There really is, and what put
this in my mind is just listening to a few things that I've come
across this week on Facebook, different people I know that
had stuff that they were, some of their live streams and their
recordings of their sermons or different things like that, people
that I've come across. and just listening to some of
the things that they talk about as it pertains to faith and what
kind of the prevailing thought about faith is today and how
faith is perceived. And a lot of times I don't think
that we're hearing the biblical definition of faith, the biblical
account of what faith is and how faith comes. It's just really
a man-centered thing now. That faith is something that
is man-centered, that is for man, that is to elevate man in
some way. And so faith as the Bible gives
testimony of is far different from what we hear about. You know, several years ago,
and I don't even remember what this was on, it had something
to do with the Bible Answer Man apologetic thing. He had some
stuff that was put out that I got one time, and it was his in-depth
analysis of the errors of the Word of Faith movement. And I
think that was it, I can't remember, but anyway. I just remember whenever
I was listening through all that stuff, and he had little excerpts
of these Word of Faith teachers that's out there. And if you
don't know what I mean by Word of Faith teachers, we're talking
about the people like Kenneth Copeland, Jesse Duplantis, the
Kenneth Hagans, you know, all these kind of guy, Benny Hinn,
And then all the women ones, I can't think of their names
off the top of my head, but there's some women ones, and you know,
Billy Joe, and Sheridan, and Daughtery, and you know, just
all those people in those realms. And you can include all these
new movements like Hillsong, and Bethel, and you know, all
that stuff. All these are our false churches
with false prophets and false people up there giving their
false gospels and everything. But I remember in that little
thing that I had got from the Bible Answer Man, he had these
recordings of these faith teachers all saying these things, and
one of the prevailing definitions, and I wrote it down here, I'm
gonna just read it so I don't misquote what they said, but
the word of faith teaches to believe that faith is a powerful
force, that faith is an actual force, and I remember hearing,
men like Kenneth Copeland saying these kind of things, that faith
is a force. And according to their doctrine,
words acts as the containers of that force. So what you speak
with faith, that force is, your words are the containers
of that force and it can be used to do whatever you want it to
do. They say whenever believers speak faith-filled words, they
release the power of faith, resulting in the manifestation of their
desires. That's a quote from their own
teaching. And so we see here, what they're
implying is that faith is a force, okay? So faith is some sort of
an invisible I mean, I guess we're bringing in, you know,
the make-believe Star Wars here, okay? You know, faith is the
force, and my words is what harnesses that force, and it manifests
whatever my desires is, it will manifest that, Now, some may
be listening to me on this, and even ones who may listen to those
people, and they may think, well, that sounds foolish to me. I
don't, that ain't what we believe. Well, that's what those men are
teaching. If you listen to them, and they can quit getting caught
up in their minutia, if you'll listen to them, that's what they
say. That's what their own words define faith as. And that's what
they believe that they are doing, and that you should be doing.
is using your faith and the words that you say to harness that
faith to bring into manifestation whatever it is that you desire.
And if you listen to them very long, you'll hear they do that
all the time on TV, where they're wanting to, you know, do this
or do that, or I, you know, you know, I, you know, I demand this
or I demand that, or I'll do this or I'll do that, I even
heard Ken Copeland say that if you do that, God has to do it.
You know, God's backed into a corner, basically. And so anyway, I got to thinking
about that definition of this and everything, and really, what
they're teaching and what they're promoting is nothing different
than what's called in Hinduism and what's called in, and Larry
might be able to enlighten us on this, because he was in the
New Age Transcendentalism. It's called the Law of Attraction.
And this Law of Attraction is basically, and I've got the definition
too and I'm going to read it so I don't misquote it. The Law
of Attraction emphasizes the creative power of spoken words. The Law of Attraction asserts
that our thoughts and intentions shape our reality. And by focusing
on positive outcomes, we can manifest our desires. That is
no different than what these men are saying is the biblical
teaching of faith. They are teaching cultic false
religion. They're a false religion, but
they're teaching what mainstream Christianity looks to as false
religion. I mean, the Armenian false gospels
out there, they look at Hinduism and say, well, that's a false
gospel. They look at New Ageism and they'll say, well, that's
a false religion. You know, transcendentalism,
I don't know. But listen, they are teaching that. They're teaching
that in Southern Baptist churches now. Transcendentalism is being
taught. I remember, it wasn't long after
we moved here, I was reading in one of the Oklahoma Baptist
papers or something like that. It may have been on something
else. But anyway, they were talking
about these youth camps and how they were teaching kids to meditate,
transcendental meditation. and how they were to clear their
mind and to rid their mind of everything and just let their
mind be filled with whatever comes in and that by that whatever
comes in that they can manifest what their desires are. This
was in a Southern Baptist youth camp. This isn't in some fringe
way out there. A mainstream Southern Baptist
youth camp. Now, again, the influence of
All these things are being mixed in everywhere. Whether it be
the Word of Faith people, whether it be the Southern Baptists,
whether it be the Pentecostals, whether it be non-denominational,
whatever you want to say, all this stuff is the influence of
false religion, is the influence of false Gospels, false Jesuses,
people that are taking man's wisdom and applying into the
Scriptures because they don't have the revelation of God, they
don't have the Spirit of God, and they are religious people
touting religious-sounding things, but just like anything, religion
is not the truth. Religion is not the truth. Now,
religion can be in truth, long as it's according to the truth.
Whenever we come here and we meet together, That's part of
religion. But the meeting together is also,
in God's Word, that it is good for the people to meet together. Together, together. Whenever
we preach, that's part of the religion that is taught in the
Scriptures. Whenever we do the things that
are the Lord's Supper, the baptism, whenever we teach doctrine, whenever
we correct and rebuke We look to Christ Jesus and we, you know,
the things that are found in scripture, whenever you do what's
in the truth, then that religion is true religion. But if it's
not according to God's word, religion is just another religion,
a false religion, another false religion. And so looking at some
of this, I just, The Bible is very clear and specific about
faith. And we see here in Hebrews chapter
11 and verse 1, very famous verse to all of us. We know that this
is, whatever, someone asked, what's the definition of faith?
