Let's take our Bibles and turn
with me to the book of Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11. I'd like this evening to look
at verses 1 through 3. Hebrews 11, 1 through 3. I've entitled this
message, What is Faith? What is faith? Let's read together. Now, faith is the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it
the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that
the worlds were framed by the Word of God so that things which
are seen were not made of things which do appear. Let's pray together. Our Father, how thankful we are
for this evening. Lord, the blessing of being able
to assemble together and to hear the glorious gospel of our God. We ask You this night, Lord,
would You bless the Word Bless the Word, we pray, to the salvation
of sinners and those made so by grace. And Lord, for the comfort
of Your people. Lord, help us to worship. Help
us to see. Help us to hear. Thank You for
Christ's sake. Amen. We're starting this eleventh
chapter, the chapter that speaks of the glorious grace and gift
of that which is known as faith. Faith is a gift. This is what Philippians 129
says, For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not
only to believe on Him, but also to suffer. for His sake. It's a gift. All men, the Scripture
says, 2 Thessalonians 3, 2, have not faith. Men are not born with
faith. Men do not have this ability
to be able to believe God. It's got to be given unto them. The Scripture says, Ephesians
2.8, For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves, it is the gift of God. This evening, if we are
able to believe God, it is by the grace and gift of Almighty
God, received by the glorious grace of God. Acts 18.27, And
when He, that is, Apollos, was disposed to pass into Achaia,
the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive Him,
who, when He was come, helped them much which had believed
through grace." By the grace of God. We're able to believe
God. faith, that glorious gift and
grace of faith. And may the Spirit of God bless
these words to our hearts and to teach us as we look into the
Word of God for understanding and for faith. Oh, how much the
Spirit of God speaks of faith. You think of the trials we go
through. Oh, how desperately do we need
to believe God. How desperately do we need to
see Him. Faith. Faith that is only seen
by God Himself. Faith. The Scripture speaks of
faith as that which makes men whole. Faith that by which men
are revealed. to be justified. The Scripture
says faith that is counted for righteousness. Abraham believed
God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. That which
was counted for righteousness was the one in whom Abraham believed. Abraham believed God. He believed
that by the grace of God, that righteousness was imputed to
him. Abraham believed that. Abraham
saw my day, the Lord said of himself. And he rejoiced in it. Faith. Faith cometh one way,
the Scripture says. Just what we're doing right here.
Faith cometh by hearing. And hearing by the Word of God.
It is imperative. What we're doing this evening,
we're coming together and we're hearing the Scriptures being
preached. We take line by line, word by
word, what does God have to say? And as we look into the Scriptures,
we realize by faith that faith cometh by hearing the Word of
God. I need to hear tonight. You need
to hear tonight. So what is this? glorious gift
of faith. Boy, we talk about it a lot.
We sing of it. We muse on it. We pray about
it. What does the Scriptures have
to say about faith? Because the only thing that I
want to know and you want to know is what does God have to
say about faith? Well, verse 1, we read this,
is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not
seen. Now here the Spirit of God reveals
the very essence of faith. I mean, you try to start explaining
faith. God Almighty has set forth This
is faith. Faith is the substance. That
is, it's the surety, the certainty, the reality, the assurance of
everything that we hope for. That's what it is. It's the certainty. Believers know by faith. You think, how do you know? How
do you know what you know? By faith. Believers know by faith
that they are pilgrims and strangers in this world. That's what God
says about them. And the only way that you know
that, the only way you believe that is by the grace, the gift
of faith. We know that as sinners saved
by the grace of God, we hope have hope in, we have assurance,
not an uncertainty. We expect according to the mercy
of Almighty God and His compassion that God Himself is going to
save us. We believe that. We possess a
hope and a confidence not according to our own merit or self-righteousness,
but we know according to God's absolute sovereign purpose, grace
and kindness, to be merciful unto sinners such as we are,
that we are going to have everlasting fellowship with Him. We believe
that. What else do you have to base
your confidence on? What else do you have? What can
you see? What can you feel? My feelings. Well, I've already
expressed my feelings enough to tell you how frail I see myself. If I thought that my eternal
security was based on how consistent I found myself, I just couldn't
handle it. I struggled. struggle by faith. We believe God. Faith is the
substance. Faith gives us the possession
of these things beforehand by faith. These things are real
to us. This is not Fairyland. This is not a vapor. This is
not a thing that just has no sustenance to it. Faith. We have confidence in God's Word. We believe God. Let me ask you
this. Do you truly believe that totally,
by the grace of God, that you are what you are? Do you absolutely believe that
