It's good to have Chris. Chris
Cunningham, pastor of College Grove Grace Church in College
Grove, Tennessee. May the Lord bless you. Good
to have you here, Chris. Turn to Hebrews 11 for a little
while this morning. This is a familiar chapter. Everybody
knows it. It's called the Hall of Faith
by some. Faith is defined in Hebrews chapter
11, and it's a blessing to me how the Lord chooses to define
things that really he's able by his grace and wisdom to take
eternal things. David and I were talking about
this a while ago. Take eternal, fathomless things and make them
simple so we can understand them. That's remarkable and just amazing
to me. We don't understand the depth
of it, but you read Hebrews 11, you'll know what faith is, as
much as somebody can know what faith is. The gift of faith that
God gives to sinners. What an amazing and wonderful
gift it is. And the way that He defines faith
is by showing examples of what it does and doesn't do. And that's
so interesting. And such a blessing to me. We
could try to define faith. We could come up with a cold
and technical definition for it, couldn't we? The theologians
like to do that, you know, define scriptural things. And it wouldn't
really mean much. It wouldn't really say a whole
lot. We could say, well, faith is the gift of God whereby sinners
believe on Believe God and believe on His Son, and be informative. But if you want to know what
faith is, look at Hebrews 11. And you know, he does the same
thing about love. In 1 Corinthians 13, you want
to know what love is? Well, you could define that.
Some say it's an emotion. It's an attribute whereby this,
that, and the other. If you want to know what it is,
look at 1 Corinthians 13. Love. Here's what it does. Here's what
it doesn't do. Love is not puffed up. It doesn't
vaunt itself. It suffers long. That's how you
know what something is, isn't it? And that's what he does with
faith here in this chapter. Look at verse 3. It says, "...through
faith we understand." What's faith? What is this thing that
God gives His people, this gift of faith? We know that's the
gift of God. Faith and repentance are gifts from God, not of works
in Ephesians 2.8. That faith is not of yourself. It's the gift of God, lest any
man should boast. And repentance, Paul told Timothy,
teach those that oppose themselves. And do it with patience. Do it
with meekness. And peradventure, God will give
them repentance. If you teach them, if you use
the means that God has given, whereby He does bestow these
gifts upon sinners, peradventure, I don't know if he will or not,
but he can if he wants to. He can give repentance, can't
he? He gives faith and repentance
to his people. Through faith we understand.
We understand. We are given an understanding
that we might know Him that is true. By understanding from God,
we know God. And the Lord Jesus said in John
17, this is life eternal. that they might know Thee, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." That's
eternal life. You see what a gift this is? It's by faith that we
understand. It's by faith that we know. Now we begin to see
the weight of this thing, what God did for us when He gave us
faith. And then in verse 11, look at verse 11, this is an
interesting verse, "...through faith also Sarah herself received
strength to conceive seed." Well, you get to thinking about
that. By faith she conceived? She didn't have much to do with
that, did she? She conceived seed. She received that by faith. Well, you say, well, Sarah didn't
do anything there. Neither have you. Neither have
I. We don't do anything. Faith is a receiving grace, isn't
it? It receives from God strength and wisdom, understanding and
ability to serve Him, to do anything, to worship. Are you going to
worship God this morning? The flesh isn't going to do that.
It's always going to be flesh, isn't it? That's why Paul was
so careful to say, it's not I, but Christ. It's Christ that
liveth in me. We don't do it. Faith receives
from God. And faith doesn't accept any
glory. It doesn't. It gives God all
the glory. And then in v. 28, look at v. 28. And I'm just
skipping across here. We're going to settle in v. 33.
Look at v. 28. He said, Through faith he
kept the Passover. This is Moses and those that
the Lord Given faith, too, there, he kept the Passover and the
sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn
should touch them." What's the Passover? Well, Paul said Christ
is our Passover. By faith, they believed God when
He said, when I see that blood, I'll pass over you. And that's
what we do, too. By faith, we believe on Christ.
