Do you have faith? I mean saving
faith, true faith, what the Bible calls faith. Well, what is faith? If you have faith, what is it?
There are not many faiths and many people that say, all have
different faiths, but all going to the same place. That's not
true. Ephesians 4 says this, there's
one body, that means one church, one body of believers, one congregation
of believers, one Spirit, or Holy Spirit, who leads and guides
all of God's people into the truth. He says, even as you are
called in one hope of your calling, everyone who's in the church,
everyone who's called by God is called by the Gospel. He goes on to say, there's one
Lord, one faith. One baptism, one God and Father. They all know the same Lord. They all believe the same way. They have the same Father. John
6.45 said, All thy children shall be taught of God. All of God's
people believe the same God. They believe the same thing.
They have this saving faith. What is faith? Well, very briefly,
faith is to believe in God. Hebrews 11 says, He that cometh
to God must believe He is. Now, many people say they believe
in God, but they say things like this, Make Jesus your Lord. Let God be God. Let God have His way. Make Him
Lord of your life. Well, that person who says that,
doesn't know God. They don't believe in God, that
He is God. He is not God if you must let
Him be God. Shall the creature say to the
Creator, I have decided to let you be Creator? Shall the clay
say to Him that formed it, to the potter, you can't do this,
you can't do that unless I let you? That's absurd. That's not
saving faith. Saving faith. Bible faith. The
kind that's given by God to all of God's people. They believe
God is God. Reigning, ruling, controlling
all things. God in whose hands our breath
is and all our ways. The God who kills. The God who
makes alive. The God who wounds. The God who
heals. The God who is God over all. Secondly, what is faith? It's
to believe God. Believe His Word. God only speaks
one way, through His Word. I'm talking about the Bible.
It is God's Word, infallible, holy, the Word of God, without
error. the inspired, infallible, eternal
Word or voice of God Almighty. And all of God's people receive
this faith by the Word. Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the Word. All of God's people believe His
Word. They believe the truth, or more
specifically, the Gospel. They believe the Gospel, the
truth. All right? Faith is to believe God's Son.
Faith is to believe that Jesus Christ is all of your salvation. Everyone who has this saving
faith knows, they believe, that Jesus Christ is all. All their righteousness, all
their acceptance with God, all of their justification, sanctification,
redemption, everything, that Jesus Christ is all, that Jesus
Christ is their hope of eternal life. That is saving faith in
a nutshell. If you have this faith, If you
have this faith, where did you get it? All of God's people know
this. They know that by grace are you
saved through faith, and that is not of yourselves. It's the
gift of God. Everyone who has received this
saving faith got it from God. They didn't decide to believe.
They didn't, of their free will, decide to believe or accept Jesus
as their personal Savior. That's not in the Bible. They were given this gift of
faith like life from the dead, like light in darkness, sight
for the blind, hearing for the deaf. This is the gift of God. Ephesians 1.19 says they believe
according to the working of His mighty power. The gospel is sent
by God to all whom He chose, the Holy Spirit in power, opens
their blind eyes, their deaf ears to hear the Word of God,
the truth, and they believe. He gives them a heart to believe,
a new heart, life from the dead. Yes, faith, saving faith is life,
and it's a gift of God. All right, Hebrews 11. is the
story or a chapter concerning faith. The story of many persons
that have this saving faith. And it says they all died in
faith. They're all with the Lord right
now. Saved. They had saving faith. Well,
they all believed the same God, the same Gospel. They all believed
Jesus Christ was their salvation. Someone may say, What are you
talking about, preacher? Old Testament saints? These Old
Testament people like Abraham and Noah and Moses believed Jesus
Christ? That's exactly what I'm saying.
That's exactly what Jesus Christ said. He said, Abraham saw my
day and he was glad. He said, Moses wrote of me. Well, this saving faith is described
here in Hebrews 11. All these in this chapter had
this saving faith. It begins in verse 1, faith is
the substance, the ground, the confidence of things hoped for,
the hope of eternal life, the evidence of things not seen,
that is, an unseen God, an unseen kingdom. a spiritual world which
God, who is Spirit, gives his people this sight, this faith,
this understanding, this heartfelt knowledge and belief of things
that you cannot see. Verse 2, it says, By it the elders,
by faith, the elders obtained a good report. That is, they're
accepted by God. Their testimony, their faith,
entitles them to heaven. Well, it wasn't anything they
did. It's what God gave them. Verse
3 says, Through faith we understand the worlds were framed by the
Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things
which do appear. In other words, the first thing
in faith is to believe that God created all things. He's the
Creator. All things were made by Him.
