I invite you to turn back in
your Bibles to Mark Chapter 9. I think this story is short enough,
plain enough, and simple enough. I don't think you'll have to
review the story again, but if you want to leave your Bibles
open there, you can, as I mentioned the various verses in it, you
can refer back to them. And rather than read the text
again, just let me see if I can't set the scene of what's taking
place here. Now the Lord had gifted his disciples,
and he'd given them certain gifts, things to do, miracles that they
could work as tokens, as ratifications that they were sent of him. And
lots of times they came back rejoicing because they could
cast out demons and do these various miracles. And then he
went up on this high mountain with Peter, James, and John.
Some of the writers said the elect of the elect went up there
with him. And he was transfigured before
their eyes and his raiment become white and glistering. They looked
as they saw Him and marveled and feared at the same time.
And that's exactly what happens when we see the glory of Christ.
We marvel and we fear at the same time of His awful majesty
and glory. And they saw that. John talks
about it over in I John chapter 1. We saw His glory. He talks
about it in John chapter 1. Peter talked about it. He said,
we hadn't followed cunningly devised fables. We was on the
mount with him. We saw him transfigured before
our eyes. We saw his glory. We're eyewitnesses. And he saw him talking to Elijah
and Moses. Between those two, they represented
the law and the prophets, the whole Old Testament. And they
talked to him about his death and his resurrection. And then
they came back down off the mountain. Now, while they were on the mountain,
a man came. He heard that the master, the
physician, the great physician was out here. And he had this
boy, demon-possessed, from the time he was just a child. And
he couldn't do anything with him. He was uncontrollable. And
he went into these pits of rage. And he did all these things.
And he knew that he was demon-possessed, and he'd heard that the Master
could cast out demons, and some of his apostles and disciples. And so he brought this young
boy out here, and the Master wasn't there. He was gone. He
was up on the mountain. And some of the more notable
of the disciples wasn't there. Peter wasn't there. James wasn't
there. John wasn't there. trip, and he brought this young
man to them. And they tried to cast out the
demon, but they couldn't do it. They couldn't do it. And the Pharisees was there,
and the scribes. They're always there, ain't they? You read about his ministry,
and John the Baptist, and those dogs were nipping at their heels
throughout their whole ministry. They were right there. Right
there. Seizing the opportunity. And here it was. Here comes this
man with a real need, sincere. And he brings this young boy
up and they try to cast out the demon and they can't do it. And
the Pharisees said, see? See what we've been telling you?
And they, before it was over, these Pharisees had stirred up
a mob. I mean, they, he, he, I read
to you a while ago and you hear him, there was a great multitude
gathered down there. And here's these Pharisees and
these scribes, and they're casting out accusations, and they're
laughing these men to scorn, and laughing their Lord to scorn,
who wasn't even there. See, if there's anything to Him,
if He had really gifted these men, if there was anything really
to them, they could cast that demon out. Well, they'd saw demons
cast out before. I mean, how many demons do you
have to cast out before somebody says you're able to do it? They'd
already seen this before. They'd already seen folks healed
in their presence. But this was the opportunity.
This was the opportunity. And so here they were. And this
is how Satan works. I've been talking to you some
here lately about the spirit of the devil and how he works
in this world. He's here. He's here. And he dwells in men. Men don't
know it. And here's the perfect example
of what I was trying to teach you the other night. Here's this
boy, demon possessed, homing at the mouth. I mean, in every
sense of the word, when we think about demon possession, here
it is. This demon cast him first into fire and got him out of
the fire and throwed him in the water. He just did everything
in his power to destroy that man and just Took him and threw
him on the ground and he convulsed and shake until it tore the flesh
from his arms and legs. It tore him, it says. He foamed
at the mouth. He was uncontrollable. The Father
couldn't do anything with him. Couldn't do anything with him.
Now here's what Satan does. He'll dangle this over here.
