I invite you to turn in your
Bibles to the book of Hebrews chapter 11 back to the verse
8. Notice, if you will, the reading
of verse 8 of Hebrews 11. By faith Abraham, when he was
called to go out into a place which he should after receive
for an inheritance, obeyed. And he went out not knowing whether
he went. I thought as I meditated on the
way to open up this second message this morning on this text, on
this question, what was Abraham's experience? What was Abraham's
special experience? Now the experience of Abraham
involved, I think, three things. The scripture here makes clear,
and the 12th chapter of Genesis, as Brother Randy read it this
morning, makes clear, first of all, that the first thing was
that Abraham had a call from God. God called Abraham. It is our conviction that all
believers receive a call from God. The Bible says in John 10
and 3 that he calleth his own sheep by name and he leads them
out. God's people are the called of
the Lord. You're here this morning and
you're a believer in Jesus Christ, then you're among those who are
called of Jesus Christ. You're among those who have been
called out, irresistibly called out by the Holy Spirit. Now Abraham
received this call from God. You say, how did he receive the
call? Well, I believe that he received
the call by an inaudible voice from the Lord. I believe that
Abraham was spoken to by God on several occasions. The Bible
speaks of at least four times when God appeared unto Abraham. And when he visited him and spoke
with him, and the Bible says that Abraham was a friend of
God. And they communed together. There was something going on
between Abraham and God. And so Abraham was called of
God. Now you may wonder about Abraham
Was he somebody special? Well, Abraham was chosen of God. He was a chosen vessel of our
God. And we tried to tell you last
week that election, divine election, the decree of election precedes
saving faith that those who are chosen of God in old time believe
in time the gospel and Abraham was brought to believe because
God had chosen him and he did receive this audible voice calling
him out of the earth of Chaldees out into the land of Canaan now
you may wonder about this call being an audible call but God
does speak to his people and when he does they know it, other
people will not know it. Possibly they will never know
it unless the individual tells them and then of course there
would follow a great deal of skepticism as to whether or not
this individual really heard God speak to them or not. And we know there's a lot of
kooks in the world. to do certain things. And we recognize that on most
of those occasions when we hear these people speak up, they do
not know what they're talking about. They never heard from
God at all. It was something else. But I do know that God
speaks audibly to His people, and His people do hear the voice
of God in their own soul. And I know it's true by my own
experience. I wouldn't try to prove it to
you. I just know God talks to his people. And so this was Abraham's
experience. God visited him and spoke to
him. He had a call. And number two,
he obeyed that call. He obeyed the call. Now you may
wonder about why he obeyed the call when the Bible says that
There are many of those to whom the Gospel is preached who do
not obey the call. They do not obey the call of
the Gospel. And the Gospel, the general call
of the Gospel goes out, the preacher preaches, the invitation of the
Word of God is set forth, and people refuse it. People rebel
against it. Well, why did Abraham obey the
call of the Gospel? Listen to this. This is a special
call, a call attended with a sacred power which subdues the will
and secures obedience. This is God effectually calling
Abraham. And when he called him, he obeyed
because the grace of God subdued his will and secured in the heart
of Abraham obedience unto the Lord. And that's exactly what
happens in everyone who hears the effectual call and believes
on the Lord Jesus Christ. And to that individual there
is imputed the saving righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. But
God must send a power and he must subdue the all-natural rebellion
of the heart of man, and he must secure in the heart and the soul
the obedience of man. God must do this. It's his divine
power that accomplishes this work, and it's his work indeed
from the beginning to the end. Now, I think the third thing
that we find in his experience is the reason that he obeyed
it was because of this faith. This faith was the reason for
his conduct. God planted his faith in his
heart and he believed God, he was able to believe God, and
this was responsible for his going out. for his leaving his
home place and for his going out. His reasoning was this.
