You want to turn in your Bibles
to the book of Hebrews, chapter 11. Hold your place in the book
of Hebrews and then turn to the first verse. In the first chapter
of the book of Luke, I don't like to use big words, but I
want to use one word today you may or may not be familiar with.
I want to use it in the title of the sermon. It's called the
hormesis of faith. And you wonder, what in the world
does hormesis mean? I have to look it up to find
out, but what it means is that when you take something or you're
stressed by something, which if taken too much would produce
a negative effect, may even cause your death, taking in small amounts
is actually beneficial. And there's things that are like
that in our lives, and so I want to talk about the scriptural
hormesis of faith today. But in order to do that, of course,
we have to start with faith itself. And faith is, I think, the most
significant and emphasized grace given to us by God in scripture. Certainly, the grace of the Spirit
of God encompasses all of the grace that God gives to us in
our personal experience, and faith is the first and earliest
grace that we experience as believers in Christ. So I want to look
at faith today, and we may spend some time in Hebrews chapter
11. I haven't decided yet, but we're going to at least get started
with the first few verses there. But I want to talk about this
thing of hormesis, the hormesis of faith. And if you understand
it, you'll see that it means the stress that God has designed
in our lives to benefit our faith. So let's pray and ask the Lord
to be with us. Gracious Father, thank you for the grace of your
Spirit given to us freely because of the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus. The Lord Jesus Christ has been
exalted to the highest place and given all authority in heaven
and earth and by His own will, according to the will of God,
has sent His own Spirit into the world to His people to dwell
in them and with them and to bring them all blessings from
God. because He gives all blessings
by His accomplishments in our salvation. So we pray, Lord,
open Your Word to us, we pray. We know that it is Your will
to save Your people. We know that it is Your will
to reveal Yourself to them in Your Son. We know that this occurs
by the work, the operation of Your Spirit who imparts to us
this grace of faith. And so we pray, Lord, help us
to have this faith, give us this faith, we pray in Jesus' name
we pray, amen. In Luke chapter 1 and verse 1,
it says, for as much as many have taken in hand to set forth
in order a declaration of, and notice the words that follow,
those things which are most surely believed among us. those things
which are most surely believed among us." Now this is unique
to Christians. This is unique to the Church
of God. The things most surely believed
among us. What are the things most surely
believed among us? Whatever they are, we all hold
them. the same. We all believe the
same things and we hold them dearly and they are sure, made
sure to us. And we're going to see how that
is. How is it? Turn to Hebrews chapter 11. in verse 1, well actually I could
read the verses that precede it in the chapter before in Hebrews
chapter 10 verse 38, it says, now the just shall live by faith. If you were to summarize all
of the book of Hebrews up to this point, it's preaching the
perfection of God's purpose, promises, and his provision for
us in Christ and all Christ has done for us, typified by the
Old Testament covenant and the Old Testament laws and ceremonies
fulfilled in Jesus Christ to accomplish our eternal salvation. And he puts a point on it here
in verse 38. Now the just shall live by faith. The righteous before God live
by faith. But if any man draw back, draw
back in unbelief, turning away from Christ, my soul shall have
no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw
back unto perdition. but of them that believe to the
saving of the soul." Now this believing is what chapter 11
is going to cover. In verse 1 of chapter 11, now
faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things
not seen. This is a God-given definition
of faith. If you become involved in theological
discussions with men, you will find them trying to define the
word faith. And I have been involved in those
discussions and have found very little benefit from it. actually
have gotten some benefit from it because, as is always the
case, God uses things that are not true to solidify to us the
things that are true when he finally shows them to us. But
here we have, in verse 1 of chapter 11, a very simple and concise
definition of faith. But it's not a definition that
describes faith as parts in an object. like you would describe,
let's say, a bicycle. If you didn't know what a bicycle
was and you wanted me to describe it to you. If I said, well, a
bicycle is two wheels connected by a frame with a thing you hold
onto, a handlebar, and it's got these pedals and a chain to connect
the pedals to the back wheel. And I would go on and on. Pretty
soon, you'd zone out. What are you talking about? I
can't picture it. But if I said something like
a bicycle is something that you can get on and with your own
power, without any outside power, you can propel yourself and go
from here to there, miles. You can go a short distance,
long distance. You can go maybe 30, 40 miles
an hour on a bicycle. Very smooth, very easy to go
to travel by that. It requires no money. It's like
free energy, just your own body. You get some sense of what a
bicycle is and you may begin to have an interest in having
one of those. This is that kind of a definition.
It's not a definition that says, now faith is this part of your
emotions and this part of your will and this part of your consent
and all these things. It tells you the function of
faith in the heart of the child of God. It's a God-given grace
that allows us to do what's described in this verse. He says, now faith
is the substance of things hoped for. What do we hope for? What is the basis of our hope?