you have right now in Christ? Now you think about this. We
speak of being in Him, chosen. Do you absolutely rest
totally in God's Word? Now I'm going to be honest with
you now. There's going to be times that you're not going to
feel like, well, I'm consistent enough because you're not going
to feel that way. This is all we've got. Brother
Scott used to say, if this is all you've got, if all you have
is the Lord, that's all you need. All you have. Here's all the
confidence you have. that being in Him there is now
therefore no condemnation to them that be in Christ Jesus. It's through faith that you believe
that, that you possess that, just as the natural man is assured
of the substance of anything that he can actually physically
see. I truly believe that you're sitting
here right now. I believe you are. You know why
I believe you are? That I can see you. I see you
sitting there. I see you looking back. I'm looking
at you and you're looking back at me. Somebody said, are you
assured? What's the substance? What is
the substance of your belief? I'm looking at you. I see you. Faith is the substance of things
that are hoped for, looked for, believed. Faith is the essence
of things that are expected. And also, it's the evidence. It's the proof. You go to a court
of law, what's the evidence? How are you going to make your
case? What's the proof? Well, here it is. Here's the
proof right here. Here is the very proof. Here's the evidence
of things that are not seen. The Scripture sets forth that
things were done before the foundation of the world. The Scripture says that according
as He hath chosen us before the foundation of the world, that
we should be holy and blameless before Him. in love. Now, we believe that. We believe
that. Listen to the words of our Lord
speaking. Proverbs 8, 22. Now, this is
before the foundation of the world. And we believe it. Faith is the evidence of things
that are not seen. The Lord possessed me in the
beginning of His way, before His works of old." Before the Lord Jesus Christ
was made flesh, He was. He was made flesh in time, but
He has always been. When there were no debts, I was
brought forth. when there was no fountain, no
fountains abounding with water before the mountains were settled,
before the hills, was I brought forth. While as yet He had not
made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust
of the world, when He prepared the heavens, I was there. When
He set a compass upon the face of the dead, when He established
the clouds above, when He strengthened the fountains of the deep, when
He gave to the sea His decree that the water should not pass
His commandment, when He appointed the foundations of the earth,
then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him. And I was daily
His delight, rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in the
habitable part of His earth. And my delights were with the
sons of men." By faith, we truly believe the
evidence Here's the proof. Our Lord has always had us on
His heart in redemption. He's everlastingly loved us.
Someone says, How do you possibly believe that before the foundation
of the world when there was nothing but God Himself? What evidence? What evidence do you have to
prove to me the only evidence that a believer has is faith?
They rest in God's Word. You're not going to prove this.
I'm going to tell you this to an unbeliever because all men
have not faith. And faith alone is the evidence. Faith is the evidence. Concerning
your name being written in the Lamb's Book of Life before the
foundation of the world, Revelation 17, 8. What is the proof that you have
that your name was written in the Book of Life? What proof? What's the evidence? Faith. Faith. There's my evidence right there.
And that's all I need, Mitch. That's all I've got and that's
all I need. I know to the unbeliever, I know
to the world this is foolishness. I understand that. I understand
that. But I'm not talking to those
that believe not. I'm talking to believers. Here's
our confidence tonight. This is where we rest. We believe
that before the foundation of the world, Almighty God dealt
with us in assurity. We believe that in time, The
Lord God Himself, the Word was made flesh that He was actually
conceived in the womb of a virgin and He came forth as the God-man
mediator. What is the evidence that you
have of that? Faith. Faith believes God. When He hung
on that cross, 2 Corinthians 5.21 says He was made sin. for us. He who knew no sin. Now, men, you can argue. You can be up in arms. You can just say all you want
to say and send all the e-mails you want to. God Almighty said
that He the Father had made Him sin for us. That God Himself
forsook Him. And in Him we died in a substitute
under the judgment and wrath of Almighty God and Christ Himself. Just as Noah and his family was
in the ark and the rain fell on the ark, a picture of the
full judgment of Almighty God all in the ark were saved. Everybody outside of the ark
drowned. What's the proof of that? Faith. Scripture says He's coming back
to get us. Scripture says the trump of God
is going to sound. The Scripture says that the dead
in Christ are going to rise first. And we which remain alive on
this earth are going to meet Him in the air. And so shall
we ever be with the Lord. The Scripture says that we're
going to be seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Seated with
Him. Seated upon His throne with Him
as His Bride. And forever we're going to be
with the Lord. What's the evidence that you have of that? What proof
do you have of that? Faith! Faith! That's what we've got tonight.