This is God, the ever-living God, the almighty God that is
speaking to me. This is God that said to me,
you go out, you leave the land of your father and you leave
your father's house and go out into the land of Canaan, the
land that I will show you. So Abraham believed, his reasoning
was God is speaking to me. It's the Lord that's telling
me to do this. And this is the thing that is
extremely important if you're going to be able to follow the
leading of the Lord is that you must willingly believe what God
tells you in your heart. When He speaks to you, believe
it is God. You say, I don't think God ever
speak to me. Well, immediately, my friend,
you put yourself in a very awkward position. I do believe that God
speaks to His people, and that God leads His people, and we
must believe that He is God leading and directing our lives. Now,
His reasoning then was, this is God speaking, and secondly,
His will must be right. If God is speaking to me, if
God is telling me to do this, if the Lord is instructing me
and telling me what to do, then it must be right for me to do
it. It has to be right for me to
do this. Now towards God a blind obedience
is the truest of wisdom. Toward God, I say, a blind obedience
is the truest of wisdom. I say by that, that when God
speaks to you, you consult not with flesh and blood. When God
speaks to you, you don't go hem-hawing around and trying to figure out
a way to get out of it. We'll have a little more to say
about that in a moment, but true faith toward God is blind confidence
in what God says. Obedience to God, blind obedience,
we say is the true wisdom. So this we wanted to involve
in talking about Abraham's experience, then we have these three things
that we've mentioned. And Abraham's conduct It involved
a willingness to be separated from his kindred. Now, a willingness
to leave his family. Now, beloved, this is not an
easy thing to do. This is a very difficult thing
to do. For a man, God says, I want you
to leave your father's house. I want you to leave this land.
And I want you where you feel security. And I want you to leave
and go out into a place that I will after show you. Well,
he had a willingness. in his heart to be separated
from his kinfolk and to leave them and go off. When God calls
a sinner out of this world unto himself, there must be a willingness
in the heart of that individual whom God saves to separate themselves
from the world. to separate themselves from the
ungodly counsel of the world and to walk with the Lord in
the light of the Word of God and the truth of God. Now sometimes
if God would call you to leave your kinfolk, you might get along
a little bit easier than living around them. But we're called
upon to believe God and to live and be among our kinfolk and
our relatives in this world unless God calls us otherwise. And so
we must live for the Lord even in that situation. And then he
was ready to, this is another thing that was involved I think
in his conduct, he was ready for all the losses and the risk
that might be involved in obedience to the call of God. Let me make
this statement because it was to be true. He was never, Abraham
was never to have a home on earth anymore after he left this land
of the Ur of the Chaldees and his father's home. He was never
ever. He was in a tent. He lived in
tents and they kept moving all the time. And so Abraham was
ready for the risk. and ready for the losses that
might be involved in his obedience to the call of God. Now, there's
a song that we sing sometimes, Jesus, I my cross have taken
all to leave and follow Thee, destitute, despised, forsaken,
thou from hence my all shall be. So this seemed to me to be
Abraham's experience in a nutshell. And I just wanted to open up
the message this morning by mentioning those things. Let me quickly
just review with you just a little bit about what we had to say
last week as we get on into our message. What did we say? What
kind of faith produces the obedience that Abraham had? Well, first
of all, we said that faith in God's right to rule is the kind
of faith that produces this obedience, God's right to rule in our life. We pointed out that God is absolutely
sovereign and God has a right to tell you what to do. You're
his creature. He created you. And not only
did he create you, but if you're a child of God, you've been new
created. You're a new creature in Christ
Jesus. You've been bought with a price,
and God has every right to rule in your life. And so this is
the kind of faith, the faith that says, God, I owe him allegiance. I owe him obedience. I have a
love debt to Him and I owe it to Him to serve Him and to follow
Him. God chose me when I was unable
to choose myself. God loved me ere I knew Him. And we know the Word of God teaches
that Christ died for us even before our flesh life began in
this world. And so why should not I live
unto Him? Why should not I live unto Him,
Him who died and rose again for me? Why shouldn't I live for
Him? Why shouldn't I obey Him and
follow Him when He instructs me and leads me in His Word?