We believe that His blood is our refuge. We believe that Christ
is all, as he's saying. by faith, through faith. You
see what it is that he's done? And then look at verse 33. Let's
just spend a little time looking at the exploits of faith. That's
the title of the message. We see what faith is by what
it does and doesn't do. He mentions some names there,
Gideon and Barak in verse 32, and Samson and Jephthah and David
also, and Samuel and all the prophets who through faith...
Listen to some of the things. They subdued kingdoms and wrought
righteousness." A sinner wrought righteousness? We're going to
have to talk about that a little bit, aren't we? Obtained promises
and stopped the mouths of lions. He mentioned King David there
in verse 32 by name, and you can't help but hymn when you
think of this phrase here, they subdued kingdoms through faith. You know, it's one thing Kingdoms
have a habit of attacking people, picking fights that they can't
lose. But if you think about the exploits of faith that the
Lord led David, the Lord put David into some battles he couldn't
win. And these other ones that are mentioned, Gideon was mentioned.
The Lord said, you've got too many. You're not going up with
that many. And he kept whittling them down. I think there was
10,000 at one point. And the Lord said, now they're
all going to go down to the river and drink. And there's going
to be ones that drink in their hands, and there's going to be
ones that lap like dogs. And that's going to be the difference.
And he said, the ones that lap like dogs, that's going to be
the ones that are going to go up to battle with you. You know,
I don't know for sure what that is. what all that means. But
I got a feeling that the ones that lapped like dogs weren't
the smartest ones in the bunch, do you reckon? I don't know if
that has anything to do with it or not. But you got a pan,
you know, you could drink out of, and you're licking the water
with your tongue, you know. And there were 300 of them that
did that. The Lord said, there's your army. There's your army. But who through faith subdued
kingdoms? fights they couldn't win. Faith
doesn't consider the odds or the strategic advantages or disadvantages
of a fight. You know what faith does? Turn
to 2 Samuel 5. Here's faith. This is the faith
that I believe Paul wrote in Hebrews. I don't know. I wouldn't
argue about it. But I believe Paul, what he's
talking about there in Hebrew, this is what he's talking about
here in 2 Samuel 5. I apologize for the cough. I
hope it's not a distraction. Look at 2 Samuel. This is the
faith that he's talking about. Who through faith subdued nations. Chapter 5 and verse 17. But when the Philistines heard
that they had anointed David king over Israel, and all the
Philistines came up to seek David. And David heard of it and went
down to the hold. And the Philistines also came and spread themselves
in the valley of... I don't know if it's Philistines
or Philistine, so I'll just alternate. The Philistines, they came and
spread themselves in the valley of Rephium. And David inquired
of the Lord, saying, Shall I go up to the Philistines? Wilt thou
deliver them into mine hand? I'd want to know that too, wouldn't
you? I tell you this, if God's willing to tell me, I'm going
to ask that, if I've got any good sense. I'd want to know. I wouldn't want to go up if He's
not going to. People say, you know, what's
the use of preaching? If God's already got an elect
people, His eternal purpose is going to stand either way. What's
the point of preaching? You know, the fact that we're going to
win in this thing doesn't discourage me a bit, does it, you, David?
The fact that the Lord's already ordained victory. Paul said,
He always causes us to triumph in the preaching of the gospel.
I know the outcome and it doesn't discourage me a bit from doing
it. It encourages me. It makes me want to preach harder
and louder and plainer, doesn't it? David inquired of the Lord, shall
I go up? And the Lord said unto David, Go up. Wouldn't that be
good to hear? For I will doubtless... He could
have just said, I'll deliver them. That would have been enough.
The Lord condescends, doesn't He, to just put every fear from
our heart. I'll doubtless deliver them into
thine hand. And David came to Baal-Parisim. And David smoked them there and
said, The Lord... You know, David, he drew his
sword and probably spent all day swinging
that thing and everybody with him. And that was a hard day. And they stood there sweating
and weary and bloody and said, look what God did. And I tell
you what, we better do that too. When you've done all you can
do, you're an unprofitable servant. But look what God's doing. That's worth talking about. And
then, who are we fighting? Are you in the fight? Are you
in the fight? In 2 Timothy 2.4, Paul said to
Timothy, No man that woreth and tangleth himself with the affairs
of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be
a soldier. Are you in the fight? You see, all of this has spiritual
application. This is not a history book. This
subduing of nations through faith. Are you in the battle? Which side are you on? If you're
on the Lord's side, you know, the strategic details don't make
a lot of difference, do they? What matters is this. God said,
go up. And He said, I'll go with you.