This is usually where we go, Hebrews 11, 1, right? And it
says here, it says, now faith is the substance of things hoped
for, the evidence of things not seen. So here, this is where the word
faith person says, there you go. Faith is a substance of things
hoped for. So it's a substance, it's something
tangible, it's something that I can grasp onto And so I'm going
to, with my faith, make this substance. I'm going to hope
for it. And by my faith, I'm going to bring this into existence.
But brethren, this is not what this is talking about. Matter
of fact, if you look throughout all of Scripture, you will see
faith is not connected in us. boasting in something that we
are, and it is not used for our own betterment. Faith is always
to be grounded in and rooted in the exaltation of Christ,
the trust in Christ, the hope that is in Christ. It is always
part of what Christ has done on our behalf. And you say, well,
wait a minute, what about all these What about all these things
that happened here that follows that? The Faith Hall of Fame. These guys were faithful men.
They were strong in their faith and God is pumping them up because
they had great faith. They exercised their faith. Brethren, I think if you will
go and read through here, God did not put all of these names
with all these activities in here to pump up these men and
to say how great their faith was. It was to prove what God
does in sinners when He gives them faith that He not only sovereignly
gives, but He is the one who sovereignly works that faith
in them, causing them to do what they did to the glory and the
exaltation of God. Let's just kind of look at a
few things here, and I'm going to try to sweep through some
of these things briefly because I want to maybe pull out some
other thoughts and ideas about what I've been talking about.
It 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 the things which do appear. So what's God saying here? Well,
no man can really believe that God is the Creator of all things
and is the one who sustains all things and He did that by the
Word of His power and not by something else. It says here
that God created something out of nothing. Now listen, there
are a lot of people out there in false religions who acknowledge,
they believe that there is a grand designer, but that grand designer
did it by the big bang. Two atoms that were in existence
somehow, by themselves already, colliding and boom, everything
began from this big bang. and it started from this little
spark and now it's expanding out and expanding out and expanding
out and eventually one of these days it's going to wear itself
out and it's going to collapse on itself. But here, God says that He framed
the world so that the things which are seen were made of things
which do... are not made with things which
do appear. God made everything out of nothing. He spoke everything into existence. He spoke them into existence
as they were. And so what does this tell us?
This is not to pump up anything else, but to pump up the thing
that God has given man, His people specifically, has given His people
faith to believe that he is the creator of all things and he
created it out of nothing. He didn't do it by the evolutionary
scheme, the big bang scheme, whatever else scientific scheme
you want to throw on it. He did it that way. So anyone
who is believing those things is not believing that by faith,
they're believing it by false religion. They're believing that
by, and yes, science, falsely called, is a false religion. You don't believe me, You go
against their doctrines, doctrines, you're gonna be excommunicated
from everything. You try to speak like that in
a school system, you try to speak like that at a town system, you
try to speak like that on Facebook, listen, you're gonna be kicked
out whenever you start talking about their false religion of
science. Anyway, don't get me off on that backdrop. I guess
I should speak that to myself. You didn't try to get me off
on it, I got it off on my own. Next one, by faith, Abel offered unto
God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. How did Abel do that? Abel didn't do that by himself.
God is the one who gave Abel to offer the sacrifice to himself. It says, by which he obtained
witness that he was righteous. God did that so he proved the
righteousness that he had given Abel versus the unrighteousness
which continued in came, just like in Jacob and Esau. He chose
one and not the other. He chose Abel and not Cain. And being that he chose Abel,
he gave Abel faith to do what God wanted. By faith, Enoch was
translated that he should not see death and was not found because
God had translated him. For before his translation, he
had this testimony that he pleased God. Now, we all know from the
testimony of Scripture that the flesh cannot please God. Nothing that we do in the flesh
pleases God. How did Enoch please God? He pleased God by being the object
of His pleasure. By having been for love from
the foundation of the world, Enoch found favor, just like
with Noah. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. Noah didn't do anything so that
God would say, hey, I'm going to give grace to Noah because
he did all these great things. No, Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord, meaning that God had purpose to give grace to
Noah and no other family on the earth and to destroy the whole
place and to save him. was translated that he should
not see death. That was a blessing of God. God
give him. And before he had this testimony
that he pleased God. There's only one way that we
can please God and that is in the man Jesus Christ. The only
way that we can please God is by the imputed righteousness
of Jesus Christ. Enoch was imputed with the righteousness
of Jesus Christ. He had found favor with God by
grace alone. It was nothing about Enoch, but
Enoch, by faith, did these things and was the testimony to what
God did. 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.
That's right after he speaks of Enoch, right? didn't do these
things on his own, that it is impossible to please God without
faith. So how did Enoch please God?
He pleased God because he had faith, but he had faith, and
as we'll see, faith was given to Enoch because no man has faith.
Faith is a gift of God. God gave Enoch the gift of faith
so that he would be pleasing to God, through the work of God
in him. Down to the next one. By faith, Noah being warned of
God of things not seen yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to
the saving of his house, by which he condemned the world and became
heir of the righteousness which is by faith. So here we see again, We know
for a fact that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. It wasn't
Noah's manifesting his reality by using the words of his, the
force of faith and using the containers of his words to make
this a reality. No, God put within Noah's heart
to trust what God was saying about the destruction of the
world and to trust what God was saying that he was going to save
him and his family and that this big old boat that you are going
to make is going to be what keeps you from perishing, and that
there is going to be rain that no one had ever seen before up
until this point. All these things unseen, unseen,
unknown, untested, unproved, undone, but he trusted that God's
promise is true. God gave him that faith to do
that. He trusted in God's promises. Cain, or excuse me, Abel, trusted
in God's promises. Enoch trusted in God's promises. By faith, Abraham, when he was
called to go out into the place where he should after receive
for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out, not knowing whether
he went. By faith, he sojourned in the land of promise as in
strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob,
the heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for a
city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. So here, again, Abraham was given
faith to believe the promise of God. Nothing to pump Abraham
up about. God isn't here pumping up Abraham.