So that's the first thing that we said. Secondly, We need to
have a faith in the rightness of God's commands, the rightness
of them. And that kind of goes back to
what we said earlier about Abraham. He believed that if God is speaking,
it's got to be right. And we pointed that out last
week, that what God tells you to do is right. Never question
it, believe it, And stand on it because God is right. The ways of the Lord are right. They're different than our ways,
but they are right. Mark it down. And then thirdly,
we talked about faith in our personal obligation to obey the
Lord. Showing you that God had spoken
to Abraham, maybe to nobody else. In all the earthicalities did
God say a word about them getting up and leaving, but he talked
to Abraham and gave him a personal call which put him under personal
obligation to do exactly what God called him to do. And so
it is true with you, my friend, as you listen to the voice of
the Lord. And oh, I hope you are listening
to the voice of the Lord in your own soul. What God points out
for you to do, you're under obligation to do. Now, do you want God to
speak to you or don't you? Do you want God to tell you something
or don't you? God has a purpose for every one
of His children's lives, and God will direct them in the way
He would have them to go. Do you want to hear from the
Lord? Well, my friend, if you do, recognize
that if you have the faith of God's elect, it will call upon
you, it will obligate you to do what God asks you to do, even
if nobody else has been asked to do it with you. If you must
stand alone, then you must stand alone. You must be willing to
stand alone and to suffer whatever you must suffer, whatever losses
and crosses that you must endure in this world, you must be willing
to do so. And if you are what you ought
to be as a child of God, you will take upon yourself the obligation
and do exactly as God called you. And then, fourthly, we talked
about how that faith that the command, how that the faith that
produces obedience to God, it must be, we must believe that
the faith or that the command is the paramount authority of
our being. Meaning that it's the superior
thing and the predominant thing. That if God speaks, don't make
any difference who else is talking, shut up. God, what He says, is
the thing we need to listen to. When God speaks, that's what
we're going to do. Somebody said, well, we've been
hashing this out and hashing that out around the supper table
about what we should do as a family and what we shouldn't do. But
when God speaks, we believe in God more than anything else or
in any other voice. We believe in God and we believe
what God tells us to do and that we'll do because we believe He
has the authority over our being and we will submit to that authority
because God is the one speaking. Well then with this faith we'll
go on now and try to get into the message and we'll finish
up the Lord willing in a short time here. But with this faith
we'll realize the object of our election. We'll realize the very
purpose of our lives if we have this kind of faith. We will realize the very purpose
that God has laid hold of us for. The very purpose that he
called us, the very purpose that he put us where we are and that
he's talking to us and speaking to us. We'll realize it. Now
let us describe then the kind of obedience which a living faith
produces. And we see this in Abraham's
experience. First of all, it produced prompt
obedience, prompt obedience. Now there was an immediate response
to the command. In other words, this is important
because delayed obedience is what? It is disobedience. When one delays obedience, when
God is spoken, then, my friend, that is disobedience. Continued
delay of duty is a continuous sin. It is rebellion against
God. If I do not obey the command
of God, then I sin, and every moment that I continue in that
condition, I repeat the sin over and over. I need to promptly
do what God tells me to do. If I read it in the Word of God,
or if I hear a message from God in my heart through the Holy
Spirit, then I am to immediately promptly obey the Lord. To halt
and consider whether you will obey or not is rebellion in the
heart. It's rebellion, we might say,
in the germ. To hesitate is to be disloyal
to God. Today, if you will hear His voice,
the scripture says, harden not your heart. Harden not your heart. If God speaks to you, if God
calls you, harden not your heart. Now the second thing, the first
thing is promptness. The second thing is the obedience
should be exact. You say, well, you mean that
we should do exactly what the Lord asks us to do? Absolutely. God is a precise God. He really is. Obedience, then,
should be exact. When he was called to go out,
he did what? He went out. That's what he did.