Creation is the work of God. Salvation is the work of God. Now, if God is creator, that
means He's the potter. That means He's the owner. That
means He's the controller. That means He's the giver of
life. He's the taker of life. If He's
God, if He's creator, He owns everything. And He said, cannot
I do with my own what I will? That saving faith is to know
that God created everything and we are in His hands. You'll hear
false religions say things like this, let go and let God, let
Jesus be Lord, let Him have His way. False preachers say He has
no hands but your hands. Well, those people don't know
God. Anyone that says that doesn't know the Creator in whose hands
our breath is in all our ways. You see, the knowledge of who
God is, the Creator, the fear of the Lord who has our soul
and our breath in His hands is the beginning of saving wisdom. First, it begins with a Creator.
Evolution is not faith. It's a lie. Creationary evolution
is not faith. That's a lie. Here's creation. God said, let there be light,
and there was light. Not, I hope the light will cooperate
with me. I hope the light will let me
be God. No, sir. He said, let there be
light. And that's exactly what God does
in salvation to all His people. Let there be light. He said,
let us make man in our own image. Well, modern religion has some
kind of evolutionary salvation. They think man makes himself
into God. Well, God made man, created man,
and so it is in salvation. He creates. You must be born
of God. His creation. And you don't cooperate
in that. You don't have any part in that.
So it begins with a creator. Look at the first example if
you're looking at Hebrews 11. By faith Abel offered unto God
a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, his brother. By which,
by his offerings, Abel obtained witness he was righteous. God
testified of his gift. And by it, he being dead, yet
speaking. What did Abel bring? He brought
blood. He brought the blood of a lamb.
Where did he get that lamb? God created it. God gave it to
Abel. God revealed to Adam and Eve
and Abel and, yes, Cain. He told them all, without the
shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. That you don't
come to me by your works. You don't come to me by what
you do to be accepted by me. You're a sinner. You're worthy
of death. The soul that sinneth must surely
die. But you come to Me through a substitute. You come to Me
through the death of another, another taking your place, another
becoming guilty for you and taking your place. That one whom the
Lamb represents, which Abel brought, is Jesus Christ. The blood. The blood. Cain, his brother,
brought his works. He brought flowers and fruit
and things that he produced. And he liked that. And he thought
God would like that. Look what I've done for you,
God. And God rejected him. There are only two religions,
and only one of them is saving faith. Abel brought what God
provided, which represents Jesus Christ, the blood of Jesus Christ. Cain brought his works. And that's
everyone that comes to God by what they do or don't do, or
what they think God will be pleased in them. And God rejects everyone
that comes by their dead works. But God accepts everyone who
comes to Him by Jesus Christ. Now, that's the faith of God's
elect. Every one of God's people know that. It's the blood. It's
Jesus Christ and Him crucified, by which I'm accepted by a holy
and, yes, angry God. Then, Enoch, it says, walked
with God. It says he pleased God. Well,
Amos chapter 3, verse 3, the prophet says, Can two walk together
except they be agreed? So Enoch walked with God and
he agreed with God, meaning he agreed with everything God said
about himself. What about you? Anything in God's
Word you don't like, anything you don't agree with, then you
don't have saving faith. But all of God's people agree
with everything God says about himself, everything God says
about man, and there's nothing good. God doesn't say anything
good about man. He says from the sole of his
feet to the top of his head, there's no soundness in him.
That's what God says about man. And then God says, but there's
salvation through a God-man, through another, the second Adam,
the holy and righteous son of the Most High God who came as
a man for men, not all men, but some men. His elect, His chosen,
given to Him by God. And He came and lived a perfect
life and gave them this perfect righteousness which He established. And He Himself took their sin,
their guilt, in His own body and went to the tree and God
killed Him, thus punishing the sins of all of God's people.
So they are made righteous by another. And he took their sin
and their guilt, and God says their sins are gone and paid
for. And all of God's people, like Enoch, they agree with God. How about you? How about you?
That's saving faith. Then there's Noah. Noah was warned
of God, moved with fear, got in the ark, condemned the world,
and became an heir of righteousness. What's that talking about? The
ark. That ark is Jesus Christ. All those in Christ are saved.
All those warned by God are told to come to Christ, get in the
ark. And the reason they do, like Noah, they find grace in
the eyes of the Lord. What about you? Is that what
you believe? Or rather, who? That's the saving faith. This
is the saving faith of all of God's people. I pray He will
give it to you. Amen.