Turn with me to the book of John
chapter 4, and let's look at verses 46 through
the end of the chapter. I'm going to go ahead and read
these verses, and then we'll refer to them one at a time as
we go through the lesson this morning. John chapter 4, verse
46. So Jesus came again into Cana
of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain
noble man whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that
Jesus was come out of Judea into Galilee, he went unto him and
besought him that he would come down and heal his son, for he
was at the point of death. Then said Jesus unto him, Except
ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. The noble man
saith unto him, Sir, come down, ere my child die. Jesus saith
unto him, Go thy way, thy son liveth. And the man believed
the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way.
As he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him,
saying, Thy son liveth. Then inquired he of them the
hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday
at the seventh hour, that's about one o'clock, the fever left him. So the father knew that it was
at the same hour in which Jesus had said unto him, Thy son liveth,
and himself believed, and his whole house. This is again the
second miracle that Jesus did when He was come out of Judea
into Galilee. Now, I want to start here. I
thought about this and thought about it, and what this is talking
about here is the progression of faith. That's what's being
pictured here is a progression of faith, and we'll look at that
as we go through it. But I want you to understand
where I'm coming from. Now, the sinner, any son of Adam. When he's born, he has in him
all that's needful for him to be as evil as any man that ever
was. All the potential, that nature.
Everything that's required of him. He's not going to pick up
anything along the way. Nothing's going to be added to
him. It's all in him when he's born. But you can't see it. It's not visible right away.
You don't see those things. Those things begin to manifest
themselves as time goes on. And sometimes in the Lord's restraining
hand, those things never come to light. A lot of things that
some men do, other men don't do. And there's a tendency on
man's part to look at what he doesn't do and call that righteousness. It's not righteousness. It's
the restraining hand of God keeping him from being as evil as he
could be. But the potential's there. All the potential is in
him. And so it is with the believer.
He's born with a divine nature and all that pertains to it.
But it's not immediately visible. You can't see it. You can't see
it. And sometimes, even in his lifetime,
never be seen. And faith is as difficult to
discern as sin. You see? And for the same reasons.
For the same reasons. These things, they're not manifested. They're not manifested in a big
way. Everybody's not a Charles Spurgeon. Everybody's not a John
Gill. Everybody's not Peter or Paul.
Some men of low degree, their names not even mentioned. The
thief on the cross, it doesn't even mention his name. But he
was as great in the kingdom of God as John the Baptist. And in his life, many things
were never seen. His whole spiritual life consisted
of those hours on the cross. That was it. That was it. And
so it is going through this life. Faith is the same as sin. It's
not always easily detectable. It's not always easy to see.
And what I'm laboring to say is that faith is a progressive
work. It cometh is the language of
Scripture. Faith cometh. It cometh. It's born. And in the Scripture,
the Scriptures personify faith. It personifies sin. It talks
about sin, that man of sin. It personifies faith. It personifies
a lot of things and likens them unto a living thing, like unto
a person, so that we can understand what he is talking about. And
in 1 John, he likens faith. He personifies faith and refers
to it as babes and young men and fathers. Now I get three
different pictures when I hear that. I'm not expecting out of
this babe what I'm expecting out of this father. And I'm not
expecting out of that father what I see in the young man.
So faith is a progressive work. It's born, it grows. And in this
story of this nobleman, and I want to be quick to point this out
because it's not in my notes. It's something that occurred
to me on the way over here. You remember in 1 Corinthians
1, and we're going to get into that a little later on in the
message, but he says, you see your calling, brethren. How not
many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble
are called. This man was one of a very elite
group. There were very few. I remember
one of the queens of England said she thanked God for an M
Because it could have said, not any, but it didn't. It said,
not many, and not many. And so here is one, one that
was noble. This was a noble man, and God
called him, and God gave him faith. And I want us to look
at that fact. And I know this. I know this
is so because of the Scriptures that I read to you here this
morning, and I know it's so by what took place. But this man
had genuine faith. Not everybody does. There's a
false faith. There's a faith that's not true.