That's all I need to know, isn't it? He said, you go and you preach. What's called the Great Commission.
And if you read a little bit further, He said, I'll go with
you. I wouldn't want to go otherwise,
would you? I'll go with you." And before he said, that command,
that commission, go and preach to every creature. And whoever
believes what you say, I'll save them. And whoever doesn't believe
what you preach, I'll damn them. That command is cast between,
before he said it, he said, all power is given unto me in heaven
and earth, now you go. And then after he said it, he
said, I'm going with you. I'll be with you. That makes
you want to go, doesn't it? That makes me want to go. Well,
if you're on the Lord's side in this thing, what matters is
faith. Do you have faith from God? He said, go. And he said,
I'll go with you. And faith says, I'm going. And
faith pulls the sword and does everything faith knows to do
that God's given us grace to do. And then says, look what
God did. Look what God did. And don't
be afraid. Just as sure as the Lord said,
go up to David, He said that to us. We don't have to wonder
when it comes to the ministry of the gospel, do we? We don't
have to ask. He's already said, go up. We don't have to say,
Lord, will you go with us? If we go preach, will you go
with us? He's already answered that question. I'll go with you.
Go and preach. And we have and we do, by His
grace, we do. And our gracious and mighty Captain,
He leads us every step of the way and gives us strength and
says, don't be weary in well-doing. In due season, you'll reap if
you faint not. He's a gracious, gracious Captain. People say, well, the Lord's
just not doing much in our day. Well, I don't know about that.
I'm not sure if we ought to blame that on God. You reckon, Milton?
I don't know about that. The Lord's just not doing much
in our day. He said go up. Maybe we oughtn't blame Him for
that. Maybe it's time in His strength
that we wake up. The Scripture does say it's high
time to wake up and get earnest about what matters. I believe
that's the Lord's Word on it. It's His fight, isn't it? It's
his fight and the outcome is no more in question than it was
when he said to David, I will doubtless deliver them into your
hand. The outcome is not in question.
And so pray for me and these men that preach the gospel that
they won't falter, that we won't falter, that we won't blow an
uncertain sound on the trumpet. And we'll pray for you that we'll
get earnest about the things of God. And then it says, through
faith they wrought righteousness. They wrought righteousness. These
are not meritorious works of righteousness. Christ did those.
He's the only one that's ever done those. He said, I do always
those things that please the Father. If you ever do anything
that pleases the Father, it will be, how does God accept our works? Have you ever thought about that?
He calls them good works. We're ordained to do them. He's
ordained that we should do them. How can He call anything we do
good? How does He call you good? How does He accept you? In Christ.
How does He accept your works? In Christ. That's not complicated,
is it? These are works of righteousness
because they're by faith in Christ. And by faith we obey God, and
works of faith are called works of righteousness. He said in
verse 1 of our text, without faith it's impossible to please
God. But by faith these men did all these things. Enoch walked
with God by faith. And Moses, through faith, by
faith, Moses chose to suffer the reproach of Christ. rather
than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." You're not
going to do that but by faith. I guarantee you that. If you're
given a choice, like religion gives people a choice in this
thing, you're going to choose the riches of Egypt every time,
unless God gives you faith in His Son. And then you'll choose
Christ every time. You'll choose Him every time.