Well, it's the Word of God, isn't it? It's what God says, has said,
what shall be. It's things that are yet to come,
things that we don't have yet in a tangible, experiential way. But things that God has said
shall surely come, the things most surely believed among us.
Whatever God has said shall be is what shall actually be. And
we, in believing that, We expect it. We expect it because God's
Word is sure and it can't fail. And so, we might ask the question,
well, what do we have of all that God has promised us at present? He's promised us eternal life.
He's promised us that we will one day stand before Him in His
very presence, accepted in Christ. And we will have no remorse,
no guilt. All of our sins, we will know
then that they've been put away, as we know now, in part. And we will stand in the presence
of God with uninhibited joy and unfettered access, unimpeded
communion with God. We'll know God as He is and we
will be known as we are even known now. And we'll see Him
and we'll be like Him. All the things God has promised
us are future and yet to come. That's what we hope for. And
the only way we know that these things are true is because God
has spoken of them in His Word. Now, faith is the way in which
we have those things at present. It's the substance of them now.
We don't possess them in the tangible experiential way that
we shall one day possess them. But we have something else. It's
a gift from God, and it enables us to see what shall be and depend
on it so much that we expect it with confidence. That's what
hope is, a confident expectation. But we don't have those things,
and so God has given us something called faith. Now faith is the
substance of things hoped for. It's what we now have. in lieu
of the reality of it in our own experience. But what we now have,
this thing called faith, makes those things as present as if
we possess them in our conviction, in our confidence, and in our
assurance. The strength of our faith enables
us to hold to those things as certain as we hold to God's word. And that's this gift of faith.
So faith is the substance of things hoped for. And it says
that faith is the evidence of things not seen. In other words,
faith allows us to be convinced of invisible things that are
true. We have, in our physical world,
in our bodies, we have many senses. We can see, we can hear, we can
touch. When things are cold or hot,
we know what that's like. When they're rough or smooth,
We can taste. In all these senses, we can smell.
All these things convince us of what we see in our surroundings. The fact of our surroundings.
I know that Tim is sitting here. How? Because I can see him. Because
he's talking to me. I hear him with my physical hearing. I see him with my physical eyes.
I can touch him. And I know that there's food
in the room. I can smell it. Later on, I'm going to taste
it and eat it. But these are the physical senses
God has given us to convince us of the way things are in the
physical world. You can say in a court of law,
I know that was the man because I saw him. I heard his voice. I saw him do it. And here's the
evidence. See, here's some things that
were there at the scene of the crime. We use those physical
senses to know things, don't we, in our physical world. I
know that this is true because here we are. All my senses tell
me that's true. Isn't that the way we know things?
And we go to school to learn. And it's a painful process because
we have to change the way we think by outside input. And our mind has to gather data. and connect things in a logical
way and draw conclusions. And that process of learning
is painful because our mind has to work against things it didn't
know before and reshape the way we think. That's the function
of faith in our lives. God gives us faith to know spiritual
truth, spiritual reality. And there's only one basis of
that reality. And what is that? is the Word
of God. Because with God-given faith,
what we know about the way things truly are is entirely based on
what God says about the way things are. Faith persuades us that
the way things are is whatever God has said they are. And we're
so persuaded of this that we will stand in our own conscience
And we will defend God's word to our own conscience against
the doubtings of our heart, against the tendencies of our emotions
to go up and down. Faith will cause us to lay hold
on the truth because God said it's true, not because we feel
it, not because we can smell it or taste it or touch it. or
see it with our physical eyes or hear it with our physical
ears, but only because God has said it. There was a man in Matthew
chapter 8. Let me take you to this to underscore
this principle. In Matthew chapter 8, Jesus noticed
and drew attention to a man's faith and he said, this is great
faith. And faith, as I said, allows
us to be convinced of the way things are by one evidence only,
by what God has said. Look at Matthew chapter 8, verse
5. When Jesus entered into Capernaum,
there came to him a centurion beseeching him. And he's saying,
Lord, my servant lieth at home, sick of the palsy, grievously
tormented. And Jesus said to him, I will
come and heal him. The centurion answered and said,
Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof,
but speak the word only. You see what he's saying here?
I have one ground, one foundation, only one basis for confidence. I believe that if you say it,
it's as good as done, and it will come to pass. Speak the
word only. And my servant shall be healed.
