Turn now to Matthew 6. Matthew chapter 6. I just want
you to look at one phrase that our Lord said to his disciples
four times in Matthew's Gospel alone. Matthew 6. Matthew 6, verse 30, he's talking
about the Lord taking care of His people, taking care of the
birds and His creation. He said in verse 30, if God so
clothed the grass of the field, which today is, tomorrow is cast
into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you O ye of little
faith. He said this four times in the
Gospel of Matthew. O ye of little faith. You remember
in Matthew 14 we looked at Simon Peter when he was sinking. And
the Lord reached down and picked him up and He said, Why did you
doubt? Oh, thou of little faith. Why
did you doubt? In Luke's Gospel, one time He
said, Where is your faith? Where is your faith? And then
another time He said this, Why is it you have no faith? Now He's talking to His disciples.
He's talking to men that He chose. And he revealed himself to them.
They believed him. They really did. They left everything
and everyone to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. They did. And they
followed him. And they believed him. But there
were times they didn't, they acted like they didn't have any
faith at all. If they had any, it was very
little. Very little. I actually had a
message prepared for tonight from Psalm 96 and probably do
that Sunday. But I couldn't get away from
this thought, and especially I've been in contact with someone
who's been grievously struggling with assurance,
full of doubts and fears about their salvation. So I thought about this. A little
faith is God-given saving faith. If you have any faith, it's not
of yourselves, it's to give to God. Do you understand? A little
faith is saving faith. It's not the strength of faith,
it's the object of faith. Do you understand? Our Lord always called His disciples
who were grown men, called them little children. Why? Little
children are full of great fears and little faith. They just don't
know their parents like their parents know them. They just
don't. They don't trust their parents. They cannot, should
not a little child fully trust their parents, have no doubts
whatsoever. If they really knew how much their parents loved
them. How much more? Our Heavenly Father. We just don't trust Him. And
I'm going to show you, or try to, how there's a difference
between faith and trust. But, I mean, they go together,
but we'll deal with that later. This message, I've entitled it,
A Message for Those with Little Faith. There's not a true believer,
I mean a true believer, who does not bemoan his or her little
faith. There's not one. I've never met
one who thought, I have great faith. Not one. Every single true believer now
can say with that father of the child it was possessed, Lord,
I believe. Help my unbelief. Right? Don't you pray that all the time? So I want to show you from God,
I'll show me from God's Word, I want Him to show me from His
Word for our comfort that little faith is saving faith. And if
you have just a little bit of faith, God gave it to you. Okay? You belong to the Lord. He has
saved you. He that believeth on the Son
hath life, not might have. Already does have. You wouldn't
believe if you didn't have life. Understand? He that believeth
hath life, that He has saved us, He is saving us, and He shall
save us. Like Paul wrote there in Hebrews
10, he said, we're not of them that draw back unto perdition. Alright, look at Hebrews 11 with
me. Hebrews chapter 11. This is where we'll stay. after we turn to John. We'll
turn to Hebrews 11 and then turn to John chapter 3. Let me just
show you some scriptures, okay? Hebrews 11 will be our text.
But John chapter 3 first. God-given saving faith is just
this. It's to believe God. To believe
in God. Hebrews 11, 6 says, He that cometh
to God must believe He is. If you believe God is God. Now,
you hear me say this a lot lately, don't you? Do you really believe
that God is God, He's not trying to do anything, that He's reigning
and ruling, and you read, My times are in thy hand. Do you
really believe that? Everything about you and this world, everything
that God kills and makes alive, He wounds, He heals, God, all
these things, the Lord, He's God. He is God. Do you believe that? You know
how few people believe that? I'm serious. Most religious,
the irreligious world doesn't believe there is a God. Okay? Though the heavens declare His
glory, the firmament showeth His handiwork, day unto day,
we clearly see His hand, don't we? There was a time we didn't. And now you do. Why? You have
to equip Him. Faith is to believe God. Faith
is to believe His Word. His Word. You believe this is
God's Word? Do you really? Do you really? Every bit of it is infallible,
inspired, inerrant Word of the living God, even what Paul wrote,
James and John. Do you believe that? And no scriptures
of any personal interpretation, but holy men spake as they were.
Do you believe that? Do you know how few people believe
that? All God's people believe that. There's no exceptions.
What do you have to believe to be a believer? Just believe God. Believe His
Word. You can't pick or choose. You
can't take this and believe that. Paul said, I believe all things
written in the Bible. Faith is to believe God's Son. Faith is not to believe in yourself.
This is what you need to believe about yourself. You're nothing
but a great sinner. That's all you are. Do you believe
that? Do you know how few people believe that? Do you know how
few people believe they're that bad? That God's that holy and
that they're that bad? One in a million. Probably less than that. Do you? You know it's so, don't you?
You know God's God. You know you're a great sinner.
