And I want to talk this morning
about a very strange subject. Faith. You say, oh, that's not strange.
I've heard a lot about faith. So have I. That's what makes
it so strange. Anything men talk about very
much, the real truth of it becomes clouded and obscured and replaced
with non-truth. So that's why I say faith is
a strange thing. You know who a stranger is, don't
you? Somebody you don't know. When I say faith is a strange
thing, Because we don't know much. Verse. Hebrews 10 verse 35. Cast not away therefore your
confidence. I see so many doing just that
in this hour. With all the pressures of life. Troubles temptations trials doubts. I've watched it for over 50 years
now. Folks who claim to have such
great faith claim to be so spiritual. I've seen them lay it all aside. Whatever it was, they called
faith and joined this God hating world. I'll give you a little nugget
now. People who really possess God-given faith, for the most
part, are people who question whether they have any faith at
all. They don't boast of something
they're not sure they have. And God miraculously sustains
poor, doubting souls year after year after year. I've seen that
and how blessed it is. But the big mouth, bless God,
we're going to take a stand. Pretty soon they take a seat
and it's over. And I've watched this through
the years. The Lord seemingly do a work in someone's life, and Mr. Know-it-all, I'd say,
that won't last. I got my eyes on these people
that's so high and holy. But on down the road, that crowd's
gone, and that one I said will never last. somehow just keeps
on pulling in the midst of hurts and heartaches and tragedies.
And it's not them, it's God. And it's not you and it's not
I, it's God. It's this blessed thing of God-given
faith imputed to us. Verse 35, cast not away therefore
your confidence which hath great recompense of reward. Now reward here is not a crown
of gold or a mansion next door to Jesus. The reward is to come out in
the end in the image of Christ. What could be greater? What could
be greater? The Lord told Abraham way back
in Genesis, I am thy exceeding great reward. Isn't he enough? Yes, he is. Yes, he is. And that's
what all God's children want. For you have need of patience
that after you have done the will of God, you might receive
the promise for yet a little while. And he that shall come
will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith.
But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in
him. But we are not of them who draw back unto partition, but
of them that believe to the saving of the soul. Verse 38 said, now
the just shall live by faith. The unjust have no faith to live
by, but the just shall live by faith. What is it to live by faith? First, I'll say there is an abundance
of written material on the subject of faith, and much of it is wrong. There is an abundance of speaking
on the subject of faith, television, radio, and so much of it is wrong. They speak of faith as our own
possession, of our own creating, of our own strengthening, and
our own increasing it. When the Bible clearly says that
faith is the gift of God. So the first basic truth is this. Faith does not originate in the
human mind and heart and action and struggle. Ephesians 2, 8,
it is the gift of God. It is given only to God's elect,
God's people. Titus 1.1, according to the faith
of God's elect. The rest of humanity don't have
it. You say, well, everybody has
faith. You know, that's what they say on TV and radio, exercise
your faith, release your faith. Well, if you don't got any, you
can't. 2 Thessalonians 3, 2, For all men
have not faith. And the second fundamental truth, contrary to
the belief of most of the religious world today, faith does not precede
regeneration. By regeneration, we mean the
quickening work of God the Spirit, which gives us life spiritually,
a relationship with God. We call it being born again. And faith is the gift of God,
which makes us conscious of that life He has given. Most folks teach that you must
exercise faith in order to be born again. The truth is, you must be born
again to even possess any faith. God's quickening, which means
life-giving, it comes first. And in that quickening work,
we're given faith to believe. You don't believe to be saved
You can only truly believe if you are saved. I know this is strange stuff
to some of you. But there is assurance in this, that if you believe and you have
a heart for the Lord, and a heart to honor the Lord, and live for
Him and obey Him, and your life count for Him, that's His doing. It's not something you have to
make happen. Faith to believe is not mustered
up human confidence. It's not this mess of, oh, come
on, you can do it. No. True faith is a divine gift. It never dies and it never fails. Faith is really the ability to
believe God. Not believe in God, but believe
God. Abraham believed God. Not believe
in God, but Abraham believed God. It was counted to him for
righteousness. What did God say that he believed?
He believed God's report concerning his son and what he would do
about Abraham's sin problem. That's why Christ said, Abraham,
your father Abraham, rejoice to see my day. And he saw it
and was glad. What made him glad? God did something
about his sin in his son. That's what makes me glad this
morning. Believe God and trust Him. Without faith, you cannot believe
God. Faith is God getting your attention,
not you getting His. Now, moving out of this 10th
chapter into Hebrews 11. Now, faith is the substance of
things hoped for. literally rendered, faith is
a confidence giving substance to things hoped for. It is a
confidence making real and making certain that which is hoped for. And it's the evidence or the
firm and sure conviction of things not seen. It's the persuading
evidence, the certainty of things not seen. We hope for a lot of
things in this world, especially young folks, got all
kind of hopes. When what is hoped for is according
to God's will. He puts substance in that hope.
