Let's all stand together. Number
34. It is finished! Sinners, hear
it! Hear the dying Saviour's cry! Hear the Lord Himself declare
it! Justice has been satisfied! It is finished! Go proclaim it! To poor sinners far and wide! Holy Spirit, make them hear it,
Jesus Christ for sinners died. It is finished, all is over,
Jesus drank damnation dry. What a Savior, what a Savior,
see him now exalted high. it is finished look behold him
seated at his father's side yonder on the throne behold him christ
our substitute to die It is finished, hear him pleading,
As our advocate on high, His own blood's great merit pleading,
Pleading justice satisfied. It is finished, can you hear
him? All the work is fully done. Now believing, looking to him,
we are saved by God's own Son. Please be seated. Good evening. Let's open our
Bibles together to Psalm 95. Psalm 95. One of the things that I want
us to see tonight from our text in John chapter 4 is what it
means to come to Christ. And in here, The psalmist prays,
or the Lord commands through the psalmist, O come, O come,
let us sing unto the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to
the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence
with thanksgiving and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. The
Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods. In his hand
are the deep places of the earth. The strength of the hills is
his also. The sea is his, and he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land. O come, come, let us worship
and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord
our maker, for he is our God, and we are the people of his
pasture and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you will hear
his voice, Harden not your heart, as in the day of provocation,
as the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers
tempted me and proved me and saw my work. Forty years long
was I grieved with this generation and said, it is the people that
do err in their heart." Here we get some understanding about
what it means to worship and come in faith. It's a heart issue. It's a heart
issue. It is the people that do err
in their heart, and they have not known my ways, unto whom
I swear in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, thy Sabbath,
I rest the Lord Jesus Christ, the hope of our comfort, our
salvation, our peace with God by his shed blood. Lord, we pray
for your Holy Spirit. We pray for for you to open our
ears and enable us to hear thy voice from thy word. Lord, we
thank you. that you've spoken by the prophets
and the apostles, and we pray now that you would speak to our
hearts. We pray that you would cause
us to seek after Christ and to come in faith to him. We thank
you, Lord, that all that we need and all that we have is bound up in his glorious person
and in his accomplished work. Thank you for this time of worship.
Lord, enable us to worship you in spirit and in truth. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Number 199 in your hardback timbral. Let's stand together again. 199.
? Sinners Jesus will receive ?
? Sound this word of grace to all ? ? Who the heavenly pathway
lead ? ? All who linger, all who fall ? ? Sing it o'er and
o'er again ? ? Christ receive his sinful man ? Make the message
clear and plain. Christ, receive us in full. Come, and He will give you rest. Trust Him, for His word is plain. He will take the sinful last. Christ, receive it, sinful man. Sing it o'er and o'er again. Christ, receive it, sinful man. Make the message clear and plain,
Christ, receive a sinful man. Now my heart condemns me not,
pure before the law I stand. He who cleansed me from all spot,
satisfied its last demand, singing it o'er. And o'er again Christ
receiveth sinful men. Make the message clear and plain,
Christ receiveth sinful men. Christ receiveth sinful men,
even me with all my sin. Purged from every spot and stain,
heaven with Him I enter in. Sing it o'er and o'er again,
Christ receiveth sinful men. Let's open our Bibles together
to John chapter 4. John chapter 4. I've titled this message, The
Nature of of saving faith, the nature of saving faith. A little over a month ago, we
started looking at the miracles that John writes his gospel around
and dealt with the turning the water into wine and the Feast
at Canaan. And the second miracle that John
tells us about is the healing of the nobleman's son, which
we're going to look at tonight. You have your Bibles open to
John chapter 4. We'll begin reading at verse
33. Now after two days he departed
thence and went into Galilee. For Jesus himself testified that
a prophet hath no honor in his own country. Then when he was
come into Galilee, the Galileans received him, having seen all
the things that he did at Jerusalem at the feast, for they also went
unto the feast. So Jesus came again into Gaman
of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain
nobleman. A nobleman is just that, is a
man of nobility. The word is used to describe
kings and princes and servants of kings or high-ranking servants
of kings. So that's where this man was. The Lord is in Canaan. Capernaum
is about 15 miles away from Canaan. And so this man hears that the
Lord Jesus Christ is in Cana, Cana, and he goes there from
Capernaum. So Jesus came again into Cana
