Thank you, Brad. Now, I'm going to speak this evening
on the subject, the evidence of faith. The evidence of faith. And when I speak of the evidence
of faith, I'm talking about evidence that I could see in me that will
tell me whether or not I have faith. Let's begin reading in verse
13. These all died in faith. not having received the promises
but having seen them afar off and were persuaded of them and
embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims
on the earth. For they that say such things
declare plainly that they seek a country and truly If they'd
been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they
might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire
a better country that is in heavenly. Wherefore, God is not ashamed
to be called their God, for he had prepared for them a city. And that passage in James chapter
2 that I read, James said, Show me thy faith without your works,
and I'll show you my faith by my works. Now, when I quote that
passage of scripture, That doesn't mean I'm trying to show somebody
my faith by how much witnessing I do, or how much time I spend
in prayer, or how much time I read the Bible, or some good works
that I'm doing. I'm all for those things. But
that's really not what James is talking about when he says,
show me your faith without your works, I'll show you my faith
by my works. When James is speaking of that,
he's saying there will be something that gives evidence that faith
is really there. Now, in this passage of Scripture,
we read of the evidence of faith. Where there is faith, there will
be persuasion. There will be an embracing. There will be a confessing. Wherever there is faith, there
will be persuasion. There will be embracing. And there will be confessing,
confessing regarding this world. These people who believe the
gospel, it causes them to confess that this world is not their
home. They're looking for another city.
They're not planting stakes here. They confess that they know they're
just here temporarily and this is not where we're planning on
spending eternity. But we want to be in the presence
of the Lord Jesus Christ and his people. Have you ever heard the saying,
if they arrested people for being Christians, would they have enough
evidence to convict you? Now the evidence being spoken
of here is this, this persuasion, this embracing, this confessing. Now, This passage of scripture
says these all died in faith. What a blessed way to die. To
die in faith. To die believing God. To die believing the gospel. And these people, all of them,
Abraham, Noah, Enoch, Sarah, all these people he mentioned,
these all died in faith. and left these evidences they
were persuaded they embraced and they confessed so understand
this wherever there's true faith this will be present now verse
thirteen says these all died in faith these all died it's
talking about Abel Enoch, Abraham, Sarah Noah These all died in
faith, but it describes every believer, all of God's elect. They all died in faith. They
died. Unless the Lord returns during
our lifetime, we're all going to die. And the scripture says,
blessed are the dead that died in the Lord. And that doesn't
mean we enjoy, we don't enjoy life. I'm thankful for life.
I'm thankful for my family. I'm thankful for you. I'm thankful
for the relationship the Lord enables us to have. All the blessings
we have in this life. But that being said, when's my
time going to come? when's my time to come when i'm
delivered from my safe i'm looking forward to death and that's it
and that's uh... uh... repeat i hate it when i look
forward to death just because things are going well that's
not what i'm talking about what you have started things are going
well we all want to die but uh... dot let's don't talk it like
that we've everything's going well we don't want that Paul
said, I long to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. And it is far better. Now, these
all died in faith. But notice what it says. These
all died in faith, not having received the promises. The promise to Abraham was a
land. The promise to Abraham was a
seed. A great nation to come out of him. A promise to Abraham
that he would be a blessing to all nations. Now these promises
that God made to Abraham, in his experience, he never entered
into them. And God made these promises to
him, but in his experience, He never entered into them. Stephen
said he never even stepped foot in the land God promised him.
Now, these promises represent the promises of the gospel. Now,
you think of the promises God made to Abraham that he never
experienced. You know, when Abraham died,
God said, you're going to have a nation as many as the sands
by the seashore, innumerable. You're going to be a blessing
to all nations. You're going to have this vast nation, this land. And Abraham, he never stepped
foot in it. He never experienced it. And as far as that goes,
remember after he was already dead and his descendants went
into Egypt, how many of them were there? 70. about the amount of people that
are in here tonight. That doesn't sound like the sands
which are by the seashore are innumerable and as many as the
stars are in the heaven. He didn't experience these things
in his experience. Now, the promises of the gospel. God promises me that all my sins
are forgiven. God promises me in the gospel
that I have a perfect righteousness, that I have the righteousness
of Jesus Christ. His righteousness is my righteousness
before God. God promises me that He's given
me a new nature, partaker of the divine nature, a holy nature. God promises me perfect conformity
to the image of Jesus Christ so that I am just like Him. Now, God's made those promises
to me, but in my experience, I haven't set foot on them. In
my experience, Can you, in your experience,
can you imagine what it would be like to be without sin? To be without unbelief? To be
without pride? To be without doubt? In your
experience, you can't even understand that. I know I can't. God says
I'm without sin. In my experience, I don't enter
into it. I've not even set a foot in that
country. But I believe I haven't. I believe the gospel. Now, they
didn't receive the promises, but they saw them afar off. I see these promises afar off.
