not error, but turn, if you would,
with me to Hebrews. I kind of shared a little bit
of this with my kids yesterday, some of my thoughts about this.
Like I said, there's a lot of things that have sparked to think
about over the weekend that we had, and I'm always thankful
that the Lord teaches me something, you know. It's always good to
continue to grow in the grace We often hear, I'm sure probably everybody in
here has heard this, and maybe even said it, Hebrews 11 is known
as the Hall of Faith, right? We call it the Hall of Faith.
And we kind of make that play off of the Hall of Fame, right? basically what we're kind of
saying is these people that's mentioned in Hebrews 11 is the
spiritual hall of fame or the spiritual hall of faith
is what we call it to make it sound more sanctimonious I guess
but it's called the the hall of faith as if this is a is this
as if this is a segment of society that the Lord has given for us
to look to and how great these people were in the exercising
of faith. Now, I don't assume that on anybody
else's understanding of it. That is my estimation of what
this chapter represented for many years. Is that, here you
go, if you want an example, matter of fact, The Bible says here
that this was a great cloud of witness, right? That these were
a great cloud of witnesses. Now, even at that, I had a completely
different understanding of that. I used to think that everybody
in heaven was looking down on us, saying, cheering us on in
the faith, you know, exercise that faith, exercise that faith.
believe on Christ, choose Christ, decide for Jesus, or with your
faith, pull through, stand fast, hold fast, persevere. Well, then I realized that this
cloud of witness is not people in heaven looking down upon us,
but the cloud of witnesses were those that who went before us
was a witness of the same things that we are looking at. The same
things that we are seeing. They was a cloud of witnesses
to the testimony of God that had been given to them. And as
I mentioned, I have preached during the Bible conference,
I preached about the testimony of God. The testimony of God
is the person and the work of Jesus Christ alone. And that
is established into the heart of every child of grace. by the
Holy Spirit of God, and the truth of that, and the work of that,
and the enjoyment of that, is all by the revelation of the
Spirit. The Holy Spirit reveals to us
the truth of the testimony of God. The testimony of God does
not have any. As a matter of fact, none of
us, I, the I's, the we's, the us, the brethrens, are not included
in that testimony of God as far as the accomplishment of it.
We are not considered in the testimony of God is singular.
The testimony of God is Christ and Him crucified. Matter of
fact, before we kind of get into this, let me just kind of remind
you of that. In 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and
verse, or 1 Corinthians chapter 2, Paul made that very clear.
And I, brethren, whenever I came to you, came not with excellency
of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. What was Paul's subject whenever
he preached? The testimony of God. What was
the testimony of God? Verse 2. For I determined not
to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We also find that over in chapter
1 and verse 5. The scripture says that in everything
ye are enriched by him, being Christ, in all utterance and
in all knowledge. So what is this knowledge that
Paul had? I determined not to know anything
among you, that we have been enriched in all utterance and
knowledge. What is the knowledge that has
been given to us? Even as the testimony of Christ
was confirmed in you. So we see here that the testimony
of God or the testimony of Christ is the knowledge that God imparts
to the child of grace and only to the child of grace. And he
does that and reveals that by his spirit, verse 10, but God
hath revealed them. What is the things, what is the
them referred to back to verse nine, the things that God hath
prepared for them that love him. He hath revealed them unto us
by His Spirit. Verse 12, Now we have received
not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God,
that we might know the things that are freely given to us of
God. So without kind of rehashing
what I preached on the other day, just to go back and lay
kind of a foundation that the testimony of Christ We can call
it the testimony of God, the testimony of Christ. Another
word that the Bible uses for this is the report. Remember,
in the Old Testament, the Bible says, who hath believed our report? Whenever Paul came to the Corinthians
and preached, declaring unto you the what? We could say easily,
the report. What was the report that Paul
brought to them? The report of Jesus and Him crucified. And in that passage it says,
who hath believed our report? Well, who are the ones who have
believed our report? The ones unto whom the Lord,
the arm of the Lord had been revealed. It's a revealing. It's a revelation and it's only
by the power of God that that revelation comes through the
Spirit of God. The Spirit of God reveals. The
Spirit of God is the one who has the power to give us understanding
who are dead in trespasses and sin, who are dead to the things
of the Spirit, who, no, not, matter of fact, in 1 Corinthians
2 again, what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit
of man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth
no man but the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is the only
one that knows all the report and all the things about the
report and is the only one who can reveal to natural man the