of Galilee, where he made the water wine, and there was a certain
nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum. And when he heard
that Jesus was come out of Judea unto Galilee, he went unto him
and besought him that he would come down and healed his son,
for he was at the point of death. Then said Jesus unto him, except
you see signs and wonders you will not believe, And the nobleman
saith unto him, Sir, and that word Sir is the Lord Kyrios,
most often translated Lord in the New Testament. I don't know
why the translators put Sir here, but it's Lord. So this nobleman comes before the Lord and calls
him Lord. The nobleman saith unto him,
Lord, come down ere my child die. And 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, his servants met him and told him, saying,
Thy son liveth. Then inquired he of them the
hour when it began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday
at the seventh hour the fever left him. So the father knew
that it was at that same hour in the which Jesus said unto
him, Thy son liveth. himself believed and his whole
house. This is again the second miracle
that Jesus did when he was come out of Judea unto Galilee. I remind you that John writes
his gospel account a little differently than does Matthew, Mark, and
Luke. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the synoptic gospels
because they are a synopsis or a summary placed in some sort
of chronological order of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ
in his public ministry. Luke, when he begins writing
his gospel account, says, others have written, you remember Luke
is addressing Theophilus, and he says, most excellent Theophilus,
I know others have written in order the things that the Lord
did, and it seemed good that I should do the same. And so
Matthew, Mark, and Luke are written in a chronological order of events. John doesn't write that way.
John's gospel is more like a sermon
built around the seven I am's and the seven miracles. The first
miracle, you remember the water changed to wine in Cana, tells
us about the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Tells
us who he is as he came to bring an end to the law. for righteousness
and tells about who he is and his work of redemption by his
shed blood, pictured by that new wine and that new covenant. And then after the miracle of
Cana, we have the story of Nicodemus and the woman at the well, which
sort of give testimony to what the Lord taught in that miracle.
And now he's going to move to the second point in his sermon,
the healing of the nobleman, which tells us what the true
nature of saving faith is. That's the story we just read,
tells us what the true nature of saving faith is. We know that faith is a gift
of God. We know the Lord has to give
us saving faith. No question about that. We can't
drum it up ourselves. It's not a decision that we make
or a commitment that we resolve to. It's a gift. For by grace
you say through faith and that is a gift of God. We know that
it's impossible. to please God without faith for
they that come to him must believe that he is and that he's the
rewarder of them that diligently seek him. So what is faith? It's trust. It's to believe from
the heart. It's to rest the hope of your
salvation in the person of Christ. It is to rejoice in Him. The
nature of faith is childlike. It's humility before God. That's what faith is. It's not
some sort of character trait that we present to God and boast
in of ourselves. It's an admission of our dependence
and our reliance upon the Lord Jesus Christ for everything.
It's just the opposite of what most people think when they talk
about faith. It's an admission of our dependence. It's not self-reliance. It's
not self-righteousness. It's not self-confidence. Faith
looks away from self. That's what faith does. It can't
find anything in self for the hope of one's salvation. It has
to look outside of itself. It has to find another that is
able to provide what self cannot provide. And that's what saving
faith is. That's the the essence of saving
faith. It's looking to the Lord Jesus
Christ for our salvation. I have eight simple points I
want to try to make tonight from this passage of scripture. And the first one is that saving
faith is only needed when it's a matter of eternal life and
death. Notice that This man, he believed
the word that the Lord had spoken unto him, but he had a need that
no one else could meet. When we come to the Lord Jesus
Christ, we are coming to him with a need that no one else
can meet. We're not coming to him to just
help us out with some worldly issues. We're saying, Lord, this
is life and death. Lord, if you don't save me, I
won't be saved. This man was desperate. So many times we hear men talk
about faith as if it's just something that improves your life in this
world. No. Saving faith is the only
means to life, period. There is no life outside of Christ. In him is life, and the life
was the light of the world. We see in this story a man who
is desperate and who is in need of life. He's not coming in order
to be delivered from a habit or some sort of addiction or,
you know, to improve his life in this world. He's coming because
his child is dying. And if the Lord doesn't come,
there will be no hope for life. And it is a picture, isn't it?