I'm looking to judgment afar off. And I see myself standing
before God without sin, but I only see it by faith. I don't see
it in my experience. I see it by faith. I believe what God
has said. The only evidence that I have,
that I'm going to stand before God without sin, is the evidence
that He said I would. Is anything else needed? Is anything
else needed other than the promise of God? God has promised that
everybody who believes on His Son, everybody that comes to
Him, shall find mercy of the Lord in that great day. God promises
that all who believe the Gospel have the very righteousness of
His Son. God makes these promises. Now,
I can't see Him. I see Him afar off. Just like
they did. They saw these promises afar
off, but they never experienced them. It says they didn't receive
the promises. And like I said, Stephen said
regarding Abraham, he never stepped foot in the ground that God promised
to give him. But he believed it was his because
God promised. Do you believe God? Now, while they didn't experience
these promises, in Abraham's lifetime he was a nomad, And
he had a relatively small household. Like I said, when his descendants
went down to Egypt, there are only 70 of them. It doesn't sound
like the sandwiches by the seashore, but he did see them afar off.
The Lord said this regarding Abraham. He said, Abraham rejoiced
to see my day. Now, he never saw Christ in the
flesh. Well, I guess he did. Well, no, he didn't because Christ
didn't come in the flesh. He saw some kind of appearance of Christ
because Christ appeared to him on several different occasions.
But he never actually saw him in the flesh. It was an appearance.
But he received these promises. He saw them afar off. And here's what the scripture
says regarding these promises that he saw afar off. He was
persuaded of them. Now, I'm persuaded that God's
promises must come to pass. And here's why I'm persuaded
that they must come to pass, because He made them. He can't
lie. God is utterly faithful. And whatever He has promised
must come to pass. Turn with me to Romans chapter
8 for a moment. Here's an example of Paul's persuasion. He says in verse 38, for I'm
persuaded, I'm convinced that neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor
things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature
shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord." Now, here's why I'm persuaded of this.
I'm persuaded that God's never going to stop loving me. I'm
persuaded He's never going to get tired of me. I'm persuaded
He's always going to see me as beautiful. How come? Because
His love is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And if I'm in Christ, God
can't see me. He can't stop loving me. Can
God stop loving His Son? Is there anything about Jesus
Christ the Lord that could cause God to stop loving Him? No. And if I'm in Christ, I can't
be separated from the love of God. I am persuaded of that. I see these promises afar off,
and I'm persuaded of them. I'm convinced they're true. But
not only am I persuaded of these promises, look back in our text
in Hebrews chapter 11. Wherever there's faith, there's
going to be somebody that's persuaded of the truthfulness of them.
Hebrews chapter 11, verse 13. These all died in faith, not
having received the promises, but having seen them afar off
and were persuaded of them. But next it says, they embraced
them. And that word embrace, what do
you do when you embrace somebody? You love that person. You give
them a hug. You give them a kiss. That's
what it means to embrace them. You love them. It comes as good
news to you. Now, we see these promises afar
off, we're persuaded of them, and we embrace them. We give
them a hug and we give them a kiss because we delight in these promises. It comes as good news to us. Now, I can think of so many examples
of this. For instance, the Bible being
God's Word. Bible promises it is. All Scripture
is given by inspiration of God. That's what the Bible claims
for itself. That's a promise of God. You know what I do? I
embrace that. I give it a hug and a kiss. I'm
thankful it's that way. What if what you know of God
was dependent simply upon what I told you? You'd be in bad shape,
wouldn't you? Thank God we have this written
revelation from God, the Word of God. And I embrace that. I'm so thankful we have a revelation
from God. Because if we don't have this
revelation of God, it's my opinion or this man's opinion or that
man's opinion, and we don't come up with anything, do we? But
thank God I embrace that the Bible is the Word of God. I embrace
this. I rejoice in it. I embrace who
the Bible says God is. The Bible declares that He's
God and beside Him is none else. The Bible declares His sovereignty,
His justice, His holiness, His mercy, His wisdom, all these
attributes of God. I embrace these attributes. I'm
thankful. Aren't you eternally thankful
that God is absolutely sovereign? And that He's in control of everything. And that He actually, and only
He can do this, but He can actually bring good out of our evil. And
He does it. Aren't you thankful for that?