For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And
I say to him, to this man, go. And he goeth. And to another,
come. And he cometh. And to my servant, do this. And
he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, he marveled
and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have
not found so great faith. No, not in Israel. What is the
basis of our hope? What is the basis of reality? and truth as more real than this
physical world we live in. In fact, what is true now, not
just what shall be true, but what is true now that underlies
and governs everything that we live in now? It's God's word
and faith convinces us this is the way things are. Faith sees
through the material to the spiritual and lays hold on that and stands
upon it. This is the way things are. And
this is a convincing persuasion that comes to us from God as
a gift of His grace. Isn't that what Ephesians, and
throughout scripture, says? Ephesians 2.8.9, Now, for by
grace you are saved through faith, and that faith, not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God. It's not of us. It doesn't come
naturally to us. We don't have it. It's foreign
to us until God gives it, and that's a gift of His grace. So
faith is that. And he goes on in Hebrews 11,
he says, for by it, faith, the elders obtained a good report.
Now, faith is so incredible. But we have it as a subjective
experience, a gift from God, and we exercise it. But even
though God draws attention to it in a very favorable way, faith
itself draws attention away from itself to Christ. Meaning that
the believer, in believing Christ, abandons all hope in himself
and deflects all attention and honor to himself because faith
teaches the believer that all of his salvation and hope is
in Christ, from the Word of God. And so here he says, for by it
the elders obtained a good report, because faith drew away their
attention from themselves to Christ. And God sees the object
of their faith, who is Christ. And he says, look, look there.
There is perfect righteousness. There is remission for all their
sins. There is a redemption in His
blood and all the things that we believe, the things most surely
believed among us. And then in verse 3 he says,
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. Here's the question. How does
God work? How does he accomplish his will? And the answer is, by his word. How do you know that? Well, in
Genesis 1, he talks about how God spoke. He called the light
out of darkness. The light was. He said, let there
be light. And there was light. Let the
dry land appear, and the dry land appeared. And let the fish,
and all in the sea, everything he accomplished by his word. In Psalm 33 and verse 6, by the
word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them
by the breath of his mouth. How does God work? How does he
accomplish his work? The answer is by his word. He says in Psalm 119 and verse
89, Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. Forever. Known unto God are all his works
from the foundation of the world. Everything is established by
God's word. He speaks and it is done. Speak the word only. And faith
hangs its eternity on God's word. Now this gift of grace, this
faith that God gives to us, it enables us to understand what
we could not otherwise know unless God revealed it. God said, you
weren't there, nobody was there, but the worlds were framed by
the Word of God. out of nothing. The things that
are seen are not made by things which do appear. They are made
out of nothing. And the believer says, that's
exactly right. I'm convinced of that. And the
believer doesn't doubt that God accomplishes all things by His
Word. Even in the physical creation.
I remember taking my son out into the night each evening as
we were going through our night routine, we'd look up at the
stars and I would ask him, who made those stars? God did. And how did he do it? He just
spoke. And it was done. He commanded
and it stood fast. It says in Psalm 33 again, He
gathered the waters of the sea together as a heap. He layeth
up the depth and stores. Let all the earth fear the Lord.
Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For
He spake and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast.
And so we hang everything on God's Word. But as God accomplishes
all things by His Word, even so in our salvation, He accomplishes
all things by the Living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Word
became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth. Everything came to us, all grace and all truth came
to us by the Word being made flesh." And this is the beauty
of the consistency and the symmetry of God's truth. We know nothing
that's true except God reveals it. And we can know nothing that's
true unless God gives us faith and persuades us of it. And so
faith is that substance. It's that evidence. God has spoken. What more do we need? Isn't that
the way the psalm, the hymn goes that we sing? What more can be
said to you than he has said? concerning His Son. And so faith
takes God's Word as everything. The way things are is whatever
God says they are. The way that things shall be
is whatever God has promised. You see, and that produces hope. Hope follows faith because faith
is convinced God is faithful. God is true. God cannot lie. He cannot change. His word cannot
fail. And if that's the way he said
it is, that's the way it is. And if he says this is the way
it shall be, then that's the way it shall be. And so hope
pins its expectation on God's promises Because faith believes
God, who promised. And faith is not of ourselves,
it's given to us. And our faith does not fail,
not because we're faithful, but because God is faithful, who
gave it to us. And faith knows this. Faith knows. The believer knows that faith
itself was given. Not all men have faith. Those
that have it were given to them by God's grace, by God's ordained
will. And so He gives it to us. Unto
you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe
on Him, but to suffer for His name. So these are the principles
of faith. Now, the book of Hebrews catalogs
these men of faith, and I love to read about, in the Old Testament,
about what God has done through these people. Don't you? I like
to read about Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham and Sarah
and Isaac and Jacob and so on. And so God catalogs them for
us. He's the one that gave us this history. He catalogs it
for us. He says, by faith, notice every
one of these begins this way, by faith, somebody. By faith,
somebody else, and so on. And we're going to just look
at the people and the verbs. By faith, Abel offered. He offered
unto God a more excellent sacrifice. How did he do this? By faith.