God is here glorifying Himself in the work that He is doing
in faithless men. Abraham was a faithless man until
God gave him faith. I mean, just look at Abraham's
life, brethren. We talk about Abraham being the
father of the faithful, but look at Abraham. His whole entire
life was speckled with unfaithfulness, faithlessness. I'm too old. Ain't no way that
you're getting a kid out of these loins or this wife's loins. We're too old, dusted and dried
up. We're not going to be able to
do it. Go in and do that. I'm not going
in. I tell you what, sir, you tell
them that you're my sister, because if they find out you're my wife,
they're going to kill me. Faithlessness. Faithlessness. He didn't have faith. Whenever
faith was seen in Abraham, it was the faith that God had given
him. It was the faith of Jesus Christ. It was the faith that
had been given to him as a gift. And so God isn't boasting about
these people being able to, out of some force in them, manifesting
their reality by the container of their word, the words of their
faith and all that kind of stuff. That isn't what it is. It is
about them being given a confidence or a hope in the promises of
God, and the object is not necessarily in the things, but in the person
who makes the promise. The confidence in them doing
what they did, looking for what they were looking for, is in
the one who made the promise. And so faith is the substance
of things hoped for. Now that word substance, Whenever
I looked that up in the King James Bible, everywhere that
that word is translated confidence in our Bible, I found that it
had a pretty interesting definition that God defines it
as. This word is found two times
as confidence. It's found one time as confident. It's found one time as person. And one time is substance. Here
it's translated as substance. But if you look, in every other
place except one other place, in every other place, it is defined
as confidence. Let's go ahead and read a few
of these just so you can see what we're talking about. The
same word here that substance comes from, faith is the substance
What does that word mean? Well, let me run to a commentator.
No, don't run to a commentator. Let me run to a lexicon. No,
don't look to a lexicon. Find where that word is found
in the rest of Scripture and see how God defines that word. And so whenever you look where
all those words are found in Scripture and see how God defines
it by the faithful translation in the Scriptures, we'll find
what this word means according to God. So, 2 Corinthians chapter
11. 2 Corinthians chapter 11. Look
with me, if you would, down to verse 17. It says, That which I speak,
I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly in this
confidence of boasting. That's the same word that we
get the word substance in Hebrews 11. Verse 1. That's the same word. It's translated
confidence here. The confidence of boasting. Look back in Hebrews, if you
would, Hebrews 3. And verse 14. It says, For we were
made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence
steadfast unto the end. And we'll look a little bit maybe
at that passage a little bit later about what we're talking
about here. But notice that the word here, confidence, is the
same word that we get the word substance in Hebrews 11. In 2
Corinthians chapter 9 and verse 4, we see the word confident
here It says, less happily if they of Macedonia come with me
and find you unprepared, we that we say not ye, should be ashamed
in the same confident boasting. So here there's a confidence being described by this word.
And then in Hebrews chapter 1 verse 3 though, we see a different
word altogether. We see who being the brightness
of His glory and the express image of His, here's the same
word, person. This word person, translated
person here, is the same word that we get the word substance
in Hebrews 11.3 and you say, well that's kind of weird. You
have person when all the rest of this is Confidence. We have
confidence. That speaks of someone in their
self being lifted up, motivated, challenged to continue on looking
and looking and looking, continue on to do or they are assured
of something. Right? That's kind of what we
get whenever we think about confidence. I have confidence. I am secure
within myself. I'm confident within myself.
But if you look here, we see that this word also is used to
describe the fullness of the Godhead,
the invisible God, the great I Am in flesh, Jesus
Christ. It's speaking of the person. Speaking of Jesus Christ, who
being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His
person. So tied up in this word substance
is a confidence, is a boasting of confidence, a boasting of
being a boasting of sufficiency in a person. Faith is the confident boasting
in a person. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for. In its Greek understanding, this
word means an undergirding, a support. Faith is a support for things
hoped for. It is a support. That's what
confidence is. It's the support. It's what is
undergirding our hope. The Bible says that we have been
given a hope, right? We have been given a hope, those
who hope in Christ. We have a hope in Christ. What
are we talking about when we say that we have a hope in Christ? That means that we have a hope
that everything that Christ has done on behalf of his people,
number one, we have a hope that Christ is the anointed of God
sent to be the savior of his people. We have a hope that Christ
in his life did fulfill all the law and fulfilled it completely
and to the satisfaction of God and was to the satisfaction of
the law he fulfilled all of it. We have a hope that Christ whenever
He died on the cross, that His death was a sufficient sacrifice
that was pleasing to God, accepted of God on behalf of the sins
of all those He died for. We have hope that Christ has
accomplished all of redemption, of salvation, that God had purpose
for Him to accomplish on behalf of all of His people. So we have
a hope that that has been done. But brethren, faith is given
to us to undergird that hope that what Christ did, He did
for me. Faith alone, we are sure of the
eternal things that they are, that they exist. God gives us
faith to know that these things exist. But He gives us hope,
that faith, of things that do exist. You've got to believe
that something is before you can believe that you're part
of it. If you don't believe that something is, how are you going
to believe that you're going to be the recipient or partakers
of it if you don't believe that it exists? That's why God said
that first of all we must believe that God is and that He is the
rewarder of them. You have to believe that God
is before you believe that you are part and recipient of the
reward that God gives. So here we see that faith gives
us the undergirding or the confidence that all these things are true
of what God in Christ has done and that faith is what undergirds the hope that
is given to us that we are confident that we shall be the recipients
of them. See, hope presupposes faith. I know a lot of people run around
and they don't talk much about assurance. They don't talk about
faith. They talk about hope. I've been
given a hope. I have a hope. And I agree with
them. And I agree with most of the
time what they say. Sometimes you hear somebody saying
that as in a hope-so hope. But if you use the term biblically,
the word hope actually does mean an assurance. It means a confidence. And that's because it's undergirded
by faith. God gives us faith to undergird
the hope that this is ours. I have a hope that what God did,
He did for me. I hope this isn't murky. My inability to oratate very
well. Not jumbling things up. People
that say we have a hope presupposes that they have faith because
faith is the substance. Faith is the confidence of things
hoped for. You're telling me that if you
have a hope, you've been given a faith. If you've been given
a faith, then you are a child of grace because God only gives
grace or faith to His children. If you have a hope or a confidence
or a Faith, all these words here are all linked together very
closely and somewhat interchangeable, but if you have that, that in
and of itself is the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that
we are His. I don't think anybody has a problem
with that passage of Scripture. The Spirit bears witness with
our spirit that we are His. Well, how does the Spirit bear
witness with our spirit that we are His children? That we belong to Him? That we