Don't you embrace the fact that He's in control? If He's not
in control, who is in control? Well, I couldn't sleep at all.
I would be so scared. But thank God, He's in control
of everything. I embrace His justice. Aren't
you glad that God is just? that He'll never do anything
unjust. Aren't you glad God is righteous? Aren't you glad God
is all-powerful? Aren't you glad that God is all-wise? Every attribute of God, we embrace. We love the way He is and we
wouldn't want it to be any other way. We love the God of the Bible. Not only are we persuaded of
the truthfulness of what the Bible says regarding God, we
embrace. We embrace. What about what the Bible says
about man? The Bible declares me and you,
and all men by nature, are evil, unable to save themselves. Now, if there were no gospel,
that'd be a hard one to embrace, wouldn't it? It wouldn't seem
to be good news, but the gospel states that Christ came into
the world to save sinners. So I embrace that. I even embrace
being a sinner. I embrace being utterly without
strength because that's the folks Christ died for when we were
yet without strength. In due time, Christ died for
the ungodly. I embrace this. I embrace God electing a people. You see, I know that if He didn't
choose me, I wouldn't choose Him. I know that for a fact.
I know if He didn't do something for me, I'd end up in hell. I
know that. I embrace the fact that the Holy
God has chosen who would be saved. You know, there's folks that
get upset with that. I don't. I'm thankful. I know
that if He passed... Oh, I know this. I know this.
If He passed me by and didn't show me any mercy, I couldn't
charge Him with injustice. But oh, thank God He chose who
would be saved. I embrace that because if He
didn't choose a people, nobody would be saved, but He delights
in mercy. I give that a hug and a kiss. I love the God of election,
don't you? I embrace that. I embrace with
a hug and a kiss Christ's glorious atonement for His people. If He died for me, that means
all my sins are gone without anything to do with my works.
I embrace that. I give that hug and I give that
a kiss. That's good news to me. I embrace
it. I embrace God's grace being irresistible. and invincible, because I know
that's the only kind of grace that can save me. If God's grace
can be resistant, I'll resist it. I know that. I embrace invincible
and irresistible grace. By grace, you're saved. I give
that a hug and a kiss. You see, we receive the love
of the truth, not merely the truth, but the love of the truth. Now, we haven't in our experience
entered in to these promises. We've never stepped foot in it,
in our experience. Have you ever, do you know of
even a thought you've had that's been without sin? Of course not. But, we've seen these are promises
so far off. And we're persuaded of them,
and we embrace them. When Christ says, Him that cometh
to me, I'll in no wise cast out. Oh, I embrace that. When he says,
whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
I embrace that. But not only are we persuaded. Not only do we embrace, look
what it says in verse 13, these all died in faith, not having
received the promises, but having seen them afar off. and were
persuaded of them. They believed the truthfulness
and the veracity of God's promises. And they embraced them. They
came as good news. They heard the gospel as good
news. Not just news, but good news. They embraced them and
they confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the
earth. They confessed. Scripture says, with the heart,
man believeth unto righteousness. Now, the heart means the whole
man. When the Bible speaks of the heart, it means the understanding,
it means the affections, and it means the will. The understanding. I'm persuaded. Now, I don't completely
understand anything I believe, but I understand what I believe.
I understand who I believe. There's a persuasion there. That's
the understanding. That's the intellect. I really
believe I'm a sinner. I really believe He's the Savior.
I really believe salvation's all of grace. I have some understanding
there. It has nothing to do with me. There's my intellect. But not only is there is the
intellect involved in faith, the affections are involved in
faith. That's where this embracing comes
from. We embrace the truth. We love
the truth. We rejoice in the gospel. We
embrace it. There's the affections. I love
being saved by His grace, don't you? I love being saved by His
righteousness only. I love His righteousness being
the only righteousness. I love His salvation. We embrace.