And you know your only hope of salvation with God is in Jesus
Christ. That's faith. John 3, listen to what our Lord
said, who cannot lie. Verse 16, oh the world loves
this verse and I do too. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish but have everlasting life. Whosoever believeth in
the Lord Jesus Christ will not perish. That's what Jesus Christ said. He doesn't say, He that doth
doeth great exploits. He that doth this. He that doth
this. He that believeth. Isn't that what it says? Look
at verse 18. He that believeth on Him is not
condemned. There is therefore now no condemnation. Right now. Do you really believe
the Lord Jesus Christ? You say, but I ain't, we ain't
talking about you. Stop thinking about you. This
is our whole problem. You know, this is where all our
lack of assurance comes from. We're looking at ourselves. If
you keep looking at yourself, all you're going to find is a
sinner. Let's listen to what he said and take him. He cannot lie. God who cannot
lie promised us salvation. For what? For doing what? Believing. Man, we ought to get happy tonight. Look at verse 36. He that believeth
on the Son hath everlasting life. John 5. Look at this. John 5
verse 24. Our Lord keeps saying this. Our
Lord Jesus Christ. Barely, barely. He said it twice
in John, that barely means this is true. He says it twice for
emphasis. All throughout. Barely of a truth,
of a truth I say unto you, he that heareth my word. Have you
heard the gospel? You know how many people turn
away their ears from the truth? Just as soon as you start talking
about God being God and electing the people and man being a worthy,
shut their ears. I want to hear that. Do you? He that heareth my word, and
believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall
not come into condemnation, but is passed from death to life
right now. Somebody say amen. John did,
he mouthed it. Look at chapter 6. How many times
does he have to tell us that? Well, I guess a whole lot. Oh,
yeah, a little thing. But I have doubts. I just doubt
myself. Good. You shouldn't doubt him. He says
it time and time again. Verse 40. This is the will of
Him that sent me, that everyone that seeth the Son." Do you see
that that man who came here 2,000 years ago is not just a man,
but it's the Son of God? God manifested in the flesh.
Have you seen something of His glory? Have you seen something
of your need of Him? Have you seen something of His
sufficiency? Have you seen something of Christ
being your Lamb slain? He that seeth the Son, and believeth
on him, may have everlasting life. And I will, he keeps saying
that, I will raise him up at last day. I'm coming to get him,
bring him home. And I had five more verses, words
right from the Lord Jesus Christ, man, on this same thing. I promise
you, I promise you. Not he that worketh, he that
believeth. Now go back to Hebrews 11. Okay? Hebrews 11. And there wasn't,
you know, little faith is faith. Little faith is the gift of God's
evidence that God has given you life. Faith is life. You wouldn't believe you didn't
have life. It's the evidence that God has
chosen you. There was a time you had no faith.
And then there was a time you didn't. How? Where'd you get
it? Where'd it come from? Did you
exercise your free will? John, did you just exercise your
free will? Did you let go and let God? Did
you accept Jesus? Let Him in your heart? Come down
front, dedicate, and read it? Did you, John? Did you do any
of that? No, you did not. What happened? He came to you
through the Gospel and said, Well, believe me. And what did
you do? You believed. Repent, and you
did. Believe, you did. Confess, and
you did. You didn't do anything. He did
it all. The command of the gospel came. The time, in the fullness
of time, in the same sin, in the fullness of time when it
was your time, the time of love, like Ezekiel 16. He came and said, live. He spread
His skirt over you. What does that mean? Do you know
how few people have heard that Ezekiel 16 and know what it means? It's very dear to our hearts,
isn't it? Because this is our story. This is my story. This is my song praising my Savior
all the day long. Spread His skirt over me, His
righteousness over me. We're so blamed. In the fullness of time, God
sent forth His Son in the preaching of the gospel to redeem them. They were under the law. That's
the gospel. All right? Once again, Hebrews
11 is a chapter of faith, okay? We've been through this more
than any other chapter. We've looked at every single
person in this many times over. But this is the chapter that
God wrote, and I say, this is faith. All right? Now, faith
is. This is what it is. And it gives
examples. And I love this because these
are people just like us. They're no different than us.
