I hope we can do that. I built
a fire last night. It started getting cold. We went
and got some wood. We had a delivery of wood today.
We got a cord of wood. A cord of wood is four foot by
four foot by eight foot. That won't seem meaningless here
in a second. That's a lot of wood. We've got to start stacking
it. It takes some effort. It takes some time, which we've
got plenty of little ones, good laborers. After a conversation
I had with a man yesterday, I realized that there's a lot of people
that walk around this world that don't know how to light a fire. I thought
that was pretty... Everybody did the same way I
did. I just assume everybody does things the way I do. And
I got to thinking, I was like, well, there's several here that
know something about fire. I know Sarah Vargas does, the Smiths
do, the Hodgsons do. You all know about fires and
building them and keeping your house warm with them. There's
three essentials you have to have to have fire. You have to
have fuel. You have something to burn. You
have to have oxygen. And you have to have heat. Takes
all three. Can't do it if you're missing
one. There must be a lot of preparation in building a fire. You've got
to cut a tree. You've got to saw the logs to length. You've
got to split the logs. You've got to stack them up just
a certain way so they'll dry well. You've got to let them
season for a long time. You've got to cut kindling. You've got
to lay down some tender. You got to stack it properly
in your firebox. And then once all that work's
done, then you add a spark. You add a spark to that tender.
And then you blow on it. You breathe on it. Just right. You add air tenderly, carefully. You don't set a leaf blower in
front of it. You gently blow on it. Give it the air it's needed.
And after it starts, it starts growing. And then it builds up
some, and then there's flames. Big bright flames, and there's
noise with those flames, there's some crackling and popping, and
it seems like there's a lot of warmth and heat, but it's only
a little bit. That's only a taste of what's
to come. Once them flames start dying down, they ain't as loud,
they ain't as flashy, once it's burned a while, then there's
a calm bed of coals, and that's where lasting warmth is. That's
when you get that firebox heated up good, and he'll start radiating
some heat. It sounds quiet. It ain't loud.
Like a calm, moving water. Those are deep waters, ain't
they? That box is finally warmed up, and it'll last all night.
It'll keep you warm all night. After that bed of coals is established,
now you can take a big ol' heavy log and throw it right on top
of it. Throw a big ol' trowel on top of them coals. And you'll
think, well, it ain't ever gonna burn. Oh, it'll smolder and it'll
burn all night. It'll consume that log. And then
there'll just be more coals in the bed of coals on it. More
warmth. That's all it is. That's the saving and sustaining faith
of a believer. When God saves somebody, when
He gives them saving faith, that's the same thing that happens.
That's the growth in faith. A lot of people talk about, oh,
I'm growing in grace. I'm growing in faith. Do you know what that
means? It don't look like it does to the common man. It looks
a lot different. The Lord gave us a picture of
that here tonight. Our Lord in His perfect providence, He ordained
everything, ordered the whole universe and hit His shore, got
everything just right in your life until He was ready to put
a spark to it. Not a leaf fell 2,000 years ago
that could have hindered his preparation of curing that wood,
cutting that wood, stacking that wood, putting it under a box,
putting a kindling under it, and lighting it. He did all the
work. He's provided all the material,
all the preparation, and then through the preaching of the
word, through hearing his word preached, a spark's added. And the Holy Ghost, moving like
the wind, it moves on that fuel and that spark and it blows just
as needed. If the air is too still, it will
blow a little harder. If the air is moving too much,
it will blow just a little bit. He blows on us as needed and
that flame emerges. And initially there is a lot
of smoke with that, isn't there? There might be some coughing,
there is some adjusting, there is some popping and crackling.
And it flares up. But when it appears that flame's
died down, you're like, well, it don't look like there's too
much fire there anymore. That's when the warmth comes. That's
when it comes. I hope we can see that tonight.
In 24 hours, the Lord gave us this story of this nobleman,
of him getting a spark, his flame growing, and him being confirmed
in the faith. Him having this faith warmed
to him, confirmed to him in his life. Here's the story. There's a rich man. A lot of
people say it's Herod's right-hand man. I don't know. I know he
was a nobleman. This is a man of stature. He's
a man of means. And his son became very sick
to the point of death. I'm confident that this man,
like any other father, tried all that he could for that son. That son is about to die. What
can I do to keep him alive? He probably hired a nurse to
come sit with him and care for him and watch after him. Nothing
availed. He didn't get any better. He probably had a doctor come
by, whatever the modern medicine was of that age. Who's the sharpest
tool in the shed? Get him to come by. I need him.