But I know, and I want you to know, that this man had genuine
faith. How do I know that? Because this
faith brought him to Christ. True faith doesn't come to a
system. It doesn't come to the front
of the building. It doesn't come to shake a man's hand. It doesn't
come to an experience. It comes to Christ. True faith
comes to the Savior. Only the Savior can save. You can read books about Christ.
You couldn't find a Jew in the day of Christ that didn't believe
in the Christ. They were convinced of it. They
were convinced of it. But their belief that there was
a Christ didn't save them because it didn't bring them to the Christ.
He said, you search the Scriptures for in them you think you have
eternal life. They are they which testify of me. They testify of
the Christ. But he said, you will not come
unto me that you might have life. True faith brings this man, upon
whoever this faith resides, it brings him to Christ. That's
how you know it's true saving faith. Brought him to Christ. And false faith ignores the cross.
False faith looks at itself for the ability and will and motives
and end. It ignores the cross and what
took place on it, the necessity of it and the glory of it and
the accomplishment of it. True faith comes to Christ and
then it won't go anywhere else. You remember in the book of John
here just a little bit later we'll be getting into that. And
he began to tell them that except they eat of his flesh and drink
of his blood, they had no life in them. And boy, they looked
at each other and they said, this man's crazy. He's crazy. And it said they went back and
walked no more with him. And he turned to his closest
disciples. And he said, will you go too?
And they said, to whom shall we go? Where are we going to
go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. That's what faith does. Faith brings you to Christ. And
then it won't go anywhere else. It stays put. It comes there
and stays put. Because that's where the hope
is. That's where the life is. And no matter what the Lord said,
this nobleman would not leave his presence. Why? Because he
was convinced that only Christ could provide what his need demanded. Now watch as we look at what
took place and see if you can identify some things in your
own life with him. Spurgeon pointed this out, and
I believe it's worthy of mention. God created in His providence
a need that broke the rhythm of His life. You know, we've
got so much, especially in our day, that goes on. jobs and families and children
and school and activities and bills to pay and all these things. Winston runs a sawmill and cuts
logs up into cross ties. But you've got other things you
have to do. And you've got a yard to keep up and a house to keep
up and a small farm to run and all these things. And all these
things get going. And you go insane unless you
get into some kind of a rhythm. You get settled, and you get
this time is allotted for that, and this time is allotted for
that, and this time is allotted for that. But what happens is,
in all these things, in all these activities that go on in our
life, you know what gets left out? The things of God. That's what gets left out. And
when God begins to do a work, when He begins to call one of
His own, the first thing He does is He sends something their way
that breaks the rhythm in their life. I know you can identify
with what I'm saying. God sends something and He just
destroys it, He just stops it. And here was a man, he was a
noble man, he had irons in the fire, he had things going, he
had all sorts of things. But God come along and took his
child, and that child was about to die. And he broke the rhythm. He let go. He just turned it
all loose. And the doctors couldn't do him
any good. His nurses, his servants, he
couldn't do him any good. But he heard. He heard that there
was one. And that that one was on his
way and was right now in Cana, just a day's journey away. And boy, he was gone. He was
gone. And he come to Christ. Now he
didn't know a lot. He didn't know a lot. And that's
what I want you to see. We don't have time to go into it too much, but I
remember this fella that came to 13th Street years ago. His
name was John Housam. And John was a He was a brilliant
engineer for Boeing aircraft. I'm telling you, this man, he
had a good position in the company, he had a good education, had
a beautiful wife, a daughter. His life was just going exactly
the way he wanted it to go. And God gave this man, he was
diagnosed with MS, multiple sclerosis. Before you know it, he couldn't
walk. He had to be in a wheelchair. He just shook. He just had an awful time. He
couldn't hardly open doors. I remodeled his house for him.
I had to put sliding doors in it. I had to put special bumpers
because he was strong as an ox, but he had no muscle control.
When he opened the door, he opened it. But I can always remember
John. He got down. The Lord brought
him down and he did these things to him and his wife left him
and took his daughter from him and he lost his job. He was forced
into retirement. All these things. And sitting
at home one Sunday, just lower than a snake's belly, just looking
for some comfort and hope somewhere he won't turn his TV on, Henry
Mayhem was on. And he heard the gospel. And
he moved to Ashland. And he started a little tape
ministry there. He'd take those tapes and copy
them and send them to anybody that would call him for a request.