are His redeemed? His seed? His people? His brethren? His heirs? How does the Spirit
do that? By faith. by faith. And faith is the confidence
in things hoped for. Faith is us looking at what's
not seen, looking at what we don't know for sure, what we've
never encountered, but yet realizing that in the mind as if it's already
there. We look and say, the reward at
the end, eternal life, Christ Jesus, being with God for all
eternity, being loose of these old, dead clothes that I'm wearing
right now and being clothed in pure righteousness in a spiritual
body, that all of this is something that is going to be given to
me by promise of God, even though it hasn't happened, it's as real
as if it is because by faith, I have been given confidence
to hope that it is for me. So we see that faith is not something
that we do in response to making us become better people, to make
us become more active in religion, to be some sort of a super spiritual
person. No, actually faith is a very
humbling thing. Faith is realizing that I could
never attain this on my own. Faith has been given to me to
hope outside of myself that somebody else did something for me who
could not do for myself. Something that would never have
taken place had not He exerted it on me, had given it by gift
to me. God has given me salvation. So I must first acknowledge that
I need salvation. am a sinner, I am lost, I am
hopeless, I am unholy, I am unrighteous, and that everything that I do
cannot please Him, so I have no confidence in myself, I have,
and that's that word, remember, confidence, I have no confidence
in myself, but I have confidence in Christ. And because Christ
has done it, and because God has promised through Christ to
give it then I have hope that it's given
to me. So whenever we talk about assurance,
I know that always raises red flags, especially with a lot
of our old school primitive Baptist brother. And I don't think it
should be something that is so irritating to folks. I've had
a couple of really good brothers that I used to fellowship with
that has broken fellowship from me because I say that there is
an assurance. The Bible speaks of an assurance
that's given to the child of grace. And if you'll hear me
out, the misunderstanding comes from they believe that our assurance
comes from something that we are looking to within ourselves.
But we are not saying that assurance is something based on anything
tangible that we do. The assurance is a divinely given
hope, a divinely given faith on what Christ alone did. Our assurance is in the promises
of God and the work of Jesus Christ. That's the assurance. We are assured that God is going
to give His people everything He promised and that everything
that Jesus Christ did for His people is sufficient for God,
and that God will give that to His people and then give them
faith to believe and hope in these things. He will send His
Spirit to bear witness that they are His. That's all that is. That's all that assurance is.
It isn't me saying, well, because I believe, I'm one of His. I'm not even saying that. I'm
not saying because I go to church or because I preach or because
I do this or do that, because I love my brethren, because I
do this or do that, I'm a child of God. I'm not saying that's
what assurance is. I'm saying assurance is some
mysterious work of God in the heart of the child of grace where
He lets them know that what they are hoping for is theirs. I can't muster that up. I can't
contain that with words of force. I can't make that manifest in
reality. Matter of fact, there are some
days it's not even there, brethren. There are some days that I feel
that I don't have that. You'll often hear all of us speak
if I be His. How could you say that? I thought
you had assurance. Well, I do when the Spirit bears witness
with my spirit that I'm His. When He gives me that hope, whenever
I feel that, but guess what? The flesh man, he doesn't feel
that. He doesn't hope in those things.
He still thinks that he can attain some sort of a standing with
God by my own righteous works. And see, those days whenever
I feel the weight of that, that's when the Gospel is so beautiful,
brethren. When the Gospel comes in and tells us what Christ has
done on our behalf, and whenever He says, I've done that for you,
and I hear Mike in there, guess what? I don't look to myself
and say, well, thank you, man, I'm going to pull my britches
up and get out there and work harder for Jesus. No, what do
I do? I get on my knees and get on
my face, and I say, praise God that I've been accepted in the
Beloved. Praise God that I have been given this grace. Praise
God that I, who am an unworthy servant, have been counted to
be heirs of righteousness. See, it's not a confidence in
our flesh. It's a confidence in the Lord
Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, let's look at a few things.
Because I know a lot of people say, well, you'll know them by
their fruits. You'll know them by their fruits.
So now we're going to be able to pick the elect out by who's
doing what. I asked a question a long time ago. I wrote a paper
on this. I think it might have been Warren Welch track published
at one time. So you can look for that. But I asked a question. I said,
how do I know that the outward good works that I'm doing are
done by me or done by God in me? How do I know that? How do
I know that anything that I'm doing that's religious or outwardly
helpful to somebody or good works, how do I know that that's God
at work in me performing that or whether that's my flesh performing
that in a religious manner somehow? I'll be honest. I asked that
question, and it was several years ago that I wrote that and
asked this question. And here today, I'm going to
tell you the answer is still the same. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what God is doing
or what my flesh is trying to do. So because I cannot discern
whenever we are doing religious, biblical, and good things outwardly,
whenever anybody can parrot those things, anybody can come to church,
carry a Bible, anyone can quote Scripture, anyone can give money,
Anybody can, you know, stand up in here and make some sort
of a sermon. Anybody can do these types of
things outwardly, can show love to one another. I go to places
all the time and see false churches that everybody there, they love
each other. They just love each other and
have a good time. But brethren, how do I know that
that is a true work of God or if I'm just parroting something
that I've heard or something that I've seen. I'm no different
than the chimpanzee at the zoo looking at you through the window
and every time you do this, he does that. I don't know that. So what do
I have to do? Well, I hope that the Lord will give me the grace
to rest in what He has promised to do. See, that's all that there
is. There's a hope that God will
give me to just rest, that the promises that He has said, the
works that He has ordained, and the power of God in me to do
those works in me are being accomplished every one of them exactly the
way He has ordained them and purposed them to be done, when
He has ordained them to be done, to the extent that He has been
ordained to have been done, and even to withhold power and grace
so that at certain times, worse will not be done. That's the
other side of the coin that people don't like to sometimes talk
about. That all of this is in the hands of God That rest in
and of itself has to be given by God. It's a hope in His promise. Whenever I hope in something,
I'm not working for something. When I hope for something, I'm
not out here trying to make something happen. Whenever I hope, hope
is at rest. Hope is resting. hoping that
this is done for me. I am hoping this was given to
me. That is something that is at
rest, not an activity that I must perform. It is not me working
to manifest it. I cannot manifest anything. Your
words are not containers of the force. They cannot manifest deadly
squat. This is a work of God that you
believe. The work of God is how we believe. It isn't me bolstering up faith
and believing it to be true and therefore it's going to manifest
itself because I have said it. Because I have believed it. Listen. I believed my death to be long
ago, long ago. But it's still here. I believed that I was going to
be skinny and healthy at 51. But here I am, half-decrepit
and still not scheming. Listen, I have tried and tried
and tried and tried and tried and tried to do a lot of things.
