Hebrews chapter 11. Let's look at the first six verses
here. What is faith? That's our question. What is
faith? Verse 1 says, 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. By faith Abel
offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which
he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of
his gifts, and by it he being dead yet speaketh. By faith Enoch
was translated that he should not see death and was not found
because God had translated him for before his translation he
had this testimony that he pleased God. But without faith it is
impossible to please him for he that cometh to God must believe
that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek
him. Now he begins here saying faith
is the substance of things hoped for. Faith is the substance. That means faith is the confidence
of the believer. It's the assurance of the believer.
It's the solid, firm foundation for a believer. When you believe
God, you believe him. It's really just that simple.
It's substantive to you. You have the substance. You know
this is real. You're beholding things that
are real and everlasting. You behold things that are forever. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for. We read here of Verse 13, this word substance
is sort of given in different words here. He says, These all
died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen
them afar off and were persuaded. That's what it means. Faith is
the substance. It's the persuasion. You're persuaded. And they embraced
them and they confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims
on the earth. Hebrews 10.22, he says, let us
draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith. That's
what it is to have the substance. Faith gives you some assurance,
you have assurance, you know these things are so. And he tells
us, we're made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our
confidence. There's the substance, it's our
confidence. Our confidence is in the one
faith lays hold of. our confidence and we hold it
fast, steadfast until the end. Because we have this substance.
We have a good hope through grace. That's what we have, a good hope
through grace. When scripture talks about hope,
it's not like, you know, just hope and hope, hope. It's a good
hope. It's a hope founded in Christ, founded in God's purpose.
It's hope for eternal life, hope for eternal salvation. Hope that
we possess the things God's promised us, and we already possess them.
Our Lord said, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath
everlasting life. When you have faith, it's because
he's already given you life, and you already possess what
you're hoping for. We're hoping for everlasting
life. We already possess it. The Spirit of God's an earnest.
It gives you a foretaste and an assurance of what's coming.
and it's the substance. We're hoping that we'll be kept
by God and brought safely into God's eternal presence where
we'll be righteous, where we'll be perfectly conformed to Christ
and we won't have this body of sin and death anymore. Paul said
in Galatians 5.5, we through the Spirit wait for the hope
of righteousness. That's our hope. And we wait
through faith. We wait for the hope of righteousness
through faith. Our Lord is our righteousness
and He's coming again. And He's going to take us with
Him and we'll be perfectly conformed to His image. Faith believes
this. You believe this. This is so.
We have the substance of these things. We have faith that God's
given. And then notice this too, he
says, faith is the evidence of things not seen. Evidence means
proof. It's the proof. People say, give
me proof. Faith is the proof. When God
gives faith, you have the proof. It's just, you can't really convey to somebody that doesn't
have faith what faith is. When you have faith, you have
all the evidence you need. You got all the proof you need.
You believe God. You have evidence of the things
that are not seen with these eyes. If you go through here
and you read the things that are written, when it says verse
seven, by faith Noah, he was warned of God of things not seen
as yet. It had not rained yet. The Lord
was watering the earth from a mist that went up, the scripture says.
You ever made one of those, what do they call those things where
you put them in a, like a hothouse and you know the mist and all
water still plants. That's how the earth was watered
at the time. And he'd been told that the earth was going to be
destroyed by a flood. And he hadn't seen that, but he believed
God. He believed God. By faith, Abraham, verse 8, he
was called to go out to a place that he should after receive
for an inheritance and he obeyed and he went out not knowing where
he went. not knowing where you went. Think
about this. You don't have to know where you're going. You
don't have to know what's on the other side of the hill or
around the curve when you know God has promised and God's leading
you. That's all you need. You got
something better than what your eyes can see. You got God, and
you believe him. You have the evidence of things
not seen. You just go all through here. They look for, he looked
for a city who's had foundations, who's building makers, God. You
just see these things that they didn't see with the carnal eye,
but faith sees. Faith is the sight of the believer.