There's the affections. But there's also the will. And
this is seen in this confession. We confess. We confess. We confess. And the gospel makes
us confess that this world is not our home. Now, let's look at how the writer
to the Hebrews speaks of this confession. Turn to Hebrews chapter
3. Now, when you confess something,
That means, first, it means you say what everybody else says
about it. You see, there's a confession of faith that all believers believe.
We're all in agreement. We all believe the same thing,
don't we? I mean, we flat out believe the same thing. That's
the confession. And when you confess something,
that means you plead guilty. You plead guilty. I plead guilty.
This is what I believe. Now, look what it says we confess.
Hebrews chapter 3, verse 1. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers
of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of
our profession. And that word profession is the
same word translated confession, same word. Consider the apostle
and high priest of our confession, Christ Jesus. Now I love thinking
about this. Christ Jesus is the apostle.
What about the Apostle Paul? Well, Christ sent him. What about
the Apostle John? Christ sent him. But the word
apostle means sent. Christ Jesus is the sent one. He's the one the Father sent. John chapter 17 verse 3 says,
this is eternal life. that they might know thee the
only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." Do you
believe that Christ was sent of the Father? This is the will
of Him that sent me, that of all which He hath given me I
should lose nothing, but raise it up again at the last day.
And this is the will of Him that sent that everyone that seeth
the Son and believeth on him should have everlasting life.
Now we believe the Father sent him. They have known and believed
that thou hast sent me. This is the work of God that
you believe on him whom he has sent. We believe the Father sent him
and we believe that he did whatever it was the Father sent him to
do. I shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people
from their sins." That's what his father sent him to do, and we
believe he did it. He's the apostle of our confession,
and he's the high priest of our confession. Now what does that
mean? Him being the... I've got a confession. I confess I believe
the gospel. What is it that makes God pleased
with that confession that I make? Because I make a confession.
You make a confession. If you're a believer, you can you confess
like Paul said this. I confess to the after the way
they call heresy. So worship by the God of my fathers.
Now, what is it that makes God pleased with this confession?
Because I have a high priest, the high priest of this confession
makes my confession acceptable to God. If it wasn't for my high
priest, my confession would be worthless. But because of my
high priest, my confession is pleasing to God. That's the apostle,
the sent one, and the high priest of our confession. Now, you don't
believe any more than you confess. With the heart man believeth
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation. Now, you don't believe any more
than you confess, but our confession in and of itself, there's no
saving merit in that. It's the Lord Jesus Christ, the
high priest of our confession. Look in Hebrews chapter 10. Verse 23. Let us hold fast the
confession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful
that promised. Now, what is the confession of our faith? Well,
it's everything he said up to that point. Read Hebrews chapter 10. That's the confession of our
faith. by one offering he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified." I confess that. I confess I believe
that. I confess by the grace of God
I'm willing to die for this. If they're going to arrest people
for believing that, as the Lord enables me, you're going to have
to arrest me because that's what I believe, that Christ does everything
in salvation. Hold fast the confession of our
faith. Now these people who saw these promises afar off and were
persuaded of them and embraced them, they confessed, because
of the gospel they believed, they confessed that they were
strangers and pilgrims in the earth. You know, it's kind of popular
to talk about the Christian worldview. You ever heard that? The Christian
worldview, the Christian view of the world, his view of economics,
his view of philosophy, his view of certain ethics and so on,
the Christian worldview. I think that's a bunch of bunk.
You know what the Christian worldview is? This world is not my home.
That's the Christian worldview. This world, as we see it, is
not my home. I'm a stranger and a pilgrim
here, passing through, waiting for that city which He's made
me. Now, turn to 1 John 2. Now, we confess that this world
is not our home. We're just strangers and pilgrims
here. Now, by this world, remember, I love that hymn we sing, this
is my father's world. And you know, we took a little
drive after church today and all this place is so beautiful.
Central Kentucky. Whoops, excuse me. I love central
Kentucky. It's just a beautiful place.
I love this world. This is my father's world. So
when we're talking about being a stranger and pilgrim in the
world, we're not so much talking about this world because we're
gonna live on this planet. I don't understand, you know,
the Lord's gonna burn it all up and there's gonna be a new world, but it's
gonna be this kind, there's gonna be trees and mountains and skies
and all that kind of stuff. We're gonna have that kind of
world, but he's talking about this world. Verse 15, 1 John
chapter 2. Love not the world, neither the
things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the
love of the Father is not in him. For all that's in the world,
the lust of the flesh, the cravings of sinful fallen humanity, the
desires, the cravings of the flesh. And the lust of the eyes,
being more concerned about what men see than what God sees. That's what the lust of the eyes
are. Me being more concerned about keeping up with the Joneses,
trying to have an appearance that men are pleased with, rather
than caring about what God thinks. And the pride of life, that's
self-righteousness, that's human religion. The lust of the flesh,
the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. I want to be delivered
from this. That's why this world that's
filled with the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and
the pride of life is not my home. I'm looking forward to getting
out of here in that sense. Go back to our text. Here's the evidence of faith.