Get an expert. Nothing happened. Nothing availed. Well, let's
try some eastern remedies. Let's get a witch doctor in here.
Just out of desperate nonsense. We'll try anything. Nothing happened.
Get some religious folks. They can come pray over him.
They can put their hands on him. Yeah, that'll work. Nothing happened. The son's still sick. My mom
used to bake onions, wrap it in a cloth called a poultice,
put it on your chest, bundle them up real good. Nothing happened.
Old hillbilly medicine didn't work. Ben, he's desperate. All his meaning's exhausted.
At the appointed hour, before this world was, it was determined.
God sent a man to him, a vessel, an earthen vessel, to this rich
fellow in great need, and he told him about the God-man. Jesus
of Nazareth, the Christ, the one promised, God in human flesh,
He's 20 miles up the road, and He's able. He's 20 miles away. He can heal your son. He's the
only one that can. Nobody else can. Only Him. Word had gotten to this noble
man before there was a need. Word had gotten to him. He didn't
have a need yet, but he heard. Our Lord called out his apostles.
I bet that caused a ruckus. Go to work the next morning.
Where's So-and-so? Where's John at? Y'all seen Peter? What happened? Ain't nobody here. He made water into wine at Governor's
daughter's wedding. That same town. Word got around,
hadn't it? He healed the lame. He gave the blind sight. The
deaf could hear. Nicodemus had heard about this.
He'd come to him. He saved many people in Samaria.
Did you hear what happened up there with them Gentile dogs? Well, something happened in them.
Somebody did something. A man named Jesus was up there.
Some man named John was down by the river baptizing people,
and this man Jesus came to him, and he was baptized. And everybody
that's standing around there, they heard the heavens open up.
A voice came out of the sky and said, this is my son whom I'm
well pleased. That got around it. They didn't
have news and video games back then. They didn't have Monopoly
to play. That was the talk of the town.
This man was desperate. He was at his wit's end with
his sick son. No one could help him and he
could not help himself. And someone told him of Christ.
Faith's born out of spiritual trouble. Faith's born out of
spiritual trouble. That's its wound. When God makes
a sinner needy, when He makes them helpless, when He makes
them hopeless, then they'll get serious about seeking the Lord.
They'll quit playing church, they'll quit doing it because
it's Wednesday night, that's what we do, and they'll cry out
to God. Where is he at? Twenty miles
away, that ain't nothing. Load the horses. It's time to
go. People would say it's a horrible thing to have a young sick one.
have a young child just terminally ill on their deathbed. And even
a hard, unregenerated heart would probably have some compassion
on that, wouldn't it? That poor feather. But what an eternal
blessing this man had, and his whole house. What an eternal
blessing he's going to receive from what the world would say
is a horrible thing. I bet he was so thankful for
that sickness the rest of his days, wasn't he? We'll see. We
ought not scoff at trials. If you're the Lord's and He sends
you a trial, it's for your good and His glory, we know so. His
Word says so, doesn't it? And for the unbeliever, somebody
that doesn't believe on Him, don't curse God for your heartache.
He just might be ready to save you. Bow to Him. Run to Him. The Lord did something
what the world says is terrible. I lost my job. I lost my home.
I lost everything I had. I'm sick. My kids are sick. I
lost somebody, a loved one, a child, a spouse. Bow to God. He's the only one able. He's
the only one that can help. Only Him. Run to Him. Well, we'll
see a spark of faith here in verse 47. John 4, 47. It says,
when He heard, He heard, when He heard, that Jesus was come out of Judea
into Galilee. He went unto him and besought
him that he would come down and heal his son for he was at the
point of death. He had heard about Jesus. Somebody
preach to them. He had the faith to travel that
distance. He had the faith in him, a spark
of faith, a little tiny spark of faith, to seek the Lord, to
beg Him for mercy, to beg Him to save his son. True faith justifies. True faith saves. True faith
is a gift of God. And that believing, that saving,
that justifying, that gift of God, it comes by hearing. And hearing by the Word of God.