It's a picture of how we come. Saving faith is coming to the
Lord Jesus Christ for our life. Saving faith is what sinners
do, for the wages of sin is death. And this is a faithful saying,
Christ came to save sinners. So we come for salvation. David said in Psalm 22 verse
21, save me from the lion's mouth, the lion's mouth. Satan and death
and hell and the grave and the wrath that is to come and all
those things, Lord, that's what I need to be saved from. And
so if we're trusting Christ, yes, we trust him for our temporal
circumstances and for our worldly fleshly needs, but saving faith
is trusting him for the forgiveness of our sins. It's trusting his
life for our righteousness. It's trusting his death for our
justification. It's believing on the Lord Jesus
Christ, knowing that, you know, there's a lot of things we can
do to help and maybe even solve a lot of the problems that we
experience in this world. But there's not a single thing
that we can do to solve our sin problem. And so saving faith. is seen in this man. It's only
needed when eternal life and eternal death is at stake. Listen to what David said in
Psalm 57, verse two. I will cry unto God most high,
unto God who performeth all things for me. I'm gonna cry unto the
one who performs all things for me. Nothing I can do to perform
my salvation. He shall send from heaven and
save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me up. What is it that would swallow
us up? Death would swallow us up. The grave would swallow us
up. But we know that death has been swallowed up by victory. The Lord Jesus Christ swallowed
up death. He swallowed up the grave. And
so just like this man came in desperation to the Lord Jesus
Christ for the forgiveness of his sin and for the salvation
of his soul, that's how we come. Save me, O God, for the waters
have come into my soul, David said. Peter, when he was drowning,
said, Lord, save me, save me. so the waters would overwhelm
us, the grave would consume us, the wrath of God would destroy
us. If all we need is to be saved
from the consequences of a particular sin, then maybe a therapist or
a lawyer could help us out. But we've got to be saved from
our sin nature. We've got to be saved from death. And here's how this man came. Saving faith is coming to the
Lord Jesus Christ to be saved. To be saved. Only dead and dying sinners need
saving faith. Only those who have been bitten
by the bitter sting of that serpent
of death need a brazen serpent on a pole to look to. Only they. There's lots of different kinds
of faith in this world. And men, Men believe, and then
they don't believe, or they believe for this and that. This man came,
Lord, my child is gonna die. You don't say, if you don't come,
there's no other hope. When the Spirit of God convicts
us of our sin, You know, conscience is sufficient to convict us of
bad behavior. Consciousness is sufficient.
A lot of people get ashamed in their hearts for things that
they do that they know are wrong. The law of God's written on every
man's heart. But for unbelief and for a sin nature, What did
the Lord say? It's expedient for you that I
go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come.
But when he comes, he will convict the world of sin because they
believe not on me. Lord, there's my problem. There's
my problem. If you don't give me saving faith,
I'll die an unbeliever. That's all I can do. The Spirit
of God has convicted me that my sinful nature is nothing but
unbelief. Lord, I need faith. I need to
believe. And I also need you to help my
unbelief. The second thing we learned about
the nature of saving faith from this miracle, and remember that
the first miracle tells us about the person and work of Christ.
