The Bible is in turn with me
to Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 11. We'll be
looking at verse 30 this morning. Hebrews chapter 11 and verse
30. The title of the message this
morning is the power of faith. The power of faith. The Scripture says, by faith. The walls of Jericho fell down
after they were compassed about seven days." Now, hold your place
here, and let's go over to Joshua. Joshua chapter 5 is where we'll be looking
first, so just hold your place there in Joshua chapter 5 toward
the end. And Joshua chapter six. And once you have that place. I want to tell us that there
is much confusion and utter disregard for the word of God concerning
this matter of the power of faith, there's much confusion and utter
disregard for God's Word concerning the power of faith in this day
we live. There are many false prophets
and preachers who declare that a man's faith has power. That if a man should believe
God, that God will give him whatever it is that he desires. They would use passages of Scripture
like the Lord saying, ask and it shall be given unto you. Seek
and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened
unto you. They use this passage of Scripture
out of its context. They totally twist it and rest
the Scriptures to their destructions. They say, look, Jesus said ask
and we'll get. So if you ask for a car, you'll
get a car. If you ask for health, you'll
get health. If you ask for wealth, you'll
get wealth. That's not what the Scripture
is saying. This is concerning asking of the will of God. Now, I know this, that if I ask
in faith, I believe that God's will shall be accomplished. I
know that. I believe that. I trust that.
And so I say, Father, thy will be done. And you know what? I
know I have what I ask. I know it. Because the will of
the Father shall be done. But this is not asking concerning
the lust of the flesh. In Mark chapter 16, this is another
one they'll use. Mark chapter 16, it says, Go
ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth
not shall be damned. There's the gospel message. There's
the strict Gospel message there. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. That's a truth. You believe by
faith. You trust by faith. But he that
believeth not shall be damned. And notice this. And these signs
shall follow them that believe. In my name they shall cast out
devils. They shall speak in new tongues. They shall take up serpents.
And they shall drink any deadly thing. And it shall not hurt
them. They shall lay their hands on the sick. And they shall recover. That passage there in the last
is talking about the the evidence that what they were saying, what
the apostles were saying were true, that these signs would
follow the word of the apostle. And it wasn't the apostles' faith
that wrought these things, it was the power of God. And they
gave glory to God every time someone was healed, every time
if they spake into new languages or when Paul retched down and
grabbed that serpent and it bit him and he didn't die. That was
for the glory of God and for the furtherance of the gospel. Well, when this happens, when
people today believe that you can do all of these things that
are mentioned here if you just have enough faith. If you just
have enough faith, you can pick up any snake and it will bite
you and nothing will happen to you. You can drink any poison
and nothing would happen to you. Well, what happens when they
believe God for such foolish things and it doesn't happen?
What happens when they lay their hands on some sick person, believing
God to heal them, and they die? What do they say about that?
Well, there's nothing they can say. These are liars and false
prophets. They'll say, well, it's because
you didn't have enough faith. That's why your loved one died.
You didn't have enough faith. I wish all of these liars would
go ahead and take a cup of poison and drink it. Every one of them. Show us! Prove to us your faith! I wish every one of them would
drink it and die so this lie would stop being propagated.
No, they keep telling you that you don't have enough faith. Scriptures do demonstrate the
power of faith. Not in the faith of men, but
rather in the object of our faith. Therein lies the power of faith,
is in the object of faith. There is great power in faith
because our faith is in Jesus Christ. There is our power. There is the power of faith.
Now, faith in our faith is not of God. If your faith is in your
faith, that is not of God. That is not of God. Any man can
believe in something. And these religious men are believing
in their faith. They're trusting in their faith. But faith that is in Jesus Christ
alone is of the grace of God and not of words. Why? Lest any man should boast. See, this matter of salvation,
God will receive all the glory. God will receive all of the praise
and we will receive none of it. Not even for our faith. Now, there are three things about
the power of faith that I want us to see are true. that are
not true of this world's faith. First of all, the difference
between our faith is the origin, the difference between our faith
is the object, and the difference between our faith is the obedience
of faith. Now first, the origin of faith
is different. Faith that comes from the will
or desire of the natural man has no power. If your faith comes by some exercise
of the natural will, if it comes by the exercise of your desire
and passion alone, then it is no power. There is no saving
power in that faith. Natural man receive, if not the
things of God, the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
to him. Neither can he know him because
he's spiritually dead. He's spiritually discerned, dead
because of our father Adam. That's why the nature of man
cannot believe God. It cannot trust God. It cannot
know God. Faith does not come by the will
of man, nor by the will of the flesh, nor of blood, but by the
will of God. That's what faith comes from.