He understood. He was convinced that his whole
hope of salvation was in Christ, to whom the offering pointed
forward and looked. So he offered that offering according
to God's instruction to him through his father Adam. This is the
way we come before God. This is the way God clothes us
by these skins of the animal. They all point to the Lord Jesus
Christ who is going to bruise the head of the serpent. who
is going to clothe us in his own righteousness, the one in
whom we are accepted by God. And Abel offers this lamb by
faith. He looked through the lamb to
Christ, and God said here that he did this by which he obtained
witness that he was righteous. God testified. He said, that
man is righteous. It was evidenced because he believed
God. And how did they know he believed
God? Because he offered the sacrifice
that pointed to Christ. By faith, Enoch was translated. from this world directly into
heaven. He was translated that he should
not see death. Was his faith a power that moved
him from the realm of our present world into heaven itself? Of
course not. It was God's power. But he believed
God. He saw by faith the surety of
God's promises of eternal life and being convinced of that and
expecting it, God translated him. He didn't wait. He translated
him. And it goes on, speaking of Enoch,
for before his translation he had this testimony. That he pleased
God. He pleased God. I find that incredible. Enoch pleased God. He goes on,
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. He must believe that God is.
Remember what Moses asked God at the burning bush in Exodus
3.14? He says, when I come to the children of Israel and tell
them that you sent me, and they ask me what is his name, what
shall I tell them? He said, I am that I am has sent
thee. You tell them I am. He that cometh
to God must believe that he is the eternal God, the covenant
God, the God who is self-subsistent. He exists without the need of
depending on anyone. He in himself provides all things
for all. I am that I am. The eternal God
who is now what he has always been and is now what he shall
always be. This is the eternal God. He must
believe that God is and that He is a rewarder of them that
diligently seek Him. He that cometh to God. How do
we come? Jesus said, no man comes to me but by the Father. Unless it's given to him by the
Father. We can't come to the Father but
by the Lord Jesus Christ. So how can we come to God? We
come by the grace of God drawing us to Christ. And how does he
say we do that? He that cometh to God must believe
that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek
him. What do we seek when we come to God through Jesus Christ?
Don't we seek salvation, righteousness, remission of our sins? We seek
everything from Him. Is there anything we come to
God for that we don't come seeking for it in Christ and because
of Christ? That's the way faith pleases
God. It comes to God in Jesus Christ,
the eternal God, the unchanging God, the God of the covenant,
the God of His people, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Not meaning
just the physical Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but all their children
by faith. We come to God in the Lord Jesus Christ, seeking from
Him righteousness and all things from God. And that man pleases
God because God gave him that grace to look to His Word. Now
I want you to consider that faith glorifies God. And this is phenomenal. This is phenomenal. Look at Romans
chapter 4. This is about Abraham. When he
was old, past the child-bearing age, he and his wife Sarah, and
God had promised to him that he was going to have a son, Isaac,
through whom Christ would come. And Abraham believed God. But
all of his life, he's going through the twilight of his life, and
the promise God made to him has not yet come to pass. And yet,
Abraham believes God. He's convinced that his word
is true. He's waiting, patiently waiting,
for his word to be fulfilled. And so he says in Romans chapter
4, in verse 16, Therefore it is of faith, meaning salvation,
our justification before God, everything, is of faith that
it might be by grace to the end the promise might be sure to
all the seed. Because it is of faith, therefore
it's necessarily by grace, because faith itself is of grace, and
faith ascribes and credits God with everything in Christ. So
therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace, and to
this end, that every person to whom God has promised salvation
would be saved with certainty. He says, not to that only which
is of the law, in other words, not just the Jews only, But to
that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father
of us all, as it is written, I have made thee a father of
many nations, meaning Gentiles, before him whom he believed,
even God, who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things
which be not as though they were. That's what faith believes. If
God said it, even though I don't see it, even though it hasn't
yet come to pass, It's done. It is done. I have spoken it,
the Lord said, I will also bring it to pass. Isaiah 46, 10 and
11. And so he says, Abraham, who
against hope, believed in hope. Against all human hope, he believed
in hope. In expectation, based on God's
word, believed that he might become the father of many nations
according to that which was spoken. Again, here we have his faith
based on the word of God. This is what was spoken. So shall
thy seed be. And being not weak in faith,
he considered not his own body. This is what faith does. It does
not consider itself. And this is where faith's strength
is. This is where faith glorifies God. It gives credit to God and
draws all strength outside of itself from God in Christ. lays
hold on eternal life in Christ. Not that it has it in ourselves,
but it's in Him. Being not weak in faith, He considered
not His own body, now dead, when He was about a hundred years
old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. He staggered
not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith,
giving glory to God. Faith credits God with truth
about what He has said. This is the way it is. God spoke
it. Remember when the children of
Israel were in battle against the Philistines and the Philistines
were on one side and they were on the other side and Goliath
comes down and he bellows out these blasphemous words against
God and against the armies of Israel. He says, you send me
a man and I'll I'll fight with him, and if he wins, then he
can rule over us. If I win, then you are our servants."