And you keep on hoping. He puts confidence and conviction
that it will happen. So you keep on hoping. That's
not something you do in yourself. If it's just us, If it's our
crazy idea that we're hoping for, and it's not God's will,
there's no substance. There's no endurance. There's
no real conviction. And it'll die, that hope will. But God-given faith is vision
in the heart, that does not appear in the eyes. Faith is not human reason. It
is not positive thinking. It is not daydreaming, carnal
wishful thinking. No, it is God-given certainty
of things not seen as yet. Not things which don't exist.
They do exist. in the mind and purpose of God
in his time, but things not seen as yet by
men. Noah was warned of God of things
not seen as yet. They did exist. The flood was
going to come. It was certain to come in the
mind and purpose of God. But it was not seen as yet. And it was faith that convinced
Noah. Not just that this can happen,
but that it will happen. And therefore, the Bible says,
by faith, That is, with that conviction, Noah prepared an
ark. It had never rained on the earth. There was no natural evidence
that a flood would ever occur. What evidence did he have? God-given
evidence. substance. And apart from faith, it was
impossible for Noah to believe it. Now in your life and mine, as God's children, with God-given
faith, it's important to feed that faith. looking to the God who gave it
and His faithfulness. We don't feed God-given faith
looking around for evidence that God's not lying to us. No, that's
not how you feed your faith. Faith is the evidence. Faith says God's not lying. Evidence or no evidence? I'm not believing what I see.
I'm believing Him. Would it have strengthened Noah's
faith to ask around the most intelligent people he
knew? The most religious people he knew? No way. They didn't believe it. They couldn't believe it. Only
the one whom God himself put it in here could believe it.
And he couldn't disbelieve it. That's why he went to work. Now, here's the next thing. Did
you know we don't believe by effort? Philippians 120 for unto you
it is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on
him but also to suffer for his sake. You didn't believe on him
in yourself. It is given you to believe. I can stand here and tell you
some wild story that happened to me this week. And maybe out
of a measure of respect, you might nod your head as if you
believe it. But with no effort whatsoever, immediately you believed
it or you didn't believe it. If it was a wild story, you might
be shaking your head yes and say, I don't believe a word of
that. You see, we don't believe by
effort. It is given you to believe. Not just with a mental consent.
Everybody will say, yes, I believe. I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. But real believing comes through
God-given faith. Giving substance, full confidence
and reliance upon God Himself. Does His character warrant my
believing His Word? It certainly does. It certainly
does. He's proven Himself to be faithful
so many times over. He's proven Himself to be right
about everything. How many times have you heard somebody
say, well, he thinks he's right about everything. She thinks
she's right about everything. God is. There was, long ago, there was
three men standing before an old rotten footbridge. Nobody had crossed it in years,
and it was extremely rotten. One of the three said, that thing's
rotten. I don't believe we can cross
it. Another said, yeah, I believe
you're right. It is too rotten to cross. And the third fellow said, I
believe we can do it. I don't believe it's that rotten. And they argued a minute. And
then he said, well, there ain't but one way for you to prove
that you're right. Do it. So he crossed it. See, faith is the God-given power
to prove that he's right. And it works in God's children
every time. Now, I've been thinking this week
about something that happened way back in the book of Exodus
chapter two. If you're really going to learn
anything worthwhile about life, Your life and your experience,
you have to learn it from God's Word. The newspaper is not going to
tell you. Popular opinion is not going
to tell you. God has told us right. And how it was 5,000 years ago,
so far as principle in life, has not changed, will not change. There was a couple, an Israelite
couple of the tribe of Levi expecting a baby. Many of you know this
story. They were slaves in Egypt. And
the Pharaoh had made it law that any child born to the Israelites
If it was a girl, it could live. But if it was a boy, he couldn't
live. He must be cast into the Nile
River. Now you talk about a crisis. Can you put yourself there? The
whole time she carried that baby. wondering if it was a boy or
a girl. Put yourself in that dilemma. Of course, the whole law of the
pharaoh was an effort to eliminate the Hebrew nation. And Egyptian men would take those
little girls home with them. They would raise them. to be
wives or concubines or whatever, and raise up children that'd
be half breeds. And pretty soon there'd be no
Hebrews, Egyptians. I've heard that referred to concerning
mixing of races in marriage, crossing racial lines, but that's
not really the issue. never has been. What it was about
was about people who believed God and people who didn't. People who possessed God-given
faith, and not all Israelites did, but this couple did, versus those who didn't. When
Paul said, Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, That's the issue. He wasn't talking about skin
color. He was talking about young man,
young lady, don't you play the fool and marry somebody that
don't have a heart for your God. That's what he's talking about. That's the issue. Now this couple
Back there, they could have taken the easy way out and they could
have let go of their son, let him be murdered like others did. But that wouldn't have been easy
either. There was no easy way. But because God had put something. In their hearts to do what's
right. This baby must live. This couples in Hebrews 11 here
23rd verse. By faith Moses and it's not about
Moses about his parents. When he was born was he had three
months of his parents because they saw he was a proper child
and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. When the mother saw him Exdus says that he was a goodly
child. Here in Hebrew says, when she
saw that he was a proper child, I don't know what all that means.