He went out. That which the Lord commands,
we should do just that and not another thing of our own devising. My friend, you'd be surprised
how many people try to give God something else instead of what
he asked for. When God speaks to you, you'll
hear it, and you'll know what he's saying, and that's what
he wants. That's what he wants you to do.
Now, my son, give me thine heart, saith the word of God, and we
give everything else to God but our hearts. We don't want to
give him our hearts. Because after all, you know,
our hearts we would like to reserve to ourselves. But my son, give
me your heart. Give me your heart. To obey is
better than sacrifice, the Bible says, and to hearken than the
fat of rams. It's better to obey the Lord
than bring an offering. Somebody said, well, I don't
know that I can do what God asked me to do, but I'll Give a little
more. No, my friend, to obey is better
than sacrifice. God's not looking for something
from you. You're not going to make God
wealthy. You're not going anywhere rich, God. My friend, listen,
to obey God is better than you giving something. And to hearken
to His voice is better than the fat of rams. If the Lord has
given you true faith in Himself, You will be anxious not so much
to do a notable thing as to do exactly what God would have you
to do. Exactly what God wants you to
do. Attention to little things is a fine feature in obedience
to little things. We serve a heart-searching, a
rain-trying God who observes thoughts and motives. Oh, my friend, for a tender conscience
toward God, that we would have a conscience that be quickly
offended if we knew what God wanted from us, we wouldn't give
it. For a conscience that couldn't
live with that kind of disobedience and rebellion. Well, Abraham
then, he promptly obeyed the Lord and he exactly, he did exactly
what God asked him to do. You know, he could have sat around
and he could have said, well, I'll move on the outskirts. I'll just
get a little peace out here. I'll just go a little peace and
that'll be it. That'll surely please God. Nope.
God said, you go out to a place I'll show you. You go to the
land of Canaan. And that's where Abraham went. Now the third thing we see is
that he rendered practical obedience. When he received the command
to leave his father's house, he did not say, I will think
it over. He did not discuss the pros and
cons with neighbors and relatives. He did not ask his father. He
did not. No, he went out. We have too
much talk in our day and too little obedience. Brother, sister,
the religion of mere brain and jaw does not amount to much,
and you remember that. There's a lot of talk, and I've
met people through the years, and I can see their faces in
my memory this morning. who were much much at much talk
about them about what they would do and about how they were going
to serve the Lord and how they were going to walk with God and
it was just mere brain and jaw religion. That's all it was.
There wasn't anything of the heart and anything of the feet
and anything of the hands. They weren't going to do anything.
It was just that they wanted to jaw about it. And there's
a lot of people think they've fulfilled their responsibility
when they've talked about doing what God wants them to do. Now
we want the religion then of heart and the religion of hands
and the religion of feet. We want the religion that moves
men and women to do what God has called them to do. And fourthly,
it's a foreseeing obedience that Abraham's faith moved. It says that he went out to a
place that he should after receive for an inheritance. Well, there's
much in that statement that he should after receive for an inheritance. Many would obey God if they were
paid for it on the spot. Think about that. If God asked
you to do something and said, well, right here, I'll just pay
you for it right now, and then you go on and do it, then you'd
probably say, well, that don't sound like But God did not tell
Abraham he was going to pay him on the spot. He said, you go
out into a place I will show you, a place that you shall after
receive for an inheritance. So when God speaks to you, my
friend, you must have a foreseeing obedience. You must recognize
that whatever it is that God asks you to do is right, and
that in time to come, in God's own way, He'll pay you off if
that's what's necessary and if that's the thing that you're
laboring for. Some people's heaven must be
had now. They cannot afford to wait. They
want it now. A bird in hand, they say, is
better than two in the bush. So right now, we've got, well,
we've got a little something here, and so we just stick with
it. We're not going to venture, we're
not going to walk out, step out, and obey the Lord. To inherit
a country after this life is over is too much like a fairy
tale for many people's practical minds. It just won't work. We're
not interested in something in the hereafter. We're interested
in now. Now. What's happening now? That's
what we're interested in. Will it pay off in the end? Will
it pay to serve God, they ask? Will it pay to mind God? Will
it pay to obey God? Will it pay? Will it cost me
anything? Am I going to have to pay? Well,
My friend, it'll probably, according to your own view of it, will
probably end up costing you the best chance you had in life. Because that's your view of it.