Faith. 2 Corinthians 4.18 says, While
we look not at the things which are seen, but the things which
are not seen. For the things which are seen
are temporal, but the things which are not seen. That's eternal. That's eternal. Now faith is
the substance of things hoped for. The evidence of things not
seen. For by it, faith, the elders
obtained a good report." What does that mean? They received
the same report from Almighty God as we receive by faith. They received a good report. They received that same good
report from God that salvation is in Christ alone by grace through
faith. That's the good report that they
receive. God has always spoken to His
people. God who at sundry times and divers
manner spoken unto His people by the prophets hath in these
latter days, these last days, spoken to us by son. Now I will
grant you, we no doubt have more light of the understanding of
these things then maybe they did. We have the full revelation
of the Lord Jesus Christ having actually come in the fullness
of time. But they had the same faith that
we do by faith. By it, the elders obtained a
good report. That's the only way they knew
it. By faith. Enoch, Job, Abraham, Noah. These men all walked just like
we do by faith. Through faith. We understand
that the worlds were framed by the Word of God so that things
which are seen were not made of things which do appear. You know what we believe? We
believe that as Almighty God says, at the worlds. Celestial. All the stars. This whole solar system and then
solar systems and then systems and systems and systems. This
ground is terrestrial. All these trees. The oceans. Everything in it. Everything
walking. Everything living. Everything
not living. We believe that the worlds were
framed. They were adjusted and rendered
complete by the Word of God. And Almighty God spoke this into
existence. The word there, the Word of God,
there's two words. I looked them up. The word right
here is rhema. And the other word is Logos. Now, Rima, this word right here,
not Logos, like John 1, 1, in the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God. Now, that word right there is
the Logos, the Word. This word right here is Rima. And Logos actually is the title
of the Son of God, the Word of God. Logos is who He is. Rhema is what He does. He speaks. It's His Word. So the Word of
God spoke the Word of God. So the things that we see through
faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by God speaking. He spoke it. And they were made
out of things which do not appear. He made it totally by His Word. He made it out of nothing. Nothing. He spoke and it is. Let there be light. He spoke. We believe that all
of this didn't come from evolution. We don't believe that. When Adam
was created, he wasn't a caveman. Let me tell you something. Adam
was one intelligent being. The Lord gave him the responsibility
to name all the animals. He just named them. Can you imagine? He tilled the garden, tended
the garden. Man, the way He created this
world, when God created this world, it was perfect. Perfect. A sin. It was cursed. God's going to
burn it up and make a new one. It's like the first one. But
when He made this world, when He made these heavens, He spoke
and it was. He didn't take something and
make it into something else. There was nothing there. And
He spoke and it was. What's the evidence of that?
What's the proof of that? God said that. God said that. That's the proof of it. There's
the evidence of it. So here's what we know from the
first three verses. of the 11th chapter of Hebrews. We know that faith is a gift
of God. Christ is the author and finisher
of our faith. So therefore, all of the honor
that is due is due unto Him. We know that we live by faith. Paul said in Galatians 2.20, which I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son
of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. I believe, and
you that know Him do too. You believe that Almighty God,
by His blessed Son, gives you faith right now. to believe Him
and that you rest. And the evidence and substance
of that which he says is received by, believed by, his people by
the gift of faith. This is a precious, precious
gift by faith. Who maketh thee to differ? from another, or what hast thou
that thou didst not receive?" Faith doesn't originate with
us. Faith is the gift of God. Faith is given and given and
given right now, right now, right now,
right now, right now. I need to believe God right now.
And the Lord Jesus Christ gives faith right now. Oh, the blessed
privilege to be able to believe God. We look for that blessed
time when we're going to see Him face to face. We believe
that. We know that this time is short. But in that day, to see Him face
to face, and the Scripture says, we'll be like Him. See Him as
He is and be like Him. Lord, I believe. Help mine unbelief. Lord, teach me fresh for Your
glory and my good. Amen.