Now in that passage that Brother
Jim just read concerning the issue of faith,
I have it in my mind to preach several messages on this subject
and so it ends up being a series of messages. I'll probably go
through all the way through Hebrews 11, for example, but not in one
message. But the series, I would entitle
it this way, The Dynamics of Saving Faith. And as Brother
Jim said, we're gonna be talking about what faith really is, the
nature of faith. But now, I've got it marked in
your bulletin that the text of this message is Hebrews 11.1,
but it really starts back up in chapter 10 in verse 38. Hebrews
10.38. the just now the just shall live
by faith and so that's what this message is about the just shall
live by faith and you know when you think about these things
I and I do that a lot there are in popular religion and especially
false Christianity and there's a lot of it now So many misunderstandings
and misconceptions and perversion concerning the matter of faith. And some of the most popular
perversions of it is what I call the error of wishful thinking. A lot of people, that's the way
they look at faith. It's just wishful thinking. In other words, you
just gotta believe. Just believe it, or believe it
hard enough. Believe it sincere enough and
it'll come true. That kind of thing. They may
not state it that way, but that's kind of their attitude. Just
believe, doesn't matter what you believe. Or just believe
you can choose what you want to believe. You ever heard of
the word heresy? You know, the word heresy is
in the Bible, isn't it? There's a heresy. There must be heresy,
the scripture says. You know what the word heresy
means in the original language? It means to choose. What that
means is this, those who believe heresy, they believe what they
choose to believe, no matter what God says. That's heresy,
and that's what it means. So, if you think faith is just
wishful thinking, well, you just gotta believe, it doesn't matter
what you believe, or you just gotta believe whatever it is
you believe. Well, that's not biblical faith,
is it? That's not the nature, that's
not the definition of faith in the Bible. People, a lot of times
they quote, here's this going to another issue of a misunderstanding
of faith. People often quote part of Ephesians
2 and verse 8. I quote that quite often on our
television program. For by grace are you saved. Or some say in the original it
should be, for by grace have you been saved. Doesn't matter,
it's past. For by grace are you saved through
faith. So again, you know, if your idea
of faith is just wishful thinking, then by grace are you saved,
just believe it. Somebody might tell you, say,
well, I know I'm saved, and how do you know? Well, I just believe
it, you know. Well, there's some things to consider here now. In fact, that passage in Ephesians
2a, it says, for by grace are you saved through faith, and
the emphasis there on most people is through faith, but the verse
goes on there, that doesn't end there, does it? It says, and
that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. In other words, what it's telling
us that, number one, faith is the gift of God, whatever faith
is. Now some scholars, they'll argue,
say, well that's not talking about faith, that's talking about
salvation. My friend, it's talking about both. Salvation is a gift
from God. It's by grace. By grace are you
saved. And faith comes along with that.
That's the gift of God too. And it's not of works, lest you
have any room to boast. Jim prayed that. Don't give us
room to boast. You know why? Because room to
boast is unbelief. It's not faith. And so it's by grace. It's not
deserved. It's not earned. And how does
grace come? We're going to talk about that
in just a moment. One of the most popular misunderstandings
of faith is this, that faith, or we'll say it this way, believing,
is the result of man's free will. Which is to say, it's the result
of man's inherent spark of goodness whereby he exercises his choice
towards God. There's a problem with that.
What is it? Number one, the Bible doesn't
teach that. Number two, it's just not true.
The Bible teaches us that man's natural will, is just as much
fallen, sinful, and in the bondage of sin as he himself is as a
ruined sinner fallen in Adam. The natural man, verse Corinthians
2.14, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God, neither can he know them intimately, savingly. They're
spiritually discerned, and man by nature is spiritually dead.
That includes his will. I hear preachers all the time
talking about, well, everything about man is dead except his
will because God wouldn't step on the dignity of man. Where
in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, do you hear God's
Word describing anything about man that is dignity? Where do
you see that? It's not in the Bible. It's just
not there. Man's a fallen creature. Why
do we have to be born again? Why do we have to have a new
heart? What is the heart? It's the mind. It's the affections.
