These things run together. You
know, you think you're going to get up and preach the morning
message again sometime. When you're preaching in the
morning and afternoon like this, it just seems like sometimes
it all runs together. In Hebrews chapter 11, in just this one verse, let's
begin with this one verse, and keep your Bible open, because
I won't be referring to these verses. Let's just go through
them this afternoon. By faith Abraham, when he was
called to go out unto a place, which he should after receive
for an inheritance, he obeyed, and he went out, not knowing
whether he went." This is the faith chapter. That's what we
call it, the faith chapter. Faith, we have there in the first
verse, faith identified. Faith is the substance of things
for the evidence of things not seen. And somebody gave another little hint at what
that verse 1 meant. And someone said this, faith
is a powerful grace. Faith is the assurance and conviction
of unseen things. which caused Abraham and the
patriarchs to rely confidently upon the fulfillment of God's
promise. Faith is a deep conviction and
assurance that what God has promised, He'll perform. It brings that
which is unseen down and lets us see it by the eye of our understanding,
the eye of faith. It makes that which is a way
off to be present and real. And the scripture says here,
by faith Abraham went out. He went out. Genesis 12 says
that God called him out. The Lord said to Abraham, get
thee out, and now listen to this, of thy country and thy kindred
and thy father's house. Everything that he had loved
and everything that was precious to this man. The Scripture says
the Lord called him to come out of it. Every place. Can you imagine his farm that
he had? Imagine his relatives that he
loved and his father's house. He said, Come out from thy country,
your father's house and your kinry. One of the reasons that
God called him out of this place It's because of the associations
he had there. The Bible tells us, and you can
find this in Joshua chapter 24, the Bible tells us that his relatives
were idolaters. His father wasn't an idolater.
His cousins were idolaters. And even when Isaac and Jacob
was grown, that country was still an idolater. So the Lord called
him out of that country because It was a country of idolatry. The Lord doesn't save a man and
leave him in idolatry, does He? He doesn't do that. Imagine Abraham
putting his farm up for sale, saying goodbye to his friends,
goodbye to his relatives and his dad's house. Don't you think
they probably thought he had lost his mind? What's wrong with
you, Abraham? Everything was going so good.
Why are you selling your farm? Why are you leaving your relatives
that love you so? God called him out, didn't He?
He called him out. You know, not much has changed
today, has it? The Lord calls us out from things. He calls us out from the ways
that we love. He calls us out from bad associations
that we had. Why does He do that? Because
it was darkness. He called us out of darkness.
And don't all of us have some friends that think it's strange
that we don't run with them to the same excess of wrath? Don't
they think it's strange that we left that way? They can't
imagine us leaving that way. Weren't you having fun? How can
you leave your friends that loved you so much? They miss running
around with you and drinking with you and telling their dirty
jokes. Why did you leave us? They think
it's strange. Because that's works of darkness.
The Lord calls us out from that, doesn't He? Just like He did
Abraham. Oh, didn't you love that way? Yes, I did. Didn't
you love those associations? Yes, I did. But here's the problem
with that. That's works of darkness. The flesh would love it today,
wouldn't it? But that's the way that leads to destruction. That's
the way of death. What enabled Abraham to come
out? Faith. By faith, Abraham went out. Well, faith is a mysterious thing,
isn't it? When faith gets in a person's heart, it'll change
him. I mean, it'll change the way
you feel about things. It'll change the way you feel
about people. He'll change the way you think.
He'll change what you do. Faith is a powerful principle.
It is indeed a deep conviction of things not seen. By faith,
Abraham came out. Faith will make you love the
things you used to hate and hate the things you used to love.
Faith will cause a man to take sides with God against himself,
against the whole world. against the only brother that
you have. We've got some good examples
here in the 11th chapter of Hebrews of what faith will do for men. And you see the negative aspect
of it. We often think about faith laying
hold upon those things that God is pleased to give and seeking
those things that God has promised. But you know also faith, faith
desires to lay aside those things and come out from those places
that doesn't please God. And you see that in these patriarchs
here all the way back to Abel. We're told here in verse 4 that
Abel, by faith, in the face of persecution, In the face of his
brother's hatred, he offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice
than Cain. Can't you just see Abel standing
there watching Cain as he came up there with that old bloody
lamb in his arm and he saw the frown on his brother's face? And then he threatened him, you
better never do this again. You made me look bad bringing
that bloody lamb. Why did he continue to offer
Offer those lambs. Why was he not threatened into
stopping worshiping the Lord the way God had prescribed? Faith. Faith. Faith. In verse 7, or verse 5, look
there in verse 5, we talk about Enoch. He was the great grandfather
of Noah. And I bet it was bad in his day,
don't you? But you know what we're told
about this man in the face of the violence and corruption of
his day? This man walked with God. How
can you walk with God in a world full of corruption? By faith.