And so on. And what was the solution there? What was it that gave the victory
to Israel? David came forward and he says,
Who is this uncircumcised Philistine? He's speaking against the armies
of God. He's blaspheming God. He, David, believed God's word. He credited God with the victory
over Goliath. And he went before Goliath as
a little person compared to this giant, with nothing but a sling
and stone. And he killed Goliath. He did
it with confidence. God's going to take this man
and make an end of him. He's going to defeat our enemies. He's going to subdue them under
us. And so David killed Goliath, cut off his head, held his head
up in triumph. He said, this is what's going to happen to
all of you. And they fled. Because he believed God. He glorified
God by giving credit to God that his word was true and that God
would fight the battle for them. And he did. That's what faith
is. Faith pushes everything on to God's word and rests there. And so faith brings to us this
experience of rest. We rest in the finished work
of Christ. God said it, we believe it, by God-given faith, and therefore
we rest. And we have peace and joy in
believing. Romans 15, 13 and Hebrews chapter
4. So that's what we experience
in believing. But it glorifies God. And God
accomplishes everything by His word. And the believer stands
by and says, I'm going to stand still and see the salvation of
the Lord. He spoke it. He will work it out. He's going
to bring it to pass. And so faith rests there. And
even though all of the world opposes us, we stand in defiance,
not boasting in ourselves, except perhaps in our weakness, but
boasting in Christ. Most in Christ. Now I want to
get to this thing called hormesis. The stress that's placed upon
faith. And think with me for a little
bit about your own life. If you are a child and you grow
up in a family and your mother in thinking that the best for
her child would be really to protect the child from all trouble
and all pain and all suffering. Every time the child almost gets
into trouble, mom comes in and swoops up and scoops away the
child from that trouble. And anytime there's any kind
of stress in the child's life, maybe Billy is arguing with her
child, and she says, no Billy, and she moves Billy out of the
way, do not stress my poor little son. And then when work is to
be done around the house, mom says, it's okay, I love you so
much, I'm going to do this work for you. What is that child going
to grow up to be like? Selfish? Weak? incapable of doing
anything, because the child has never gained in wisdom, has never
learned any diligence, has never learned to work. These are all
things God has designed. And those physical things teach
us how that God introduces for His children stress on faith,
in order that He might grow us in grace. So stress on faith
is God-designed and God-given and is done in a way of fatherly
love. In Hebrews 12 it's called chastisement
or child training. God, when we have children and
we want to correct them, most of the time we do it in a way
that's for our profit. But God does it for our benefit.
He doesn't need us in order to add to Himself. But He does it
for our good. And so He introduces trouble
in our lives, in all forms. And he not only introduces trouble,
but he requires things of us, just like our children. They
fall down, they learn to fall. Or they touch something hot,
they learn after a while not to do that. And we try to protect
them from seriously hurting themselves. But they're going to experience
these things. And they go to school and they get challenged
in ways that try to deny what their parents have taught them.
Or maybe someone in school picks on them for the way they look.
What do we do? Poor little child. And we shelter
them away. You can't take that. I'm not
going to allow those stresses to come upon you. And they become
weak. but you support them in that and teach them the truth
in those things and where their confidence lies in the Word of
God, so that they grow up in those things, then they'll be
strong and able to stand against all opposition, even to the point
of death. And so look at Revelation. I'll
get to that in Revelation chapter 12. I want you to see this. This
is true of all of God's people. God doesn't bring immature sons
to glory. He brings mature sons. He has
predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son, and
He does so in the process of our lives through faith. Revelation
chapter 12, if you read this, it's about the struggle between
the kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of God, meaning the church
of God. I'm going to read from verse
1, just so you get the appreciation. And there appeared a great wonder
in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her
feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. And I'm not
going to explain the details of this. We will someday, but
I'm not going to do it today. And she, being with child, cried,
travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. This is a picture
of the church of God. and through the church the Lord
Jesus coming into the world in human body in order to redeem
us. And there appeared another wonder
in heaven and behold a great red dragon having seven heads
and ten horns and seven crowns upon his heads. So this is Satan
in the picture of the dragon. He's having seven heads and ten
horns. And his tail drew the third part
of the stars of heaven and it cast them to the earth. And this
describes the fall of the angels in heaven. And it cast him to
the earth, and the dragon stood before the woman, which was ready
to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
It was the devil's aim to destroy Christ. And she brought forth
a man-child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron,
and her child was caught up unto God and to His throne." That
would be at the resurrection of Christ and His ascension.