It's the will. It's the conscience. Man is a free moral agent. I
like that term. You know, a lot of people don't
like that term, you know. What does that mean? That means
that we're free to choose that which we desire. You're going to choose what you're
going to have for lunch here in a few moments. You hope a
few moments. Some of you will have different
things and others will have different things by your choice. Somebody says, well, I'm going
to have Brussels sprouts. And there's a bunch of you here
just don't like Brussels sprouts. Why is that? Why would I like
brussel sprouts? I don't like brussel sprouts.
But why would I like brussel sprouts? I do like them if they're
cooked right. You do them right. But why is it that I would like
brussel sprouts and you don't? What's in our DNA? Here's the
problem with man by nature, me included, by nature. And when
I say by nature, I'm talking about how we are naturally born
into this world. Man is by nature a religious
creature. Now he may go through his life
denying that and fighting it, but he's by nature a religious
creature. And he has a conscience. And he has questions. Why am
I here? Where am I going? Is there life
after death? Is there a God? I mean, people,
listen, philosophers wrestle, ungodly philosophers wrestle
over these questions. Now, you don't see that kind
of behavior or thinking in dogs and cats, do you? I mean, dogs
aren't out there wondering about what's going to happen in the
afterlife. Are they? They don't have a moral compass.
I mean, it's all instinct with them. But in man, even fallen
man, there is that spark of conscience which Ecclesiastes chapter 3
says that the world said in their heart, eternity. And so he thinks
about, is there life after death? Well, the Bible says there is.
Job asked, if a man dies, shall he live again? Well, yes, that's
what the Bible says. Do you believe the Bible? So
man desires these things of afterlife. He desires salvation. But what
he doesn't desire is what God has provided by grace through
Christ. He wants it his own way. And
that's why you have so much false religion in the world. It's man's
devising of ways to live forever or go to heaven or whatever,
but it's his way, not God's way. And if God, listen, if you ever
really desire God's way of salvation, that is a God-given desire. If you really desire God's way,
God's way is only one way. Man will tell you, well, there's
a lot of different ways. Well, there are, but they're all false. There's
only one right way, and that's by His grace through Christ. Man left to himself will always
choose that which denies the glory of God in Christ. Scripture says that. There's
none that understandeth, there's none that seeketh after God.
That's just not talking about some low class group of society,
it's all of us by nature. Man by nature wants salvation,
he wants eternal life, he wants blessedness, but his own way.
Therefore, now listen, if any have true faith, whatever this
faith is, it's the gift of God. Freely given by the Holy Spirit
in the new birth. Another popular misconception
about faith is this, faith is the condition sinners must meet
in order to be saved. Now that comes from the false
gospel of salvation conditioned on men. Preachers will tell people, God
loves you, Christ died for you, you make the difference. Challenge. Find that message in the Bible
for me. Do this, make it easy on you.
Find any evangelistic message recorded in the Bible where the
preacher stood up and addressed the crowd generally by saying,
God loves you, Christ died for you, you make the difference.
It's not in the Bible. Well, don't you believe in the
love of God? Of course I do. It's in Christ. And that's what the evangelist
of the Bible said. He said, God's holy and just
and righteous and he cannot save sinners apart from his justice
satisfied. And you're a sinner, I'm a sinner.
If God ever gave us what we deserved, it would be eternal damnation.
That's the best of us, that's the worst of us, and everybody
in between. But God has a people. and he's going to save them and
here's how he's going to do it. By his love through Jesus Christ. Now you come to Christ. You believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ. You know there's a lot of false
faith because of the modern-day emphasis not on biblical faith
but more on the act of believing. It's just believe, believe, believe. But here's what I want you to
see out of this scripture, and I'm gonna be talking about these
three things as we go through the whole series, and I'll be
doing a lot of repeating. That's what we need, that's what
I need. The first thing you need to see is the foundation of faith. What is the foundation of faith?
Here it is, the word of God. That's the foundation of faith.
Faith believes what God says. And what God says is recorded
in His Word, the Bible, Genesis to Revelation. You see, people
believe a lot of things that simply are not true. When I was a kid, I believed
a lot of things that weren't true, didn't you? Believed the
moon was made of green cheese. Hey, it's not. I believed I was Superman one
day and put a towel around my neck, ran through the hall, slipped
and fell through a pane of glass. I wasn't Superman. Cain, let's go back to Cain and
Abel. Cain believed that God would
bless him for his hard work. Not so. You say, well, Cain knew better.