things of the Spirit. Does He reveal it to the natural
man? No, the natural man doesn't ever receive those things. That's
what verse 14 says, the natural man receives not the things of
the Spirit of God. So who is it that receives the knowledge,
the testimony of God? Who is it that receives the testimony
of God? The spiritual man. Because it
says right there, we have not received the Spirit of the world,
but the Spirit which is of God that we might know the things
freely given of us. What is the things freely given
to us? That's the testimony of God. What has been freely given
to us? Christ Jesus has been given to
us. Him in His person and Him in His finished work. His obedience,
His death, everything that He procured on our behalf, everything
that He substituted on our behalf as our proxy, that is freely
given to us. us. And therefore, if we are
to receive, believe, to stand upon, to stand firm in, if we're
to do that, we have to be first made spiritual. Because these
things are spiritually discerned. We can't discern them by the
natural man. They're spiritually discerned and it's revealed by
the Spirit. So the spiritual man is revealed
the spiritual teachings about Christ by the Spirit of God Himself. That's who teaches us. That's
how we are taught anything that has to do with the spiritual
kingdom of God. Now, with that being the case
now, who had believed our report, who had believed the testimony
of God, who had done all these things, the Bible says in Hebrews
11, verse 1, it says, Now this is another term that
we use for believing, who have believed our report or who have
faith in the report. Now faith is the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. I know we've all heard this passage
many, many times, quoted this passage many, many times, probably
heard many, many sermons on this passage. But if I take this for
what faith's value, what this is, it says faith is the substance. It's a substance. Faith is the
substance of things hoped for. Then that means to me, at least
in my understanding, and again, I may have this completely wrong,
but faith substantiates what is hoped for. Faith is the substantiation
of what is hoped for. What does it substantiate mean?
Well, substantiate means is to make certain or to make proof
or to show forth the validity of something, right? To substantiate
something is to show the validity of what has been said about it.
Well, faith then is the substance or the substantiation of what
has been hoped for. Me believing on the report, or
the testimony of God, substantiates that I have been made spiritual
because the natural man cannot believe on that report unless
he has first been made spiritual. So for anyone to have faith in
Christ alone, in the testimony of Christ and Him crucified,
to be believing, not just a one time first I believed upon Christ,
a continual believing, trusting faith in Christ Jesus as our
only hope, then that belief, that faith is a gift of God that
came through the Spirit of God to the spiritual man and it substantiates
the fact that what Christ did on that cross has been laid to
us. So in that regard, faith is evidence
of salvation, okay? Because only those who have been
saved, not to get saved, but faith is something that is because
we have been saved. I know a lot of people like to
say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
Meaning that if you'll believe on Christ, then you will be saved,
that Christ will then accept you and give you salvation. But the fact that we are believing
is because we are already saved. Thou shalt believe upon the Lord
Jesus Christ, thou shalt be. That is your position, that is
your standing with God is saved. If you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, thou shalt be a saved one. Because only saved ones
substantiate by faith the hope that is in Christ Jesus. Now,
faith is the substance of things hoped for. What are the things
hoped for? Well, I don't know about you,
but the things that I understand as being hoped for are those
things we've just seen in 1 Corinthians. The things which are freely given
to us. The things in Ephesians chapter
1. All spiritual blessings. which
God has given us in Christ before the world began. I mean, those
are the things to me that are the things hoped for. I hope
for all those things to be given to me. Now, we can name a lot
of things in there, right? We can name, number one, righteousness.
We have a hope for righteousness that is not ours. We can't have
a righteousness of our own. So we hope that Christ's righteousness
is our righteousness that has been given to us by imputation.
We hope that Christ has justified us before God. We hope that we
are the sanctified people of God, set apart as the elect of
God, whom all these blessings come upon. We have a hope that
God is going to give us repentance, that God is going to give us
faith. We have a hope that God is going to preserve us. We have a hope that God is going
to sustain us, that God is going to give us joy, that God is going
to give us, even in the trying of our faith,
that He is going to give us perseverance to continue in these things. These are the things that we
hope for. These are the things that we look for. And so it says
here, now faith is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence
of things not seen. The evidence. Faith is not only
substantiating the very fact that we have been saved, but
it's the evidence that all of what Christ did, he did for us
and therefore has given to us. Otherwise, we would not be having
this faith. And he said, for by it the elders
obtained a good report. See, that's where I got that.