That's what the scriptures say, doesn't it? That's what it says
about each one of them poems. That's what faith is. That man
had Christ preached to him and he believed or he wouldn't have
traveled that far. Remember Naaman, when he went
to God's prophet, he said, I thought he'd come out to me. Old changed
his mind. This man said, I'm going to go
find him. Now, you've got to come to my house, but I'm going
to go find him. I'll travel a distance. This rich nobleman, he packed
up. He had 20 miles away from home. Took him half a day to
get there. He left his wife at home. He left his home. He left his servants. whatever
possessions he had. He left his sick son on his deathbed. Well, what if he passes? I want
to be there when he goes. He left it. He left every bit
of it to seek the Lord. Isn't that what our Lord said? If you won't leave your mother
and your father and your children and your husbands and wives,
you ain't gonna have no part of me. There wasn't a lot of wisdom
in his faith at this point. He was thinking worldly. He was
using his thoughts, his understanding, and he was putting the Lord in
the box of his imagination. He was looking at proximity.
You've got to come to my house. Come down. He walked uphill on
it. Come down to my house. He thought
the Lord would have to be in the same room as his son. He
thought the Lord was like those doctors that had to be there
within arm's reach. He thought it was like that nurse that sat
up with him. He thought it was like those witch doctors. He
thought it was like those religious folks that had to lay on hands.
He thought he had to be there. It'd be easy for somebody to
criticize that faith, wouldn't it? Here's one that come to the
Lord. You've known him a long time.
And I said, you have to come to where I am or he's going to
die. That's not how it works. Wouldn't that be easy? Come here,
you need to learn some things. But he had heard and he sought
the Lord, didn't he? He didn't have the mind of a
grown-up in faith. He was a baby. We don't get mad
at babies if they can't run marathons, do we? No. You take them by the
hand, you pick them up, and you help them, and you encourage
them, and you rejoice whenever they take one or two steps. Good
job. Good. You believed in Christ and you
come to Him. Good. You don't whip them. Good. You be patient with them. Be
tender with them. Somebody might say, well, somebody who has faith
ought to know better than that. Well, does the scripture say
that Christ loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus? It does, doesn't
it? It says Christ loved them. And
Martha came to Jesus the Lord and said, if thou hast been here,
my brother had not died. Isn't that about the same thing? Proximity. If you would have
been here, did he whip her? Y'all know better than that,
Martha. Ain't I been with you long enough? Ain't I taught you
nothing? Don't you know better than that? No, he wasn't harsh
with her. He didn't scold her. He continued to preach himself
to Martha. He said, your brother's going
to live. She said, oh, I know. I believe in resurrection. He said, Martha,
I am the resurrection. walk with me." Where is he buried?
That's what he did with his child. That's for me and you to get
a hold of. I need to get a hold of that too. I don't try believer's
faith. That ain't my job. You don't
try believer's faith. That ain't your job. We ain't
got to set up obstacles or we ain't got to find things to correct
and henpeck and everything else. We ain't in that business. That's
the Lord's business. The Lord tries faith. By this
shall all men know that you are my disciples if you train people
up." Somebody said, well you must know God, you're a preacher.
I said, I pray he knows me. Just because I'm a preacher don't
mean nothing. Don't mean a thing. It doesn't say, by this shall
all men know you're my disciples if you sort out all the multitude
of errors that need to be dealt with. No, He said, if you have
love one towards another. Just like that baby learning
to walk. Don't knock it over. Don't yell at it. Hold its little
finger. Let it hold your finger and walk
with it. Till it gets tired and then pick it up and carry it. It says in verse 48, John 4,
48, Then Jesus said unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders,
ye will not believe. This is true faith this man had. Though it was only a spark. It
was just enough to walk 20 miles. That's all it was. And our Lord
is going to prove this man's faith. He ain't going to prove
it to him. I'm sorry, he ain't going to
prove it to himself. The Lord knows all men's hearts, don't
he? He knows all men. He's going to prove it to him
and he's going to prove it to me and you. 2,000 years later
we can read about this noble man and say this right here is
true faith. Wouldn't that crush him? He probably looked up from
what he was doing and said, unless you see signs and wonders, you
can't believe. You ain't going to believe, are you? And he went back doing
what he was doing. That would crush him, wouldn't it? Wouldn't
that run him off? If it wasn't true faith, yes.