It's the old sleight of hand trick. He'll dangle this over
here and say, this is demon possession. But the real demon possession
was over here in the scribes and Pharisees. And while everybody's
attention was focused on this madman, he was taking multitudes
to hell with him with that Antichrist spirit in those Pharisees and
scribes. That's how he works in this world.
He dangles murderers, mass murderers. He dangles these men, these wild
men up here. We've got them in our day. Our
mental hospitals are full of them. Uncontrollable. Can't do
anything with it. He'll dangle that up here. And
the whole religious world looks on at that. And it truly is demon
possession. And they look on at this demon
possession and they don't see this big work that Satan's doing
over here. Just taking them to hell by the
multitude. Sweeping them in. Sweeping them
in. That whole multitude over there. The ministry of these disciples
had come to a standstill as the Spirit of Antichrist came in
with these Pharisees and worked on that multitude. That's what's
going on. What I see demonstrated in this
miracle, and I hope I can convey to you here this morning, is
that the power to effect a cure is not in the means, it's in
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. It said suddenly the
Lord came down. That's what has to take place.
That's what has to take place. I know that these men were gifted
of God. Every preacher called of God
gifted. He's given certain gifts of communication
and understanding and education and he can He's able to read
books and discern from the books what he reads. We've all got
gifts and things, but that don't amount to a hill of beans when
these uncontrollable things, and that's what's in the hearts
of people. You know, we think we can just
take somebody aside and sit down and put our arm around them and
say, now, brother, let me just tell you the truth and start
explaining it to them, and then we're shocked when they don't
get up and say, well, that makes sense to me. When they get up
and say, well, I don't believe that. Where did you get that?
Huh? What makes a man do that? He
wouldn't do that if you were sitting down and explaining to
him some scientific fact or how to play football or something.
He wouldn't do that. But you sit down with this book and start
telling him something about the glory of Christ. Whoa, now wait
a minute, brother. Where are you coming from? Huh?
What is that? That's that uncontrollable spirit.
And I've got no power over him whatsoever. Now I've got one
thing I'm told to do, the same as these men were told to do,
preach to them. Preach to them. What it takes to effect the change,
what it takes to make this ministry successful is the person and
presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what it takes. Nothing
less than that is going to do the work. It's not going to do
the work. And I believe that's what he's
showing us here. That's what he's showing us. There's two ifs in the text. And I want you to understand
this. Faith is the subject here. We're going to get into it and
talk about it and what it is and the difficulties of it and
all that. Faith is the subject of this
thing. And there's two ifs. Two ifs
here. And I want you to see what the
Lord does The first one, this distraught father, this troubled
father who brought this son, expecting something to be done.
And nothing was done. And this left him. What the Pharisees
had done, what he saw here in the failure of his disciples,
had set their Lord in a bad light. And when the Lord comes, He speaks
to him in that light. And He said, well, if you can
do anything, If you can do anything. We're
talking about Him who's done everything. If you can do anything,
have compassion on us. And the Lord said, He takes that second if. See,
that man put that if on Christ. If you can do anything. The Lord
said, now let's take that if. And you read the other translations
and that's exactly what it says. He said, let's take this if and
put it where it belongs, if you can believe. If you can believe, all things
are possible to him that believes. Now let's look at this story
and see if we can find a few things to help us concerning
this thing of saving faith. And here's the first thing. I
think we need to get this out of the way first. What is faith? What is it? If somebody came
up to you today and said, what is faith? You'd stammer and stutter
the same as I would, and try and tell them, now wait a minute,
and I've got to go through this big long spiel of stuff. No,
that's not faith. That's not faith. Our Lord used
such simple phrases and simple things to describe this faith. In Hebrews 11, verse 1, it defines
faith as the substance of things hoped for. It's the substance of things
hoped for, and it's the evidence of things not seen. It's like
an empty cup. And there's the fountain. Christ
is the fountain. He told that woman at the well,
He said, if you'd have asked of Me, I'd have given you to
drink a well of water. What I give you to drink would
be in you a well of water, bubbling up, springing up unto everlasting
life. Faith is the cup that dips in the fountain. That's what
faith is. Whosoever will, the scripture
said, let him take of the water of life freely. Huh? Do we preach like that? We better learn. We better learn. Faith is the hand that receives
the remedy. It's the hand that receives the
remedy. It's the hand that touches the garment, stretches itself
out to stretch forth thine hand. He couldn't, but he did, didn't
he? Huh? Faith is no more, no less than
a childlike trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the feet of
the soul coming to Christ to be healed. All that the Father
giveth me shall come to me. How are they going to come? No man is going to come unto
me unless the Father draw him. Yeah, but he's coming. He'll
come. When the Father does draw, he'll
come. It's the ear that hears and the
eye that sees. It's the mind that comprehends,
the heart that rejoices. Faith is the means of grace by
which needy sinners are given eternal life. Faith. Here's the
problem here. Here's the madman. Here's the
mean. Everything's here but faith.