Don't try to tell me, you know, all we know is that God miraculously
put something in her heart. She couldn't ignore. It was living faith. She hoped her child could live.
And what God put in her was substance, confidence. She could see that
hopeful field. She took a little arc, a little
basket of bulrushes and daubed it with slime and with pitch,
made it, made it waterproof. That's what Noah did with the
big ark. Same thing. And she put the baby Moses in
it and hid him, the Bible says, among the flags, the weeds, the bulrushes, the edge
of the Nile River. The law was to put the baby boys
in the river with no intention of surviving.
crocodile food. So she obeyed in that sense,
but she just put him in a little basket. She must have known the very
spot that Pharaoh's daughter would come down to bathe on a
daily basis. And she believed or she hoped
with a measure of God-given confidence that God would work a miracle. And even though Pharaoh's daughter's
own daddy had decreed that Hebrew baby boys must die, this mother
had confidence that God would work a miracle. And when that
young lady found him, she'd be touched. and spare the baby's life. Hebrews
11, 23 says, they were not afraid of the king's commandment. That don't mean they jumped in
Pharaoh's face and said, we're not going to do it. No, no. There was a measure of secrecy
in this and wisdom in this. Here's what it means. They were
not afraid of the king's commandment. It means when the King's commandment
goes against what God's put in your heart, you have to go with
God. If God hadn't put it in your heart,
you won't and can't. Someone has said, if you fear
God, you need not fear any man. If you don't fear God, you must
fear every man. Faith is that mysterious power
from heaven that won't stop short of reaching back to heaven and
touching God. These parents didn't give in and murder their baby and go
to church the next Sunday singing, Living by Faith. No. No. They lived by faith. They knew if they had gotten
caught, both them and the baby would die. But faith in their hearts said,
if that's how God lets it fall, so be it. But we cannot do otherwise
than what He's put in our heart to do. Bobby and Lynn sang last Sunday
I'm going to die on the battlefield. You're going to die somewhere. Only God-given faith can put the substance, the confidence,
the assurance, the determination in your heart that you're going
to die fighting the good fight of faith against the world, against your own flesh and against
the devil, against the demons of doubt and unbelief in your
own heart. Feed your faith. Paul said in
Colossians, setting your affection on things above, not on things
on the earth. These parents were not rich and
famous. They were not politicians. They
were not showy and super religious. They're not even named in Exodus
2 or Hebrews 11. I find that interesting. They're
not in the limelight really. It's not about them. It's about
God. Oh, that He'd do that for us. We do find their names. only in the lineage of the Levites,
Exodus 6 and 20. Moses' father was named Amram
and his mother was named Jochebed. So you don't have to be some
kind of a super saint to believe and obey God. You don't have
to have the reputation that you've always done right. There might come a time in your
life, if it hasn't already, that you'll say, I just don't know
how I'm going to make it. I have poor health. I have no
job. I have no hope. I have no home. I have no family. I have no resources. I have no
one. Let me tell you what the apostle
John said for God's child. 1 John 5, 4, this is the victory
that overcometh the world, even your ability, even your faith. That which God's
put in your heart that you have so often tried to shove off into
some dark corner, that's where victory lies. Faith that believes
the Word of God. Faith that seeks the will of
God. Faith that obeys the leadership
of the Spirit of God. Granted, we're not saved by faith
and works. We're saved by faith that does
work. Faith that don't work, James
said, is dead. Every true believer prays, oh Lord, for the strengthening
of the measure of God-given faith I have. You might not be a parent
or grandparent of a Moses, but don't take it on yourself to
say I'm nothing And even God can't do anything for me. If you're smarter than he is,
you're too smart. Just know this morning. He doesn't
need your ability. Just your availability. Pray and ask God. To work in
your life. to make a difference in somebody
else's life. That's enough. Not to be no more,
no, no, no, no. Lord, please, in all my ignorance,
in all my selfishness, in all my unfaithfulness, for your glory,
work something in my life to make a difference in someone
else's life. Not somebody of my choosing,
but of your choosing. Commit everything to Him and
just bloom where you're planted. I could go on and on. I've fooled
with plants for a lot of years. And I've seen plants, I mean
you pot them, you plant them, you nourish them, you do everything
you can do and they go for years and don't bloom. And usually when you quit trying
so hard, they bloom. Quit trying so hard. Just believe. Obey and trust. Do right and God will do the
rest. Don't try to make it happen.