I titled this message, Let's
Talk About Faith. That's how he starts out in verse
1, Now Faith Is. This is one of the few times
where the word of God gives a definition of a doctrine or of a grace. This is one of the grace, faith,
hope, and love. You know, in Corinthians we have
a definition of love. love and then tells us what love
is. And here it's faith. And the apostles had much to
say about faith throughout this whole epistle. Because salvation
is by grace through faith. He said that Israel of old could
not enter the promised land because of unbelief. I was reading the
last latter part of Deuteronomy today, and the Lord said, this
is a people. This is back in Deuteronomy.
This is a people in whose heart there is no faith. They don't
believe me. That's what he's saying. They
don't believe, they don't trust me. They don't trust me. Now back in the previous chapter,
The apostle closes with the subject of faith. He said, the just shall
live by faith. And then he takes them from what
they could see to now what they cannot see. Why is faith so important? Well, he says in verse six, without
faith, it is impossible to please God. It's not hard to please
him, it's impossible. Without God-given faith, the
gospel is nothing but foolishness to the natural man. The gospel
of the grace of God is foolishness to the religious man. If that's
all he is, he's religious and has not Christ. When you talk
to him about God choosing a people, Christ dying for that people,
Christ being the righteousness of that people, that's foolishness
even to the religionist who has not Christ. Without faith, the unseen is
not real, which makes nothing but skeptics out of all of us.
Without faith, you can't comprehend because it says in verse two,
through faith we understand. We are able to have some comprehension
of how God made the world, the ages, and how God saves sinners
through faith. But it's a God-given faith. This faith doesn't come from
the natural heart. And then secondly here, Everything
the Hebrews had experienced in worship, this is why he's dealing
so much with faith. Everything they had experienced
in worship, they could see with the natural eye. They could see
it. They could see the priest. They
could see him daily. They could see the priest. They
could see the sacrifices. They could see the land being
slaughtered every day, morning and evening. All those sacrifices,
they could see them. They could see everything. Their
whole system was on what they could see. But now, now they
couldn't see any of these things. They couldn't see any of these
things. The things that now that he's talking about can't be seen
with the natural eye. They can only be seen by faith.
Faith, listen, God-given faith sees Christ just as the natural
eye sees each other, like I see you right now. God-given faith
sees Christ. It sees Christ. Not in a bodily
form like I see you, but I see you. But now without faith, I can't
see Christ. I can't have any comprehension.
I can't have any understanding. But when God gives faith, you
can see. And he's real to you. He's real
to you. Jesus Christ is not real to very
many people. But Jesus Christ is very, very
real to everyone whom God saves and gives faith to. Now the faith spoken of here,
first of all, he says faith is, and let me make this statement
first and foremost, faith is the gift of God. Listen to Ephesians
2 verse 8. For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves. That faith is not of yourselves,
it's the gift of God. The gift of God is the work of
God. Faith is not a product of the natural heart. No one by
nature will or can believe God was saving faith. You can't do
it. Darkness will not come to the light. A liar will not believe the truth.
It just won't do it. It's just not gonna do it. The
scripture says the natural mind is enmity against God. We were
born with a natural mind. We were born at war with God. We were born not believing God. Skeptics. Skeptics. The natural mind calls God a
liar, as Satan did in the garden when he said to Eve, you shall
not surely die. That's what he said. You're not going to die. For
God does know when the day you eat thereof, your eyes will be
open, you'll be as God's, knowing good and evil, but you're not
gonna die. And every natural man has that
same attitude toward God. Enmity, calling God a liar, not
taking God at his word. You know not to believe the gospel
is to call God a liar. To not believe him, when the
gospel is preached, To walk away from it and unbelieve is nothing
more than calling God Almighty, who cannot lie, a liar. It's calling him a liar. Faith
is, that's what it says, now faith is, simply stated, it's
to believe God. It's to believe God. Abraham
believed God and it was carried to him for righteousness. Paul
said in Acts 27, wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer. For I believe
God, this is faith, now this is faith. For I believe God that
it shall be even as it was told me. That's faith, that is faith
simply put, is to believe God. It's more than believing some
things about God. The devils believe some things
about God. They believe there's one God.