You confess this world is not your home. You are simply passing
through. You're a stranger, a sojourner,
a temporary tenant and pilgrim on the earth. Verse 14. For they that say such things,
that they're strangers and pilgrims on the earth, they declare plainly
in no uncertain terms that they seek a country, they seek a homeland
that's not here. It's a different place. And truly,
verse 15, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they
came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.
You know, what I thought about when I thought about that passage
of scripture is when the Lord said to his disciples in John
chapter six, many of his disciples went back and walked no more
with him. And he looked at the 12, he said, will you also go
away? You know, the Lord's not going to keep his people if they're
not willing to be kept. Now he makes you willing, I realize
that, but he doesn't have any unwilling disciples. And if you
don't want to be here, he said, there's the door. And he wasn't
saying that harshly. But he says, if you don't want
to be... He didn't ask these people, come back or let me restate that
and say it in a way that maybe you won't be so offended by it.
No. He just watched them leave and he said to the twelve, will
you also go away? If you fellas want to leave,
here's your opportunity. He's not going to have any unwilling
disciples. And I love Peter's answer. Lord, to whom shall we
go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life, and we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ,
the son of the living God. Verse 16, but now. They desire. They crave. They covet. A better country
that is an heavenly. Wherefore, God is not ashamed
to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city
now. I am craving a place where there's
no more sin. Where everybody sees Christ as
altogether glorious. And in this place, that's what
it's like. Now, this is the city of God
that we're moving toward. This world is not our home. We're simply passing through,
awaiting that city that He has prepared for us. A place wherein
dwelleth righteousness. And in this place, God is not
ashamed to be called their God. Now, regarding every citizen
of this city, every single one of them without exception, God
says, I'm not ashamed of them. I'm proud of them. I'm proud of them. Do you know
if you're a believer, I want to say this right, God's proud
of you. It's not because of anything
in you, but yes, it is because of something in you. Christ is
in you. And he's proud of his son. He's proud of his grace. And I guarantee you, when the
Lord holds you up to show you the greatness of his grace, he's
proud of what he's done. You see, we're his workmanship.
And he's proud of what he does. We're his workmanship. Created
in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them regarding every believer. The Lord says,
that's my son. I'm proud of him. That's my daughter. I'm proud of him. He's not ashamed
to be called their God for he hath prepared for them a city. Let's look at this description
of this city in Hebrews chapter 12 verse 18. For you're not coming to the
mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor
into blackness, and darkness, and tempest. And the sound of
trumpet, and the voice of words, which voice they that heard entreated
that the word should not be spoken to them any more, talking about
Mount Sinai. For they could not endure that
which was commanded, so much as a beast touched the mountain,
and should be stoned, or thrust through with a dart. And so terrible
was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake.
But you're coming to Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living
God, the heavenly Jerusalem. and to innumerable company of
angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn,
which are written in heaven, and to God, the judge of all,
and the spirit of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator
of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh
better things than that of Abel. Isn't that a wonderful city?
a wonderful place. Look what it says in chapter
13 verse 14. For here we have no continuing city
and we don't do we? But we seek one to come. We're looking for this city. So what is the evidence of faith? Persuasion. I believe that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God. I believe that. I believe the Bible is the Word
of God. I believe salvation is of the Lord, persuasion. Not
only persuasion, there's an embracing. This comes as good news. I embrace
it. I give the gospel a hug and a
kiss, and I say that reverently. It's a true, when you see somebody
that you love, you embrace them. you embrace them. But not only
do I embrace, I confess. The gospel I believe makes me
confess that this world is not my home and I'm a stranger passing
through looking forward to entering into my home, the place of my
rest and being with all my brethren. Isn't it wonderful to think of
being in heaven with all your brethren. Everybody who loves
the Lord Jesus Christ is going to be there. And those are the
folks that I want to be with. Birds of a feather flock together,
don't they? Let's pray.