Well, Cain was like the natural man. He received not the things
of the Spirit of God. You see, going like his brother
Abel and bringing the blood of a lamb, which typified Christ, that wouldn't give Cain any room
to brag. As if to say, I make the difference. No room to brag there. The foundation
of faith, is the Word of God. So you say you believe. I say
I believe. What is the source of your faith? Whatever that source is, can
that source be trusted? False preacher stands up and
tells a lie. Do you believe what he says?
Well, how do you know he's telling a lie? Well, here's the standard
right here. Here's the rule. Here's the second thing that
we're going to talk about and capitalize on. The object of
faith. Faith has an object. Faith has
a foundation. That's the Word of God. Secondly,
faith has an object. And what is the object? Who is
the object? The Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work of righteousness
for His people. That's the object of faith. I
believe. No, I don't just believe. I believe
in Christ. Scripture says that Christ is
the author and the finisher of his people's faith. The object of faith is Christ.
Faith that is not based upon the proper ground, the Word of
God, foundation, and faith that is not totally in and by and
trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ as He is identified and distinguished
in this Word and in His finished work. Somebody said, I believe
in a person, not a work. I believe both. The person and
the work He finished. What did he do? He accomplished
my salvation. He put away my sins. He didn't
make me savable, but he saved me. And then here's
the third thing. The proof of faith. Now that's
a big subject there. I'll tell you right now what
the first proof of saving faith is. Repentance from dead works. In other words, if you turn to
Christ for all salvation, You'll turn away from everything and
everyone else. You'll call it dead works. You know, a lot of people have,
and we're gonna talk about that. A lot of people have faith in
their faith. You ever heard me say that? They
believe that their faith is what makes the, it's not our faith
that makes the, it's Christ who makes the difference. That's
what we believe by the power of God. Now look at Hebrews 11
verse 1. Let me just go over this briefly.
Somebody says this verse is the greatest definition of faith
in the Bible. Maybe so. But it says, now faith. Now faith, I want you to notice
something. I'm not going to give you a grammar
lesson this morning, but if you can remember back in school,
you remember your parts of speech? You had nouns and verbs and adverbs
and adjectives and all that. Somebody stand up and tell me
what they are. A noun is a person, place, or
thing, or idea. I say idea because there are
ideas that are nouns. Like, for example, I'll give
you one that's probably on our minds. Freedom. Freedom's not,
it's not like this paper. I can pick this paper up and
I can place it over here. It's a thing. Freedom's not a
thing, but it's an idea, isn't it? But it's a noun. And a verb
is a word of action or a word of state of being. Well, this
word faith here is a noun. It's an idea. It comes from the
word by which we get our English word knowledge. Knowledge. Something we know. You ever said, I know this is
so. That's what this is about. I
know it's so. I know it's true. Or I know that's
a lie. That's what this word comes from. Christ said, this is life eternal,
that they might know thee, know thee, know God and Jesus Christ
whom thou hast sent. That's what the essence of this
word is. Do you know God? Do you know who He is? What does the book say about
him? What does the Bible say about God? You know, a lot of
people have different ideas about God, don't they? Well, what I
need to know if I'm going to claim this faith here, I gotta
know what God says about himself in his word. For example, God
says he's the sovereign of the universe and he's in control.
I told you about a preacher I heard on television. He's one of these
health and wealth, so your money kind of guys. And he made the
statement. He said, a lot of Christians,
he said, are under a false idea. And the false idea, he said,
was that God is in control. He said, God's not in control.
Well, let me tell you something about that man and me. He claims
to be a Christian and I claim to be a Christian, but he doesn't
worship the same God I do. He is not my brother in Christ. God of this book says he's in
control. The God of this book says he doeth as he will among
the armies of heaven and earth. None can stay his hand or even
question him, saying to him, what doest thou? What do you
think you're doing? You ever said that to your kids? They
get out here and they do something stupid and you say, what do you
think you're doing? You can't say that to God. He can say it
to you. Or how many times you ever said
to your kids, they go, why, why, why? You say, just because I
said so. God's in control, folks. Now
I can't explain all the nuances of providence about that, but
I don't need to. I just know he's in control.
And he's working all things after the counsel of his own will.
God is a just God. Listen, God forgives sin, but
he cannot forgive you or me apart from his justice being satisfied.