They were lost, and God found them. They were dead, and God
quickened them. They were in the world, and He
called them out of the world. They followed Him. Every one
of them. And we'll see this again. People
that were given faith. People just like us. All right? Hebrews 11. Now, there's no mention
here of anybody having great faith. Not one. It doesn't say Joseph had great
faith. It doesn't say Moses had great
faith. In fact, some of these people,
like Rahab, Samson, are mentioned in the same chapter as Noah and Moses. What it is, is they all believe
the same person. They're all saved by the same
person. So it's not their great faith. Not at all. All right,
look at verse one. Faith is the substance. It's
the ground. It's the confidence of things
hoped for. The evidence of things not seen. It's evidence of an
unseen God, an unseen kingdom. Faith is evidence that God has
chosen you and called you. It's a ground or substance. You
hope for eternal life. Why should you hope for eternal
life? Anything you've done? No. You believe God. You believe Christ, what He promised
that He'll perform. By it, by faith, the elders obtained
a good report. Through faith, we understand. Now here's the first thing. The
world is reframed by the Word of God. Things that are seen
are not made of things which do appear. Romans 1 says that
everyone can see his eternal power in Godhead by the things
that are made. Everyone. They're without excuse. All human
beings. But they don't glorify him as
God the Creator. And so God gave them over to
a reprobate mind, professing themselves to be wise. Oh, they're
all educated. You've got doctors and lawyers
and scientists and rocket scientists that don't even believe there's
a God. Those aren't smart people. Those
aren't wise people. They're fools. A fool that said no, God. Don't
you clearly see that this world, How could this world possibly
exist if there wasn't a marvelous Creator? Brother John Chapman
one time was dealing with this. He said, you know, one of the
most amazing creatures on the face of the earth is a gnat. A gnat. It's got a brain. It's got a circulatory system.
I guess it's got a nervous system. Scripture talks about ants. Did
you learn from the ants, you know, and the bee and the spiders
in king's houses and on and on it goes? You see clearly, don't
you? God created the heavens and the
earth. He's our Creator. What does that
mean? If you make something, what does that mean? You own
it. You can do what you will with it. He's the Creator. If you're the creator and the
maker of something, you're the controller of it, aren't you?
Men don't like the sovereignty of God. They say, well, that
means we're His puppet. Well, I don't want Him to let
go of me at all. I want Him to be in absolute
control of everything about me. That's fine. I'll be His puppet.
Let me go for a minute. What happens when you cut the
strings of a puppet? What happens? It falls into a pile. God reigns, doesn't He? He's
absolute control. If He made everything, that means
He's the judge, the ruler of it. He's God. Verse 6 says, He
that cometh to God must believe He is. And all this is clearly seen.
And Isaiah 43, which you know, a few people Know the scriptures. If you're professing Christians,
know the scriptures. When I bring up some of these
scriptures, you know what to say. Isaiah 43. He said, You're
my witnesses that I've chosen, saith the Lord, that ye may know
and believe that I am He. Before me there's no God. There's
no other God. I am the Lord. Beside me there
is no Savior. He goes on and on. Don't you
love Isaiah 43? In Revelation 4, listen to this, here's what
everybody in heaven is saying. In Revelation 4, 10,000 times
10,000 and 1,000, they're saying this, Thou art worthy, O Lord,
to receive glory and honor and power, for Thou hast created
all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created. And when He's done with this
whole thing, He's going to fold it up like a vesture and cast
it away. And the only ones he's going
to keep are those in Christ. He's a maker. He's a creator.
All right, look at the next verse. Hebrews 11. By faith Abel offered
unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained
witness he was righteous. God testified of his gift. He
being dead, yet speaketh. God said he's righteous. What
did Cain enable? There's several people in here
who have siblings. Sisters, brothers, don't you? Cain came to God. Here are these
two brothers. They came to worship God. And
this is still going on. Like the Pharisee and the Cain
and Abel came to worship God. Cain thought he was a pretty
good fellow. Cain thought God would be real
happy to see him. That Cain was gracing God with
his presence by coming to worship him. And he's bringing his works. He's brought some fruit, some
vegetables, some things that he produced. His produce. What he did, he worked real hard
in his garden and all these flowers When you cut flowers, what are
they? Dead. Dead works. When you cut fruit,
it's dead. If you're not attached to Christ,
you're dead. Everything you bring, if it's
not in Christ, dead work. Cain brought what he'd done and
just thought God would just pat him on the back and say, good
boy, Cain, I'm so pleased with you. Thank you for bringing that
to me. And people the world over in religion are thinking that
God is really pleased with all their works they're doing for
God. Many wonderful work for you. We're preaching in your
name. We're casting out the devil. We've done all these wonderful
work. And God said, I never knew you, apart from that. You see, because you know this.