You think that the best chance in life is the thing that's to
be sought after and not the will of God. The best thing for you
is the will of God. The best thing you could do with
your life is to honor God with it. And forget about having,
you know, a lot of people have, they think they've got it figured
out in their minds what their best chance is in this life. And my friend, it's all a bunch
of foolishness. Man in his best state is altogether
vanity, and man's mind plays tricks on him. My friend, eternal
things are real things. Temporal things, they're not
really real. And so focus on those things
that are real. And if you walk with God, you're
not going to miss your best chance. The devil will tell you you will,
the flesh will tell you that you're going to, but you will
not miss God's purpose and will for your life. Now those who
practice obedience of faith look for the reward hereafter. Look
for the reward down the road, hereafter, after they have done
the will of God, then they will receive the reward, whatever
the reward is. Personally, I'll get into that
on another subject, but I don't have much to say as far as, I'm
not too big on this reward business at all. Now those who practice
the obedience of faith and look for whatever reward there is
hereafter. This needs a faith that has eyes
which can see afar off, across the black torn of death, and
within the veil which puts us, which parts us from the unseen
world. A man will not obey God unless
he has learned to endure as seeing him that is invisible. Enduring in this life His eyes
on the Lord, who is the invisible God, and keeping his eyes upon
the Lord. Now the fifth thing is the obedience
which comes of faith, of true faith, that is, is often revealed
a step at a time. Just a step at a time. He went
out not knowing whether he went. He didn't know where his way
was going to take him. But he knew that the Lord had said go.
He didn't even know how far to go every day. But he went out,
and where he was to stop in the evening, I'm sure he was looking
to God. And as he got closer to the land
of Canaan, those people there were barbaric people, and Abraham
and his host I'm sure they felt that they would be scrutinized
and that anybody who thought they could take advantage of
them would. And I'm sure it was necessary for him to consult
with God every step of the way that he might be able to do and
to go on as the Lord would have him to go. He knew the Lord had
said go, and that's the important thing. If God has led me, he'll
take care of me in the way. And he will guide me step by
step, day by day, as the time goes on. I don't know how in
the world I ever got where I am now. I don't know how I got here.
All I know is God has led step by step. And that's the way faith
believes God. The Bible says the just shall
live Day by day, by faith, they believe God. Even bad men will
obey God when they think it's fit. But believers will obey
when they know not what to think of it. They may not know what
to think. Here I am going to be out here
in the world, and I'm never going to have a home again, and I'm
going to be just believing what God said to me. Maybe I had a
bad day. Maybe I didn't hear from the
Lord. How many times have you ever
been in that position? I've been in it a few times, and I know
how it feels to be in those kind of positions. You say to yourself,
I don't know. Now, you know, we're out here,
and we don't know how we got here. We just know God said to
do it, and that's what we're doing. But maybe He didn't say
it. Well, if men go out today, they
must know where they're going or how much they're going to
have along the way in the way of means and support. They want
to know something about the outcome. How it's going to be out there.
But the modern believer must have no mysteries. He doesn't
want anything mysterious. He must have no mystery. He must
have it all planned out. But then most of them still won't
go anyway. Got to plan it out. It's got to all be laid out.
So we can see exactly how it's all going to be. Now my friend,
You've missed the spirit of Abraham if that's the way it is in your
life. You've missed the spirit of Abraham. You know it's a great
honor and privilege for God to speak to a man in the first place.