See, again, I may be looking at this wrong. For by it, what? Faith. For by faith, the elders
obtained. That means that they received
a good report. It doesn't say that by this the
elders presented a good report or was an example of a good report.
No, it says by this they obtained a good report. They heard the
report about Christ and obtained that good report through faith. I believe that every one of those
Old Testament saints the Lord gave the testimony of God to
the Lord gave faith to, that faith was substantiated and evidenced
by the fact that they received the report. They obtained that
report and believed it. Unto whom hath the arm of the
Lord been revealed? Everyone who by faith received
that or obtained that report and believed it. The arm of the
Lord has been revealed to them. The power of God. Isn't that
what the Bible says, that the gospel is the power of God? Well,
the power of God is the one that reaches into their heart and
changes their heart, changes their mind, gives them faith
to believe something that they could not believe in the natural
man. So if that's the case, if the
report to be believed, and whether that report be on the personal
work of Jesus Christ, which I believe that is the main issue of the
report, but ultimately, anything that God says, If God says something
to us, gives us a report of anything, gives us a testimony of anything,
whatever the Lord has given us in His Word, faith believes that. If we don't have faith given
by God, we can't believe that and we won't believe that. We
might try to believe something on that for a time being, but
whenever the things of life, whenever the hardships come,
persecution comes, whenever selfishness comes, whenever everything comes,
just like the parable of the sower and all the seeds falling
on different grounds, it's going to be taken away. It's going
to go away. Only those who have the good
ground is anything going to take root and going to grow. Well,
same thing with faith. Faith is only going to continue
as God enables it to continue And that only happens in the
child of grace. It never happens in the reprobate,
but it always happens in the child of grace. So, the elders
have obtained a good report. Now, it starts going through. Through faith, we understand
that the worlds were framed by the word of God. What does that
mean? Well, that means that by faith,
God said that he created the worlds. Well, faith believes
that God did that. I wasn't there when God did that.
We don't have any video evidence of that. We don't have any living
proof that was standing there when God did all these things.
We don't have that. But God said it. And faith that
has been given to us believes that God did it because if God
said it, we take it to the bank that that's what happened, right?
So faith believes the things that God said, believes the things
that God did. And then there's example after
example after example after example after example of people who by
faith God said something, they believed that something and did
something. By faith Abel offered unto God
a more excellent sacrifice. By faith Enoch was translated
that he should not see death. By faith, by faith, by faith.
And we go down here and see that. To the natural mind, we look
at that and we say, look at their such great faith. Look at them,
let's hold them up as examples to us. This great cloud of witness
that has gone before us and seen the triumph of their faith and
how well they did. And if you'll just get after
it and have faith like they had, then you too will do these great
things. But Brethren, we have to always
remember Whether it's Hebrews, whether it's Corinthians, whether
it's Ephesians, Galatians, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, whatever book
of the Bible it is, every one of these books of the Bible is
written to testify of the center or the main context of God's
report, Jesus Christ. Listen, Hebrews isn't written
here to glorify or to exalt these men. are these women that are
in here. It isn't here to tell us to look
how great these men were. It isn't here to even see that
we, if we would just put our faith into action, can do the
great deeds these people did. No, it is a report or a record
of how God exercised faith in them, not how they exercised
faith in God. It's God who actually lays to
the heart or to the soul of a man, faith. He works faith in them. This is a testimony of Christ,
not of these people. Look with me in, well, look at,
I think it's Hebrews 1. Let me take a look here. I think it's Hebrews 1, but I'm
not sure which one. First is let me read that through here. I'm not for sure where it's at. I thought it was Hebrews 1. Anyway,
look with me, if you would, back to Galatians chapter 2. I want you to notice something
here, if you would. Galatians chapter 2. And what Paul says about this
life and how faith has worked Galatians chapter 2 and verse
20, Paul says, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me, and the life which I now live in this flesh. And all of
us are living a life in this flesh, dude. For anybody that
says, well the flesh has been done away with, we don't have
the flesh anymore, they're incorrect. Paul right here is claiming the
life that I now live, that I now live, whenever he was writing
this letter to the Galatians, he was living a life in the flesh. But it says, the life that I
now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God,
not faith in the Son of God, but by the faith of the Son of