You know this. This is not just doctrine. This
is what you know and believe. That if faith cometh by works,
Christ died in vain. But Christ didn't need to come
here. If you can get to God without blood, then Christ didn't need
to die on the cross. That's how serious it is. But
Abel. Abel brought what God gave him. A lamb. Abel didn't give life
to that lamb. God gave him that lamb. And he
brought that lamb and cut its throat and shed its blood and
brought that blood to God and saying, here's what he's saying,
let the blood be remission for my sin on the mercy sin. He said
there was no mercy. Yes, there was. When you see the blood, O Lord,
pass over me. No, he said there was no pass
over. Yes, there was. Adam and Eve both taught their
boys that there's one way for sins to be remitted, and that's
by the blood of a substitute, a sacrifice. And that's Christ
it was to come. We cannot come into a holy God's
presence. We cannot be justified. We cannot
be accepted. We cannot be saved apart from
the blood. Nothing else. And they told him, those boys,
about being covered in that lamb's skin. That's Christ's righteousness. They told both those boys, didn't
they? Abel believed. Why? Why did Abel believe and Cain
did not? Why do you believe and one of
your siblings does not? It's a gift of God. It's a gift of God. So, God testifies
that he's righteous. You're righteous if you believe
Christ. If all your hope He said, Jesus
Christ, you're righteous. See, I'm a sinner. God says you're
righteous in Christ. All right? Verse 5, By faith
Enoch was translated. He should not see death. He was
not found. God translated it. Before his translation, he had
this testimony to please God. Without faith, though, it's impossible
to please God. He that cometh to God must believe
that He is. He's a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.
Enoch says walk with God. Enoch walked with God. What does
that mean? Well, Hosea 3.3 says it. Can two walk together except
they be agreed? You can't walk with God unless
you agree with God. About what? Everything. Who He
is, what you are, and who Christ is. That's it in a nutshell. And you walk with God by faith
in total agreement Believe in God. You believe God is true.
What's the rest of it? Amen to that. I don't care who
it is, what they say, if there's anything, any variance whatsoever
from what God said. It's a lie. Enoch walked with God. And he
was, this was right before the flood, and there were very few
people who walked with God. And he walked alone. And he walked
with God. And he was translating. Means
he walked right into glory. He didn't die. You know what
Christ said in John 11? He that liveth and believeth
on me will never die. Didn't he say that? Oh, but what? Uh-uh. Lazarus sleepeth. He giveth his blood to sleep.
There's going to be a day that Whatever it is, whatever instrument
that God sends to stop your heart beating and your body to deteriorate,
and we lay it in the ground, you are not going to die. That
body is just going to go to sleep. We lie in the ground. You won't
die. Because you have eternal life.
You're just like Enoch. One of these days, you're going
to lay down. Wouldn't this be one? Go to sleep
and wake up in glory. He that did that, honey, I'm
leaving. I'm going to work. See you later. Went on into glory. That's going to happen to us.
Where did Kelly go? Went on into glory. Translated. How? By faith. By faith in Noah, verse
7. I've got to hurry. I've got to
quit. By faith, Noah warned of God of things not seen as yet,
moved with fear, prepared in heart. What did God do for Noah? He warned him. Warned him of
what? I'm going to punish sin. I'm
angry with the wicked every day. The whole earth is corrupted
my way. It's full of violence. No, I don't love the whole world,
Noah. I'm going to destroy it. Do you know how few people believe
that? How many people ended up on the
ark? Our Lord said, when the Son of Man comes, will he find
faith on this earth? It's going to be so rare. Everybody
the world over just thank God, just so in love with everybody
on this earth. It doesn't matter who they are,
what they are, or what they're doing. It doesn't matter. God loves
them so much, He's going to take us all up to glory. One big happy
family. No, He's not either. He warned Noah, Noah, here's
what you do. You move, you come out from among
them and you start preparing an ark. Noah, there's one place
of safety. There's one place where you and
your family, if you're found in this one place, I will not
destroy you. I will save you. And you get
your house and you bring them into that ark. What's that ark? You know how few people know
that? You know how few people know that. How many years did
you hear that story, Robin Chandler of Pendry, and didn't have a
clue that it's talking about Jesus Christ? And now you know
and you believe. Yes, you really believe with
all your heart, don't you, that you want to be found in Christ. Not having your own righteousness.
which is of love, what we've been told. But the righteousness
which is of God by faith of Jesus Christ. How was Noah and his
family saved? What saved them? Did their faith
save them? The ark saved them. How'd they
get in the ark? God said, come. And they came. All that the Father giveth me
shall come unto me, and he that cometh unto me, what's he do?
Shuts him in. John Rear, shut up to faith. I kind of like that modern saying
where people hear something wonderful and say, oh, shut up. I like that. You may need to
tell me, Preacher, if I just That faith is my right to heaven. Just believe in God. That's right.
That's right. I didn't say anything about you
doing anything. And we could keep going on and
on. Abraham, Moses. Don't you like where Moses said
when he came to years, he chose rather to suffer affliction when
the people were gone. Abraham, you were called out,
called out of your family, called out of religion, called out of
idolatry, followed Christ. Hadn't you? Abel, you've come
by the blood of Christ because God chose you. Enoch, you walk
with God. Noah, you've been warned, you
want to be in Christ. Abraham and Moses and Rahab. Aren't you waiting on that trumpet,
Rahab? You know how few people. You
see, many are called, many, many, most everybody has heard this
thing, but few, few are chosen to believe. And those that are
with them are called, chosen, and faithful, full of faith.
All right, stand with me.