And then if you treat it that way, Lord, I just don't know
whether I can trust you or not. I don't know whether I can trust
you or not. I got a precious family. Amen. Got a precious
family. They're precious indeed. but
you can trust them with God. You trusted your own soul with
Him. Surely you can trust God, and so you must do that. Well,
last of all, what sort of life will come of this faith and obedience? What sort of life's going to
come of this? You say, I'm interested in hearing what kind of a life
really is this going to be? What's going to come of all this?
Well, first of all, let me say, contrary to the opinions of many,
this is a safe life. a very safe life. If you steer
yourself, you don't make any difference whether there's rocks
or no rocks. My friend, the danger lies in
the helmsman. That's where the danger is. Who's
running the boat? Who's running the ship? Now God,
if He does as I ask Him to do, and I'm sure many of you ask
Him, God save us from ourselves. That's the danger is when we
grab the oars and when we say, well, I think we need to go this
way or that way. The danger is in ourselves. Safety is in the Lord. and in
waiting upon God. We're no longer the master of
our ship when we walk the faith. It's in the hands of God. It's
kind of like you getting on an airplane, and when they close
them doors, brother, sister, that's it. It's in somebody else's
hands besides yours. It's out of your hands. Somebody
said, what will it do? All we'll do is sit here. That's what we'll
do. And if she goes up and comes
down, praise the Lord. And if it don't, praise the Lord. because it's God's hand that
leads. Now that's a safe life if your
life is in the hands of God. And the second thing is it's
a successful life. Don't you want to be a success?
I would think that, I mean I always wanted to be a success. Not in
the eyes of the world, but in the eyes of God. I wanted to
be a success in the eyes of God. If we do as God commands and
do not seem to succeed, it is no fault of ours. Now, is that
too brassy or is that too bold for a man to say that? No, my
friend, if you do what God commands you to do, the results must be
left with Him. Future itself would be a success
or failure, we should say, itself would be a success as long as
we did not fail to obey God. So would you be willing to be
a fool for Christ's sake? You say, well, I don't know whether
I can cut that or not. You want to be successful? You
obey God. You just do what He tells you
to do and leave the success business up to God. Leave it in His hands. Providence is God's business. Obedience is our business. What comes out of our life's
course must remain with the Lord. To obey is our sole concern. That's your concern. Quit thinking
about it. You say, I've been trying to
map this thing out, plan out my success. You, my friend, are
foolish. Seek the Lord with all of your
heart. Cast yourself upon the Lord. Lay yourself down before
God every day and ask God to take your life, to lead you and
direct you and fulfill His purpose in your life. To obey is your
sole concern. what harvest will come of our
sowing, we must leave with the God of the harvest, with the
Lord of the harvest. To be a successful servant is
not in our power to begin with. And we shall not be held responsible
for it. Now, I want you to get that.
To be a successful servant of God is not in our power. and we shall not be held responsible
for it. Faith and obedience is the way
of success to God's people in God's eyes. Faith and obedience
is the way to success, both in God's people and in the eyes
of God. And then thirdly, let me say
that this is a life which is free from its heaviest cares. Safe life, a successful life,
and a life free from the heaviest cares. When our only concern
and our only care in this life is to obey God, a thousand other
cares are avoided. If we sin in order to succeed,
we have sown the seeds of care and sorrow. If we forsake the
path and try shortcuts, we shall have to do a great deal of waiting
through the mire and the slough. We shall be wearied to find our
way and all because we could not trust and obey the Lord.