And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared
of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred
and threescore days." Meaning all the time from Christ's resurrection
and ascension to glory until the end of time. And there was
war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought
against the dragon, and the dragon fought against his angels. And
Michael here is a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is
himself God. He's the messenger of the covenant.
That's why his name is used in scripture here, Michael, which
means who is like God, who is the expressed image of God. And
so the dragon fought with the angels, but he prevailed not.
Neither was their place found anymore in heaven. And the great
dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil and
Satan, which deceived the whole world. He was cast out into the
earth and his angels were cast out with him. So when Christ
rose, Satan was conquered. This is the purpose for which
he came into the world, to destroy the works of the devil. And he
did it. And he cast Satan, the accuser of the brethren, out
of the court of heaven. Because in the court of heaven,
our great advocate and lawyer, our paraclete, came alongside
us and defended us, and offered his own blood and righteousness.
And God accepted and justified his people. And in the decision
of the court of heaven, prevailed against our enemies, our sin
and Satan, and the world and all things, death and hell. Now,
Satan is on the earth for this period of time. Verse 10, And
I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation
and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of
his Christ. And the accuser of our brethren
is cast down, which accused them before God day and night. Now
listen here. This is what faith does. This
is the result of child training This is the result of that stress
God puts in our lives, incrementally, continuously, day by day, as
we learn to look to Christ, learn to look for Christ, and learn
to draw from Him, enabling grace to stand by faith on His word. He says, and they overcame Him,
Christ's people, they overcame Him, Satan, by what? By the blood
of the Lamb. They said, look, You look there. There's my answer. There's God's
satisfaction. There's all that pleases God
for me. That's my acceptance. That's
my reward. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And how do they know this? And by the word of their testimony. What is the word of our testimony?
But the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. See? This is what God
has spoken. This is what God has been speaking
from the foundation of the world. This is what he'll be speaking
about for eternity. So they overcame him by the blood
of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they loved
not their lives, even unto death. How did they come to this level
of maturity? By the stress of faith. By the
trials that come to us daily in our lives. The hormesis of
faith, if you will. And there's many ways this comes.
Many ways. A brother offends us, what do
we do? We forgive him. Seven times in
a day. That's crossing the line. Now,
seven times, seventy times. Now that's real hormesis right
there. That's stress. And he teaches us, how has God
forgiven you? Hasn't he forgiven you an infinite
debt? daily, didn't He look upon you
in your unregeneracy and desire to have you, and for His great
mercy and His great love, raised you from death, even when you
were dead in sins, and forgave you all your debt for Christ's
sake? Because He received from Christ that sweet-smelling savor
of His sacrifice for us. Could we do anything else? This
is trivial and insignificant compared to that, so we forgive.
And there's the stress of everything else. Our sin nature, constantly
opposing our faith in Christ, constantly bringing doubts into
our minds. And then there's the stress of
what God requires upon us. I know that I'm supposed to love
my brother, but I find instead this warfare going on inside
me and I think of myself first. I don't want to lay my life down.
And so there's the stress of the obedience that God places
upon us because of the gospel. His love to us bears weight on
the side of the Spirit, and our flesh bears weight on the side
of what we want, and faith is saying, no, this stress is going
to come under subjection by what's true in God's Word. I'm going
to stand fast that God accepts me for Christ's sake, and I'm
going to not only stand in it, I'm going to walk in it. And
so these things are stress. And there's another thing that
causes stress, and I wanted to get to that today before we end
it, which is actually part of our Bible study. Look at Romans
chapter 13. And this is pertinent today because
it seems like in my own life, this is where I'm experiencing
chafing. He knows what that is. It rubs
you the wrong way. And you'd rather you do what
comes natural rather than what God has said. But here in Romans
chapter 13 he says, verse 1, let every soul be subject unto
the higher powers. For there is no power but of
God. The powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever, therefore,
resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God, and they
that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers
are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Wilt thou then not
be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou
shalt have praise of the same. For he, meaning the person in
charge in our physical lives, he is the minister of God to
thee for good. But if thou do that which is
evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain, for he
is the minister of God, a revenger, to execute wrath upon him that
doeth evil. Wherefore, you must be subject
not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake, for for
this cause pay ye tribute also. For they are God's ministers,
attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore
to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to
whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. You see
these first seven verses are saying? It's saying that God,
against all that we naturally think, God has established the
government. And the people in the government,
as much fault as we can find in them, as much injustice as
we can find in them, and as much evil that seems to come from
them, God put them there to accomplish His will. And this is a stress
on our faith. It's a constant opportunity for
us to go to God and draw grace from his word and trust and wait
for him to do his secret will, which we don't understand, to
bring about his revealed will, which is the salvation of his
people and their eternal glory through all that occurs in this
world, including the evil rulers. You see? And you say, well, I
don't know about that. I mean, just look at Nancy Pelosi. Thankfully, I'm not in her district.