It can be done, can't it? And then in verse 7 we're told
about Noah. What about him? Man, he built
that ark in a time of violence. Can you imagine what faith this
man had? There's only eight people saved in His day. Eight people. How would you like to walk with
God when there's just seven more people walking with you? How
would you like to be out hammering on that ark when you're just
seven other people hammering with you? People mocking you,
radicaling you. How could He do that? Faith.
Faith. Faith will enable a man to turn
his back on a rebellious world and love God and serve Him in
His day. in spite of all. Faith not only
desires to lay hold upon what God is pleased to give, but faith
desires to forsake those things which displease Him. There are
sometimes things which God requires, and you know there's nothing
wrong with those things, but sometimes He requires things
out of His people. to give up and to let go of and
the only way they can do it is by faith. Look here in verse
17 of chapter 11. Look here what it says about
Abraham offering his only begotten son. Here in verse 17. By faith
Abraham, when he was tried, offered up
Isaac. And he that had received the
promise offered up his only begotten son." Man, that's a trial, isn't
it? He had only one son, his only
begotten son, he and Sarah. And now the Lord says, take him
up on Mount Moriah and offer him there for a sacrifice. And
you know Abraham never told anybody about that. He didn't wake up
Sarah and say, Sarah, listen, I'm going to offer our son this
morning. Why didn't he do that? She wouldn't have understood
that, would she? The Lord puts His people through some trials
that nobody understands but Him. He didn't even tell Isaac until
he got halfway up the mountain. Father, here's the knife and
here's the fire, where's the sacrifice? He didn't know Abraham
was going to kill him. Boy, sometimes the Lord puts
His children, requires things of them that in and of themselves
there's nothing wrong with. But He says, give this up. And
nobody understands it, does he? Nobody understands why you do
what you do. It's a personal thing with you.
And you do some things and don't do other things because God requires
it of you. And you know that in your heart.
And He tries you. Look here in verse 18. It shows
more about what a trial this was in verse 18. He offered up
his only begotten son of whom it was said that in Isaac thy
seed shall be called. This was the child of promise.
If Abraham killed him, he was killing all of his descendants.
And what about Christ? Christ was coming out of this
man. Kill the child of promise? And kill Christ, the coming Messiah? How do you understand that? Well,
there are trials, brothers and sisters. The Lord puts us through. We can't understand. We just
trust Him for the outcome. He says it, so we do it, and
we leave the outcome to Him. Faith will enable us to submit
ourselves to God's will and leave all the outcome with Him. So
what did He do? Well, look in verse 19. Here's
what Abraham did. "...accounting that God was able
to raise him up, even from the dead, from whence also He received
him in He said, I'm going to obey the Lord. Faith enabled
him to do that. And he said, God is the one that
gave the promise and God is able to fulfill it. So he committed
himself to the Lord. What a trial that was. What a
trial. Look here in verse 3. We talk about trials and Faith
enabling us to stand against things as well as for things. Look what he says in verse 3.
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the
Word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made
of things which do appear. Is that what we are being told
all around us today? If you take this verse today,
and you believe this verse, and you make it known to the world
that we live in, I'm telling you, watch, you'll be called
everything from Neanderthal to ignorant. If you say that God
made all of this out of nothing, that He spake it into being,
upholds it by the Word of His power, they'll say, man, you're
crazy. You're from the old school. We
know better now. Isn't that what they'll tell
you? What enables us to go ahead and say, in six days, the Lord
our God created the heavens and the earth. All of that outer
space, Wayne, that we look at on those videos and things and
see this vast, vast universe. And they tell us it just exploded
from some little old cell or something. And out of that came
all of this magnificent order and beauty. You're going to have
to have some faith to believe that, ain't you? And they say
theirs is not a religion. How do we stand against this?
And this is the only proof that we've got. They've got all this
proof, they say, and the only proof we've got is this. But
that's enough, isn't it? Faith has this deep conviction. How do you know He did it? Because
He said. Well, how did He do it? He just spake it. Spake it. Faith believes God's Word. Faith
believes His revelation. Faith believes His promises.
You can't explain faith. It's just this assurance. This
deep conviction of unseen things. You know there's no other way
to walk with God. There's just no other way to walk with it
but by faith. That's the way He's ordained
and that's the only way we're going to walk with it, by believing
Him. By faith, Abraham will come out. And the Apostle Peter in
Acts chapter 15 verse 9 said this about faith. God put no
difference in the Jews and the Gentiles purifying their hearts
by faith. Faith will purify a man's heart.