And this miracle tells us about the nature of saving faith. And
the second thing we learn is that faith comes by hearing. Faith comes by hearing. It begins
with hearing. How can they have faith? How can they believe unless they hear? They can't call until they believe,
and they can't believe until they hear, and they can't hear
without a preacher. This is the voice of God. This
is the Lord Jesus Christ. Look what he said in verse 50. Jesus said unto him,
go thy way, thy son liveth. And the man believed the word
that had been spoken unto him, but he believed because he first
heard. Look at verse 27. Verse 47, and when he heard that
Jesus was come out of Judea, this man heard the stories of
the miracles that the Lord had performed. John's only recorded
two of them. We know that when he was in Jerusalem,
he did other things. And I love the way John finishes his
gospel. He says, many other things did
the Lord, but these are recorded that you might believe and that
believing you might have life through his name. So this man
had heard not just about the turning, maybe he hadn't heard
about the turning of the water into wine, but he had heard about
a lot of the things that the Lord had done. And so he came
believing. Turn with me to Genesis chapter
three. I want you to see this. We have to hear. And we know
that the, that the hearing ear and the seeing eye are both from
the Lord. The Lord's got to unstop our ears. He's got to speak. Genesis chapter three, the remedy
for the first sin was hearing. Look at verse eight of Genesis
chapter three. And they heard the voice. Now
they've sinned and they're hiding and they're fearful. And they
heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the
cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from
the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden. And
the Lord called unto Adam and said unto him, where art thou?
And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden. And I was afraid
because I was naked and I hid myself. God speaks to him, but
he heard. Begins with hearing. There's
no salvation apart from hearing. That's why it's so important
for us to declare the gospel, to preach the gospel. Now, salvation doesn't begin
with hearing. Salvation begins in election. You know, we often speak of our,
of our new birth as our salvation, but it's much more accurate to
speak of our new birth as our calling. You know, when somebody
says, well, when were you saved? Well, I was saved before the
foundation of the world. When the Lord Jesus Christ, as
the lamb of slain before the foundation of the world, entered
into a covenant promise with his father, I was saved. I was
saved on Calvary's cross when he bowed his mighty head and
declared that it's finished. He paid the full price, but he
called me when it pleased God, who separated my mother's womb
and called me by his grace. This is the, and the calling
comes only through hearing. 2 Timothy chapter one, verse nine. He hath saved us and called us. Now, which one comes before the
other? Saving comes before calling. He hath saved us and called us
with a holy calling. According, I'm sorry, not according
to our works, but according to his purpose and grace in Christ
Jesus. Our Lord said in John 5, 23,
he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting
life and shall never condemn condemnation because he hath
passed from death unto life. He that heareth and believeth.
This man heard that the Lord Jesus Christ was coming or was
in Cana and he left. In the next verse in that John
5, verse 24 says, verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming
and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of God and shall
come. They that hear shall live. We
are spiritually dead. The Lord has to give us ears
to hear Here we have a man who is desperate for life. This is the nature of faith.
And he heard that Christ was coming. And the evidence that
he heard something was that he left home and went to Cana to
find the Lord Jesus. He didn't send a servant. This
was a nobleman. He could have sent a servant.
He could have said, you know, I heard that there's a man in
Cana. Go, go get him. Bring him here. I'm not going
to leave the side of my child. No, he went himself. The evidence
that we hear is that we come, we come to where he is. This is The works meet for repentance. When the scripture says that
to do works meet for repentance, we used to think, well, you know,
we've got to prove that we're saved by, you know, by showing
everybody how good we are. Now, works meet for repentance
is believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and coming to him in faith.
It's coming to him. Many hear, but they refuse to
come. The Lord Jesus said, you will
not come unto me that you might have life. He's speaking to those
Pharisees. And why did he say? He said, because you love the
praise of men more than the praise of God. You won't come to me. You want your honor to come from
men. Come unto me. Come unto me, all
you that labor and are heavy burdened. Take my yoke upon you. My burden is light. Learn of
me. Learn of me. His burden is light
because he bore the burden of our sin on Calvary's cross. We
come to Christ. The nature of saving faith is
number one, Lord, I'm going to, I'm going to die without it.