We naturally find joy in picking apart the rulers, don't we? And now, today, it seems to be
growing in popularity to actually want to remove God's ordained
ministers, servants, to God for us that are enforcing the law. This is opposed to all that's
right, opposed to God's word. But by faith, we don't take it
upon ourselves to fix the wrong, do we? Can we? Can you change
Nancy? I can't. I've argued with her
on a TV many times. It didn't do any good. You can
even write your senator. Guess what? It probably isn't
going to make a difference. I don't discourage you from doing
that. But the point is, we look to God's view of things. Now, there's many examples of
this in scripture. I mentioned a couple at the Bible
study on Thursday night. But think about this. Remember
when King David, God had promised to him, I'm going to make you
king over all Israel and Judah. And yet there was this man named
Saul who was the king. And he was a despicable man.
He did things only for himself, and he seemed to have no spine,
except when his men were around him. When he did wrong, he only
wanted to correct it so that his men would continue to follow
him. He was just like me, a bum. in so many ways, naturally. And
yet David, even though he was in the right, had defeated Goliath,
had defeated the Philistines, had done nothing wrong against
Saul, Saul wanted to kill David out of envy. And David would
not take up his arms against King Saul, because he said, it's
not right to take up against the Lord's anointed. God put
him there. And we know that Saul was evil.
Saul came to an end of an evil man. But David didn't fight against
him. Not once. In fact, he killed
a man who did that. and said, how are you so bold
to take up, you take your hand against the Lord's anointed?
He said, at one point he said, God will take care of him in
his way. He left, he stepped back and he let God take vengeance
because vengeance belongs to the Lord. And he didn't even
desire Saul to come to a bitter end. He wasn't saying, yeah,
God's gonna take vengeance on him and that'll be the day. No,
he actually mourned Saul's death and spoke well of him after his
death for the good that God worked to Israel through him. That's
one example. There's another example, much
worse. Jeroboam, remember him? Solomon
had been put on the throne, blessed with wisdom and riches untold.
And yet he served the gods, the idols of his wives. From Egypt,
he served Ashtaroth, all these strange gods. And God said, because
of that I'm going to divide the kingdom. And God sent a prophet
to a wicked man named Jeroboam. And Jeroboam was given ten tribes. And Jeroboam taught the people
of Israel to sin. He taught them to worship idols. He himself was an idol worshiper. And yet God put him over Israel. And God took him out. And then
there was another man named Nebuchadnezzar. Remember him? The people of Judah
were in Jerusalem and they had been rebelling against God in
idolatry for years, hundreds of years. And God sent the prophet
Jeremiah. He said God's going to take away
the people of this city. He's going to send the Babylonians.
Nebuchadnezzar's going to come in. He's going to take us all
away. And he said, this is what you're supposed to do. You're
supposed to subject yourself to him in submission. And the
people, you know, they wanted to kill Jeremiah for this. But
look at Jeremiah 27. I want you to see this. This
is one where there's a little more detail. Jeremiah 27 and
verse 1 he says in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the
son of Josiah King of Judah came this word unto Jeremiah from
the Lord saying Listen, this is God's Word to Jeremiah in
the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah Jeremiah 27 verse 2
thus saith the Lord to me make thee bonds and yokes and put
them upon thy neck and Now the prophets always did things outwardly
so that the people could see that what happened to the prophet
was part of that message from God. To see it in illustration. And send them, send these yokes
and bonds, send them to the king of Edom, to the king of Moab,
to the king of the Ammonites, and to the king of Tyrus, and
to the king of Zidon, by the hand of the messengers which
come to Jerusalem unto Zedekiah, king of Judah. So some messengers
were going to come from these different places, and Jeremiah
was told by God, you make these shackles, and you send them by
the messengers to these other kings. And this is what you tell
them. And command the messengers to say to their masters, Thus
saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, thus shall you
say unto your masters." These servants who were sent by the
masters, the kings of these different countries, Tyrus and Zidon and
Ammonites and Moab. He said, you send those messengers
back home and say this. God said this listen verse 5
I have made the earth the man and the beast that are upon the
ground by my great power and by my outstretched arm and have
given it unto whom it seemed meet to me and now have I given
all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of
Babylon my servant And the beast of the field have I given him
also to serve him. And all the nations shall serve
him and his son and his son's son until the very time of this
land come. And then many nations and great
kings shall serve themselves of him. Before it even came to
pass, God said, you nations are going to be subject to Neb, and
Neb's going to rule over you and his son and his son's sons
until that time I appointed. And then he's going to be ruled
over by you. This was God's will. And the
people of Jerusalem were to submit themselves to Nebuchadnezzar,
knowing This was God's will. And the same thing happened in
Egypt, didn't it? God said, for this same purpose
have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee. And this
was a stress on faith, wasn't it? And in hope of the fulfillment
of God's promise, he subjects us to believe his word and submit
to his word and his will in obedience because of faith and in hope.