That's where the origin of our faith arrives, is from God. It is a gift of God. No man can
come to Christ, Jesus said, unless the Father which hath sent me
draw him. It was man that sinned against
God and rebelled against God. And we would not come to God
because men love darkness rather than light. We love to lie and hate the truth. And unless God does something
for us, no man will ever believe the Gospel. No man will ever
believe on Jesus Christ. You and I cannot believe except
God. give us faith. And yet, man is so presumptuous
of God. Man believes that God owes him. The natural man defies God and
says, it's your fault that I'm a sinner. It's your fault. And you owe
it to me to give me salvation if I ask it of you." They demand that God do their
bidding because of some merit that they have. Some action they
performed. Well, I was baptized. Surely God owes me. Now that
I've been baptized and I've made my decision to follow Him, surely
He must then give me what I desire." No. This is the deception of
man's heart that is evil to presume upon God to give us anything. Go to 2 Peter. Hold your place. We're going to get there. 2 Peter.
Chapter 2. Verse 17. These are speaking of the false
prophets. Said these are whales without
water, clouds that are carried about, carried with the tempest.
To whom the midst of darkness is reserved forever, for when
they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through
the lust of the flesh, through much wantonness. Those that were
clean escape from them who live in error. While they promise
them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption.
For of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought into
bondage, for if after they have escaped the pollutions of the
world through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, they are
again entangled and overcome, and the latter end is worse with
them than the beginning. For it had been better for them
had they not known the way of righteousness, than after they
have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto
them. But this has happened unto them
according to the true proverb, the dog is turned to his own
vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in
the mire." In other words, these men come with alluring words. Well, if you'll just believe,
then you can have anything you want. Now, that's appealing to
the flesh. That is appealing to the nature
of man. That if you believe God, then
God is going to give you. They're presuming upon God to
give them according to the faith that they think they have. And
I'll tell you, anybody that follows them, the Apostle says it were
better for them had they never heard. It would have been better
for them if they had been in the bars, if they had been prostitutes
on the streets, having never heard, than for people to come
and hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and go away to that kind
of faith. Now, notice in the text concerning
the faith, it says, by faith the walls of
Jericho fell down. Now, let me ask you this. Did
Joshua gather the people together and rev them up to go down to
Jericho? Did he gather them together and
have a big celebration? Did he suddenly come up with
this great idea of how to conquer Jericho? Did he come up with
this by himself? Was this a plan that any man
would have come up with? Marching around the city and
blowing trumpets? Do you suppose that's any military
plan? of any general at any time would
have ever come up with that? No. No. Do you suppose that he
got some entertainers together and got them all excited? Ooh,
hey, this guy's coming. He's going to sing for us. And
we're going to get really excited. We're going to rev up our faith
before we go down to Jericho. No. Because his faith came from
the same source as our faith. His faith came from the Word
of God. Look in Joshua. I'm going to
show you this. Verse 13 of chapter 5. It says,
He came to pass Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his
eyes and looked, and behold, there stood a man over against
him with a sword drawn in his hand. And Joshua went unto him
and said unto him, Art thou for us or for our adversaries? And he said, No. Neither. But as the captain of the host
of the Lord, I am now come." And Joshua fell on his face to
the earth and did worship and said unto him, What saith my
Lord unto his servant? And the captain of the Lord's
host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoes from off thy foot,
for the place wherein thou standest is holy. And so Joshua did so. Now where else do we read that?
Where else do we read of one having to remove his shoes from
the presence of God? It was the burning bush. Moses
at the burning bush was commanded the same thing. This captain,
this captain of the host of the armies of the Lord is Jesus Christ. He came to Joshua. Joshua standing by Jericho having
no idea what to do. This place was shut up tight.
Those walls were so high. How in the world could we possibly
do this? And yet here comes the Word of
God. And you'll see this. Now Jericho,
verse 1 of chapter 6, Jericho was straightly shut up because
of the children of Israel. None went in and none went out.
And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine
hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valor.
And you shall compass the city, all the men of war, and go around
about the city once. Thus shalt thou do for six days.
And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets
of ram's horns. And on the seventh day you will
go around the city seven times. And the priests shall blow the
trumpets. And when it shall come to pass, that when they make
a loud blast with the ram's horn, and ye hear the sound of the
trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout, and
the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall
ascend up every man straight before him." Not very complicated
strategy. This is not complicated. Seven
priests, seven horns. You can count to seven. You got
this? pretty much down already, because most things are doing
in seven. He said, then you're going to take the people and
you'll lead them around one time a day for six days. And then
on the seventh day, you'll go around seven times and then you'll
blow the trumpets. The people shout, the walls will
fall down. You run in, you take it. Now,
you got it? Not very complicated. So where did this plan come from?