God who loved me and gave himself for me. He lived by the faith
of the Son of God. God, Christ, was applying faith
to the life of Paul that he believed and walked as he did. It was
the application and the exercising of faith by Christ in Paul, not
Paul working up faith or exercising faith of his own, If you want
to say working out his salvation, well, it was him working out
his salvation by fear and trembling, for it was God who was working
in him to will and to do, to exercise, to believe, to stand
up and hold fast, or whatever you want to add there. But here,
Paul says, it isn't my faith in the Son of God. And now, let
me just say, so nobody will get confused, we do have faith in
Christ Jesus. We have faith in what He did
and in who He is. We do have faith in Him, but
this here is not talking about a belief in what He did, but
it is an exercising of the faith to believe what He did, to believe
what He says. There's a difference in believing
in something and having something laid upon the heart so that you
will believe. See, the exercising of faith
is God exercising His gift of faith upon us, and once the gift
of faith is exercised upon us, then we believe. The Bible says
that it is given unto man a measure of faith by Christ, right? We
have a measure of faith. He measures out the faith. But
a lot of times we hear preachers preach that there's just this
Bucket of faith that we can just grab up whatever amount we want,
whenever we want it, if we'll just hold fast and do it. Faith
is something that has to be exercised in us, not us exercising. Back to Hebrews. We are, in chapter 10, It says, now the just shall live
by faith. If any man draw back, my soul
shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw
back unto perdition, but unto them that believe to the saving
of the soul. One of the things that faith
as a gift has been given to us is that we believe unto salvation. Not for salvation, but we believe
unto salvation. We believe showing forth. Matter
of fact, that's what came next in the letter. We believe showing
forth that we have been saved. Our believing is the showing
or the revealing or the experience of evidence that we have been
saved. Now faith is the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. And so by
that faith that is exercised in us, these men and anybody
else who is a child of God believes what God says. If you go down all that list
and you see all of what was done by all of these people, matter
of fact, you get into verse 34, or 33, Let me see here, it's verse 32,
I'm sorry. And what shall I more say? For
the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and of Barak and of
Samson and of Jephthah, of David also and Samuel and of the prophets,
who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness. You notice
it said through faith and not by their faith. It was through
faith. through the activity or the work
of faith in them, that they subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness,
obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the
violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness
were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight than
the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead, raised
to life again, and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance. that they might obtain a better
resurrection. And others had trial of cruel
mockings and scourging. Jay moreover of bonds and imprisonments. These aren't great feats that
they did. These were experiences that they encountered because
they believed the report. I mean, if someone's burnt at the
stake, they're exercising a faith. I mean, what is that accomplishing?
other than the fact that they held to the report without wavering. Isn't that what they said? And
the just shall live by faith. We are not the ones that will
draw back unto perdition. We will continue believing these
things despite the circumstances. That God will give us faith to
endure these things. See, this isn't something that
these people had faith in so that they could get something.
None of these people probably was saying, hey, I hope you get
burned on that stake out there and lit as a torch in the streets
for Nero. None of them guys did that. But
yet God exercised faith in them to hold fast to the report that
no matter what persecution came upon them, they continued to
believe the report. But notice if you would, and
I'll kind of wrap up with this, I don't have a whole lot more
thoughts on this, and maybe if any brothers do, you can expound
some more on it. In verse 12, it says, wherefore,
seeing we also are compassed about, with so great a cloud
of witnesses, so all these, this cloud of witnesses, and see again,
it's not, they are not the witnesses to us, but we have a great cloud
of witnesses who witnessed the report. They witnessed the report
of God giving them faith to do these things. They witnessed
the work of God in their lives to accomplish the things that
they accomplished, to hold to the truth of what was told to
them. They were witnesses of the miraculous,
powerful work of God in granting faith. They were witnesses to
that. It says, wherefore seeing we
are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us
lay aside every weight and sin which doth easily beset us, and
let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Now
again, is that an admonition for us to do something? Absolutely.