It's evidence of things that God did in eternity. We believe
this, this is what the scripture declares, that there is a Lamb's
Book of Life, speaking in figurative language we can understand, it's
the mind and purpose of God, but He wrote our names in the
Lamb's Book of Life before the world was made. And I remember
growing up at a vacation Bible school one time at an Armenian
church, I can remember them singing, there's a new name written in
heaven. Because somebody had come to
the front and confessed Christ. There's no new names written
there. They've all been written there from the beginning. God
wrote them there from the beginning. And faith believes that our names
were written in eternity in divine election in Christ and the counsel
and covenant of His grace. Faith has the evidence. Faith
is the proof we believe God. It's the evidence of what Christ
accomplished for us on the cross. God tells us that when Christ
laid down His life on the cross, He freely justified His people,
made us the righteousness of God in Him. That's what justification
is, to be made the righteousness of God in Him, to have no sin,
past, present, or future, before the all-knowing, all-seeing God
of heaven and earth. Now, if we look with our carnal
eyes, we see sin in ourselves. But what does faith believe?
I believe what God says. What does God say? Look back
at Hebrews 9.26. Hebrews 9.26. There in the middle it says, in the end of the world hath
He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. As
it is appointed, no man wants to die, but after this the judgment.
So Christ was offered one time to bear the sins of many. That's
right there is telling you. We only have one judgment. There's
only one judgment. But for God's people, Christ
bore that judgment. One time. He did it. And to them
that look for Him, that's what faith's doing, looking for Him.
We're watching for Him. And those that look for him shall
he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. You remember
on the day of atonement there was two lambs. One of them, they
put the sins on the head of this lamb and they slew that lamb.
He died and his blood was taken up and carried into the holiest
of holies and sprinkled on the mercy seat. The other lamb, the
goat was a scapegoat. And He carried the sins away.
He was led off into a land not inhabited and carried the sins
away in picture and type. That's what He did. That's what
Christ did for us when He laid down His life. He took away the
sins of His people. We don't see that with our carnal
eyes. Faith believes it. We believe it. That's what God
tells us and we believe it. Our full assurance of faith is
that Christ is our High Priest. He's our Lamb. He's our High
Priest, our Lamb. Our Lord Jesus Christ came into
this world and bore the sins of His people and He put them
away. And by that He obtained eternal redemption for us. And
now he entered into that holy place, the real holiest of holies,
and entered in because he had obtained eternal redemption for
his people. Eternally purchased. Eternally
he paid the price of his own blood that the law demanded of
us. The law would not let us go.
The law held us. And there was a ransom to be
paid. And that ransom was death. Eternal death. Death that satisfied
the justice of God. And that's what Christ bore for
his people. And faith believes him. We believe
he died my death, he settled my judgment. That's what faith
believes. Perfected forever them that are sanctified. And we believe
that right now, our Lord Jesus is seated in heaven. We can't
see that, not with carnal eyes. Faith is the substance. Faith
is the evidence of things not seen. We really believe we have
the God-man mediator, a man. This is why God does it this
way. Reason can't enter into this. And if faith is not reason, reason
can't, you know, you hear men mock and make fun that, oh, you
believe there's a man in heaven. I do. I sure do. I believe that
man is God. He's the God man. Well, I don't
see how that could happen. There's a lot of things that
we can't see and understand could happen that God can do. Everything,
really everything. We got a very limited sphere
of understanding. God is incomprehensible in what
he's able to accomplish. And we believe there is a man
seated there who's making intercession for us. His very presence there
with those wounds in his hand and his side and his feet declare
to God he has accomplished the work God sent him to do and he
did it for his particular people. And when you're cast down and
when you're troubled by your sin and when you're desiring
to please God and to serve God and to honor God, you know what
gives you the strength to do that? is when God lifts your
head to the right hand, to where you see Christ by faith, the
substance, the evidence, and you see Christ seated there making
intercession for you, and what he's accomplished for you, and
that's the strength to know, I'm righteous, I'm alive, I'm
there with God at God's right hand. That's where he strengthens
you. That's how he strengthens you. The natural eye doesn't see Christ
there. The coronal eyes don't see Christ
working all things in providence for his people. This is the substance
we have and the evidence we have that everything that's coming
to pass in this world, things will come to pass and they're
perplexing and you see these things and you think, how could
God possibly bring good out of this? And yet he says, he tells
us that everything he's working, he's working it together for
our good. And that's exactly what he's
doing. And faith believes that. Faith just has to stop and wait
and trust God that he knows what's best and he's doing what's right.