But faith. And they wanted to hang that
if on him. And he said, uh-uh. Put it where
it belongs. Put the if on you. If you believe. If you believe. John 5.24, he
said, Verily I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and
believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life. shall
not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life."
Can you believe? Can you believe? If thou canst
believe, ain't that what he said? What's going on here is a divine
work of Christ bringing the sinner to believe on Him. It's a work
performed by God and given freely to us and accomplished in us
by His grace. And yet it's a work done so completely
in you, John, that I can't see God working in you. I just see
the work. It's done so completely in you,
this thing of salvation. He said, let every man, ain't
that what he said? Work out his own salvation in
fear and trembling. That means exactly what it says.
For, he said, it's God that worketh in you. Both to will and to do
of His good pleasure. Can you see God this morning
in anybody? I can't. I just see the evidence
of it. I just see the evidence of it.
What evidence? Faith. Huh? It's the evidence of things not
seen. That's right. God that worketh
in you. But I tell you when He does,
you'll be doing the work. Yes, you will. But when the work
is done, you're going to say, it wasn't me. It was God that
worked in me. I listen to men talk about faith
as though God's going to believe for you. God ain't going to believe
for you. You're going to believe. I thought God had to do the work.
He does. When he does, you'll believe. You'll believe. He's not going to believe for
you. Listen to this. This is the will of Him that
sent me. That's what Christ said. This
is the will of Him that sent me that everyone would seeth
the Son and believeth on Him. Who? Everyone. Everyone. That's a good word. I like that.
That don't fence me out. That don't fence you out. Here's
the will of God. This is the will of God. Now,
I'm telling you, the will of God is going to be done. And
this is the will of God, that everyone which seeth the Son,
and believeth on him, may have everlasting life. And I'll raise
him up in the last day. You see what He's saying to this
man? If thou canst believe. What is this believing? This
believing is just a childlike trust, that's all it is. You
tell these little fellas, now we're going to eat at 6 o'clock.
I guarantee you 6 o'clock rolls around. They're going to be at
the table. Why? Because they believe you. They
believe you. They go to bed and they don't
worry all night long because they know their dad and mom is
right in here in this next room. They're going to be here when
I wake up. They believe. That's what it means to believe
on Christ. It's a childlike trust, what
it is. He said to His disciples, except
you become as one of these little ones, you're not even going to
enter into the Kingdom of God. It's a childlike trust. The second thing I want you to
think about this morning is why is this faith so difficult? My
soul, here was a man who, this was God come into the flesh.
The angels bore witness of Him. The stars bore witness of Him.
The prophets bore witness of Him. Huh? The disciples bore witness of
Him. The Pharisees, the kings of the earth, everybody gathered
together and He performed these miracles right in front of them.
God Himself manifesting that this is My Son did these miracles,
Peter said, right in your midst as you yourselves also know.
You watched it being done. So what's the problem? Why can't
I trust him? Where's the difficulty? Where's
the difficulty? This was a man with a real problem.