That's why it says there in James 2, thou believest that there's
one God, thou doest well, where the devils believe and tremble.
They believe and tremble. It's more than believing some
things about God. We have been taught from our
childhood. I tell you, from the time I can
remember anything, I was taught in the existence of God. I was
taught that God created the heavens and the earth. I was taught that.
I was taught. It's more than just believing
in the existence of God. Although, listen, although it
does believe, faith does believe in the existence of God. He that
cometh to God must believe that He is, that He truly does exist,
that He exists. However, it's more than that. It's more than that. It's more
than just believing in the existence of God or you wouldn't come to
God, right? He that cometh to God must believe that He is.
That's a given. If you're gonna truly come to
God, you're gonna believe, first of all, that he is. But here's
what I think it means. It means this, is to believe
that God is who he is. That's what it is. He that comes
to God must believe that he is who he says he is. God has revealed
himself in this book. All that you and I ever need
to know of God, everything we will ever need to know of God
in this life is revealed in this book. God has made himself known
to his people. And faith, faith believes that
God is who he is. Faith believes. Now listen, we
don't just believe that in a doctrine called holiness, that God is
holy. We believe that God is holy. It's that real to us. We know that. We're convinced
of it. We're absolutely convinced that
God is holy. is to believe that he's holy,
is to believe that God is merciful and just and immutable and has
all power, is to believe that he is who he is. Not as we used
to think. They said, you thought I was
altogether like yourselves. Or Psalm 50, you thought I was
like you. But one day, one day through
the preaching of the gospel, God gave you eyes to see, ears
to hear, and a heart to believe. And you realize me and God is
not alike. Not the way I am. We're not alike. No, we're not alike. God is holy. I have a sinful. God is light. I have darkness. God is life. I was born in death. Dead, it says, in trespasses
and sins. It is also to believe, true faith
also believes, that Jesus Christ is who the Word of God says He
is. He's the seed of the woman. All
those types and all those pictures, Jesus Christ is the fulfillment
of them. You're convinced of that. You're
convinced of it. He's the God-man mediator. He's
not just a man, He is the God-man. He is God in human flesh. God
has become a man. I've been looking at Isaiah 43. I'm gonna preach from that, Lord
willing, in California. And the Lord said, I'm gonna
do a new thing. I'm gonna do a new thing. And when I looked
at that, I thought, yeah, he's gonna do a new thing. He's gonna
become a man. He's gonna be made sin. He's
gonna die. I'm gonna do a new thing, something
you've never heard of. I'm gonna become you. God became a man. Faith takes Christ to be his
prophet, priest, and king. I need a prophet. Moses said,
the Lord will raise up a prophet like unto me, him shall you hear.
I need a prophet to reveal God to me, to reveal the mind of
God to me. I have that in Christ. I need
a priest. No one dare, no one dare come
before God apart from a priest. We have that in Christ. We have
that high priest in the Lord Jesus Christ. I need a king to
reign and rule, not only over me, but over everything else.