Why? Because it believes God. It lives
by faith upon Him. Notice the last portion of our
text, verse 8. The last portion. By faith Abraham, when he was
called, he went out, not knowing whither he went. He went out not knowing whither.
Why didn't the Lord tell him where he was going? You know
why the Lord didn't tell him? He wanted him to live by faith.
He's got a way of making us do that, doesn't He? He didn't tell
him because He wanted him to live. He could have told him.
But here's all He told him in Genesis 12-1. He called him and
said, Come out unto a land that I will show thee. I will show you. I'm going to
give you this land. But you're going to come out.
And just believe me. And in time, I'm going to show
you this land. The Lord seldom leads us by sight,
does He? The best thing He ever did for
us is to blind us. That's the best thing He ever
did for us. Blind us, leave us in the dark, that we could take
only one step at a time, because it's only then that we listen
for His voice and His Word and we follow Him. Listen to Isaiah 42, 16. I will
lead the blind by way that they knew not. I will lead them. I will lead them in paths that
they have not known. I will make darkness light before
them and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them
and not forsake them, saith the Lord. He leads us. And He teaches
us to walk by faith in Him and believe His promise. Can you
imagine poor Joseph trying to figure out what the Lord was
doing with him? All he knew was the Lord had
promised him that he was going to reign, that people were going
to come and bow down to him. That's all he knew. Can you imagine
him trying to figure out how the Lord was going to get him
there? He found himself in a pit. hated by his brethren, falsely
accused, put in prison, put into stocks, his feet were swollen.
Can you imagine trying to figure out how God is going to get me
on the throne somewhere? He gets us in a place where we
cannot do anything but trust Him. He said, Abraham, I am going
to give you the land of Canaan. You are going to have to trust
me. I am going to show it to you in my time. You are going
to have to live by faith. That's the way the Lord is. We
live by faith upon Him. Every child of God has been given
the promise of a homeland. But between here and there, and
between now and then, we walk through some dark paths, don't
we? We walk through some narrow roads, some long valleys, and
some hills of difficulty between here and there. And the only
way to walk this journey is by faith in our Lord and Savior
and confidence in His Word. Faith. By faith, Abraham came
out. And he says here in verse 9,
look it back again in chapter 11 and verse 9. This is an amazing
statement that he made. It's difficult to understand
it. By faith, he sojourned. That word sojourn means to reside
as a foreigner. He sojourned in the land of promise
as in a strange or alien country, dwelling in tent with Isaac and
Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise." God had promised
Abraham this whole country. And He didn't give him any possession. It was going to be His through
His descendants. But Stephen in Acts chapter 7
said He didn't give him so much has enough area to set his foot
down. The only thing he finally had,
remember, he bought him a gravesite for his family, a field and a
cave for a gravesite. That's all the land that he had.
It's the same way with us today, with every child of God. You
know what the Lord has promised His children? In Matthew chapter
5, that Sermon on the Mount, that blessed sermon, The Lord
Jesus made two wonderful promises to His children. Listen to what
He said. Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth. You know this earth is yours.
You don't have possession of it, do you? But it's yours. And
listen to what else He said even more blessed than that. Blessed
are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And Paul said
this, all things are yours. Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas
or the world or this life or death or things to come, all
things are yours and you are Christ and Christ is God. But right now what do we have?
And what should we have? And what should we have our hearts
set on? We should be content with just What is that? Six foot
by eight foot or something? That's all we're going to have,
brothers and sisters. That little plot of land. And
in the meantime, we should be like Abraham. Though this world
is going to be ours someday. A new heaven and a new earth
wherein dwelleth righteousness. We don't have it now, do we?
Well, just like Abraham, it's promised to us. But all we've
got right now is that little plot. They're going to put us
in when we die. And all we've got right now of
our inheritance from heaven is the Holy Spirit is in earnest
in our hearts. We're waiting for the rest, aren't
we? And we should be just like Abraham. He told the children
of Heth, he said, I'm a pilgrim and stranger among you. That's
all I am. That's what the world should
see out of the church. The church is getting too comfortable in
this world, ain't it? When the world looks at the church now,
what do they see? They're seeking the same thing
the world is. Not Abraham. Boy, he said, I'm a pilgrim and
I'm a stranger among you. That's what the world should
see out of us. Boy, those people aren't seeking this world. They're
not seeking this world. I have some friends out in Montana.