We could not just simply trust Him. Wouldn't it be a whole lot
better for me to be concerned with trusting and obeying the
Lord than it would be for me to try to solve all the other
problems that comes from an individual taking this thing in his own
hands and saying, well, I've got to make this work. I've just
got to be a success. I've just got to prove to everybody
that I'm a man of faith and all that. Forget it. Forget it. You just have one concern. Obey,
trust the Lord, and follow His command, and let Him take care
of the rest of it. All the other cares that come
into existence, leave it with Him. Obedience may appear difficult,
and it will bring sacrifice, but after all, it is the very
best road. Certainly, certainly, it is difficult,
and it appears difficult. Somebody said, this is tough
just to believe God and trust God and leave your hands off
the steering wheel and leave it with the Lord. My friend,
it may be difficult, but it's the safe, it's the successful
way, and it's the way to keep yourself away from the heaviest
of cares. It's the best road for you to
take. I have no cares, the poet said, O blessed Lord, for all
my cares are thine. I live in triumph too, for thou
hast made Thy triumphs mine. Now this is the very humbling
thing to flesh and to carnal reasoning. It's a humbling thing
because you know man just he just feels like you know he's
a little God himself. Everybody thinks they're a little
God. And it's tough for an individual
to get to the place where they every day just yield their will,
submit themselves to the hand of God Almighty. Well, this is
the valley of humiliation we're living. You know, the Lord Jesus,
when He lived here, the Bible teaches that He learned obedience.
Even the Lord Jesus, through the things that He suffered,
And so you recognize that you're in the valley of humiliation
when you must repudiate the carnal mind, the fleshly mind, and look
to God, to his word, and to his will, and to his way. Does not
the Bible say that we're not to lean to our own understanding,
but in all of our ways acknowledge him, and he'll direct our steps?
Lean not to your own understanding means to repudiate the carnal
mind, the fleshly mind. And the poet said, he that is
down need fear no fall. You said I'd have to go way down
to get in that position where I repudiate my own thinking about
things. He that is down need fear no
fall. He that is low, no pride. He that is humble ever shall
have God to be his guide. I like that. I like it indeed. And then fourthly, it's a life
of highest honor. I'm describing the kind of life
this life of faith is. It's a life of highest honor. Christ Himself showed us the
way. As we mentioned, He learned obedience. He never struck out
on an original course. He did always those things which
pleased the Father. He did always those things which
pleased the Father. I like that. He's my substitute.
That's who He is. He did always those things that
pleased the Father. So the father is well pleased
with him. And the father said so twice from heaven. This is
my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. And Jesus struck out
on no original course in his life. He obeyed God. He come
into the world. He said, I come not to do my
will, but thy will, O Lord. He said, I come not to do my
work, but your work, your work. And so the Lord Jesus, we learn
from him. To a soldier, it is the greatest
honor to have accomplished the command of the General. It is the greatest honor to have
obeyed instructions and commands and fulfilled them. Let me say
that it is no dishonor to yield our intelligence to a higher
intelligence. You say, who are we going to
yield our minds to? To God. To God. He does not debase his manhood
who subjects it to honorable command. No, my friend, he is
exalted thereby. A man is exalted who would yield
his manhood to the honorable command of his God. He is exalted. And then it is a life which may
be safely copied, this life of faith. As parents, we wish to
leave our children an example to follow, an example to obey
and trust God. Don't you want to teach your
children that? To obey God? Well, then the best thing for
you to do is quit your murmuring and complaining. The best thing
for you to do is to begin to act out faith before your children. Trust God and make sure your
family knows you're depending upon God. Even if you're the
head of the house, don't think it to be a weak thing for you
to share with the family that your confidence is in the Lord
and that their welfare depends upon the faithfulness of God's
hand toward you and toward them. You need to teach your children
to trust and obey the Lord and to set the example for them that
the Word of God teaches. You know, Abraham was a man who
God said will instruct his children after me. And he will be a good
example to his children. He will lead them to know me.
Let them see in and through you the obedience of faith. Now,
beloved, we will admit that it is a life which needs a lot of
grace. That's true. Does anybody have a scripture
that would fit in right here? Doesn't the Bible say that His
grace is sufficient for thee? His grace is sufficient for thee. That's what Paul said when he
prayed three times about apparently his eye problem. And the Lord
just kept telling him, my grace is sufficient for you. My grace
is sufficient. Just go on down the road, Paul.
I'm going to be with you. And my grace is going to be sufficient.