I need one who has all power and authority over everything. I have that in Christ. Brethren,
that's real to faith. That's real to faith. Faith takes Christ to be its
wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Our all in all. Our all in all. I am 100% convinced
that Jesus Christ is enough. I don't need any more. I am 100%
convinced that in Christ, I'm complete. I don't need one thing
added in order for me to stand before God. I have everything,
absolutely everything, and every believer has everything they
need to stand before God. Right now. Right now. I have that. And faith receives
Christ as he's revealed in the scriptures. And then faith believes that we are, as the word of God
says we are, none good, no, not one. No, not one. Even me. Dead in trespasses and sins. And faith believes this with
all your heart. If God has saved you, God saved
me, with all our hearts we believe this. We believe it. And this
faith, he says, is a substance of things hoped for. It's the
ground. One of the Greek meanings was
it's the title deed. It's the title deed to the things
we hope for. Faith apprehends, listen, faith
apprehends what is real in the spiritual realm that which the
natural senses can't even comprehend. You can't do it. You cannot see
it. You can't see where God is with
these eyes. You can't comprehend with this
mind, with this natural mind, you can't do it. But now listen,
faith apprehends it. Faith can apprehend what's real
in the spiritual realm, what our natural senses can't even
get a grasp on. What the eye is to the body,
faith is to the soul. We see God, we see Christ, we
see and hear and understand truth. And you know why? Because God
has worked in you faith. God has given you the gift of
faith. That's why you believe. Faith
gives real substance of things hoped for. It makes the things
that we hope for real. Now, faith doesn't make them
real, but it makes them real to us. They're real because they
are real. But when God gives a person faith, these things are real. These
things we'll hope for. What are these things, some of
these things hope for? Acceptance. Are you wearing it wringing your
hands and you worry whether you're going to make it or not? As someone said to me, he said,
I hope I get it right. I told him, I said, you're not
going to get it right. Jesus Christ got it right. You and I never
get it right. We never get it right. But I hope to be accepted in
the beloved. He has made us accepted into
beloved. That's real faith. That hope,
that expectation, that's not a wish. That's not a wish. That
is an expectation that God has accepted you, God has accepted
me in Jesus Christ. And faith lays hold of that.
Faith lays hold of that. I hope to be saved from sin.
I hope to be saved from the curse of the law. I hope to be saved from these
things, the wrath of God to come. I hope to be saved from these
things. Faith makes these things real to us. God-given faith. And it's the evidence, it says,
of things not seen. That word evidence means this,
it means Let me read it like this. It's
the evidence of things. It's the conviction. You have
a strong conviction that these things are so. I mean, there
have been people who burned at the stake because they were fully
convinced this is the truth. This is the truth. It is a strong
conviction. It is the evidence. You can read
it like this. It's the evidence. It's the proof. It's the proof. I know it's so.
You can say, I know it's so. God said it. I know. Why are you so confident? Why do you have such conviction?
I'll tell you why. God has given you faith. That
is faith. That is faith in action. That's
faith at work. When you have those strong conviction,
this is so, I know Jesus Christ is God. I know I have salvation
in Jesus Christ. I know I have forgiveness in
Him. I know I have cleansing in Him. We just sang this, the
song there about the blood. I can't see the blood. Do you
believe it's so? Absolutely. Why do you believe
it's so? because God has given you faith
and that is faith at work in you. You believe it's the evidence,
it's strong conviction that salvation is real and you have it in Christ. When I die, and I've, you know,
I haven't, I've not been laying on a bed ready to die. But I
believe when it comes time to die, my only hope is Jesus Christ. That's it. It's not me and him. It's not me cooperating with
him. It's him and him alone. God has
become my salvation in the person of his son. He's done that. Faith,
listen, faith gives present reality to things unseen. It gives present
reality to the things that are unseen. And what are these things
unseen? Let me just give you just a few
of them. Well, first of all, God. God. God is spirit. No man has seen God at any time. No man. Well, what makes you
think God is real? Why are you not an atheist or
an evolutionist? I'll tell you why. Faith, God,
the God-given faith. Now I'm talking about God-given
faith here. I'm not talking about false faith. The God-given faith makes
God real to you. God reveals himself to you through
faith. And you see him. You see him. Not with these eyes.
Listen, you have a spiritual sight. That which is born of
the spirit is what? Spirit. And you have spiritual
eyes. And when you read God's word,
this is not a, you know, some people read this like a novel.