It came from God. And Joshua believed the word
of God. We can clearly see that this
is the same who appeared unto Moses. It was Christ. He is the
captain of our salvation and his word leads to victory. The words of the false prophet are maybe. You might. I don't know, but you might.
You maybe. If you just have enough faith,
then you'll maybe. No, that's not the Word of God. The Word of God is you shall. You shall. He said, I've given
it to you. It's yours. This is how you'll get it. You'll
compass the city. Six times and seven on the seventh
day. You'll blow the trumpets. You
shall blow the trumpets. The walls shall fall down. These
are words of assurance. These are words of confidence. And this is the way God always
speaks. Now, do you suppose that after he had heard the message,
that he changed the plan? No. No. The plan was of God. And therefore, the faith to believe
the plan was of God as well. That's a source of our faith,
is God. All who believe the message of
grace and believe the gospel will have faith in the source. In the source of our faith, not
in our faith. Number two, the object of the
faith is different. The religious world believes
that their faith is to be their salvation, the power of their
salvation. Their faith is one of decision,
of the will, is the object and power that makes them righteous
and that makes the blood of Christ powerful. Do you see they have
it backwards? They say that their faith makes
the blood of Christ powerful. I say that the blood of Christ
is powerful to give me faith. The blood of Christ is effectual. powerful. Now, if they believe that their
faith can make the blood of Christ effectual, why would they not
believe in this matter of health, wealth, and prosperity gospel?
If they believe they can move God to save them, why can't they
move God to do anything else for them? This is not true faith, because
faith does not move God. But rather, by the grace of God,
faith moves us. Faith moves us. Faith that comes
from God does not in any way make the sacrifice of Christ
effectual, even because it's already effectual. It was already powerful because
when Christ died, His blood was shed. God had by Christ redeemed. By the blood of Christ had redeemed
all of His people from their sins. He had saved them. He had
redeemed us already. And faith is nothing more than
God giving us an understanding of what He has already done for
us. When the Holy Spirit comes in
resurrecting and creating power, He gives us a new nature, a new
heart, a new life. The Holy Spirit gives us faith
to believe on Christ. Where does the power of God come
from? Is it the act of our faith? Is
it our faith that gives God power to save us? No. but rather the
powers of Christ, the object of our faith. Faith is more than the will.
It involves the whole man. The will, the affections, and
the mind. All of these are involved. This
is the whole man is involved in this. And when
God gives us a new nature, He gives us all three, a new heart,
a new mind, and a new will. The Scripture says that we are
made willing, when? In the day of His power. Not our power, His power. In the day of His power, we become
willing, not as servants. We become freely willing. I'm
freely following Christ. I gladly follow Christ. You don't
have to make me follow Christ. You don't have to make me believe.
I believe. I trust in the object of my faith
to deliver me from whatever it is, the circumstances in my life. I trust Christ to deliver me.
And He will deliver my soul. In the end, when I die, He'll
deliver me. Because He is the object of my
faith. Behold, Jesus Christ, the eternal
Son of God and Son of Man. Jesus Christ, the Lord, our righteousness,
the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world. Behold,
the object of my faith. Jesus Christ, risen from the
dead, sitting on the throne of God, ruling all things after
the counsel of His own will. There's the object of my faith.
It's in Christ. I believe Him. I trust Him. The object of my faith is the
sovereign Christ who moves all things to
give eternal life to as many as the Father has given Him. Therefore, as Paul, I am crucified
with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life that I now live,
I live by my own faith. Is that what it says? No. I live
by the faith of the Son of God. Who loved me and gave himself
for me. The power of my life, the power
of my soul is his faith. that he believed God, that he
trusted God in my stead, that he died for my sins. My faith is not the object of
my faith, nor is my faith made powerful by my decisions or will,
but rather my faith is made powerful and effectual by the blood and
righteousness of Jesus Christ, who worketh all things after
the counsel of his own will. who worketh in me both to will
and do of his good pleasure." It was his good pleasure to give
them Jericho. It was his good pleasure that
they do it in a certain manner. It was his good pleasure that
they accomplish what he said they would accomplish. And lastly, the difference of
faith, of true faith, is obedience. Obedience. Men think God should
obey their commands, that the means might be different, but
the result will be the same. Well, you have your faith in
God and I have my faith in God, but don't worry about it. Everything
will be just fine. Doesn't matter what I do. Aren't
we saved by grace? Doesn't that really, you know,
that's OK? I mean, I can just live anywhere I want to. I can
still live in my sin because we're all just saved by grace.