But I've not accomplished them. Why? I believed them with all
my heart. I sought after them as hard as
I could seek them. I said them out loud my words.
I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'll tell
you what, I'm going to do this. And here we are, still not doing
it. Why? Because faith is not about a
power within you. It's not about something that
you have done within yourself or can muster up in yourself.
Faith is the gift that God gives you and He gives it to you in
measure and in that measure of faith, God gives you the confidence. To the level of confidence He
gives you, I even believe that He gives us a level of confidence in what we hope for. We hope
that we are in Christ Jesus. Now, let's look at a few things
in the Scripture as it pertains to confidence. We don't have
confidence in anything that we do. And I just want to make that
clear. Any assurance that I would ever
preach about, if you happen to hear another sermon some other
time, and I'm not including all of this information, and I say
that we have assurance, refer back to this thing, what do I
mean by that? We do not have assurance in any
work that we do. Anything tangible in our person. We only have assurance in the
things that Christ has done, and He has given us a hope that
it is ours. And that's all I'm saying. I'm
not saying that we've accomplished anything, and God's looking at
us and smiling, saying, you've done it. You've succeeded. You've made it. You've manifested
it. I'm going to give it to you.
I'm not saying any of that, so don't misunderstand, please.
Okay, Psalms 118, if you would. Psalms 118. Look with me, if
you would, verses 8 and 9. Why did I say all that? Because
the Bible tells us, it is better to trust in the Lord than to
put confidence in man. There's that word confidence.
It is better to trust in the Lord to put confidence in princes. Oh my, how we put our confidence. I'm hearing today, listen, our
country is in the worst state that I think it's ever been in
its history, it seems like. I don't know, I haven't lived
in those other periods of time, but I tell you what, it seems
like it's worse now than it's ever been in my lifetime. And
how easy it is to think, well, if we just elect the right man
to get in there, he's gonna change this nation, turn us back to
being a godly nation, if we ever know the godly nation to begin
with. God's kingdom is not of this
world. The governments he has established for his purposes,
to accomplish his design of all things. And listen, he sets up
kings, he brings down kings, he puts people in power. As much
as I hate to say it sometimes, my old flesh, that is, my inner
man rejoices in what the Lord does, but my flesh riles up at
the fact that Biden has been put in office. But listen, we know by the truth
of scripture that God has set this man up for his purposes.
And he is accomplishing everything that God has determined for him
to accomplish. And it seems like he's put him
in there to accomplish the demise of our country. That means that
was God's purpose, because it wouldn't have happened if God
didn't want it to happen. Right? Right? Everybody with
me on that? As the old southern black preachers
would say, can I get an amen? Can I get a witness? Brethren,
listen, nothing happens that God has not ordained. This evil
that we're experiencing in our nation is God doing that. And
I know everybody's saying, well, it's God's judgment upon the
United States for turning their back on God and going this way.
Hey, that could very possibly be true. But listen, God isn't
dealing with us as a nation God is dealing with us as individuals.
We are God's people. If we are God's people, listen,
we follow Christ. We follow God. What this world
does outside of this is immaterial to us. If they want to have wicked
kings, let them have wicked kings. If they want to have good kings,
let them have good kings. God's going to be the one to
determine who gets in there. We don't put our confidence in
men or princes. We don't put our confidence in
preachers. How many of us have put so much confidence in that
man standing in a pulpit preaching somewhere? Listen, I'll be the
first to tell you, don't put your confidence in me. Listen,
I'm, and don't take this the wrong way, I'm as bad as you.
I'm in worse shape than a lot of you. Listen, I'm unfaithful,
I'm unreliable, I'm lethargic, I'm lazy, I'm self-absorbed a
lot of times. Listen, I have faults and failures.
I'm unfaithful. A lot of times I'm unfaithful.
I don't have a lot of great knowledge of the Bible. I'll be the first
one to tell you, I don't even think I've read from cover to cover of this
thing. Straight through. Not to mention, I've not done
it many, many times. Once a year, my once a year reading
through the Bible. I've not ever done that. I can
tell you, there's probably a lot of stuff that I have no clue
of in this. Don't have confidence in your
preachers. They're just men just like you are. Some may be a little
more educated than you are. Some may be a little more refined
than you are. But at the end of the day, they
are all just like you are. They are sinners who have the
flesh that cannot please God. And if they are of God, if they
are children of grace, That inward man is derived of the same light
that's in you, so you are no different than they are inwardly,
and you are no different than they are outwardly. So don't
pump these men up on the pedestal. Now, I know the Bible says that
there is certain honor that you give to the men that God has
given you to do this, but that's not meaning to make them as some
object of worship and praise make them of some object of we
listen to them no matter what they say. You know, we follow
them. That's that's a cult. Okay, don't
do that. You listen to what the Word of
God says that that man is telling the truth. Hey, praise the Lord.
And the honor that the Bible speaks of is if that man is speaking
according to God's truth, then give some respect to that man
for the office, not for the man for who he is, but for the office
that he is in. God has called him to do something
and has gifted him to do something. And that's nothing that raises
anybody above anybody else. And I remember, I mean, I've
seen it in a lot of churches. These dictators that run churches
and everybody has to bow to them and kowtow to them, kiss their
ring, so to speak, and everything. It's ridiculous. And listen,
I've seen it on the people's side, not from coercion, but
they do it out of idolatry. I remember growing up, and I'm
getting off topic here, but I remember growing up, we would go into
a lot of the black churches around the area that we did. We had
race relations Sundays. every year, back when I was in
the Armenian church. And we'd take turns and we'd
go to, you know, the white folk churches would go to the black
folk churches and we'd have services together. And there would be
sometimes all the black folk churches would come to the white
folk church and they would have stuff together, a bunch of ecumenical
blah, blah, blah that I don't believe in anymore, by the way.