His son was ill. He was in a bad shape. And he
came to the right place. He did the right thing. He did
what those men told him to do. He went to the right place. He
did the right thing. So why was believing so difficult? I'm going to give you several
reasons. I want you to listen to me. I think this will help
you. First of all, because it's so contrary to everything we've
ever known. So contrary. I've been told to
believe and. Haven't you? Believe and. And this, and that, and this.
It's so contrary. He just says believe. Believe. He don't say believe
and. He says believe. It's so contrary. It's so contrary to what we know.
We've been told that faith is an experience. We've been told
that faith is a feeling. Faith is a decision. We've been
told that faith is accepting. It's an acceptance. Accepting
the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. We've been told
all these things. That ain't what faith is. Faith
is trusting, believing. I'm telling you, go through the
scriptures. Every time he talks about it, he says, believe, believe,
believe, believe. He just keeps telling you. Why
does he keep telling us? Because he knows it's so contrary
to us. It's so contrary to us. And although
all of these things might be the fruit of faith, real saving
faith is trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the second
reason I believe faith is so difficult is because it seems
so easy. It seems too easy, don't it?
Huh? A lifetime of sin and rebellion
and that evil possession, a lifetime
of being intimidated by this world, and he says, believe.
Believe. Well, that's too easy. There's
got to be something else. No, there ain't nothing else. Ain't
nothing else. You can't find anything else
in here. Believe. Old Naaman, he come over at that
big entourage He came up there to the prophet's front door,
and the prophet wouldn't even come out of the tent. Sent out
his servant. Said, go tell him to dip in the
River Jordan. Seven times. Man, he throwed a fit. Why, there's beautiful rivers
in my own country. I could have stayed there and
dipped in the river. How dipping in a river going
to get rid of leprosy? I thought he'd come out and make
a big show. I thought he'd come out and call
on the name of his God and strike his hand on the sores. I thought,
I thought, I thought. His servant said, hang on a minute.
You are a leper, ain't you? If I was you, I'd go dip in the
river. If he'd asked you to do some
difficult thing, huh? Got a big crowd of people up
at Don's during the conference coming up. I stand up there and
I say to those visitors, never heard Grace preach before, I
stand up there and tell them, now here's what you got to do.
You got to go out here to Arizona, and you got to live in that desert
on wild berries for a year. Why, don't you know about eight
or ten of them would pack up and go? You say, well, that's
what this little servant, this little know-nothing, told that
king. He said, if he'd asked you to do some great thing, you'd
have done it. You'd have turned somersaults
to go do it, and then bragged on it for all eternity. He said,
how much easier would it be just to go dunk in the water, huh,
and be cleansed. Sound pretty good to me. Got
sounding good to Naaman, too. That's what he did. Lord tells
us to believe. If he told us some great thing,
we'd all be out here killing ourselves trying to do it. Everything
in us fights against that. We want to do something. We want
to do some great thing. We want to call up some old experience. We want to say, boy, I remember
the place and the time. I was out under that live oak
tree. Man, the spirit fell on me. I was convicted and went
to shaking and tearing up and cried to God. And he come down
and saved me. And we look back to that the
rest of our lives. Got no saving efficacy in it
whatsoever. It's just a childlike trust in
the Lord Jesus. It's so simple. It's so easy. And that's what makes it so difficult. What makes it so difficult? We
want something else. We don't see how anything that
easy could work. It's difficult because it's so
contrary to human logic and reason. And so difficult because it's
so contrary to everything we've ever been told. And faith seems
so hard because it's so easy. And then listen to this. Faith
is difficult because it seems too good to be true. Believe on Him. Believing on
Him is what confirms your calling as a son. Now you think about that. Isn't that what he says over
there in John chapter 1? He came unto his own, his own
received him not. He was in the world, the world
knew him not. But some of them believed on
him, didn't they? Huh? And they were born of God. They were born of God. And they
believed. That's what constituted their
sonship. That's how they know their son.