This is life and death. This is not just to improve my
life or fix a problem or, you know, make, make things a little
better. No, this is, this is eternal
life and eternal death. Saving faith begins with hearing,
and that hearing causes us to come. If any man thirst, if any
man thirst, let him come and drink from the river of life
freely, freely. What is it to come? religion the man makes a lot
of outward shows of coming you know either
walk an aisle or you pray a prayer or you you you perform a work
or you participate in a ceremony or these are the things no coming
is something that happens in the heart we come to Christ right
now right where you are And tonight, when you're lying in your bed,
you come to Christ again. And in the morning, when you
wake up and the Lord's mercies are renewed every day, you come
to Christ again. And when the Spirit of God convicts
you of your sin, you come to Christ again. To whom coming? This matter of coming to Christ
is not an outward show. It's a work of grace in the heart. This is what saving faith is.
Lord, I'm gonna die if you don't give me, if you don't save me.
Lord, I heard that you were here and I've come. I've come and
I'm pleading with you. We lay down the weapons of our
rebellion and we cry for mercy and we just keep coming, keep
coming. True faith. Saving faith, saving
faith, pleads for mercy. As I said, this word, this word,
sir, translated in verse 49 is actually the word curios. And
it's, it's most always translated Lord. Here was a nobleman bowing
to a carpenter. Uh, uh, uh, You know, a man with
no worldly means and no real outward recognition, and he comes
to him and he sees him and he bows to him. and he pleads with
him. That's what saving faith does.
Lord, he didn't say, come and I'll compensate you for your
troubles. Or don't you know who I am? Come,
come and follow me. No, no, he came and he pleaded
with him. Scripture says that he has the word that's used here,
the nobleman, ask him, he, there was a certain nobleman whose
son was sick. And when he heard that Jesus,
verse 47, to come down from Judea to Galilee, he went unto him
and he besought him. He pleaded with him. And that's
how we come. We don't come with, well, you
know, I accepted Jesus. And so therefore you're obligated
to save me or You know, I prayed this prayer and I was very sincere
about it and therefore you're obligated to save me. No, we
can't do anything to obligate God any more than this nobleman
could do. We're mercy beggars. Can't say, well, I confess my
sins and therefore you're obligated to forgive me. No, no, Lord have
mercy upon me. according to thy loving kindness,
according to thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Lord,
not according to anything that I've done or anything that I
brought. Saving faith has no claim on
God. It's completely dependent upon
his mercy and his grace to save. A leper came to the Lord, said,
Lord, I know you can heal me if you will. I know you can,
if you will. It's all completely up to you.
My salvation is completely in your hands. Nothing. Nothing in my hand I
bring. Only to the cross of the Lord
Jesus Christ I cling. I'm just clinging to you, Lord. David said in Psalm 25, have
mercy on me for I am desolate and afflicted. I'm desolate and
afflicted. This is what saving faith is.
Saving faith just pleads for God's mercy. The centurion who
came to the Lord and said, Lord, I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy
that you should come into my house. Only speak the word and
my servant should be healed. I've got no claim on God. We
don't, do we? What delight he has in showing
mercy. Mercy is for sinners who have
no claim on God. That's who he delights in. Blind
Bartimaeus, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. All be of good cheer, Bartimaeus,
the master calleth thee. He's calling thee. You see, the call of God, the
call of God works both ways. He calls us. He puts it in our
hearts to call on him. Call upon the Lord while he may
be found. No one's ever called upon him
that's been refused by him. Not with empty hands. No, you
come to him. He said, all that the father
hath given unto me will come unto me and he that cometh unto
me I will in no wise cast out. No wise. No one coming as a mercy
beggar has been cast away. Not a single one. That's how
this man came. He besought him, and then he
called him Lord, and he pleaded with him, and he never offered
his credentials. He never demanded anything. Lord,
come. If you don't come, death is coming. So he had a desperate need for
life. He heard about the Lord Jesus Christ, which caused him
to come to where the Lord Jesus Christ was. He begs for mercy. True faith, true faith will always
be tried in order to prove that it's true faith. Always. Here we have it, look. After
this man asked the Lord to come, Jesus said unto him, except ye
see signs and wonders, you will not believe. Wasn't looking for
a sign or wonder, the Lord knew that. Well, the Lord tried his
faith, and he tries your faith and tries my faith. And genuine
faith, it continues even in the midst of that trial. I love it
when Naomi, she did everything that she could do to get Ruth
to stay behind with her sister-in-law. She gave her every reason to
stay behind. Ruth, you don't want to go with
me. I'm an old lady. If I got married again and was
able to have a child, you're not going to have a husband by
me. Stay here in Moab. What Ruth
say? And the other daughter left,
and Ruth said, oh no, no, don't push me away. Your God is my
God, your people is my people, wherever you go, I'm gonna go.