But anyway, all these churches would get together. Well, I remember
whenever we went into the black folk churches, listen, they had
a lot of reverence, and those preachers, they sit up on the
stage, and they had these ornate chairs that they would sit in,
and if you were considering a preacher, that's where you sit. You didn't
sit out there with everybody else. You sit up here, and you'd
be respected, and they, yes sir, no sirs. I mean, not to say that's
not, you know, don't be disrespectful to anybody. Yes sir, Brother
Larry here. Yes, sir, my son or whatever,
you know, we need to be respectful. But I'm talking about they did
it in a reverence way because he's the preacher. I got to act
this way and everything. And they would like, you know,
if a preacher would say, give me water. Well, they just, you
know, just like servants, you know, run to their every every
whim. And I looked at that man and. You look and you see. All different scale. We'd go to these
evangelism conferences in the Southern Baptist Convention and
these men that they would fly in and they would put them up
on the deal and they'd give them all this reverence. A lot of
those men sometimes after they would get done preaching they
wouldn't even come and visit with anybody in the deal. They
would do their preaching, they'd go get on a plane and fly back
home or they would go somewhere back with all the other preachers
and they would be unattainable to anybody else or anything like
that and wouldn't talk to commoner people, and they would just,
you know, seclude themselves into another part of the building
or whatever, the green room or whatever it was, and everything. And everybody just thought that
that was odd. They treat people like some sort of a movie star
or a rock star or something like that. But we don't have any confidence
in men. But I come to this passage after
my little rabbit trail here. I come to this because the Bible
is warning us here that we don't put confidence in men because
men fail. We don't put confidence in princes
or governments because governments fail. We don't ever look to those
things to get us or help us. We can't look, if this nation
would supposedly, what people would think, turn and become
a godly nation, they still have no hope for us. I mean, if we
elected, let me think of somebody here, John Gill, to come in and
run our country, That's no more hope that we can have than if
Biden's in there. Is he going to have some more
moral values? Probably so. Is he going to try
to seek to do things in a more biblical fashion? Probably so. But there is no hope in him.
He can't do anything that God has not already purposed and
done. So our hope isn't in anything
that men can accomplish or men that can do. One more verse to
that effect is in Philippians chapter three. Philippians chapter three in
verse three, it says, for we are the circumcision which worship
God in the spirit. Now I want you to pay close attention
here because a whole other sermon could be preached on just how
are we to worship. And one part of the thing of
being a part of worship is not having confidence in the flesh. For we are the circumcision,
Meaning the true circumcision, those who have been circumcised
of heart, we're not talking about outward fleshly male circumcision
that we see in the hospital when kids are born. We're talking
about what the Jews do whenever one becomes a Jew, they circumcise
them in the flesh. This is talking about that spiritual
circumcision, which is the pho, meaning that new heart, that
new spirit that God gives us. For we are the circumcision,
or the true Jew, we are the true Israelite, we are the true people
of God, which worship God in the Spirit. You notice that it's
in the Spirit, it's not intangible things? We worship God in the
Spirit. And rejoice in Christ Jesus. So what is the worship of the
people of God? It is rejoicing, or excuse me, it is worshiping
in the Spirit. It is rejoicing in Christ Jesus. Rejoicing in what? What are we
talking about? Rejoicing in Christ Jesus. Rejoicing in what He has
done. Who He is, what He's done. Who He is, what He's done. That's
what I was talking about earlier. You must first believe that He
is before you can believe that you are part of what He has done. Okay? And then look, what's the
third aspect of this? and have no confidence in the
flesh. Did you realize that part of true biblical worship is not
having any confidence in your flesh? That's kind of a surprise. It was a surprise to me. This
is how we worship God, in the spirit, rejoicing in Christ Jesus,
but one of the tenets of that is having no confidence in the
flesh. Now hopefully that will be the
answer to a lot of questions or a lot of comments that I see
when it comments to not only our church particularly, which
it has, but others like ours. Why do you guys always talk about
the negative? You're always talking about what
we can't do. You're always talking about how bad we are. You're
always talking about how unrighteous we are. You're always talking
about how horrible things are. You're always degrading, degrading,
degrading us. Why don't you talk about anything
positive? Because part of biblical worship
entails us coming before God having no confidence in the flesh. So brethren, our assurance that
faith undergirds has no confidence in the flesh. It's not an outward
thing. But what is this confidence? What is the biblical confidence
that we're talking about? The biblical faith, the biblical
substance, the biblical hope, What is it that the Bible is
talking about? Look, if you would, with me, and I'm going to try
to run through these as fast as possible, brother. I know we've been sitting
long. Proverbs chapter 3. Proverbs chapter 3, and look
with me, if you would, at verse 26. It says, for the Lord shall be
thy confidence and shall keep thy foot from being taken. Now
there are some literal, physical aspects to that, brethren, surely.
But again, let's look beyond the physical and let's look at
what it's spiritually telling us here. Who is our confidence?
Our confidence isn't in men. The Bible already told us that.
Our confidence should be in men. Our confidence is in the Lord
and He shall keep that foot from being taken. He shall keep us
from being taken over by apostasy. Going back into unbelief. What
does it mean by going back into unbelief? Well, it's not just
going back and becoming an atheist and saying, I don't believe that
there's a God, that God doesn't exist. Or becoming an agnostic
saying, well, now I'm not for sure if God really exists. That's
not necessarily what going back into unbelief means. To go back
into unbelief means to go back to that former way of thinking
to think that you can gain righteousness with God by something that you
do. That's what unbelief is. Unbelief is not believing the
promises that God has provided all of your salvation in Christ,
freely, that you think you have to do something to get it. That's what unbelief is. And
so here, he says, listen, The Lord shall be thy confidence
and shall keep thy foot from being taken. We turn over to
Proverbs 14. Look with me if you would at
verse 26. It says, In the fear of the Lord, is strong confidence, and his
children shall have a place of refuge." Now, just let me say
these last two verses that I'm reading. I'm not saying that
this is something that we can work up. This isn't something
I'm telling you to go out and work up your confidence. I'm
not telling you that. This is a statement of fact.