And he's doing it just for me, just for you, just for us who
believe him. That's what faith, and that's
substance, brother. That's a firmer foundation than
You know, you ever seen something coming to pass and you thought
it was going good and everything was turning out good and then
it just turned upside down? You really couldn't trust what
you saw, could you? But you know, He's ruling everything
and when He's ruling it, you know it's going to turn out for
His glory and my good. Faith is the evidence of things
not seen. It's the proof. It's the real
and lasting thing that faith sees. You know why this is so
true of faith? Why it's the substance and the
evidence? Because faith is looking away from our feeble, sinful,
mortal, failing, dying flesh. That's why. And it's looking
to God who spoke everything and brought everything into existence
and came here and redeemed us and is now working everything
to bring His people to Himself. Faith is trusting Him. It's going
outside of ourselves to Him. That's why it's the substance.
That's why it's the proof because we believe God is the all-powerful
Savior of His people. Look at 2 Corinthians. I hope that this is what the
Lord is enabling us to do. 2 Corinthians 4, verse 17. We suffer affliction, but it's
light affliction in comparison to what Christ has suffered.
Our light affliction is but for a moment, but it's working for
us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. What's it doing? What is the affliction for? What's
it doing? It's turning us from these things. It's turning us from earthy things.
It's turning us from ourselves and from perishing things that
are just going to go back to the dust. You know, if you see
these Mayan ruins and you see these ancient civilizations and
the structures they built, and they've just been left alone,
and they're just crumbling. They're just crumbling. And in
time, they'll just go back to the dust. If we took man's hand
off of everything we've ever created in this world and just
left it alone, in time, you know what it'd do? It'd go right back
to the dust. Every bit of it. Every bit of
it. But this slight affliction is God weaning us. It's God taking
the things of this earth that we want to hold on to and not
let go of, and it's Him making us let go of them. And he turns
us, look, verse 18, while we look not at things which are
seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things
which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not
seen are eternal. You tell that to a carnal man,
you tell that to a man that doesn't have faith, and he'll tell you
you're crazy. You folks believe things that can't be proven.
You believe things that can't be seen. Oh, they're proven to
God's people. This is only something God can
work in our heart. Nothing else can give you faith
but Him. Well, look at this next thing. Faith is how we obtain a good
report. Hebrews 11, 2, He said, For by it, by faith, the elders,
all the Old Testament saints, obtained a good report. Remember
when Isaiah was preaching and he came to Isaiah 53 and he said,
who hath believed our report? To whom's the arm of the Lord
revealed? God has made us, by giving us
faith, God has made us obtain ourselves the report that he's
given to us, that report of his son. He's made us obtain that
report. Abel and Job and Enoch and Noah,
they obtained a good report from God giving them the gospel and
making them believe the gospel in their heart. And then through
faith in their son, they obtained a good report from God in bearing
witness that they're his children. testifying that they're His,
that they're righteous because of His Son. They obtained the
good news of the Gospel through faith. It was given to us, freely
given to us through faith. And then they obtained a good
report from God that they were justified and accepted of God
in Christ. And that's all through faith
in His Son. Believe in God. They believed
God and they were waiting, patiently waiting. That's what our life
is. Our whole life is patiently waiting
for the promise of God. The Hebrews 11 tells us they
didn't obtain those promises. They didn't see Christ come and
they were looking for him to come the first time. But they
saw him by faith. They believed and they saw him
in the shadows and the types. And they looked to that city
whose builder and maker is God. And they obtained a good report
from God. He gave them the evidence in
their heart and he testified in their heart that they're His.
Now look here, verse 3. This is what it means that it's
the substance and the evidence through faith we understand.
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. Now this is going right to what
we just said. This thing is believing things
that the carnal eye does not see. Here's the first example.
Creation. Without faith sinners look to
science because They, everything has to be proven by scientific
facts and that's the only way men will say they'll believe.
But here's the thing about this. Men have been studying creation
and still don't understand how the world was framed. You know
what the big bang theory is? That's what it is. It's a theory. It's a theory. That's not proof. That's not evidence. It's a theory.
God's given a believer an understanding through faith. Through faith. When you believe God, you understand
that before anything existed, God is. He's the great I Am.
Nothing was before Him. And you believe this. You can't
convince a man that doesn't have faith in this. And God doesn't
make any attempts to prove this. He doesn't make any attempts
to prove it in the way man wants proof. God just begins the book
by saying, in the beginning, God. God created the heavens
and the earth. And faith says, Amen. I believe
God. Believe Him. He spoke and He
framed the world by the Word of God. God, by His Word, made
the visible creation from nothing. See, everything is incomprehensible
to a mortal man because we can't create something from nothing.