He'd copy one of them tapes and send it off to them. That was
his part in the church. But I can always remember him
talking to visitors and strangers that had come to the church and
talked to him, how glad he was that God gave him the gift of
MS because it brought him to Christ. It brought him to Christ. And this child on the brink of
death is the black horse that carried him to Christ. To Christ. Brought him right
up to the door. Right up to the door. Gave him
a reason to call on Him. But he wasn't a mature man. He had faith, but he didn't have
much. He didn't have much. He had true
faith because it brought him to Christ. But there are so many
things that he didn't see. I know that he wasn't aware of
the depth of his sin, and he wasn't aware of a lot of things.
He came to Christ not knowing much at all. And I notice this,
when he came, he fixed in his head what had to take place in
order for his son to be healed. He already had it fixed up. The
Lord had to come down. He had to leave what He was doing
and leave Cana and come down the mountain and go to Capernaum
down by the sea. Because it was going to take
His physical presence to heal this child. We're so dumb. Don't you think about it, how
dumb we are. We're desperate, but we're dumb.
Here's a man who could turn water into wine. He could raise the
dead. He could touch a leper and he
was cleansed. There was nothing beyond his
ability. He could speak to the winds and the waves and they
obeyed his voice. Never a man spoke like this man.
But yet in his head, he had it fixed, this man had to come down
and physically be present to heal his son. And that's why
the Lord rebuked him. And there's a lesson in that
for us, too. The Lord's rebuke was tender, but it was a rebuke.
He said, except you see signs and wonders, you won't believe.
You won't believe. You've got to have a sign. In
your head, you're working all these things out. This is what
it has to be. And there's a danger for us that's
been in this faith for a while who have had experiences with
Christ, true experiences. See, we want to hold everybody
to our experience. We're doing the same thing He
did. We're going up there with this fixed notion in our head,
this is exactly what has to happen, this is exactly what you have
to feel, this is exactly what you have to hear. But it's not.
What's required is faith. All that was required of Him
was to believe. And He did. He did. And the Lord
rebuked Him. He rebuked Him. He wanted Christ
to come down. And Christ rebuked him. He said,
except you see signs and wonders, you will not believe. But I tell
you this, weak or strong, the child of God is always... He's
reproved for his error, but he never moves. He stays right there.
He stays right there. My father spanked me on occasion.
I know y'all were too good for that. He spanked me on occasion,
and I never left home. I stayed there. I stayed there.
Because I knew he loved me. And I'll tell you this, if children
are corrected at an early age, they're a lot easier to handle
when they get a little older. And not one of us here this morning
can't take a lesson from that. I'm talking about grandmas and
parents. You've got to correct children. In 1 Corinthians chapter 1, Paul
said, the Jews require sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom.
And I believe this man was seeking after both. That's how ignorant
he was. But his faith still was fastened
on the man. Fastened on the man. And he was
a son and he had genuine faith. And he wasn't going to move.
He came out of a need and his need wasn't met. Now listen to
this, verse 49. The nobleman saith unto him,
Sir, come down ere my child die. He's going to die. You know, true faith, when faith
comes, it teaches us how to pray on it. Because faith doesn't
look. Faith comes in desperation. Faith
doesn't come chewing bubble gum and popping and laughing and
coming down an aisle. Faith comes out of desperation. And it comes with some understanding
of our inabilities and of our sin. This man came out of desperation
to Christ. That's why he stayed. If he could have done something
else about it, he would have. He couldn't. And that type of
faith, when it brings you to Christ, you don't pray. This
was a noble man. And he believed that Christ had
a cause. He believed that there was some
reason why he was out here preaching and teaching and suffering as
he did. And he could have used his influence
and his position, and he could have come to him and said, I'm
a noble man. I've got a lot of influence. Now, if you can heal
my child, boy, I can help you. He didn't pray that way, did
he? Huh? He didn't pray that way. True
faith pleads mercy. That's what it takes. Because
it's been shut up. It's desperate. It comes to him.