There's no means here. Do you suppose Joshua said, well,
boys, you know, God said we should march around this city, but I'll
tell you what, that doesn't sound right to me. That just don't
sound right. Sure, this is not what he means. We just walk around. Surely we've
got to have some kind of action in this. Some kind of work we've
got to put into it, guys. So let's change the plan a little
bit. And we'll march around one day
and then the next day we'll try to hit the walls with some rams. No. Had Joshua disobeyed this commandment,
you know the walls would have never fell down. If Joshua did
not do this according to the Word of God, The walls of Jericho
would have stood and they would have been defeated. As true faith comes from God
and the power of faith under salvation is in the object of
the person and work of Christ alone, even so, true faith will
be obedient to the means of salvation. To the means. Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the Word of God." The hearing of the Word of God
comes by the preaching of the gospel by man's sense of God. This is the means by which we
live our lives of faith and obedience. We're not here because we've
just determined to make this up. This is not how natural man
thinks that this should happen. They think that this should be
an entertainment, a show of some kind. That there should be an
actor, there should be somebody up here who is very good at speaking. There should be entertainers
and music and all kinds of things to affect the senses of a man. No, that's not the way God determined
it. Paul said, I came not in excellency
of speech. nor in the wisdom of men, but
I came in the power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit of God, preaching
unto you the mystery of the gospel." Preaching. Y'all saw what Carson thought
of it. Well, that's what every natural
man thinks of it. It's foolishness to Him. It's
foolish what you're doing. But you're here, why? Because
of faith and obedience unto God. You are here to hear the gospel
of the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it.
That's why you're here. Obedience. I'll tell you, if anybody says
they have faith without obedience, Their faith is empty. Their faith
is vain. This matter of love, this is
a commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ that we love one another. How much am I to love you, Gil?
How much? My Lord says I should love Him
even as Christ loved me and gave Himself for me. That's how much
I should love you. And I'll tell you I'm ashamed
that I don't. But I know this, as I am loving
you as much as I can, I know this, I'm being obedient by faith. I'm not trusting my love for
Gil, I'm trusting Christ's love for me. And any love I have for you has
got to be from Him. And not from myself. The Lord
decreed that they do this, this thing marching around the city,
and they were obedient. And guess what happened when
they were obedient? Do you suppose they gave any
glory to their marching? Boy, I marched really good today.
You should have seen me. I was real quiet. I didn't say
a word when I was marching. Oh, when I gave that shout, did
you hear my voice? Oh, man! I'm sure I'm the one
that pushed it over. I'm the one that made it fall. You guys were underneath and
pushing up, and when I raised my voice, that's when it really
fell. Did they give any credit to themselves? No. God had ordained
this plan. He ordained this, and all glory
belongs to Him. And true faith gives him all
the glory. All the glory. The scripture says salvation
is of the Lord. If you are a sinner who is hopeless
and helpless to save yourselves, then I have a message of strength
for you. Stop working. Stop trying to
please God and believe God. How do we know if we have this
faith? How do we know do we have the power of faith on the salvation? Have you received it? When a man receives bread who's
hungry, He does not thank his hand for receiving it. Give you an illustration, close,
when a man in Sunday school class, he had purposed to give his watch
to one of the children. So he took out his watch, nice
gold watch, and he went around the room to every child and he
said, here, Billy, here's my watch. If you want it, it's yours. And the kid being skeptical,
being confused by this, he said, no, no, thinking how if he took
it he would get in trouble, or if he took it that he was going
to take it back or something. And he went around the room and
did this to every child. And every child denied it for
some reason or another. They had some excuse as to why
they wouldn't take it, but they didn't. And then he came to this
last one and this last child was poor. He had nothing. And he offers the watch to him. And he reaches out and he takes
it and he says, thank you. Thank you. And all the other
kids were up in arms and said, why does he get it? I offered
it to you. You didn't want it. He wanted it. I was good. My word was good. Christ's word
is good. Have you received his word? Have
you believed? I didn't ask you if you believed
enough, did I? God never asked that. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Simple faith. Simple faith. But yet it is the
power of God to the resurrection of souls. I pray that God give us grace
to see the difference between the faith of this religious age
and the true power of faith that saves sinners. It's origins of God. Its object
is Christ, and we obey by faith. I pray, Lord, bless that to you.