That's why it's incomprehensible to us. We can't do what God can
do. And so we think God can't do
it because we can't do it. Is that not pride and self-exaltation
to think, well, if we can't do it, God can't do it. He's bigger
than us, wiser than us, more powerful. He's everything we're
not. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. We're talking
about the Word. the incarnate Word that came
forth, Christ Jesus, who is God. The same was in the beginning
with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not
anything made that was made. Look at Colossians 1, Colossians
chapter 1. Verse 15 tells us he's the image
of the invisible God. He's the firstborn of every creature. And he tells us exactly what
that means. What does it mean he's the firstborn of every creature?
By him were all things created. This one who's the salvation
of his people is God who created all things. All things that are
in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible. whether
they're thrones or dominions or principalities or powers,
all things were created by Him and before Him, and He's before
all things, and by Him all things consist. And here's the important
thing. This is what faith believed.
He is the head of the body, the church, who's the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have
the preeminence. Why did He create everything?
What was His purpose in creating everything? It was so that he
would create a people that would fall and they would become ruined
in sin and yet God would come forth in the person of the man
Christ Jesus and God would satisfy his own justice and show us who
he is by what he accomplished at Calvary. That he's holy and
righteous and long-suffering and merciful and forgiving and
a just God and a loving God and God who is love, God who saves
abundantly. He did this to show us who he
is. Did he have to do that? We don't
have any word that said he had to do it. He did it freely. He did it by his grace for his
people. And he's our head. He's the head
and his people are the body. Members of his body in particular.
Members one of another in the same body with Christ as our
head. This is what faith believes. How do we believe this? Only
one way. I won't get into this much because
I'm going to try to preach some on it in the second hour, but
there's only one way you believe this. Paul said in 1 Corinthians
2.12, we have received not the spirit of the world. This is
why the world can't believe this. We had that spirit at one time
and couldn't believe. But we've received the Spirit
which is of God that we might know the things that are freely
given to us of God. The natural man doesn't receive
these things. They're foolishness to him. He
can't know them. He won't know them and he can't
know them. We couldn't either. We couldn't either. We can't
get too upset with folks that don't believe because we couldn't
believe either. Faith is a miracle. Believing God's a miracle. Only
God can work it. Now look, back at Hebrews 11,
it's only by faith that we come to God into one offering God
will receive. That's his son. It's only by
faith. This is what's the important thing, and this is why he made
everything right here. Verse 4, By faith Abel offered
unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained
witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts,
and by it he being dead yet speaketh. This is what he's telling us
when he says through faith the elders received a good report.
Through faith in Christ, Abel obtained witness, God bore witness
in his heart that he was righteous. God testified to him of his,
testified of his gifts that he had given to Abel and that Abel
possessed because of God. And he's yet speaking, we're
yet hearing about what God did with Abel. There's only two beliefs
in the world, just two. You can take every religion in
the world and you can, this is it right here, Cain and Abel.
There's just two. Salvation by grace, by Christ
our righteousness, through faith in Christ, that salvation is
all of God, A to Z, beginning to end, and God gets all the
glory. The only religion that preaches
that is the religion that preaches this book in truth, that salvation
is all of God's grace by the works of God worked out for his
people and applied to his people and God keeping his people. Abel was a sinner, saved by grace
alone, through faith alone, by Christ alone. He came with the
blood of a sacrifice. That's what he was confessing,
by the blood of that sacrifice. Here's an innocent lamb that
died in his place, and coming with that blood, he's confessing,
this is the only way I could come to God in a substitute who
died for me. That's the only way God will
receive me, because that's what I deserve. My blood deserves
to be spilled because I am the sinner. But faith believes, I
died. When that lamb died, the lamb
of God, Christ Jesus, when he died, I died, and God received
me through faith in his blood. That's the true religion, the
religion that's of God. And then the second one, all
other religious beliefs, whatever it goes under, whether it goes
under Christianity or Buddhism or Hinduism or whatever it is,
is salvation by works. They all put it in a man's hand. and exalt a man and say he has
to save himself. See, Cain came with the works
of his hand. Cain came with fruit he had grown
out of the cursed earth. A picture of you and me producing
our fruit out of this cursed dust called our cursed flesh. And God won't have it. There's
no blood. There was no confession that all I am entirely in my
entire being is sin. You ever read Leviticus 13 and
see the law of the leper? That law of the leper, if he
had just a spot and it was just on the surface, he didn't have it. He didn't
have leprosy. Or if he had just a raw spot
and he was unclean, but it's a picture of somebody who's not
entirely a sinner. It's just surface wise. They've
done a few bad things. But who did he pronounce clean?