It'd run him clean off. He'd have packed up his toys
and went home, wouldn't he? It says in Matthew 20, a bruised
reed shall he not break. and a smoking flax he shall not
quench." That's just a tiny little bit. That's smaller than a mustard
seed. He just had a spark of faith. The Lord said, I ain't
gonna put it out. That's just smoldering. That
ain't even a flame. I put it there. I ain't putting it out.
He won't quench it. There's a big difference between
the spanking and the beating. This nation needs to learn that. Big
difference. Love is a difference. That's
what the difference is. It's not my job to try a person's
faith, but the Lord is teaching me some things in this. He's
teaching me not to walk on eggshells around people. Do you know that? Paul wrote to be careful for
nothing, but to pray to the Lord about it. That's what I'm to
do. I'm here to preach and I'm here to teach. That's what he
sent me. And in teaching, just the same
thing as a person in math class, there's some corrections that
need to be made. There's some corrections that have to take
place. And anytime there's a correction made, a rebuke of any kind, people
either take that rebuke in humility and they learn from it, or they
butt up against it in rage. I won't have this man ran over
me. Get mad. You take it in humility, or you
take it in rage. That's it. It's the same thing
with the gospel, isn't it? There's two responses when the
gospel is preached. There's two responses to man's
inability. Man ain't nothing but a dead
dog sinner. Wretched! You ain't kind of bad, you're
wretched! Horrible! People say, that's right. The
Lord ain't put a spark in them, and they say that's right, and
they agree with God, what He says in His Word, or they rage against
it. the responses of God's justice
and righteousness. God is holy. He'll by no means
clear the guilty. And so the only hope we have
is that his wrath and his justice that we earned fell on his son,
our substitute. And we're given his righteousness.
People either bow to that humility or they rage against it. There's either hate or humility.
That's the only two responses to it. That Canaanite woman,
that seems harsh to people, don't it? That seemed harsh to me.
I preached from it before. But the Lord tried her faith.
He tried it in a different way than He tried this nobleman.
He knows how to do it. He knows what's needed. Hopefully
next week we'll look at that centurion. There's a mirror,
just like Nicodemus and that woman at the well, putting this
nobleman and that centurion. That seems harsh for that Canaanite
woman. She come to Him and said, help me. My daughter's sick. And He didn't even answer her.
He didn't look up from what He was doing. She said, Son of David,
be merciful to me. And he said, I came here to save
God's elect, those that he gave me before time was. Back up and
go home. Maybe I'll start betting on horse
races or something, I don't know what to tell you. She didn't
leave, did she? He said, it's not meat to take
children's bread and cast it to dogs. And she said, truth,
Lord. Yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their
master's table. And Jesus answered, she said,
O woman, great is thy faith. Be unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole
right then. Ain't harsh now, is it? He knew
what he was doing. She had God-given faith and she
did not let go. There was no other hope. There
was nowhere else to go. stayed right there. That's a
response of humility too. Some people don't understand
things and they take it and it's offensive and they stay right
there and that's good. It may take a month, it may take
a year, it may take two or three decades and finally the Lord
will wake somebody up and they'll say, I'm a dog, you're my master.
And they'll say, oh look at your faith. Oh how great your faith
is. The Lord came to hard sayings
and those around him, those that had followed him out of convenience,
they said, Lord, this is some hard sayings. He said, does this
offend you? He said, therefore said I unto
you that no man can come unto me except it were given unto
him of my father. No man can come to him. How did
that nobleman come to him? The father gave it to him. That's
a hard saying, isn't it? You didn't do it. The president
said it. You didn't build that. From a
spiritual point of view, that's right, you didn't. The Lord used
you. No man comes to Him unless the
Father draws him. And from that time, many of His disciples went
back and walked no more with Him. And Jesus turned to the
twelve, and He said, what can I do to keep you here? That ain't
what He said, was it? He said, you going too? That offend you? You going to? Will you go away also?" And Peter
turned to him and said, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. It's your word that we need. You ain't offending me,
Lord. You're telling the truth and
I know it. Let me be in your presence. That's all they needed.