He's got to be both a just judge as well as a loving father. That's
the question of questions you see. upon which faith is really
based. How can God, a holy God, a just
God, how can He save me, a sinner? How can He forgive me? How can
He justify me, make me righteous and still be God? It says here in verse 1, now
faith is the substance of things hoped for. That word substance
has to do with assurance and confidence. It's the ground of
things hoped for. Now, hope here is not wishful
thinking either. I hope, I hope, I hope. I just
hope that Atlanta wins today. I just hope. But I don't have
verse or scripture to turn to show you that they're going to.
You say, well, we just got to believe it to happen. Let's just
all get together, let's have a circle here and let's just
believe it. Now, are you foolish enough to think that's going
to make it happen? Is that the ground of confidence and assurance
that we have? No, you know better than that. You see, the ground and confidence
of the things that I hope for. Now, hope means expectation. I expect this to happen. I know
this is going to happen. Certain expectation. Well, what's
the ground or confidence of that? Is it my belief in it? No. Besides, what if I have some
moments of doubt? Do you ever have any? My soul,
if you're a believer, you're going to be honest about that
one, aren't you? We wrestle with it all the time. That's the sin
that so easily besets us, Paul wrote, or the writer of Hebrews
wrote in Hebrews 12. We have to wrestle with it. Somebody
said one time that a true Christian is not in unbelief, but there's
still unbelief in the true Christian. I agree with that. We have to
wrestle with it all the time. You ever, in consideration of
the gospel we believe, you ever looked into the mirror and said,
am I going crazy or what? Or why aren't there more people
that believe this? Well, what is the ground and
the confidence, the substance of things hoped for? God said
it. That's it. I told you about,
I was riding through a town one time and I saw a marquee outside
of a church building and it said, God said it, I believe it, that
settles it. That's not right. Here's what's
right. God said it, that settles it. Now I believe it. So the substance
here is the word of God. God is faithful, we sing at Him,
great is thy faithfulness, comes from the book of Lamentations.
God is faithful both to His promises and His threats. Now here's what
I need to do if I'm going to have faith, if I'm going to claim
faith. I need to know what God has promised. And you're going
to see that as we go through Hebrews 11. And then it says
in verse 1, for the evidence of things not seen." That word
evidence is conviction. Faith is the ground of things
hoped for. That's the Word of God. And the
evidence of things not seen, the conviction of things that's
not seen. They're things I don't see. But
I'm convinced that they're true because the Holy Spirit has convinced
me from the Word of God. That's what that means. I'm convinced
that God saves sinners according to his promise, which promise
is salvation conditioned on Jesus Christ, who is the God-man and
who's the one who fulfilled those conditions. I'm convinced that
all my sins are forgiven based on His blood alone. I'm convinced
that I'm justified before God, made right with God, based on
His righteousness imputed. Now look back up at verse 38
of chapter 10. He says, now the just shall live
by faith. Now who are the just? You know
that word just means the justified. Who is the just there? It's righteous. You know the word just and righteous
can be interchanged in the New Testament and mainly in the Old.
The justified. Well the Bible in certain places
tells us that there's not a person on earth who's just before God
talking about man by nature. Who are the justified? The word
justified here means those who have been made right with God. And that begs the question that
we went back to earlier. How can a sinner who deserves
nothing but condemnation and damnation, how can such a person
be made right with God? Well, the world says, well, work
hard, join the church, get baptized, give your tithe, don't miss a
Sunday. That's what the world says. Now,
is that the promise of God? The Jews said, well, you've got
to be born of Abraham, and if you're not, you've got to be
circumcised, and you've got to keep the law of Moses. Is that
what God promised? No. God promises to save all
who come to Him for salvation one way, by His grace through
Christ. Based on his blood and righteousness
alone. He's not going to save anybody
in any other way. Now God's faithful to that promise, but he's also
faithful to his threats. And here's what his threat is.