The children of grace have been given no confidence in the flesh,
no confidence in men, no confidence in the governments. They've been
given confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our assurance comes
in Jesus Christ. Our assurance comes in the work
of the Spirit in us, giving us that hope that what Christ has
done has been done and that faith clings to that, reaches out to
that. It is undergirded with that. that God has done all things,
and here, what does it say? His children shall have a place
of refuge. Listen, whenever I start looking
to the things outwardly, if I start looking for assurance outwardly,
brethren, I am always going to be uneasy. I am always going
to be in turmoil. Why? Because I can never live
up to the standard that God requires. If I'm looking to an assurance
Let's just say you come into church. While I may physically
come to church every Sunday, do you know, there's a lot of
times I come here and stand up here and preach before you, but
that morning I've got up and said, you know, I really don't
want to be here this morning. I really would just like to call
it in today and just not have church today. And I know that
a lot of people think, well, that's a bad thing for a preacher
to say. You mean to tell me you didn't want to come to church?
Yeah, there's a lot of days I didn't want to come to church. I'm just being
honest with you guys. There's a lot of times I didn't
want to do that. Well, if I put my assurance in the fact that
I come to church every time the doors are open, I'm going to
not have a lot of assurance because there's a lot of times that I'm
tired, I'm wore out, I'm stressed out, I'm not feeling good. My
mind is distracted. I've not been able to look into
God's Word this week. I don't feel that God's given
me something to say that morning. And I would say, you know what?
I just don't want to be there today. And where's my assurance
going to go? It's going to go out the window.
I'm not going to find that in refuge. I'm going to find that
as a source of turmoil. If I look at how faithful I am
to keep God's commands, guess what? Nothing but turmoil. Nothing but condemnation. Where's
my assurance going to be? Because the Bible says if I'm
to work by the law and to provide a righteousness by the law, I
have to keep every bit of the law, not just the Ten Commandments,
every bit of the law, and I have to keep it perfectly, never breaking
it once. Guess what? There's turmoil,
not refuge. That's why we say this is not
something that you work up, that you can create within yourself. as the people out there saying
faith is a force that you can create in yourself and create
this manifestation of some life that you desire by what you attain
to, you know. No, it's always, always, always
pointing back to the work of God in you, what God has given
to you. He's giving you faith, and the
faith that He's given to you is not to look outside to yourself,
but to look towards Christ. He says, in the fear of the Lord
is strong confidence. That means in the reverence.
Whenever we reverence the Lord, there is what? Strong confidence. Why do we preach Christ and Him
crucified? Because it is the power of God
unto salvation. Why do we preach week after week
after week after week the finished work of Christ, the sovereign
grace of Christ, the atoning work of Christ that is effectual? Why do we preach that everything
that God did, He did and nothing can be taken from it or put to
it? Why do we always preach those things? Why are we always preaching
that and we're not preaching life stories? Why are we not
preaching life application? Why are we not preaching stories
to bolster everybody's faith to get them out there to doing
good deeds? Why are we not out here preaching
the Joel Osteen messages of the day? Because there's no refuge
in that. Because every time we get out
into that world, we get hit in the face that life stinks in
the flesh. Our only hope is Christ. And
the only thing that matters is Christ. Because anything I get
out in there, in that world that I do, is all tainted with evil
and it's not worth anything. So no matter how much I bolster
you up, no matter how much you pull yourself up by your bootstraps,
No matter how much we get out and try hard and work for Jesus,
it's never enough. So if there's not something that
is consistent, if there is not something that is a sure foundation,
then everything else is going to be destroyed. It's going to fall apart. It's
going to crumble. If you build the house on the
sand, It's going to be destroyed if you build it on the rock.
It's going to stay firm. And that's not telling you to
build it. It's talking about the overall principle of it.
If by a child of grace, your house has been built on a rock.
If you're not a child of grace, your house is built on a house
of sand. The house of sand is going to
fall. Why do we not fall? Why do we not fall into apostasy?
Why do we continue and persevere near to the end? Because in the
fear of the Lord, there is strong confidence. These children find
refuge. Look at Ephesians chapter 3.
Ephesians chapter 3. Just a side note from what I
just said about not preaching those things. Listen, I believe
that the Holy Spirit of God is a better preacher to you about
what you should be doing. I believe the Holy Spirit is
a better motivator than I am. In Ephesians chapter 3, and look
with me if you would at verse 12. Speaking of Christ Jesus, it
says, In whom we have boldness and access with confidence. How? Because we raised our hand
at that revival meeting when the evangelist said, every head
bowed and every eye closed. And with all the braveness that
I could muster up, I raised my hand. Because I was not afraid to call out His name If you,
what's the Bible verse? If you reject me before men,
I'll reject you before my Father. Something to that effect. I forgot
how that went. You know, if you're embarrassed
of me, I'll be embarrassed of you. So I bravely, when everybody
wasn't looking at me, I raised my hand. Oh, and even more than
that, I mustered up my faith to get out of that pew Walked
down that aisle, I shook that preacher's hand, and I accepted
Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Is that what it's talking about?
In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by me
coming and being baptized in water? Me giving to the poor, to the
widows, to the homeless, Me getting clothes and food, helping other
people. You put in, fill in the religious
blank there. Now, what does it say here? It
says, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence, how? By the faith of Him. And that faith is not of us.
It's not your faith. It's the faith of Christ that
has been given to you. That means that was a gift. That
means you don't have it unless He gives it. Not everyone has
faith as I said a while ago. The Bible is clear about that.
Not all men have faith. Only those that have been given
faith. Unto you it has been given to believe. Faith is a gift of
God. The gifts of the Spirit are faith. That would be one of them, right?
So how do we have confidence? This substance that faith is
the substance. Faith is the undergirding. Faith
is the support for that hope that we have that this is ours. What is it that faith clings
to? It's confident in. It's confident in what Christ
has done. The confidence is in Christ. It's confidence in His
promise. Confidence in His accomplishment.