Just keep on, keep on keeping on. My grace is sufficient. I like what Spurgeon said about
that. He said that it's kind of like a mouse going up to a
huge granary. And going and sticking his head
in that granary, plumbed full of grain. All this for me. God's grace. My grace is sufficient
for thee. I tell you, this life of faith
takes a lot of grace. And I tell you that God has the
grace. And that He will give us more
grace. James tells us. Believe more. Trust God. We need watchfulness
in prayer. Nearness to God to maintain this
faith. Needed to walk with God. Nearness
to the Lord. I give you these things in closing. Quickly. We need to believe more
instead of less in these things. One, the pardon of our sin. Need
to believe more instead of less. Has God really pardoned my sin?
Has God ever said to me, Thy sins be forgiven thee. If he
has, it makes all the difference in the world. Why would not a
man give his life for him who died for him that his sin might
be forgiven? Keep thinking about what God
has pardoned you from. How God has taken away your sin
and your guilt. We need to believe more than
less in the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God. You know what the Bible says?
It says they that are led by the Spirit of God are the sons
of God. Believe in the leading of the
Holy Spirit that God directs His people. Believe in it. Trust
in the leading of God in your life. Believe that God will lead
you. And the next thing is we need
to believe more instead of less in the everlasting covenant of
grace. The everlasting covenant. You see, in that everlasting
covenant of grace, God has made full provision for the lives
of his people in this world and in the world to come. Full provision. So you need to believe more instead
of less in the everlasting covenant of grace. God is not going to
abandon you, my friend. He's not going to leave you.
He is not going to ruin you. Somebody says, if I follow that
faith business, I'll be ruined. No, you won't. No, you won't.
No, you won't. Believe God, believe His Word,
and believe that He's already planning for you. That's what
David said. David said on one occasion, he
said, I'm poor and needy, but yet the Lord is planning for
me. He's planning for me. Now if
the God of heaven and earth is planning for me, what fear should
I have? I should have no fear. I should
have confidence in the everlasting covenant of grace that embraced
me in old eternity and God pledged, wherein God pledged that he would
never leave me, never forsake me. I could always boldly say
the Lord is my helper and I needed not to fear what man shall do
unto me. You know, there's a lot of concern
across the country. Is the Lord going to come back
before this nation is hit with nuclear bombs or has war right
here in our own nation? Well, my friend, that's involved
in the covenant of grace. We need to believe that God will
do what's right. America is not always going to
be. I made a statement. I don't know
whether you agree with it or not, But the people in America
need to learn to trust God. We've trusted our might, we've
trusted our power, we've trusted our government. When are we going
to trust God? And it's when you trust God,
that's when you're going to have a little rest in the face of
all that's going on in the world. Who can figure it out? I can't.
And I don't think you can either. We don't know a fraction about
what's going on. But you can trust God. believe
more than less in the everlasting covenant of God's grace. And
then we need to believe more than less in the love that had
no beginning and will never cease. God's love for his people that
had no beginning will never cease. You know, I've never been able
to get over the fact that God loved me and chose me before
I was ever thought of except in the mind of God. That's a
wonderful thing. For God to love his people. For
God to love his people everlastingly. We need to believe more in that.
And don't look upon our God as being a harsh tyrant who demands
of me that I give up my life's little pleasure. No, my friend. Believe in the love of a Father
who would guide you safely through and would make your life to be
effective and useful and to make it be exactly what it ought to
be. Oh, my friend, obedience, as
one writer put it, is the rehearsal of eternal bliss. It's the rehearsal
of eternal bliss. So believe more than less in
these things that we stated, and it will help you on the road
to having this life. that is a life of faith and confidence
in God. Father, we thank you for this
privilege today. Lord, we would have preached
better this morning if we could have. We just pray that you would
undertake and we pray that you would bless the things that have
been said to your glory and to your honor and to your praise. And I do pray that you may lay
hold of some heart here today that has been in doubt and confused,
and that they'll lay their life down before you before this day
is over. And they'll commit themselves
unto the Lord and trust their way into your hand, that you
may lead them and direct them. I pray it in Jesus' name and
for His sake. Amen.