But you can't deny God's Word by faith. You may deny His Word,
but you're not going to do it by faith. That's going to be
the flesh. You can't, by faith, disobey
God. You may disobey Him, and you
will disobey Him at times, but you can't do it by faith. You
see what he's saying here? These are works of righteousness,
the works of faith. Faith loves Christ and worships
Him and obeys Him, though not perfectly. We still have His
flesh. And nothing we do, everything we do is going to be mixed with
sin. Sin is mixed with all I do, John Newton sang. And it is. But faith thinks on Christ and
follows Christ. The works of faith are what they
are because of the object of faith, not because of the strength
of the faith. And they prayed, Lord, increase
our faith. The Lord taught them that it's not so much how much
faith you have, But who's the object of your faith? It's the
exercise. He said, you don't need but a
grain of mustard seed of faith. That's all you need. If it's
in Him, it's something. It's a great gift from God, isn't
it? And God honors that faith. He
said to that woman, your faith has saved you. Your faith has
made you whole. Why does He honor faith so much?
Because it honors Christ. Faith honors His Son. That's
why. Faith honors His Son. Doing the right thing, even relatively
speaking, doing the right thing. When you do something you should
do instead of something you shouldn't do, even though sin mixed all
in. The impurities of the flesh and the limitations of the flesh
given due consideration. But doing the right thing, even
relatively speaking, is a function of believing on Christ. If it
doesn't spring from faith in Christ, it's not a work of faith.
And so it's not a good work. This is the work of God, Christ
said, that you believe on His Son. That's got to be involved. No matter what specifically the
work itself is, the work of God is to believe on His Son. And
every other work will come from that, or it won't be a good one.
And then it says, through faith they obtain promises. They obtain
promises. Now in verse 13 of Hebrews 11
there, it says that these died not having received the promises.
There were promises they didn't obtain, and there were some that
they did. Promises of the coming Messiah,
they were never received by these Old Testaments. They didn't obtain
that. The Lord said, He's coming. A virgin shall conceive and be
with child. A son will be given, and his
name shall be called Wonderful." But that didn't happen while
they were alive. They didn't obtain that promise. They saw
them afar off. And I'll tell you this, we may
not receive some of the promises in our lifetime. The Lord, you
know, He promised His disciples, I believe in John, I forget which
chapter, John, in the latter part of the book of John. He
said, I go to prepare a place for you. That's where I'm going. I'm going to go to the cross.
I'm going to die for your sins. And there's going to be a place
for you where I am. And once I go and do that, I'm
going to come again. I'm going to come again. You
reckon we'll obtain that promise in this lifetime? I don't know.
People say, well, I think we will. That's a good opinion to
have. I don't know. I don't know. We
might. We may very well. I'll tell you
this, when Paul talked about it in 1 Thessalonians 4, he sounded
like he expected to, didn't he? Listen to the way he said it.
He said, The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout.
This would be a good place to be, wouldn't it? Even this wicked,
nasty, sin-cursed earth. It would be alright to be here
at this time. He'll descend from heaven with
a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump
of God. And he said he's coming down himself. He's not going
to send a messenger. He said, I'll come again and
receive you. And that's what Paul said he's
going to do. He himself shall descend from heaven. And the
dead in Christ will rise first. If we're still here, we'll watch
that happen. We'll see his saints come out of the graves. Wouldn't
that be something? come out of the graves praising Him, shouting
His glory and praise. And then, we which are alive
and remain shall be caught up together with Him in the clouds.
Oh good, we're going to get to see Mama again. Well, that's
not what Paul talked about. To meet the Lord in the air.
He wanted so much to be with Him, didn't he? I have a desire,
he said, to depart here and to be with Christ. That's what heaven
is, to be with Christ. He said to that thief, today
you'll be with Me. That's all I need to know. To
be with Christ, Paul said, because that's a lot better than this.
This is alright if we know Him, isn't it? But that's a lot better.
And so shall we ever be with the Lord. But you notice he said,
we which are alive and remain. He expected to be one of them.
I kind of do too. It would be alright, wouldn't
it? That would be alright. But whether we do, He promised.
I tell you this, we may or may not obtain that promise. These
men of faith, they didn't obtain all the promises. They died not
having received many of the promises, but through faith they obtained
some promises too. And we have too, haven't we?