Christ was made in that new heart all and in all. That's what that
is. What about that woman? He called
her a dog. And she said, I'll eat your crumbs.
And he said, your face made you whole. Go home. Your daughter's
fine. That don't look fancy. That ain't
nothing to make a movie out of. That's saving faith because Christ
is all in that woman's heart. This man get offended, he pack
his toys up and go home. Signs and wonders, I'm going
to go find somebody else. Nope, look here in verse 49.
The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down or my child die. He continued. Like Jacob, I'm
going to get a hold of you and I ain't letting you go. There
ain't nowhere else to go. True faith continues to run to
Christ no matter what. And false faith runs away from
him no matter what you do to try to keep it around. It may
stay for a long time. I've seen it stay for decades.
And then a little tiny pebble in the road comes up. Turn. Take another road. We're done.
Walk away and leave. Bunyan said this when he was
in jail. He was a prisoner. And he said,
I was driven to such straights that I must of necessity go to
Jesus. and if he had met me with a drawn
sword in his hand, I would have sooner have thrown myself upon
the edge of his sword than have gone away from him, for I knew
he was my only hope." Lord, slay me. I trust you even if you slay
me. You're my only hope. That spark
of faith makes one seek That's all the spark does. It makes
you seek because there's a need for Christ. And then there's
a flame. Look here in verse 50. And Jesus saith unto him, Go
thy way, thy son liveth. The man believed the word that
Jesus had spoken unto him and he went his way. That flame of
faith, it makes one believe the word of God. the bare Word of
God, the naked Word of God. They ain't nothing fancy. There's
not huge emotional swings and feelings. There's no signs. There's
no wonders. There's no experience. There's
no degrees. There's no elevation of learning.
It's a plain Word of God. Go thy way. That means go home. Your son liveth. That's all he
said. That's all he said to him. He
had heard before and he believed and he came to the Lord. But
this time, for the first time, he heard the word of the Lord
from the Lord. He heard it from him. The Lord
spoke to this man. And he believed because Christ
had spoken to him. He believed the word spoken because
of who spoke it. This wasn't just a man. And he
knew it. He had a new heart in him that
knew it completely. He didn't understand it fully, but he knew
it. It's because of who spoke to him. I believe what Henry
told me when I was growing up, what my pastor told me. I believed
Henry because he told me what the Word of the Lord said. He
read the Scriptures to me. He was the means used, but it
was the Lord's Word that convicted me. It wasn't a man that convicted
me. That's who was used. It was the Lord's Word that convicted
me. It was His Word that convinced me and His Word that comforts
me still. Henry's saying those things.
He said, all those who believe on Christ shall have everlasting
life. That was necessary. I had to
hear a man say that. But I needed to hear Christ say
it. That's His Word. That's His Word. That was a spark
for me. In Luke 16, that rich man's in
hell. And he says, send Lazarus to me, Father Abraham, that he
can dip his finger in the water and touch my tongue. And Abraham
said, you had a lifetime of bliss, you had a lifetime of opportunity
to drink of that living water, and you would not. And now there's
a gulf fixed between us. Your end is established and cannot
be undone. So he pleaded again to Abraham.
And he said, I pray you that you would send Lazarus to my
father's house. I've got five brothers. If they
saw Lazarus raised from the dead and come preach to them, they'd
believe and they wouldn't end up where I was. How would Abraham
handle something like that? He said, they have Moses and
the prophets. If they won't believe the word
of the Lord, they ain't gonna believe a man raised from the
dead. They have to believe His word. His word. He'll have to
speak it to them. In our day, how would that apply? Brother Henry's been on my heart
a lot lately. It's been two and a half years since the Lord took
him home. And many people in this area know of him, don't
they? There's a lot of people that's heard of Henry. A lot
of people that's listened to his message. They love him to death, don't they?
What if the Lord brought him back from the dead to preach
in San Diego County? Do you think we'd have to probably
go rent some chairs? We'd probably have to go rent
that new football stadium they got, wouldn't they? We'd have
it packed to the heels. But most would go there for a
sign and a wonder. There's a man raised from the
dead. I want to see what that looks like. I want to see what
his voice sounds like. And I got a question for you.