That's what the Lord did to, you see, it's proving of faith. If faith that is of God is not
going to be deterred, even if the circumstances are contrary,
to the promises of God, that's the reason that the Lord said
to the disciples, will you leave me also? 5,000 people had just proven that they
didn't have faith. They only wanted their bellies
full. They didn't have saving faith. The Lord told them, know
to die to themselves and take up their cross and and follow
him they turned around and went home and looked at his disciples said
aren't you going to follow them aren't you going to go with them
peter said lord where should we go you alone have the words
of eternal life lord you you've shut us up to yourself you you
can try to deter us and and make circumstances such that we have
reason to doubt, but we've got no place to go. True saving faith
is always tried. It's always proven by the fires
of trials and troubles. Know what the Lord was doing
with that Syrophoenician woman who came to the Lord and begged
Him She had a desperate need just like this nobleman did for
her daughter. And the Lord began by ignoring
her, and then the disciples embarrassed her publicly, and then the Lord
Jesus Christ called her a dog. She had every reason to be deterred
from her faith. The Lord proves your faith and
my faith the same way. He will send circumstances that
seem contrary to His grace and mercy and His love and trials
and troubles in our lives. And many, many will be like those
5,000. They'll walk away. No, this isn't,
this is too hard. This is too hard. But those who
have saving faith, they're gonna remain. They're gonna remain. When the Lord tarried those extra
two days, what was he doing? He was proving Martha and Mary's
faith. Came to Lazarus and came to the
tomb and, oh, Lord, had you been here, my brother would not have
died. No, Mary, I waited because you needed this. You need this
for your faith. The Lord ordered the steps of
all men. And when Jairus, another man
who was pleading with the Lord to come and save his child, and
the Lord gave that interruption of the woman with the issue of
blood. And then finally Jairus' servant came and said, bother
the master no more, thy son is dead. Daughter, that little daughter,
their daughter's dead. And our Lord said, Don't be afraid. That was a divine interruption
in our Lord's path to Jairus's house in order to give time for
that child to die. Jairus needed that. Amazing. True saving faith is always going
to be proven. It's always going to be proven.
And if it's not real, those trials will cause you to give up. You'll
quit. True faith persists in spite
of all opposing circumstances. True faith keeps coming. God bring you to the place where
you've got nothing but faith. That's a good place to be, isn't
it? A good place to be. True saving faith just simply
takes God at His word. Saving faith is not, is not,
well, if I just believe something hard enough, I can make God do
it. No, it's taking Him at His word. This nobleman believed
the word that the Lord had spoken unto him. Go thy way. Go thy way. Look here, there it is in verse
50. Go thy way, thy son liveth. And the man believed the word
that Jesus had spoken unto him. True saving faith. Can't not
believe. Just believes God. You know,
if you really believe God's word, you're a believer. You're a believer. you're not and well yeah you
know yeah but it's not a yeah but it's yes lord truth lord
and we have so many precious promises to hang the hopes of
our immortal souls on don't we so many call upon the name of
the lord and thou shalt be saved lord you've all i know to do
is cry and call Faith clings to God's word. I am the resurrection and the
life. He that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live.
And he that liveth and believeth on me shall never die. Believest
thou this? Believest thou this? And you
say just what you're saying right now, Adam, amen, I do, I do believe
that. Taking God at His word, He has
given me faith to believe His word. I will never leave you nor forsake
you. The Lord delights in showing mercy. This is a faithful saying,
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am
chief. Lord, you've made me to be a
sinner and I just believe, I believe God's word. I believe you. I can't not believe you. Just
taking God, this nobleman believed the word that Jesus had spoken
unto him, go thy way, thy son liveth. He had nothing else. no other evidence other than
the word that had been spoken unto him. Seventh, true faith grows in
the depths of its conviction and confidence and assurance. He believed the word that the
Lord had spoken unto him. But then when he got home and
he asked his servant, he said, what hour did his fever leave
him? Well, the seventh hour yesterday.