We have too. The Lord Jesus Christ promised
me in His Word, He said, to all sinners, He said, if you're heavy
laden, you're laboring and heavy laden, come to Me, and I'll give
you rest. I got that one. By His grace,
I've obtained that. Are you resting in Him? He said,
I'll give you rest, and He made good on it, didn't He? Well,
you talk about rest. When you cease from your own
labors before God, and count them with awe as dung, filthy
rags, and fall into the arms of the Lord Jesus Christ who
lived for us and died for us. You'll find out what rest is
then. And He's good for it. He said, I'll give you rest.
It's His to give. You come to Him, He'll give it
to you. We've obtained that promise, haven't we? What a sweet promise.
But I'll tell you this, when He left this earth again in John
14-15, He said, I'm going. And he said,
don't be afraid. They were, they were, weren't
they? I would have been too. They left everything to follow him.
And he said, I'm going to leave you now. He said this, I will
not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. I've obtained
that one. I guarantee if you're one of
his this morning, you're saying that's a promise I've obtained.
He comes to me. He promised to be with us here
this morning. We met in His name. By His grace, we meet in His
name. He said, I'll come to you. And He said this too. He said,
I'll send the Holy Spirit. And here's what He'll do. He'll
take the things of mine and show them to you. Promise obtained. He does that when His Word is
preached, doesn't He? The Holy Spirit comes and takes
the things of Christ and reveals them to His people. We've obtained
some sweet promises, haven't we, in this life? The forgiveness
of sins. There is therefore now promise
obtained, no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
That's why we can rest, because God's not mad at us anymore.
He never was. When we found out, we rested,
didn't we? We found out about it. Oh, my. Promises all through. this life
and following our Lord Jesus Christ there, He leaves those
handfuls of purpose, doesn't He, for us to gather up and rejoice
in, promises that we obtain. We may not obtain all of them
in this life, and sure enough, we won't. He's already glorified
us, and we're going to have to leave here to obtain that one,
but that'll be all right, won't it? And then they stopped the
mouths of lions. And you notice that this exploit
here is attributed to the faith of Daniel. It's attributed to
Daniel, among others, that did this. You know, David, he stopped
the mouth of a lion that was trying to kill his father's sheep. What a gospel picture that is.
He's defending his father's sheep and he stopped the mouth of a
lion. Samson stopped the mouth of a lion that was trying to
kill him. But you thought of Daniel, I'm sure, when we read
this, stop the mouths of lions. It's attributed to Daniel. But
let's listen to the, you know, King Darius, he didn't want Daniel
to be eaten by the lion. He loved Daniel, didn't he? And
some of Daniel's enemies tricked the king into, you know, passing
that law that basically condemned Daniel before he ever passed
it. And so the king had to, if he
was going to keep his own word, he had to put Daniel in the lion's
den. But he came, in verse 20 of Daniel 6, he came to the den,
and he cried with a lamentable voice unto Daniel. He was afraid
that Daniel was going to be tore up. And he said unto Daniel,
it says the king spake and said unto Daniel, O Daniel, servant
of the living God, why wouldn't you like to be dressed that way? servant of the living God. Is
thy God, whom thou servest, continually able to deliver thee from the
lies?" And then said Daniel unto the king, here's what faith does.
This was attributed to Daniel. It's saying Daniel through faith
stopped the mouth. We know who stopped those lion's
mouths, don't we? Faith doesn't receive it. It
doesn't accept any glory. Daniel said, O king, live forever.
My God hath shut the lion's mouth. He knew who did it. Faith knows.
And though these things are attributed, these good works that we are said to do, and God's word
that we're ordained unto them, Paul said, it's not I but Christ.
It's Christ. And faith always talks like that.
And you know, again, there's spiritual application here. We're
told the devil is our adversary, and as a roaring lion he walketh
about, seeking whom he may devour. And then in verse 9, that was
1 Peter 5.8. In verse 9 it says, "...whom
resist steadfast in the..." what? "...faith." That's the only way
it's going to happen. By that gift that God gives us.
By faith. Stop the mouths of lions. And
then verse 34 back in Hebrews 11, they quenched the violence
of fire. That's probably about as far
as we'll get this morning. They quenched the violence of
fire. We learn something wonderful about faith in this case of Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego when the violence of fire was quenched.