If he was to come here and preach, if the Lord raised him, you'd
think, our logic would say, boy, that would do a lot of good for
the gospel of grace in this county, wouldn't it? That's what man's
logic is. But I ask you a question. What would he tell you I haven't
already told you? I listened to him in five messages
he preached up there in Mission Valley years ago. He preached
in five messages what took me two years to preach to you. I preached on that. I said, that
was assurance to me to hear those same things. I hope it was to
you. But what would he tell you different? This is the Word of
God. The Lord is holy. Uncleanness
cannot be in His presence. Man born of Adam can't be in
His presence. Man ain't nothing but sin. God's sovereign. He's
all-powerful, all-wise. And His will is done in heaven
and in earth and under the earth and no man can stay His hand.
Christ came to seek and to save the lost. Sinners. We look down
our long noses on them. That's who Christ came to save.
And He bore their sins on the cross of Calvary. He took their
wrath. That's shame. Not just a beating. I try to dwell on those things.
Guilt. Shame. He bore that too. And
his body on a tree. And he suffered alone. He died
alone for his elect. And he's risen for his elect. And those he came for, those
he lived for, those he died for, Those He has risen, they are
totally and eternally saved. Ain't nothing nobody can do about
it. They're His. They've been bought with a price.
And ain't no man going to take them out of the Father's hand,
no matter what. And Christ receives all the glory for every bit of
that. That's a whole lot more than
4 foot by 4 foot by 8 foot cord of wood, ain't it? That's a whole
lot more preparation. And He gets a glory for every
ounce of everything. That's what the Word says. If
man doesn't believe the Word of God, he wouldn't believe it
if a prophet rose from a grave and preached it to him. That
would make a bit of difference. They won't believe that all hope
rest in His righteousness, that all hope rest in His obedience,
all hope rest in His death, and all hope rest in His resurrection.
They would believe they saw a sign, they believe they saw a wonder,
a miracle, but they would not believe Christ. You can believe that God's sovereign
and go to hell. You can believe there's one God
and go to hell. You can believe He's risen. There's
a ton of people in this world who believe there's an empty
tomb over there, but they don't believe Christ. They don't believe
Him. Those people, them guards went
and told the Pharisees, they said, that tomb's empty. We know
it. We looked at it. And they said,
we know. Now you just hush, and you say
that somebody stole the body, and we'll give you money for
it. They believed. They believed the report of those
men, didn't they? To be saved isn't seeing a sign, it's not
seeing a wonder, it's not experiencing a feeling or an emotion. It's
by receiving Christ and His Word in power and believe in Him and
bowing to Him and loving Him and glorying in Him. Because
He's the Lord. That angers a lot of people. God said, Go home, your son liveth. That's it. I believe him. That nobleman believed him. It
wasn't complicated. It hit him where it lived. It
was contextual. That's the problem he had, wasn't
it? It was simple as plain. It was dealt with, and he said,
Go home. Go on. He meets men where they are,
how they are. That's Centurion we'll look at,
it's just the opposite. He said, the Lord told him, he said, I'll
go to your house. And he said, you don't have to
come to my house, you just say it. This man said, Lord, you have
to come to my house. It's flip-flop, isn't it? Exact opposite. Our
experience of faith is individual. Our Savior comes to us individually
and He deals with us individually as we need. What wisdom. What care. I'm thankful for that.
I'm glad it ain't a pair of pants you got to fit in. I'm glad He
comes to us. This man believed Christ and
He obeyed Him. That's a flame of faith right
there. Look here in verse 50. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy
way, thy son liveth. And the man believed the word
that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way. And as he
was now going down, he's heading back home, his servants met him
and told him, saying, Thy son liveth. There's a lot of difference
in the commentators on whether he spent the night. He went and
rented a room at the inn, because they didn't travel by night.
Or he took off early and went slow, and his servants was running.
But it doesn't make a difference. What happened was he was heading
home. And he wasn't in a rush. He literally traveled as a man
that trusted the Lord. He traveled as a believer, not
an anxious parent waiting to get home to see if his son was
healed, because he believed the Lord. He didn't make haste, did
he? Isaiah said, Therefore, thus
saith the Lord God, behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation of stone,
a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. He lays Christ. And whenever that Christ our
foundations laid, he that believeth shall not make haste. When we
look to Him, when we stand on that foundation, there's a cure
for anxiety. If I title the message that,
I get a lot of hits. A cure for anxiety. Believe Christ,
that's a cure for anxiety. Trust Him. Forsake yourself and
look to Him. Or you won't be spun up thin.