You know, they'll read the flood, and they look at the flood, and
you look at the ark. You see, all they see is the flood, and
you see the ark. You see the handiwork of God
in everything, don't you? Don't you see the handiwork of
God in everything? The hurricane comes through, you turn the news
on, it's mother nature. You don't say that. You don't
say that, you say God did that. God did that. And the reason
you do is because you can see God by faith. You can see the unseen. I haven't
seen the covenant of grace. I haven't looked into that book,
but I believe there is one. I believe just as sure as the
world there's a covenant of grace. And the reason why? Faith. Faith. I've never seen Jesus
Christ. Nobody here has ever seen Jesus
Christ. And yet, what are we doing here
this evening? We are here to worship Jesus Christ, someone
we've never seen. Why do you think he's real? What
makes you think he's real? Now there's a lot of people who
think he's real historically. And historically it can be proven
he was real. Josephus speaks of him. Jewish historian. You know, the Bible speaks of
him. But Jesus Christ is more to you than someone who lived
2,000 years ago. Jesus Christ is someone who lives
in you. And you live, now listen, as
a believer, you and I, we live God conscious. And we live conscious
daily of Jesus Christ. There's not a day that goes by,
I believe I can say this for everyone here who believes the
gospel, who believes on Christ, there's not a day goes by that
you don't think of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not a day. He's that real to you. Jesus Christ is as real to me
as you are sitting there. That's faith. That's God-given
faith. That is given through faith. That's what that's given to. I'm convinced that he rose, and
I'm convinced that Jesus Christ come into this world, died on
a cross, and rose again from the dead, and ascended to heaven,
and ascended at God's right hand. I'm convinced of that. I'm convinced
of it. By faith, we have a firm conviction
of these things. They're real to us. Can you explain
this to the natural man? No. No, no more than you can
explain light to a blind man. You can't explain cholera. Explain
cholera to a person who's never had sight. Faith takes God at his word and
embraces the promises. And just, I mean, you know, a
lot of people read this book and it really doesn't mean anything.
You read this book and it means something. The promises of God
you hang on to. He that cometh to me, I will
no wise cast out. That's one of the That's one
of the most precious promises to me. All that the Father giveth
me shall come to me and him that cometh to me, I will no wise
cast out. Lord, I come. I come based upon your promise.
You said you wouldn't cast me out. And it says by it, it, that is
faith. And this has the meaning of,
and I know I can't explain this like I probably ought to, but
it has the meaning of, of a witness. It's like this faith, this God-given
faith is the witness of God in you. It's a witness of God in
you. You're His. Or you wouldn't believe. You wouldn't believe the gospel.
You'd be religious. We're all religious. But Christ wouldn't be your life.
You wouldn't follow Him. You wouldn't be His disciple. By it means it has to do with
being a witness. By it, the elders obtained a
good report. Faith has the power to see and
realize the unseen. For the experience of the fathers
proves it. I got that out of another translation.
That's another way of saying it. If you'll notice, everything
mentioned about the elders, those who've gone on before us, that's
what he says, the elders, that's all those gone on before us,
all of them. And we have a description of
some of them in the rest of this chapter. Every one of them has to do with
faith and not works. He's gonna give a report of some
of them, and it has to do with faith and not their works. And what works they did do, they
did through faith, believing God. They were saved just as
we are, by faith, by faith. Believing God, taking God at
His word. As I said, faith takes God at
His word. And these unseen things, such
as God, is real. Look in verse 27. We start about
Moses. Let me go back to verse 24. Verse
24, by faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be
called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction
with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for
a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ, greater riches than
the treasures in Egypt. For he had respect to the recompense
of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not
fearing the wrath of the king. For he endured as what? That's
faith. That there's faith. Seeing him
who is invisible. You can't see somebody who's
invisible, can you? Now how can you see someone who's
invisible? That's the natural man. I mean, that's the natural
way of thinking. You can't see someone who is invisible. Faith
can. Faith, as I said, sees God. By
faith we see God. God is. God is. And through faith,
we understand that the worlds, that is, the ages were framed.