The Bible is admonishing us to let us lay aside every weight
and sin which doth easily beset us, and let us run with patience
the race that is set before us. Let's not exalt man in what he
is doing or can do or trying to do. Let's exalt how do we
run? How do we lay off? How do we run with patience? We can only do that whenever
we are granted a measure of faith. It's all because of God who works
in us to do these things. But notice if you would here,
and this is kind of what I was trying to get to, and hopefully
it is somewhat clear. All these acts of faith that
is read throughout all of chapter 11 of these people and the exercising
of that faith in them, we cannot exalt their act of faith because
we find here, Paul makes it extremely clear, looking unto Jesus, the
author and the finisher of our faith. These men would not have
done a single bit of anything had not Jesus first authored
faith in them and brought that faith to a finish. He is the author of our faith.
He is also the finisher of our faith. A lot of people forget
about the finish part. They say He is the author and
the finisher of our faith. Well, we all understand what
the author means. It means He is the one who grants
it, who gives it. That's where it starts. But what
about the finisher part? Have you ever thought about the
finisher part? He is the author and the finisher of faith. That means every act of
faith from its inception to its conclusion is all Christ. How long do I persevere? How
long do I walk in faith? Moses when he was born was hid
three months of his parents because they saw that he was a proper
child and they were not afraid of the King's commandment. Christ
was the author of that woman's faith to hide her son. But God
was also the finisher of that faith that once that was completed,
she had that faith until the very end, until it was over with.
If God has anything for you to do with faith, he's going to
be not only the instigator of it, but he's also going to sustain
it until his purpose and ends for it is done. And that kind
of applies to everything, not just the gospel, to anything. I mean, because all these things
that's in Hebrews, and has anybody noticed that, made a note of
that? In Hebrews 11, all those things that they did had nothing
to do with the gospel, actually. None of that was about believing
on righteousness for salvation. It was trusting the Word of God.
It was following God in what He said, and in following God
for what He said, the Bible says that was faith that was worked
in them to do those things. And God gave them the faith for
a time, and then He took it away. Samson. He gave Samson faith
for quite a while, but then He took it away, didn't He? And
then what happened? He got all loosey-goosey with
a girl that he shouldn't have been with as far as Our understanding,
that was God's purpose and plan all along. But what happened
with Delilah? She came and cut his hair. He lost all of his strength.
Ended up chained up, pinned up, eyes gouged out. But then God
gave him faith once again, right? He was the author and the finisher
of Samson's faith on different occasions. He is the author and
the finisher of our faith in every occasion that we have faith. It says, looking unto Jesus,
the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that
was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and
has sat down at the right hand of God. For consider him that
endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest
ye be weary and faint in your minds. Ye have not resisted unto
blood, striving against sin, and ye have forgotten the exhortation.
and ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto
children. My son, despite us not the chastening
of the Lord, or faint whenever thou art rebuked of him, for
whom the Lord loveth, he chastens and discourages every son whom
he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with
sons. And what sons is he whom the
Father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement,
whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers
of our flesh, which corrected us, and we have gave them reverence.
Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of
spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days
chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our profit
that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now, no chastening
for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward,
it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness under them which
are exercised thereby. Wherefore, lift up the hands
which hang down in the feeble knees and make straight paths
for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the
way and let it be rather be healed. follow peace with all men, and
holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord, looking diligently,
lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness
springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled, lest
there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel
of meat sold his birthright, for you know how that afterward,
when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected,
for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully
with tears. for ye are not come unto the mount that might be
touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and
darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice
of words, which voice they that heard entreated that the words
should not be spoken to them any more. For they could not
endure that which was commanded, and if so much as a beast touched
the mountain, it should be stoned, or thrust through with the dart.
And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly
fear and quake. But ye are come unto Mount Zion. Now, this is in the present.
Ye are come, not ye will come, or ye eventually will come. It's ye are come. Unto Mount
Zion, unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,
unto an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly
and the church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven.