Oh, I've got to hurry. No, you'll be alright. You still
need to show up to work on time, but you'll wake up early. Seek
Him in prayer and then go to work, won't you? There's a spark of faith, flame
of belief, and then there's the warm fire. This is where faith
is confirmed. The fruit starts at a bud, doesn't
it? You can go out and look at a tree and see that. It starts
as a bud, and then it's a flower, and then it's a fruit. That's
the stages of it. Faith starts as a spark. It ain't
much. It smolders a little bit. Then
there's a flame, and then the warm coals come. That fire is
confirmed, and you feel the warmth of it. Look here in verse 52,
"...then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend."
Tell me when he started getting better. That's our logic, isn't
it? Well, it's not perfect. And they
said unto him, yesterday at the seventh hour, the fever left
him. Exceedingly more abundantly than
we can even imagine. The Lord said, your son lived.
He plumb lived right then. I can enter into this. This man
asked a question that he already had answered, prepared. He saw
his servants coming over that hill, and they're yelling, Boss!
They're excited. It's good to tell the boss good
news. Boss, your son's fine. He's living. And I bet in his
head he's going, I bet it was at one o'clock yesterday. I believe
the Lord. I've done that before. I said,
you watch, hide and watch what the Lord does. And he did it,
didn't he? It's come to pass. His word's
true. There was warmth in knowing that
the Lord is true to His word. That's a consistent fire. It
ain't gonna go out. And the more you're warmed by
it, by His promises fulfilled, the more often you come near
to that hearth. You come near to that firebox
where that fire's burning. He followed the Lord. He followed
His Word. He didn't just follow Him because
He was His healer. He was. He didn't just follow Him because
He was a prophet. He was. He didn't just follow Him because
He was a Savior. He was. He followed Him because that
was His Lord and His God, as Thomas said. It took me a long
time to understand. Barnard yelled that one time
about getting kicked out of town. He said, I don't want to hear about
your Savior. Tell me about your Lord. And then I entered into it. He's
my all in all. It ain't one facet. And you come
to that warm fire, not only when you're freezing. Don't take much
to keep a cold man away from a fire, does it? You come even
whenever you expect the slightest chill. I may get cold, let me
go. You come to him, come to his
word, come to his gospel being preached. I've lived that too. I've felt so cold and so dark
and I think they ain't no need of me going to services tonight.
I ain't gonna hear nothing. I ain't gonna be warmed up. Oh,
ain't nothing could warm me. And that's the exact time I needed
to go by that fireplace then. That's the exact time I need
to go by that fire. Come hear the word. Come assemble with
the saints. And that fire was used to start other fires. It
says in verse 53, So the father knew that it was at the same
hour in which Jesus had said unto him, Thy son liveth. And
himself believed. Didn't he believe before? It
said he did. And himself believed and his whole house. That's a
very short sentence. Boy, what's said there. That's
a very brief statement, but there's so much in there. Can you imagine
his wife? When he took off 24 hours before,
where are you going? I would see Jesus. I want to
see Him. He's able. I'm going to go see
Him. And she said, do what you want. Go if you want to. I'm going to stay here for a
boy. I'm going to stay here and tend to him. That's what's needed.
just go, and then something happened. She saw life come into that son. And her husband came home. She
said, tell me what you saw. Tell me what you heard. What
happened? What did he say to you? Tell
me about him. Tell me about this man that healed
my son. That son probably woke up and said, Daddy, I was real
sick. I was dreaming weird dreams. I was hallucinating. I ain't
never been sick like that. And why did I get well so fast?
Sickness was over. It just went away. How does that
happen, daddy? I haven't been sick too often. And that daddy sat
his son down and said, son, the Lord healed you. That's what
happened. Let me tell you about it. Those servants, they heard
everything. They saw everything. They packed
his mules up for him. They went and got him whenever
he was on his way back. And they said, you seem a lot easier to
deal with now. You don't pick on us quite so much. What got
into you? He sat them servants down and
said, men, it ain't what got into them, it's who. And he told
them what God had did for them. Everyone in that house, they
proclaimed that man could not do this. This is the hand of
God and Christ is God. He's the Son of God and He is
God. He's the Lord. I believe. That Son was made
alive. He liveth. But the daddy and
everyone else in that household was too. That's the miracle. So that's a miracle. That man's
son was healed. No, the miracle was God saved that man and his
son's house. That's what the miracle was.