And he's the only one that can fulfill the need. And I tell
you, there's a difference between how hungry men seek him. You
remember, he was on the mountain. He took the two fishes and the
loaves of bread, and he fed the multitude. And it said they would
have taken him right then and made him king by force. They
were going to make him the king by force. But he disappeared
out of their sight. And then he went across the sea
and these people journeyed around it and they met him on the other
side. And he said, you seek me not because you saw the miracles.
You didn't seek me because you had a need. You didn't seek me
as your Savior. You seek me because you ate of
the fishes and the bread and you were filled. You're looking
for a free meal. And that's how when certain men
seek Christ, they seek Him for the benefits. And they go there,
if I get it okay, if I don't, okay. Faith don't sit that way. Faith comes to Christ knowing
that it's either Christ or else. It's got to be Him. There's nowhere
else to go. There's nowhere else to go. Listen to this. This is David,
the man after God's own heart, the king of Israel. He said,
Pardon mine iniquity, for it is great. Now this is the man
who wrote the Psalms. He's the king. The king of Israel. The man after God's own heart.
Anointed by the prophet. Pardon mine iniquities. And you
can go on and on and on. with the prayers of the saints.
You won't find any of those prayers where they pleaded their own
goodness, their own righteousness, their own potential, their own
influence. You won't find it. It's not in
there. Not in there. If God begins to work in a sinner's
heart, he begins to see himself the reason for the calamity.
Begins to see what he's made of. and how utterly impossible
his situation is. And he seeks mercy. He seeks
mercy. And something else I see here
that each time the Lord spoke to this
man, his faith increased. That will tell us something.
Every time the Lord spoke to him, his faith increased. Faith
cometh by hearing. Ain't that what Scripture says?
And hearing by the Word of God. This was the Word of God. He
not only spoke the Word of God, He was the Word of God. Faith
cometh by hearing. Hearing by the Word of God. Every
time the Lord spoke to him, his faith increased. It grew. It matured. Became more solid. He heard others speak of it.
Speak of his power. speak of his compassion and speak
of his healing and speak of those things. That's what brought him
there. And that's a good thing. That's a good thing. But he needed
to hear Him speak. And when he did, his faith increased. Every time he spoke to Him, it
increased. And he stood and he begged for
his son and he had certain prejudices. He had certain things fixed in
his mind that had to happen. All these things. How often did our Lord turn to
the people and He said, if thou canst believe? They'd come to
Him and they'd say, if this and if that, and He'd tell them,
if thou canst believe. These things are possible. All
things are possible. But now faith receives instruction
from the Son of God, and He receives, It receives them in spite of
these things. It receives it in spite of these
things. And this is what happens. This is the confession of everybody
who has ever come to know the Lord. He comes with prejudices. He comes with things already
fixed in his mind. This is how it has to work. This
is how it has to work. But in spite of those things,
God shuts him up to the Scriptures and shuts him up to Christ. And
he wound up believing those things in spite of his prejudices. In
spite of a lifetime. He comes in and hears three or
four times, and the Lord creates faith in his heart, and he believes
in spite of a background of a lifetime of prejudices. This man, in a
few short sentences, dropped his prejudices. Dropped them. A lifetime for it. He dropped all his reasoning.
He dropped everything. And then the Lord turned to him
and He said, Go your way, your son's healed. Now a few minutes
ago, he had to come down. A few minutes ago, he had to
come with Him. He had to go down there and probably had to touch
Him. I thought He'd come out and touch me and say some words
over me. It's not necessary. Not necessary. This is the Son
of God. Oh, I tell you, I can remember
sitting in the congregation, a petition that I'd prayed for
weeks, listening, listening. I knew
what had to happen. I thank God for a pastor who
told me what had to happen, shut me up to it. And I came in and
sat down and I just listened, inclined my ear, just like he
said, and waited, waited, waited, waited. You know, when he spoke,
it was instant. Instant. Just like that. I knew the petition was answered
instantly. Can you explain it? No, sir.