Now, let me read one of these translations here. I thought
it was good. The word framed here means this. It means to
fit out or equip so that a person or a thing thus equipped, fitted
out, might serve the purpose for which it was made. In other
words, all the ages that have been made, all the millennials,
all the universe, everything that's been made, it's like one
writer said, it's like part put to part, and when it's all together,
it serves the purpose for which God has created it, which is
to make a people just like his son. That's what's going on. This whole thing, this whole
creation, is working together for you and me, us, to bring
us to glory, to fulfill God's purpose in having a people just
like Jesus Christ. The earth is not just spinning
at their space. Everything, every minute, every
little minute thing that's happening in the world in your life, in
outer space where we can't even see what's going on. Out there,
I mean the zillions of miles out there, we can't even see
what's going on. That is working for our good.
And all those parts, just like you take the engine in a car,
all those parts to that engine is working to make that car go
forward when you drive it. And everything is working right
now to bring about God's eternal purpose. And you believe that. You see that. I see it. You see it. If you believe God,
I know you see it. Can I comprehend all the vastness
of it? No. The wisdom of it? No. Only God
can do that. But I see it. I see it. Through faith, we understand
that the ages, the world were framed by the word of God so
that things which are seen, everything we see with these eyes, were
not made of things which do appear. How foolish, how ignorant, how
dead must a person be to believe we came from the monkeys? That's
a real slam, if you ask me, on the monkeys. I think it is. At least a monkey has an excuse
for acting like you do. We don't. We don't have an excuse. We've been given, you know, God's
given us reasoning skills and thinking. That's why you go over and read
Romans 1, I read most of it to you last week. You know, the
things which may be known of God, they just cast them off. They cast them off. But you and I know and we're
convinced that the things that exist were not made. And here's what it's saying. The things that exist were not
made out of anything material. God did not take any kind of
matter and bring it together and create the earth. God said,
Let there be light, and there was light. He said, let the earth
bring. God made everything out of nothing. Just his own mind, his will,
his purpose in it. He said, that's a cow. Bring
a cow. It's a horse. Everything God
made, he made it out of nothing. That's what I was saying. The things that are made were
not made by the things which we see. It's not like all this
matter came together. It's not like there was a big
bang. It's not like there was a big bang and then all of a
sudden all this stuff started coming together. How foolish, how foolish. How
far did man fall? I'll tell you how far man fell.
All the way. You know, he's still falling.
He's still falling. You know, as Scripture says,
when God cast him into the hell, he cast him into what? He calls
it a bottomless pit. The bottomless. The fall will
never stop. The fall of men and women will
never end. It'll always be further and further
and further away from God. Faith gives understanding. And
I'm going to close. I don't want to take too long
here. Faith gives understanding to the spiritual mind. That what's
born of the spirit is spirit. And you have a spiritual mind. And faith gives understanding
to the spiritual mind. We understand how the world was
made, how God put it together. We understand that. To understand
something, listen, you must be able to rationalize it, right?
Now, if you don't want to understand something, you have to be able
to have some rationalization about it. Faith gives spiritual
rationalization to the things created. Faith does that. God did it. That's spiritual
rationalization. I can't even say it. Rationalize
it. The more I try to say it, the
worse it gets. God did it. That's the easy way to say it.
God did it. What the world calls foolishness, now listen, what
the world calls foolishness makes perfect sense to you, doesn't
it? It just makes perfect sense.
The way God saves sinners through the Lord Jesus Christ, through
his person and work, makes absolutely perfect sense to you. How God
can be a just God and a savior in Christ makes perfect sense
to you. It's not foolishness. No more. No more. What is a great mystery to the
natural man is not a mystery to you who believe. It's not
a mystery no more. It used to be, but not no more.
We understand how a man is born again by the Spirit of God and
the flesh has nothing to do with it. We understand there's a new
man, born of God. Nicodemus didn't understand that.
He said, how can that be? And the Lord said, that which
is born of the Spirit of Spirit, that's how it can be. And we
understand that. Faith is the gift of God. Faith
is the confidence, it's the confidence that God would do just as He
said He would. It's the proof. The very proof
that you're a child of God is that you believe God. You believe
Him. You believe. And faith receives
Jesus Christ and lives upon Christ all its earthly days the just
shall live by faith.