Make your calling and election sure. And then listen to this, true
saving faith is so difficult because men and women refuse
to bow to the Word of God. They won't do it. I can't teach
a man who won't bow himself to the Word of God and say, now
here's what we're going to do. We're going to take this book
and I'm going to show you from this book. God has to make him
bow to it. He has to shut him up to it.
Many women, they will not naturally bow to the word of God. They'll
just go on and on and on with, I feel, I think, I said, I did
this in tradition. My father said, my grandmother
was a godly woman. I doubt it. I doubt it. Not if she told you those things
she was. It's just so difficult because
men won't bow to the Word of God. They want to mix in their
religious concepts and ideas, and they want to muddle things
up by stirring in their own feelings and experiences. They want to
add their own traditional understanding to the Word of God. And I'll tell you this, you can
just forget about true saving faith until God shuts you up
to this book. You can just forget it. It ain't
going to happen. Here's another thing. This is another thing
that makes faith so difficult. It's man's utter refusal to hear
the preaching of the gospel. Well, that's your opinion. Ain't
that what they say? That guy over there thinks he's
the only one in the world who knows anything. Utter rejection of the preaching
of the gospel. Can you imagine what would have
happened to the Ethiopian eunuch if God hadn't sent Philip out?
He'd held that book open and read Isaiah until he died and
never knew what that scripture meant. That's right. Naaman,
servant of God, had to tell him what to do. The Bible says we can't call
on an unrevealed God, and He reveals Himself through gospel
preaching. How shall you hear without a
preacher? Paul said to me, who am less than the least of all
saints, is this grace given? That I should preach the unsearchable
riches of Christ and make all men to see the fellowship of
the mystery which from the beginning of the world has been hid in
God, who created all things by Jesus Christ. with this intent
that now unto principalities and powers and heavenly places
might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God. That's
why he left his church in this world, that his gospel might
be preached. And then sixthly, faith is so
difficult to natural men because he disregards the plain instruction
of the Lord. He gives priority to everything
except his spiritual welfare. I was doing some math a while
ago, early this morning, actually. There's 168 hours in a week,
and counting the time that it takes you to get dressed and
drive over here and drive back home, you that are the farthest
away, that's seven hours a week. That leaves 161 hours. And yet, everything under the
sun finds priority during those seven hours that can't get done
in 161. Think about that. Think about
that. That's what makes believing so
difficult. We disregard, we won't take advantage
of the means that God sets before us. And you remember that scripture,
the Armenians like to take it all out of context. that whatsoever
a man soweth, that shall he also reap. That's what that scripture
is talking about. It's actually talking about offerings,
but it has an application overall. If you give your life to your
physical comfort, you're going to enjoy that. Sure you will.
You'll enjoy that big house. You'll enjoy that big recliner.
You'll enjoy all of it. Sure you will. You'll enjoy all
of that stuff. But you're going to hurt spiritually. Because to have this, you disregarded
this. It's OK to have these things,
but don't disregard this. Don't disregard this. It's going
to cost you. It's going to cost you. I'll
tell you, when the Lord says, don't do this, he means don't
do this. And he said, forsake not the assembling of yourselves
together. And then lastly, faith is difficult
because we refuse to exercise it in the right direction. Faith
is in Christ. It's not just that you have a
childlike trust. There's lots of people in this
world that I know who don't know God who have childlike trust
in them. That's just being a child is
all that is. Childlike trust has to do with
the object of the trust, Christ. What made this whole thing official
was Christ. Everybody was doing what they
were supposed to do, but they failed with unbelief. Nothing
happened. And they wanted to put that if
on him. Huh? Well, if the Lord had done
this, That's what he said, if you can do anything. He doubted
that. I'm telling you, I can just put
myself in this man's shoes after what he'd just seen, and those
Pharisees and that spirit of Antichrist had come down and
just laid that whole mess over on them, and everybody in the
multitude was laughing at him and stuff. I can just imagine
how he felt. And he's the only one to speak
up. and told him what this whole thing was about. And he said,
all I wanted to do was bring my son up here and have him healed.