I can't. I just know it so. I know it
so by my own experience, I know it so in my heart, and I know
it so by the Word of God. This man, one minute, was pleading
with him to come down. The Lord said, go on. He said,
your son's healed. He dropped all his prejudices
and turned around and went home. And if you care to calculate
the times here, his servants met him. He was on his way home. The servants come to meet him.
And it was now the next day. So he wasn't in a hurry. He wasn't
running. He didn't run home. expecting to find his son dead.
He didn't run home because he figured the Lord brushed him
off. He just went on his way knowing, knowing that his son
lived, knowing that the Lord had done what he said he would
do and met those servants. And he asked the servants, he
said, when did the boy begin to amend? One o'clock yesterday. He was only a day's journey away.
He was just taking his time, taking his time. Oh, I tell you, he was a man desperate to hear
from Christ. He came with determination. He
came with desperation. His faith was tested by the rebuke
of Christ, and then he hears. How do we know when we hear? How do we know when we hear?
I know we go home and we think we heard. We think we heard something.
But how do you know when you hear? It's the difference in
knowing Christ can heal and hearing Him say to you, He's healed.
That's the difference. That's the difference. The knowing
is in the response. That's where it is. How are you
going to make your election sure? Make your calling and election
sure. That's what Peter said. That's
how you're going to know. The Lord told this man that his
petition was heard and answered. Go thy way, thy son liveth. What did he do? He went his way.
He heard. If he hadn't heard, he'd still
be there. He'd still be asking questions. And that's how faith operates.
Faith takes God at His Word. It needs no evidences except
those contained within it. And the Word of God, my friend,
verifies itself. I fear this in our day. We pick
up a Bible because somebody said something. And it don't seem
right to us. And so we pick it up and we turn
over here real quick to this and we read it. We turn over
here and read it and then we close it up. We close it up. What happens when God begins
to save a man is that He gives him an interest in these things
and He opens this Word and He begins to read it. Read it. Carefully. Think about what it's
saying. He reads a lot. He doesn't read
a verse or two. He doesn't run over here and
find this verse. You can take pieces and parts of verses and
make this Bible say anything you want it to. Brother Mahan
used to quote two parts of verses. It said, Peter went out and hanged
himself. Go ye and do likewise. That's Scripture. But that's
not the message of this book. And that's what men do. They
take parts and pieces of the Scripture and make it say whatever
their prejudice tells them it needs to say, whatever that concept
is, to justify that concept. And they'll take this part and
that part and another part. When God begins to deal with
a man and He's going to save this man, bring him to saving
faith, what He does is give him an interest in this book and
he begins to read it. And I'll tell you what I discovered
when I started doing that. There's a continuity about this
book that verifies that it's from God. You're reading all
these authors from the beginning of creation to the end of time,
and all these men are from different backgrounds and different countries
and different nations, different customs, different ages, but
they're all telling one story. And there's a continuity that
flows through the Bible. You can't find a truth over here
in James that's not in Romans. You won't find a truth in Romans
that's not in Matthew. You're going to listen to what
Matthew said and go back, and that's what Malachi said. There's
a continuity and it flows through here. And those things verify
this book to be above man. Man can't do that. He can't do
that. And I found that the Scriptures
verify themselves. They verify themselves. I can't explain that. It's a
mystery, but I just know it's so. And then there's means. Means. He brought him up here
He brought him by testimony, he brought him to himself, he
spoke to him, and he answered his petition. And then when he
went home, and I'll close with this, when he went home and asked
them about the hour, the very hour, and they told him what
it was, he said he himself believed. That hope that he had, all this
while this faith was for another, it was for his son. And this
faith was between Christ and His Son. This was the uppermost
thing on his mind. But when he saw what happened,
he took those things and applied them to himself and it says,
he himself believed and his house. And I don't have any idea how
to explain this. I just know it so. But faith
is contagious. It's contagious. I remember the
first few little interesting things that we come to see in
the Bible, first few little truths. And before you know it, we had
a crowd gathered together looking at those things. It's contagious. It's contagious. I don't know
how to explain that. I don't know how to line that
up with God's sovereignty. Maybe some of you theologians
can, but I can't. I just know it's so.