I heard and believed. And I believed, after that, that
he's able. And I saw his word come to pass,
and I believed. And I believed more. And that
believing is going to continue. It'll continue to grow. That
faith will grow. Just like coals on a fire, that faith is going
to settle down, it's going to be calm, it's going to be warm,
and it's going to wait on the Lord, trusting Him to keep His
Word. I believe if He's able to keep
that which He's committed, what I've committed unto Him against
that day, what I commit to Him, all of me, every bit of me. What about providence? What about
germs? What about principalities and
power? I commit everything to Him, and
I believe He's able. I pray I'd be given a trial,
that spark, give me a spark of faith. And that our faith's tried
and proven to be God's work and His gift to us. He's the one
that's the author and the finisher of it. And that that belief grows. Lord, increase our faith, teach
us. And there'll be proof of that, there'll be confirmation.
of faith that He gives, that He grows, that His Spirit blows
on. There'll be proof of it. My pastor said about confirmation,
he goes, what could I think of seven things in my life that
would make me say? That's been confirmed to me.
Be careful because He's setting you up to knock you down. What
can I think of seven things in my life that confirms to me that
the Lord has given me faith? That I can say that though He
slay me, I'll trust Him. What's seven things that's happened
in my life? What do I have that proves to me that God's given
me saving faith? The first one's His Word. We've
got His Scriptures right here. I read it and I say, that's right.
Lord, You're right. I'm wrong, You're right. Let
every man be a liar. Second, He's just and a justifier. That's what took place at Calvary.
My sin had to be dealt with. He dealt with it in His Son and
He was satisfied. People say, that ain't fair.
And it sure ain't to Him. He gave all and I got everything.
I believe that. I'm thankful for that. He said,
the fruit, love, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, kindness,
I wasn't under those things until I saw His love, until I saw His
long-suffering. Well, it's easy to be long-suffering.
Somebody make you mad, and you think, I don't know how many times I'll
make the Lord mad. That's a humble spirit. That's a contrite heart
right there. The Lordship of Christ. I fully agree with the
Lordship of Christ in creation and providence and salvation
and everything. Everything. Yes, and I'm thankful. That's
how thankful He is. The thing that confirms my faith
is my flesh. You know that? I could enter
into that. There's a war going on within
me. There wasn't a war before. There's a war going on. Paul
wrote about that. Tells us plainly, don't he? Told us a couple times.
And if there's no war, if there's not an old man fighting this
new man, I'm thankful for that old man. God gave it to me. And
I'm thankful because it confirms the faith He's given me. If there
wasn't a war going on, I'd either be a helpless Pharisee or a hopeless
sinner. A Pharisee can't pray, oh, wretched
man that I am. They won't. They'll say, I used
to be a sinner, or we've done some bad things, or I broke the
law. I'm a worm. I know it. I'm thankful for that.
God gave me faith to understand that. I love that covenant of grace.
Apart from me, it's all set in Him. I'm thankful there's an
election. God's a God of election. It happened
before I came on the scene, before I could mess anything up. I'm
thankful for that, that covenant of grace all in Christ, and I
desire to be with Him. People walk around, this world's
hard living because everybody's scared to die. People walk around broke sometimes,
oh no, that'd be great, and then you get them sick, get them on
a deathbed and they'll cry like a baby. Watched it happen more
than one occasion. I want to be with my Lord. I
don't want to go through that horrible process. I'm not itching
for pain and suffering and whatever that end may look like, but I
want to be with Him. I desire to be with Him. I desire
to be made like Him. There are seven things that I've
experienced in my life that confirms the faith He's given. That spark,
that flame, and those warm, toasty coals that give comfort. And
you know, not one of those has anything to do with a feeling.
about I'll walk in while I was baptized whenever I was 17 years
old. No. It's what he's given us. I just stand on the don't change.
And that's something I hope that's a comfort to you.