He that believeth not shall be what? Damn, he's faithful to
that too. Who are the justified? A justified
person is a sinner saved by grace. Made right with God by his grace
through the blood of Christ. Righteous before God. God doesn't
charge him with sin. But God charges him with righteousness
imputed to him. Now what about this justified
person? How do you know a just, well he lives by faith. That's
how he lives. By the word of God. Convicted
of the word of God. This phrase, the just shall live
by faith, you know where it comes from? It comes from the Old Testament
in the book of Habakkuk. You ever heard of Habakkuk? Habakkuk
was a prophet. He was a contemporary of Jeremiah. And in the book of Habakkuk,
he begins the book by complaining about the sin of Judah. Jeremiah
did the same thing. You see the king of Judah at
that time, a man named Josiah, after the king Josiah, every
king in Judah was evil. And the nation descended further
and further into evil. And Habakkuk the prophet, he
asked this question essentially, why does God permit such things?
Why does God put up with such things? Have you ever asked that
question? Why doesn't God do something?
That's what Habakkuk asked. Why doesn't God bring judgment
against this nation and put a stop to it? Now listen, if you're a believer,
anytime you get to thinking like that, anytime I get to thinking
like, you know what God reminds us of? We're sinners too. And if God ever gave us what
we deserve to earn, it'd be damnation. Is that right? And so we ought to thank God
that he's long-suffering toward us all for his purposes. There's a verse in Lamentations
3.22 that I really like. Jeremiah wrote Lamentations,
you know, or somebody say his secretary Baruch wrote, but Jeremiah
quoted, it doesn't matter, it's God's Word. And listen to this,
it says, it's of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. because his compassions fail
not. He also shows us that God does
and will punish all sin and unrighteousness in God's time. No one will escape
judgment, not even the saved. You know, if you're a sinner
saved by grace, you won't escape judgment, but here's the good
news. Your sins have already been judged on the cross of Calvary. And therefore, when you stand
before God at the great white throne judgment, you'll be judged
out of the book singular of life. And you know what that book will
say? Washed in the blood of Christ. Clothed in his righteousness.
My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. We're forgiven because Christ
died for our sins if we're saved, if we're the justified. Without
the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. Well, we have
the shed blood of Christ. We have his righteousness imputed,
don't we? That's our justification. The
righteousness by which we stand accepted before God is not our
own, by our own working. It becomes ours by imputation.
And you know what? If that's the case, if that's
my case, Then by God's grace and power, I'll live by faith.
I'll live by looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of my
faith. You know what the name Habakkuk
means? It means one who embraces or one who clings. The lesson is if we're justified,
you know what we do? We embrace Christ and we cling
to him. We must live life in the midst
of wickedness, even our own wickedness now, clinging to Christ, pleading
his righteousness alone, never anything else. And when the devil
or when our flesh puts it in our mind to plead anything else
that would rival Christ and his righteousness, we fight the warfare
of the flesh and the spirit, don't we? That's what faith is
all about. The just shall live by faith.
The Apostle Paul quoted it in Romans 1, 16 and 17, I'm not
ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto
salvation to everyone that believe it, to the Jew first and the
Greek also, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed.
That's the righteousness that Christ worked out on the cross
in his obedience unto death as the surety and substitute of
his people. He said, from faith, that's the
word of God preached, to faith, that's the faith that the Holy
Spirit brings us to embrace Christ in the word of God. As it is
written, the just shall live by faith. He quoted it again
in Galatians 3.11 when false legalistic Jews brought the ground
of salvation, the imputed righteousness of Christ into question. He said,
don't you remember what I've told you all along? Who's bewitched
you? Who's drawn you away? Sinners cannot be made righteous
before God by their works. And then here in Hebrews 10,
38, now the just shall live by faith. Well, look at this. He
says, but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure
in him. There's an antithesis here now. Some of these in the
Jerusalem church, in the Hebrew church, they were forsaking Christ,
even though they claimed to believe in it, they drew back. Well,
he said the justified don't do that. They live by faith. Verse 39, but we're not of them
who draw back unto perdition, unto damnation. My friend, if
you don't have Christ, all you have to look forward to is damnation.
If you don't have His blood to wash away your sins, His righteousness
to justify, it's all damnation. He says, but we're of them that
believe to the saving of the soul. That's the dynamic of faith. It's God-given faith. Trusting
Christ. Resting in Him. We're going to
be talking about those things as we go through Hebrews 11 on
this dynamic of faith. has a foundation, the Word of
God. Faith has an object, the Lord
Jesus Christ and His righteousness, His blood, His finished work
to redeem and secure the salvation of His people. Faith has proof,
beginning with repentance, but we'll talk about other things.