And they own a huge ranch. They sold it to David Letterman
and bought him another ranch. And I was out there not too awfully
long ago, and they were showing me pictures of their present
ranch. Time before I was out there, I guess it was. Man, I've
never seen such a place in all my life. Huge log cabins, big
lakes, elk out in the front yard. They would show me all the pictures
and the pastor walked up after they left and whispered to me,
he said, almost too good to leave and go to heaven, ain't it? I knew what he was saying. Almost
too good to leave and go to heaven. Don't seem like they're pilgrims,
does it? Don't seem like they're strangers.
Abraham said, I'm a pilgrim and I'm a stranger. Abraham was in
a land that was to be his in the future. But in the meantime,
he had his heart set on something higher, didn't he? Look in verse
10. Look in verse 10. For he looked
for a city which hath foundation, whose builder and maker is God. He looked for a city. Some say
this was the church age. Abraham was looking for his spiritual
seed to be called in. And others say he was looking
for heaven itself. Well, I think probably both of
them. Why couldn't both of them be true? He rejoiced to see the
day of Christ and saw it. But I tell you, he's seated in
heaven too, ain't he? God prepared for him a city,
and there he is. And you know something? He's
waiting. He's still waiting for all his spiritual seed to come
and sit down with him and eat and drink in that heavenly place
and rest for all eternity. He sought a city. I think that tells us something
about that promised land over there, doesn't it? They looked
to that promised land, but they looked through that promised
land to a better land, didn't they? Abraham was in the land
of promise when he was seeking a land of promise. He looked for a city with a church
and all her members. was to sit down with Him, and
Isaac, and Jacob, and eat, and drink, and fellowship for all
eternity. You desire a better country.
Does your heart sit on a heavenly country? You're looking for something
beyond this present world. Does your heart sit there? Is
that where your desires are? Look here in verse 13. Look here
how He says it. I love this. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and
Sarah, all the patriarchs, they all died in faith, not having
received the promises, the fulfillment of them, but having seen them
afar off and were persuaded of them and embraced them and confessed
that they were strangers and pilgrims on this earth. For they
that say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland.
Home, I love how heaven is described, a homeland, a country. And truly, if they had been mindful
of that country from which they came out, they might have had
opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better
country that is not heavenly. Wherefore God is not ashamed
to be called their God, for He hath prepared for them a city,
a heavenly country. And you'll notice Abraham here
in the last portion of verse 9, and this should be all of
our desire. If you and I are seeking this
heavenly country, we're heirs of that heavenly country, you
know what we should do is seek to keep company with others who
are heirs of that company, that heavenly place. Who did Abraham
keep company with? Other heirs didn't. He dwelt
in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise,
and their family. He sort of came out of this world,
did not seek so much of it, and he brought those out with him
and kept company with those who had an interest and were seeking
the same country he was going to. I told my wife yesterday,
I said, we are going to start having some of the Lord's people
over to eat with us and fellowship with us. I want to keep company
with others who are going to heaven with me. Don't you feel
like we're going to do that? So I'll be calling some of you
and asking some of you pretty soon if you come over to the
house to eat with me. And if you don't hear from me, you may
think, well, he don't think I'm going to heaven with him. But that's what Abraham did,
buddy. He kept company. with those who had the same interest
as he did, heavenly interest. And look here at Sarah just for
a minute. Boy, we often talk about the men, talk about these
patriarchs, Isaac and Jacob and Abraham. But look at Sarah. Look
in verse 11. Through faith also Sarah herself,
through faith, she had this heart faith. She received strength
to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was of past
age, because she judged him faithful who had promised." I asked the
girls last night, I said, how old do you think Sarah was when
she had her first child, her only child? They started out
25, and they got all the way up, 90 years old. Ain't that amazing? And she was
past age. Medical science would tell us,
you know, you're not going to have a child then. But she judged
him faithful who had promised. Sarah tells us another aspect
of faith that we think little about. But faith strengthens
us. Not just our souls either, but
it strengthens our bodies. Through faith, she received strength
to conceive physical. See? Because you believe God. Boy, ain't it something how faith,
when we believe the Lord, it affects our entire beings, doesn't
it? Did you ever just know that you need to do this? I need to
go worship with the Lord's people. Man, I'm tired. I'm wore out.
I'm high and sick. But did you ever just go on anyway?
Because you know that's where you ought to be. with the Lord's
people, encouraging the Lord's people. So boy, you just get
up and go. And what happens? Haven't you
had this to happen so often? You get to feeling better. You
get stronger. That's what happened to Sarah.