And he knew that that's exactly when the Lord had spoken. One
o'clock in the afternoon, the Lord had spoken unto him. and himself believed all the
more and his household. True saving faith grows. It grows. You believe God more
now than you did last year. You just do. He's proven it. He's proven himself
to be faithful over and over again. He's revealed more truths
to your heart and you just believe him now more. You know, saving
faith is like a mustard seed. It starts out very small and
it grows. And it provides a habitation
for the birds of the air when it grows into a tree and it produces
fruit. And then the husband comes along
and he prunes it, and that's painful, but through the pruning,
it produces more fruit. True saving faith grows. This
man believed the word that had been spoken unto him, but then
when he heard exactly when his child had been healed, oh, he
believed all the more. We become more convinced the
more of his grace we see. So that Paul at the end of his
life said, I have fought the good fight. I have finished my
course. I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up
for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the judge shall
give to me and not just to me only, but all them that love
his appearing. We love his appearing now more
than we did before. And in the nature of saving faith,
I want you to notice that saving faith encourages other lost sheep
to have faith. Your faith encourages my faith.
You know, you call a brother or sister who's in a great trial
maybe even nigh unto death, and you think you're gonna be a word
of encouragement to them, and you get off the phone, and your
heart has been so encouraged by their faith. Go visit a brother
in the hospital or sister, or you speak to someone. This man
went home, and he heard exactly when his faith, when his son
had been healed, and not only did he believe more, but his
whole house. Now, I know in religion, men
say, well, you know, I want other people to see Jesus in me and
I want to influence others to come to Christ. And they didn't
see Jesus in Jesus. And you're not going to influence
a reprobate to come to Christ. But that doesn't change the fact
that our faith does encourage others who are of God's elect
people to come and to believe all the more. We do, we encourage
one another in the faith. And we can discourage one another,
can't we? We can discourage one another.
He believed and his whole house. Did the Lord not say, when the
Holy Ghost comes upon you, you shall be my witnesses, both in
Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, not to be a stumbling block? Oh, child of God, your faith
you don't don't underestimate the influence that you have and
the responsibility that you have on other believers he believed
and his whole house and i would say this to husbands and fathers Don't
underestimate the influence and the responsibility that you have
over your home. He believed and his whole house. I'm fishing with a net. I'm not targeting anybody here,
but you see the application of this, don't you? It's a shameful
thing when a man relinquishes the greatest responsibility that
he has in his home. He thinks, well, I'm here to
provide and protect my family. No, you're there to lead them.
And spiritual leadership is the most important leadership that
a man can have in his home. And it's the greatest need that
his wife and children have. So the Lord says, husbands love
your wives, even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for
it. Who takes responsibility of the leadership between Christ
and his church? The Lord does. That's what he's
saying. This man went home and he heard and he believed and
he believed more. And he told his wife and his
children and his servants and this whole household believed
he had an influence on them. This is what saving faith does. Say, well, I feel like I failed
as an example in so many ways. May the Lord increase our faith. All of us can see failures in
being examples to others, but Lord, increase our faith. Our Heavenly Father, might we learn from this nobleman the nature of true saving faith.
And Lord, might you give us a trust and childlike dependence
and humility and grace to hear and to come and to believe
and to take you at your word. And we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Number 12, let's stand together. Upon my great and sovereign God,
I cast my soul and rest. My Father's hand controls the
world, and what He does is best. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and power combine to make thee blessed. In raging storms and
fiery trials, He keeps me from all harms. He walks with me and
holds me in His everlasting arms. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and power combine to make thee blessed. My God with skill infallible
and great designs of grace, with power and love that never fail,
shall order all my ways. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth
and power combine to make thee blessed. My life's most minute
circumstance is ordered by my God. who promised that in all
things he will ever do me good. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth
and power combine to make thee blessed.