You know, this wicked world and its godless religion says, bow
down to the gods that we've made, that we've made. Listen to Daniel
3.15, the latter part of that verse. This wicked king, Nebuchadnezzar,
he said, you fall down, when all these musical instruments
are blaring and sounding and the cymbals are banging and all
this stuff, you fall down and worship the image which I have
made, then it will be alright with you. Now who is he really
saying to worship? Did you notice the language there?
The image which I made. When sinners worship an idol,
they worship it themselves as who they worship. They worship
in the one that they made. And an idol, I guarantee you,
an idol, every time, it will serve you. If you ever meet the
living God, you'll say with Paul, Lord, what can I do for you?
But an idol is about what it can do for you. It's the opposite,
isn't it? And that's what we worship. Money
and things like that that can do something for me. And it's
us that we're worshiping. It's not the rock or the totem
pole or the god of your imagination. It's you you're worshiping. If
you're worshiping anybody but the living God. The issues between
Him and you, it always has been and it always will be. Who's
on the throne? You or God? That's the question. Well, nobody's stupid enough
to think that they're on the throne. Everybody thinks that,
except the ones that God's turned the light on for. But he said,
you fall down and worship the image I made and it'll be alright
with you, but if not, you'll be cast the same hour into the
midst of a burning fiery furnace. And who is that God that shall
deliver you out of my hands? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
It says through faith they quench the violence of fire. Now you
listen to what faith is here. They said, O King Nebuchadnezzar,
we're not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so,
if these are the terms, you've said if we don't bow, you're
going to throw us in there. Okay, if that's the way it's
going to be, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from
the burning, fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from you.
Think about that for a second. He's able to deliver us from
the fire. But He will deliver us from you
one way or the other. Now that's faith, isn't it? It
doesn't go beyond what God has said. Faith is not believing
that God will do what you want Him to do. That's what religion
says. Oh, this is what we want, so
we'll just believe to receive. That's not faith. Faith is believing
God will do what He said He would do. I don't know whether He'll
deliver me from this fire or not, but I know this, He said,
your enemies won't triumph over you. This King is not going to
have the last say. He will deliver me from this
King. He said He would. The fire? He may or may not. And listen to what they said. If not, if He lets us burn up,
we want you to know something. Oh King, we will not serve your
God. nor worship the golden image
which you've set up." Faith does two things here. Something it
doesn't do is go beyond God's Word. It doesn't presume upon
God's grace, does it? Lord, if you will, you can. You haven't said you will. I
don't know if you will, but I know you can. I know you can. And then, here's what it does.
It believed Him. It believed what He said, not
beyond what He said. It didn't presume upon His grace,
but if God said it, He'll do it. He said, I've spoken it,
shall I not perform it? And faith believes that. And
then I'll tell you this too, secondly, there in verse 18.
Faith worships only Him. We're not going to worship your
God, that God, the other God, any God. We're going to worship
our God. That's faith. That's faith. We
find out what faith is in this good chapter, don't we? And I
tell you this too, if He gives you faith in His Son, He's given
you His Son. These ones, they not only believed
Him and spoke like they did, but when they looked in that
furnace, they saw four in there and not three. Not only did they
have faith in Him, they had Him right there with them in that
fire. And that's the blessing. of God. Through faith, we understand. Through faith, we receive. Through
faith, we believe on and worship Christ. When God sees the blood,
He'll pass over us. The mercy from God is in the
blood. And through faith, the last word
this morning is from chapter 12, verse 2. Here's what faith
does. In chapter 12, verse 2, this
is faith talking. Us talking. Those who have faith
in Him. Looking unto Jesus. The whole way. In everything. No matter what. Looking unto
Him. Well, who is He? He's the author
of our faith. That word means this, that by
which anything begins to be. My faith began to be. because
of him, because he caused it to be, and he's the finisher
of it. Faith looks to the one that gave
it, and that'll accomplish it. Thank you, brother. This thing called faith today
is nothing more than what Norman Vincent Peale wrote about a long
time ago. The power of positive thinking
doesn't have anything to do with that. I like what you did. It
looks to Christ. It's the only place it does look.