He had to come to the priest. The only one. God didn't send
him to a medical doctor. He sent him to a priest. Christ
Jesus. We have to go to the high priest.
And we come there confessing all we are is sin. The one he
pronounced clean was the one who came there who was covered
in leprosy from head to toe. He pronounced him clean. You
see the picture in that? Who's God washed? Who does Christ
receive? Who does He save? The one who's
so thoroughly a sinner from the crown of His head to the sole
of His foot. That's who He cleanses. That's
who He pronounces and declares He's claimed by the blood of
Christ. He saves sinners. Cain didn't
come that way. Cain didn't come confessing he
was a sinner because he didn't come through the Lamb. He didn't
come in the blood of a substitute. Abel believed God. He believed
faith was a substance. It was the evidence. He knew.
He believed God accepted him only through the blood of the
Lamb. So he came with that blood and he obtained a good report
from God. He obtained witness from God,
that is. God spoke and declared him righteous. God testifying of his gifts.
The Holy Spirit gives you life, gives you faith in Christ, and
you come down in the world sinner. Head to toe, nothing good in
you, nothing can good come from your sinful flesh. And you come
to God begging God for mercy. And the Lord Jesus receives you,
and He bears witness through the Spirit, through faith in
your heart, that you are a child of God, made righteous by the
blood of Christ, and He'll never, ever, ever let you perish. Bought
with His precious blood. That's what He bears witness
in your heart. The gifts that He bears witness of are the gifts
He's given to you. Righteousness, peace, joy, all
the things you have with God through Christ, through faith.
King didn't believe in God. He came with the work of his
hands, the work of the cursed earth, the fruit of the dust,
pitched a man coming to God in his own works. That's the only
two religions there are in the world. Only two. The moment anything enters in,
that we have to contribute ourselves. of ourselves, it ceases to be
grace. It becomes works. The moment
that happens. It's only through faith in Christ
that God's pleased with a sinner. And he's pleased with everyone
who believes on his son. Look here, this is what happened
to Enoch. By faith, Enoch was translated that he should not
see death and was not found because God had translated him. Now here's
another example. For before his translation, he
had this testimony. God gave this testimony that
he pleased God. But how do you please God? Without
faith, it's impossible to please him. For he that comes to God
must believe that he is and that he's a rewarder of them that
diligently seek him. People will hear all the things
that Christ said of those in the last day. You know, they
said, didn't we preach in your name? Didn't we do many wonderful
works? Didn't we cast out devils? Didn't we do all these things?
And men will look to those things and think that's the fruit he's
talking about by which you have the testimony of God that you
saved. There's a lot of people that does those things. What
is it that pleases God? What is Christ declaring that
these didn't have? They didn't believe Him. They
didn't believe Him. Men always want to add something
to faith in addition to faith. It takes God to make us come
to God trusting Him only. Just believe in God that we're
righteous through faith. He translated Enoch so that he
didn't die. This was through faith. He believed
Him and God translated Him from this mortal life to immortality.
He was carried up to heaven by God forever. God's pleased with
a sinner only through faith in His Son. Only through faith in
His Son. He's pleased with you who believe
on His Son because Christ has made you as righteous as God
is. That's how righteous you are.
I don't see that because you're looking with carnal eyes. If
you look by faith, you'll see Christ and He's your only righteousness.
That's how righteous you are. As righteous as God is, seated
at God's right hand. And those that believe His Son
have eternal life right now because God's already translated us out
of this kingdom into His dear Son. He already has. That's what
Paul said. You're dead and your life is
right there, hid with God in Christ Jesus. And so when the
end comes, what's he going to do? He's just going to raise
us immortal to be with God forever, to be with our Lord. But there's
no pleasing God without faith in his son. He says, without
faith it's impossible to please him. He that cometh to God must
believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that
diligently seek him. Unbelief calls God a liar. Just,
I'm not talking about just the rank unbeliever who out and out
speaks and says, I think God's a liar. I'm talking about folks
who are trying to add their own works of righteousness to what
Christ has done. They're saying, we don't think
that's enough. We don't think Christ is enough.