We kind of can see that. Hebrews 3 again. Hebrews 3 and verse 6. It says, But Christ as a Son
over His own house, whose house are we if we hold fast to confidence
and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. Now, some
people will look at that and say, well, there you go. You've
got to hold out this hope. You've got to have this faith.
You've got to persevere. Those who persevere to the end,
they shall be saved. Right? And they put that onus
on you that it's your job to do that. It's your job to hope. It's your job to persevere. It's
your job to keep up tabs with God and to keep on track and
not turn back and do all these things. Brethren, again, I say,
this is a statement of fact. It is a statement of the reality
of who those are that are in Christ Jesus. These are the explanation
of who these people are. The people of God are the people
of God that hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope
firm to the end. I'm saying those people of God
will do this until the end, not try to do this, not keep themselves
in doing this. It's not something that they
do. They are kept in this by God. God is the one who is working
this work of confidence and rejoicing in hope to the end. He's the
one who gives them confidence in Christ and His promise. He's
the one who keeps them believing that until the end. Not them. It's them that are the recipients
of that gift that God has given them to have that hope. So, brethren,
when it comes down to it, we can't boast of our faith. We
can't boast of our hope. We can't boast of us continuing
in the faith. There's a passage in Philippians, chapter 1, verse 29. It says, For unto you
it is given in behalf of Christ not only to believe on Him, this
is what I've already quoted a while ago, but also to suffer for His
sake. So it has been given unto us.
So if it's been given unto us, we can't boast about it, right?
It was a gift. It didn't belong to us. We didn't
deserve it. We don't have any right to it
because it's freely given. So with that being the background
there, in Hebrews chapter 12, we find this. Now remember, Hebrews
chapter 12 is right after Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 12
and verse 2, it says, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured
the cross, despised the shame, and sat down at the right hand
of the throne of God. Who's the author of that faith? It's not us. It is not us. Who is the one that continues
to hope until the end? The child of grace. Why? Because
it's been given unto you to believe. And if it's been given unto you
to believe, then that means God is the author of it because nobody
can give faith except God. This is the work of God that
you believe. So God has to give it. It's been a gift to you.
You can't muster it up. And if it's been given to you,
you know that He's the author of it. But also know this in
Galatians 2.20, we see, Paul says, I am crucified
with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by
the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for
me. He lives by the faith of the
Son of God. He doesn't live by his faith. He lives by the faith of the
Son of God. He lives by what Christ has not only done, that's
the faith of God, but he lives by that God-given faith that
Christ gives him to believe on what Christ has done. And to
hope in what Christ has done as the only righteousness that
he needs. So the question is, as we go
back to the very beginning of this, something that you muster
up? And is it something that you
have to continue to speak into existence so that you might continue
to persevere in the things of this life to do the works that
God is wanting you to do? Well, no, it's not. Faith is
not something that you muster up on your own. It's not something
that you can have confidence in your own flesh about. It's
not something that you do. As a matter of fact, Hebrews
11 and verse 1 is just a continuation of Hebrews chapter 10 and verses
38 and 39. If you're there, look at what
it says here. It says, Now the just, that's
those who have been justified, right? That's the people of God.
The just shall live by faith. Now if you go back to where that's
quoted at, that's actually quoted from an Old Testament passage. You'll see that it is, now the
just shall live by his faith. Whose faith? Well, Paul told
us the faith that he lives by is not his faith, personal, but
by his faith, Christ Jesus' faith. Now the just shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, my
soul shall have no pleasure in him. So there's a lot of people
who say, there you go, preacher, that tells you right there that
you can lose your salvation. That right there tells me that
a true child of grace can apostatize and go back. They can lose their
faith. They can lose their assurance. They can lose their hope and
go back into apostasy. But look at verse 39, brethren.
The just shall live by faith. That's what he just made a clear
statement of. But if any man draw back, my
soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we, who's the we? The just that shall live by faith.
But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them
that believe to the saving of the soul. What is the saving
of the soul? Well, that's exactly what the
faith that is the substance of things hoped for is looking to.
The saving of the soul. That final reward. That final
consummation of all things that's part of our salvation in all
of its aspects. Its eternal aspects, its experimental
aspects, its future aspects. All of the aspects that we are
going to experience whenever we pass from this life into the
next. put on that spiritual body and
we enter into that eternal state in the presence of our Holy God,
that is what we are looking to. And we are believing unto the
saving of the soul and that is the context on what faith is
the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not
seen. The fact that we are receiving
the saving of our souls And that we by faith are hoping in that
shows that we are the just and we are living by faith. And we're
not doing that because we conjured that up. We're doing that because
that's the statement of fact of the work of God in us. Faith
is the work of God in us. So hopefully that's a little
better biblical definition of faith than what we hear out here
in these man-centered sermons that are being plastered all
over the world and how we are putting hope in men, hope in
princes, and hope in our own flesh. So may we be kept by God
and looking to what true faith really is. All right, anybody
have any comments or anything you want to add to this or any
other passages that stick out to you? Corrections or reviews? I hope I didn't speak these things
in my own wisdom. They truly was from the scriptures. All right, let's have a father. We thank you once again for the
day. Thank you for your word. Thank you for Christ. Thank you
for salvation. Thank you for the Holy Spirit
of God who bears witness with our spirit where he is. Thank
you for the faith and hope that is given to your people. Confidence
that comes not in anything that we do it of ourselves, but only
what is done through the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we just
pray that as we leave here today, that you might keep us by your
spirit, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our
faith. Lord, that whenever we preach and whenever we bear testimony
to others that we know, I pray, Lord, that you would keep us
looking unto you That the testimony would be of Christ Jesus and
not of what we can do in and of ourselves. That our hope might
not be in a church or within a preacher or within some denomination
or theological system. But Lord, that our true hope
is found in Christ and Christ alone. And only you can give
us that hope. Only you can give us that faith and confidence. So Lord, we just ask now that
you would bless your people with those things. been experiencing
doubts, Lord, may the gospel be a refuge to them today as
Christ has been their exceedingly great reward. And so Father,
Lord, I pray that everything we've done here today has been
pleasing to you and has been in accordance to the truth and
has exalted our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, for his name we
pray.