All of us have done that. Faith gives us strength. This
tells us something about the awfulness of unbelief, too, doesn't
it? She counted Him faithful. who had promised. Faith counts
God to be faithful. What does unbelief do? It says
He's unfaithful. He's unfaithful. That's why we
call unbelief the chief of sins, the root of sins. It looks at
God, it looks at His promises and says, I don't believe Him.
I don't believe He'll keep His promise. I don't believe He's
able to keep His promises. I don't believe He's faithful
to keep His promises. Boy, but faith looks at the promise
of God and says, He'll keep it. I'm persuaded He'll keep it.
And faith embraces those promises and cleaves to them and hopes
and waits for the fulfillment of those promises. She counted
Him faithful who had promised. Here's where you and I have so
much trouble. We talk about unbelief all the time, don't we? But we
ought to talk more about the horror of unbelief. Unbelief
is saying God is not faithful. That's what unbelief is. He's
just not faithful. You know why we get down and
sad and lonely sometimes? We don't believe His promise.
Did He not promise, I'll never leave you nor forsake you? I'll go with you always until
the ends of the world? And you think you're alone? Why
would you believe you're alone? He's with you, is he not? We
preachers are awfully bad to get down and discourage when
we see so few people in the congregation. Man, we get down. Just might
as well give it up. Just quit. And go pouting along,
get a long face. But you know something? What
if the Lord Jesus was here tonight? You think I would get down if
He was here? If I look back and saw Him sitting just behind Wayne,
wouldn't that encourage me? Well, you know He's here. How
do you know? He promised, where two or three
are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst. You believe
He's here. You know why so many people, bless their hearts, get
discouraged and won't stay for services or they won't be faithful
to the service? You know why they don't believe
He's here? If you knew He was here, you
couldn't wait to get through those doors. Well, He's here. And to say He's not here, you'd
just say, well, He's not faithful there. It's to not have this
faith that Sarah had when she judged Him to be faithful who
had promised. You know why sometimes we sin
and we confess it, and we confess it, and we confess it, and we
confess it, and we can't get by it? You know why we do that?
Unbelief. Well, we go ahead and confess
it. Go ahead and keep confessing
it. This is His promise. If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins. Do we believe that?
Then there's no sense carrying that past sin with us and getting
down and living and defeated in our conscience. He's faithful
to forgive us of our sins. I love John chapter 6 verse 37. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. There are two great promises
in that scripture. One is to Christ Himself. And
you talk about taking comfort in it and believing it. He did.
There was a multitude listening to Him preach one day, and He
knew they was getting ready to go away. The whole multitude
was going to leave Him and walk with Him no more. But this is
what He said, All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me. That's a promise, isn't it? That
was a promise the Father Himself had made to Him. And there's
another promise, and it's to you, and it's to me. And him
that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast him out. We sometimes look upon that as
our initial coming. That's any time we come. No matter
how many times a day you come, no matter what condition or state
you find yourself in, here's His promise. Him that comes to
me, I will for no reason cast him out. And we're full of doubts
about coming, aren't we? We want to find excuses not to
come. Why is that? We need this faith
that Sarah had. We count Him faithful who has
promise. Why should any child of God,
any heaven-born soul, fear death and fear eternity and the judgment
to come? This is the promise that He has
promised us, even eternal I am the resurrection, I am the
life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, here is
my promise to him, yet shall he live. And he that believeth
and lives in me shall never die. Do you believe this? He said.
Do you believe I am faithful to this promise? You will never
die. You will never taste of death. James says this. Blessed is the
man that endureth temptation. For when he has tried, he shall
receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to them
that love him. And listen to what else he said.
Hearken, my beloved brother, hath not God chosen the poor
of this world rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he
hath promised to them that love him? These are no small promises,
are they? You count them small promises?
Those are amazing promises! A crown of life, whatever that
is? Reigning in life? A kingdom that will never be
shaken or moved? And He's promised it to you? Oh my goodness! Do you count
Him faithful? That promise? What does faith say? Will He
perform all that He's promised? Will He let one fall to the ground?
Is He able to do it? What does your faith say? Are
you persuaded? Are you looking at these promises
and embracing them? Are they working in your heart
this deep conviction, this assurance that all of these things that's
promised that you can't even see as yet, you're bringing them
down? and saying, That's truth. That's
real. And you lay hold of those things
while you let go of these temporal things. You've got this faith
in your heart. By faith. By faith. By faith. Oh, faith is a rare thing, isn't
it? It's a precious thing, folks. Oh, Lord, I believe. Help thou
my unbelief. Lord bless His Word. Let's pray.