We see things the way they are. God's kingdom. There's really
only two cultures in this world, aren't there? There's the believer
and the unbeliever. And there's only two kingdoms.
The kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. There's two kings. Christ and then there's the prince
of this world. And the prince of this world
has been defeated. And soon, as it says in Romans
16.20, God is going to subdue Satan under your feet. But that
day has not yet come in our experience, even though it has occurred at
the cross. And so God stresses us with this constant opportunity
to exercise faith in his word, looking to Christ as the ground
of all of our acceptance and blessing. and looking for Christ
in expectation, and now in the process, in the meantime, going
to Him, to the throne of grace, trusting Him, that He's going
to give us all grace from His throne, to live by faith upon
His word, looking to His salvation. And this is what we're to do.
And so he says, let me sum it up here in 1 Peter 1. Just listen
to these words. Blessed be, verse three, blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according
to his abundant mercy has begotten us again, he's birthed us, unto
a lively hope, a living hope, by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead. Because Christ rose from the
dead, our sins were put away, death was defeated, the grave
has been destroyed, And we're going to rise with Christ on
the last day, and we're going to sit with Him forever. Verse
4, "...to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth
not away, reserved in heaven for you." It's reserved for you.
This is the promise, this is what we hope for. "...who are
kept," right now, you are kept. by the power of God through faith
unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. We know it
now by faith, and it shall soon be revealed when we stand as
the revealed sons of God, dressed in Christ's righteousness before
the onlooking universe. Verse 6, wherein you greatly
rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness
through manifold temptations. that the trial of your faith,
being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though
it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor
and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." You see, the things
are stacked up, praise and honor and glory, because we have said
in the low bottom of our heart what God has said is true, and
I'm standing on that in the face of all opposition, even against
my own flesh. And this is a constant stress
in our life, and we grow in grace daily by this. Verse 8. Whom having not seen Christ you
love, in whom though now you see him not, yet believing, you
rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving
the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. You
see how God has done this? Let me ask you this question.
How do you measure the strength of your faith? How do you know
when your faith is strong? Well, the answer is both painful
and surprising. Our faith is strongest when we
are at the weakest point. And it's necessary that that
is the case, because the very definition of faith is out of
our emptiness, and our weakness, and our unrighteousness, and
all that we are not, we see that God has laid on Christ everything,
and found everything for us in Him, and blessed us with everything
in Him. So when the stress of our life,
in whatever form it takes, whether it's an inward stress, whether
it's an outward stress, whether it's a stress of obedience, or
a stress of our own unbelief and disobedience, whether it's
a stress of persecution, or the stress of physical affliction
and failure of our body, whether it's even the stress of death.
We do not love our lives even unto death. We look to God's
word. We trust Christ. These things
bring glory to God and they give us the greatest comfort. They
allow us to receive now what is true in heaven in our own
personal experience. This is the way God gives us
every grace. Every part of salvation comes to us through faith. By
grace you are saved through faith. You see how essential faith is?
You see how central faith is, because faith is really just
another way of saying Christ is all. It says in the Song of
Solomon, chapter 4, verse 9, he says this, Thou hast ravished
my heart, my sister, my spouse. Thou hast ravished my heart with
one of thine eyes, with one chain of thine neck." Here's the husband.
He's looking at his bride. He says, you have ravished my
heart. And who is the husband? The Lord
Jesus Christ. Who is the bride? It's the believer
and the collection of them. And he says, this grace that
I've given you to look to me in trust has ravished my heart. He heard that man say, speak
the word only. And what did he say? Oh, I have
not found such great faith, no, not in all of Israel. You've
ravished my heart with the grace I've given to you because you
have looked again to me to find all of your comeliness and beauty
and strength. and you've rested on my word, which is true." And
so the Lord is pleased with faith. Let's pray. Lord, we pray that
you would give us this grace of faith to look to Christ Jesus
alone as all of our salvation, all of our coming, and come to
you by him for every enabling grace, for every grace to see
and know, and grace to find comfort and rest and assurance and joy,
everything. All that you tell us to do in
submission to the government, let us never think for a moment
that we're submitting to men only, but submitting to God.
And never let us think that we do it in our own strength, but
come to you for the very strength we need to submit as obedient
wives to our husband, the Lord Jesus Christ. And Lord, we thank
you for the grace you've given to us in your word. Thank you
for the revelation of the truth that we stand upon. We pray,
Lord, that you would take glory and honor to yourself in overcoming
our enemies, giving us this grace of faith to look to you to do
all things and help us now. Lord, bless each heart. In Jesus'
name we pray. Amen.