And to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men,
made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant,
to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that
of Abel. See that ye refuse not him that
speaketh, for if they escape not who refused him that spake
on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from
him that speaketh from heaven. Whose voice then shook the earth,
but now he hath promised saying, Yet once more I shake not the
earth only, but also heaven. And this word yet once more signifies
that the removing of those things that are shaken as of things
that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
Wherefore, receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us
have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence
and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire." Now that whole
thing was to tell us that God is the one who works in us this
faith, and that there will be times when Christ is the author
of that, and there are times that He's going to be the finisher
of that, and then those times whenever we, as we see here,
lack faith, they'll be chasing Him. We're going to have times
where we are strong in faith. There are going to be times when
we are not strong in faith. There are going to be times when
we experience these mountaintops. There are going to be times when
we're going to experience chastening. But through all of that, Paul
says, I live by the faith of the Son of God. We live by Him
exercising faith. If we continue in faith to the
end, it isn't because we did it under our own ability and
our own strength. But we did it because Christ,
who is our faith, has kept us. The only feats of faith that
we see, and these people were great examples of feats of faith,
the only reason they did that is because of the author and
the finisher of faith. So whenever we speak of these
things, brethren, let's always speak and exalt Christ in these
things and not lift up man as the example. Because God surely
did write this so that we might Think a lot about Noah and a
lot about Abraham and a lot about anybody else. He did it so that we might glorify
and crash Jesus. Anyway, those are some of my
thoughts on that, scattered though they be. Anybody got any comments
or anything you'd like to add to that? Any other thoughts about
it? Very encouraging. I mentioned something in my message
the other day, and it's just something I guess that gets in
my crawl, is when men try to exalt men, I believe in all the
preaching of the scripture, there is a continual debasing of man
and an exalting of Christ. And if our preaching goes in
the opposite direction, where we're exalting Christ, or exalting
man, and what man does and what man has a responsibility to do,
then in turn, we are now debasing Christ because we are saying
man has been given something to keep up and that Christ isn't
the one who's doing it all. And so, I think we need to be
careful in that, even among men who know that, yeah, it is God
that's working in this. Yeah, it is God who gives us
strength. Yeah, it's God who gives us faith, but he doesn't
give it to us for us to have to do. We have to do something,
right? See, again, the whole argumentation is putting the
emphasis on the man. We're just the vessels. We're
just the creations. We're just the tools in God's
hand. And whether he picks us up today, you know, I got out
in this backyard. If you go back there, please
don't because it's a mess. But if you go in the backyard,
I was out there the other day and we was getting the dog ready
to put in the pen back there before we left. Walked out there
and going to clean out his cage and everything. I needed a rake. Well, laying against the house
was a rake. So I grabbed that rake and I
picked that rake up and I raked it and I laid, flipped it back.
Then we needed a shovel. Well, there's a shovel laying
out in the ground somewhere out in the yard. Zach went over and
picked up the shovel, came over and I shoveled stuff up and put
it in the trash can, put the shovel back. Then we had the
water hose and I had to hook the water hose and fit this thing.
These were all tools. And for a moment, I needed the
rake and I used the rake I used the shovel, and I used the hose. Now, is anybody gonna exalt in
the rake, the shovel, and the hose? Who cleaned up that thing? No. Who cleaned it up? I did. How do you think Jesus feels whenever
we start exalting man for, oh, I built this great ark, saved
all my family. Oh, I put that kid in that basket,
and now Moses, the great leader, came forth, you know? When we
start exalting men in all of what they do, then we begin to
debase, deface, and not give glory that is due and honor that
is due Christ Jesus. It is the exaltation of Christ
that we should put in the center of all of our preaching, all
of our testimonies. That's another thing, whenever
I hear, often I ask when people come in the past that have I
wanted to be a part of the church and everything. I asked him,
you know, well, tell me about your salvation experience. If it was I, I, I,
I, I used to do this, but now I quit doing that, and I, you
know, all this stuff. That testimony substantiates
where their hope is. Their hope was in their reformation.
Their hope was in they did this, they did this, and they did this.
And because of that, now they are something. But see, our faith
substantiates something as well. Our faith substantiates that
everything was done in God, by Christ. That's what divine faith
substantiates, is Christ alone. That's the message alone. That's
the hope alone. That's the exaltation alone.
And in the end, that's gonna be Him alone. We're not gonna
be sitting up on a little platform next to Him on the throne. Now,
we're all gonna be down around the throne, giving praise to
the only one on the throne. And whenever we come in, the
term, well done, thy good and faithful servant, is not gonna
be directed by God to each one of us. It's gonna be directed
to our head as we follow him. Well done, thy good and faithful
servant. And because you were good and
faithful, I accept all them as good and faithful in you. See,
he's the good and faithful servant, not us. Anybody got anything you want to mention? All right. in us, pray that you would take
this message and apply it to our hearts, and that we would
continually exalt Christ as our Savior. Lord, you can't be asking
Christ's name.