We think you're lying to us, God. That's what they're saying.
He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath
made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave
of his Son. The faith believes God. Faith
comes to God believing God's everything He says in His Word.
Believing God is. What is He? He is everything
we need to be saved. He is everything He declares
in this word. He is God, life, salvation, righteousness,
peace. He is. He is. He is. Believing God is just falling
back into His arm to save you and trust in Him. Believe in
Him. It's believing that if God be
for us, who can be against us? It's believing that God's the
rewarder of them that diligently seek Him only, and the reward
is Christ our righteousness. The reward is God Himself. The
reward is eternal life by Him who is our eternal life. That's
the reward. Faith believes He spared not
His Son, but delivered Him up for all His people so that being
one he died for, one he made righteous, one that's accepted
in him. That's what faith believes. He's justified me and he's interceding
for me right now. What faith believes is, faith
believes that there's absolutely nothing that can separate us
from the love of God in Christ. Every sanctifying work is of
God. And it's all of God. It's all
of God. Do you believe that? You ask
Hezekiah. God will never leave his people.
He'll never forsake his people. But he left Hezekiah alone to
prove what was in his heart. To prove to Hezekiah what was
in his heart. You know what Hezekiah did? He
had just been delivered from the Assyrians by God. He had
just been delivered from death. His health was restored to him
by God. And God gave him a bunch of wealth
and prosperity and things were going really good and he gave
him a lot of honor. And God right there left him
alone just a little while to let him see what he was if left
to himself. And you know what he did? He
gloried in himself. brought the Babylonians in and
showed them all his riches and all that he had and never once
gave God a glory. And God still saved him. And
God showed him by that, He's the one that separates you and
keeps you and any good work you do, He's produced it in you.
When Peter was on that water and he's coming to the Lord,
and Peter began to sink down, he didn't say, oh, this is a
co-effort between me and God. We can work this out. We can
get up on this water. What did he say? Lord, save me. Lord, save me. Best thing you
have to us is God, if we think that, if we think this thing
is between me and God, we got a good thing going. God just
let you alone for a little while. and show you. Faith believes
it's all of God. It's all of God. Now, the Lord said, Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That's the gospel.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Do you
believe that is the truth? Do you believe that is God's
Word and that's it? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. If thou shalt confess with thy
mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God
hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Do you believe that? Everything that God's going to
do with His people. If He uses you, He's going to
work it in you. If He calls you to offer up your
only son, that He's made every promise and promised the salvation
of His people through Christ coming through that son. That's
what He did to Abraham. And He said, now you go slay
this boy, Abraham. That's what's held up for us
as a good work. That's what it is. Something
absolutely, thoroughly impossible for you and me. Something that's
so abundantly, clearly impossible for you and me, that it had to
be by faith. And Abraham believed God was
able to raise him from the dead. And in his heart, he slew that
boy. That's faith. Every good work
that's truly a good work is one that requires you to entirely,
thoroughly, completely trust God. Trust God. And only God can work that. And
if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe with
an iron heart that God's risen and dead, thou shalt be saved.
And you know what the believer's cry is? This is our cry beginning
and end right here. Lord, I believe. Help thou mine
unbelief. I got to be saved from my unbelief.
That's the sin. When you get to Hebrews 12, it's
easier to see. Once you go through Hebrews 11,
it's easy to see that unbelief really is the sin that besets
us. There's a lot of weights and there's a lot of other things,
but unbelief is the sin that besets us. Not believing God. But he points you back to Christ
and says, consider him that endured all this contradiction of sinners
against himself. And he set you back in the past
so that your partakers of your holiness know your partakers
of his holiness. And you keep running the race
looking to him. Lord, I believe, help thou non-unbelief. And He will help it. You know
how? He'll keep showing you that you can't do anything of yourself.
He'll keep showing you you're a sinner. But He'll keep showing
you He's saving you. And by that, He'll grow you to
believe this thing's of Him. It's of Him. Amen. Father, we pray you would be
pleased to bless this word. Pray that you'd bless it and
cause one of your lost sheep to believe you today. Lord, we
ask you, work it in the heart of one of your people. Work it
in the heart of those that you've given faith to really believe
you now, trust you, look not to none but you. Save us, Lord. Help us. Save us from our unbelief. Keep us looking to Christ and
believe in Him. In Christ's name we ask it. Amen.