And they couldn't do it. He said, if there's anything
you can do. Christ said, if. Let's put that if over here where
it belongs on you. That's where the problem is.
If. If thou can't believe. Faith is difficult because we
refuse to exercise it in the right direction. The Bible doesn't
tell us to believe in our belief, does it? Huh? Faith is not our Savior. The
Savior is the Savior. Faith is in Him. And I stand
up here and I preach this this morning, and before I get out
that door today, I'm going to make a prophecy. Somebody is
going to start talking to me about how weak their faith is.
How changeable my faith is. It ain't in your faith. It's
in the object of your faith. If your faith, our Lord said,
if your faith was as a grain of mustard seed. What's the biggest mountain you
ever seen? Rocky Mountain? You can say that Rocky Mountain.
Get out of here. That mountain will move over.
Huh? It ain't in your faith. in the
object of your faith. That faith is no more than the
faith of a child. It just trusts in Him. Trusts
in Him. We always, we want to talk about
weak faith and hot and cold faith and changeable faith and shaken
faith and all that other stuff. Faith ain't the Savior. Christ
is the Savior. How feeble was that hand that
touched His garment? Huh? All them years, exhausted
everything she had. How weak was that? Went through
the press. All she could do, reach out and
touch the hem of his garment. How weak was that hand? How strong
was the paralyzed body that laid by the pool of Bethesda all them
years? How inadequate was the fishes
and loaves to feed the hungry multitude? How insufficient was
that handful of men by whom he turned the world upside down? Our faith is pitiful. I'll tell
you, our faith is less than this man's faith. Our faith is pitiful. But it's something that that
faith finds its place in Christ. It can find its place in Christ.
The strength and sufficiency of faith is in its object. We talked about what faith is.
Faith is that childlike trust. And I've tried to show you some
of these things about these obstacles and things that make faith so
difficult. Now thirdly, let's talk about
this. What takes away the difficulty? What gets rid of the difficulty?
Well, first and foremost, the spirit of the living God. Faith
is simple. A child can believe. Anybody
can believe. I gave you an example. I had
my son believe that muffler was hot. He ain't gonna touch it
anymore. Faith is simple. It's simple. What makes it difficult
are all these other things. Well, what's gonna take away
the difficulties? The Spirit of the Living God.
He takes away those vain notions. He takes away that old nature
and its ideas and concepts and puts in us a new heart. The Bible said it's by Him and
His power that we're born again. That's right. By the Spirit of
God. We're born again. Think about
that. I have no revelation apart from
the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives me eyes
to see. things that have been hidden
from the princes of this world. It gives me eyes to see the purpose
of God in Christ, to see His appointments, to see the glory
of His incarnation, the satisfaction of His obedience, the sufficiency
of His sacrifice, and the power of His resurrection. To be born
of the Holy Spirit is to be made meet, that is to be made able
to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. And to
be born of the Spirit is to have the will of God supersede my
will. It's to be made willing in the
day of His power. You'll be willing. He doesn't
have any unwilling servants. They're all willing. To be born of His Spirit is to
be illuminated of God, filled with light. He calls them the
saints in light. And all of the great mysteries
hidden in God are revealed to the believer, he said, yea, even
the deep things of God. Now faith is impossible to the
natural man because he receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God. That's the problem. He won't have it. He won't have
it. Preaching of the cross, it says,
is foolishness to them that are perishing. The idea of walking
in faith alone is foolishness to the unbelievers. He'll consent
to it at the beginning. He'll talk about being born again,
but then he wants to walk according to the law. Ain't that what Paul
dealt with in Galatia? He said, are you so foolish,
having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect through
the flesh? That's foolishness. And then Christ alone. The whole
concept of Christ alone is foolishness to the natural man. Paul said
to the Galatians, I marvel that you're so soon removed from Him
unto another gospel. What takes away this difficulty?
The Holy Spirit of God. Paul said, knowing, brethren
beloved, your election of God, for our gospel came not unto
you in word only, but it came in the power and demonstration
of the Spirit. The second thing that takes away
that difficulty is the infallible, inerrant Word of God. It says,
He that believeth not God hath made God a liar. That's what
the Scripture says. He made God a liar. And then
thirdly, what takes away this difficulty is Christ's perfect
suitableness to our needs. I like this point. I thought
on this a long time. Holy Spirit conviction is to
make us see our troubles and our sins and our cleanliness.
You know, the Lord asked that man when he said, how long is
this boy? You reckon the Lord of glory didn't know how long
that boy had that spirit? Huh? Why did he ask him that
question? He wanted to bring this whole
trouble fresh into his mind. He wanted that man to know in
his presence. these things. And that's what
Holy Spirit conviction does. He makes you to know your sins.
He brings them fresh upon your mind. And then comes to you in
His presence. And you see His absolute suitableness
to your needs. I need a priest. He's my priest.
I need a Savior. He's my Savior. I need taught. He's my wisdom. And you just
go on and on and on. Perfectly suitable. Fourthly, the things that remove
this difficulty is the glory of Christ's person. It says in
Mark 9, 15, when they beheld Him, they were greatly amazed. He walked up to that lynch mob.
He wasn't shaking. He wasn't sweating. And He wasn't
stuttering. And they was amazed. And He addressed
them and dealt with the problem. Went on about His business. I believe that's the biggest
problem. They don't see His glory. If they saw His glory, they'd
trust in Him, wouldn't they? Sure you would. The sufficiency
of His work. And then, sixthly, and I'll quit
with this, God takes away the difficulty in showing us how others, far
worse off than we were, were saved this way. I like what one
of the old writers said. He said, if I'd been back in
the days of Noah and I'd been a rabbit, and I'd come up to
that ark and look and saw that big long processional coming
into the ark, he said, I think I'd been worried. Ain't gonna
be no room for a rabbit. But he said, I stood there a
while, and he said, and I seen that pair of elephants go through
the door. He said, man, if there's room
for elephants, there's room for a rabbit. That's right. Oh, I'll tell you, he said, we're
encompassed about by so great a multitude, so a great cloud
of witnesses. And we look at them, and there's
murderers and adulterers and go on demon-possessed men and
on and on and on. And you see so many that the
Lord's called to faith. Read Hebrews 11. So many that
He's called to faith and saved by faith, who walk by faith,
inherited Promises by faith! Huh? I tell you, I know I haven't
murdered anybody, spiritually I have, but physically I haven't.
All of these things, I tell you. I look at them and I find hope,
don't you? I find hope. I can relate to
old Peter, I guess, as well. Him or David, one, as well as
anybody else in the Scripture. Paul said, Howbeit for this cause
I obtain mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth
all longsuffering for a pattern to them that hereafter believe
on Him unto life everlasting. He said, The Lord saved me. Called me to faith. Took me into
glory. Surely He'll take you. That demon spirit troubles us,
troubles every one of us, is that spirit of antichrist and
unbelief. And He'll destroy us unless the
Lord intervenes. He will. Oh yes, He will. He'll destroy us if the Lord
doesn't intervene. But I tell you, when He does,
when He exposes the true evil, and He comes before us in His
presence and power and glory, And it puts the if where it belongs.
Then we'll cry out with this man. And we'll say, Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief. Help thou my unbelief. Believe
on him. I tell you, we make this thing
more difficult than it is. The difficulty is not in the
believing. The difficulty is in all the
false notions and all the the religion of the world and in
this fallen nature. Believing is just trusting. That's
all it is. But when are you going to trust?
When you see. When are you going to see? When his presence and power are
made known. When's that? When you hear his gospel. You
see what he's saying here? All of these miracles, You can
take them one at a time or you can put them all together. They
all picture the same thing, how He gathers His elect to Himself
and how He calls them to faith. Raising them from the dead, healing
them, casting out the demons, on and on and on.