to the book of Hebrews chapter
11. The book of Hebrews chapter 11. I want to begin reading with verse
8 and read down through verse 12. 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. By faith he sojourned in the
land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles
with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for a city which
hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Through faith
also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered
of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful
who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of
one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky
in multitude, and as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable. I want to speak this morning
on the subject of the obedience of faith. The obedience of faith. It has been supposed by many
who are ill-instructed, that the doctrine of justification
by faith is opposed to the teaching of obedience or good works, and
there is no truth to it. All who are saved are saved by
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are saved by faith without
works, but we're not saved with a faith that does not work. The
faith of God's elect is a faith that obeys God. It's a faith
that walks after the Lord, acknowledging the will of God, acknowledging
that which God reveals in His Word, walks in obedience to that
faith. We preach the obedience of faith. Faith is the fountain, it's the
foundation, it's the fosterer of all true obedience. Men that
have no faith in God will not obey God. They will not obey
the Lord. It is men that believe God that
obeys God. Now, we preach faith in order
that men may be brought to true obedience. Now, beloved, without faith in
God, a man will not have the proper motive to obey the Lord. To disbelieve God is to disobey
God. We know that the commandment
of Scripture is that we believe on His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And one of the first signs of
practiced obedience is found in that mind or that understanding
and that heart that is expressed in the believing of the teaching
of Christ, trusting to His work and resting fully in His salvation,
resting fully in the finished work of the Lord Jesus. Now,
if we would work the works of God, The Bible tells us that
the work of God is that we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, whom
God the Father has sent. Have you believed on the Lord
Jesus Christ? Have you trusted in the God of
Abraham? Have you trusted in that God
that forgives sins and puts away sin? Have you believed in that
God that raised his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, from the dead?
Our brother read this morning where that the Lord Jesus was
delivered for our offenses and he was raised again for our justification. Have you believed on him? Do
you have the faith of Abraham? If so, then you will by that
faith obey God. You will walk in the steps of
faithful Abraham. Brethren, We do not give a secondary
place to obedience as some would suppose. Some say that preacher's
always talking about God saving the ungodly through faith and
that God reconciles sinners unto himself through the merits of
his son, the Lord Jesus, and we do preach that. We do indeed
preach that. We believe that. We know the
only way to find acceptance with God is in and through the beloved. We know that God will not look
upon a sinner with favor except that sinner be in the Lord Jesus
Christ. We know that God never put away
any sin that was not paid for. And the Lord Jesus Christ paid
in full for all sins that are ever put away by a sovereign
God. Sin must be paid for, and that
sin was paid for, the sins of God's elect, by the Lord Jesus
Christ. So we preach full forgiveness,
we preach the remission of sin through faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. But we look upon the obedience
of the heart to the will of God as being the obedience of faith
or as salvation. Listen to this verse, Matthew
7 and 21. Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter
into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my
Father which is in heaven. Now let me make this statement
that the faith that saves and the faith that obeys God is the
same faith. It is the very same faith. There
are those that say, I believe that I'm saved, I believe I'm
a child of God, but yet They do not walk in obedience to God. They flag their nose at the Word
of God. They do not tremble at the Bible.
They do not tremble at the message of the Bible. They do not have
any regard for or concern for what thus saith the Lord, what
God says unto men. These people are absolutely what we might say, misled. They
are in a state of confusion. They know not the God of the
Bible. They have not saving faith. Saving faith produces obedience. Abraham believed God, and so
when God said to Abraham, this is what I want you to do, then
the Bible says he obeyed. He obeyed when God told him what
to do. Now, beloved, there was a time
When in this very city of Great Falls, about 26 and a half years
ago, when I walked out of a house in June of 1970, and in the yard,
I was very trembly at the time, and very much in a state of indecision
as to just exactly what I ought to do about leaving all of my
fleshly security and leaving my family and leaving a good
business and job in Indiana to move to Great Falls, Montana
and preach the gospel. And I was just about ready to
back out. I felt the Lord had called me
to this place. I felt the Lord was in me moving
here, but I was very, very shaky about it. And I was about ready
to come down into this area here, actually, and put a down payment
on a piece of property, on a home down here in this area. And as
I was about ready to back out and tell the brethren, just call
the real estate man, tell him I won't be there, I'm not gonna
do this, the Lord said to me, The fearful and the unbelieving
shall have their part in that lake which burns with fire along
with the abominable and the whoremongers and so on and so forth. They're
gonna have their part, the fearful and the unbelieving. Now why
would the Lord say that to a man who'd already been in the ministry
for 20 years and been preaching the gospel of free grace all
of those years? Why would the Lord say that to
me? Well, the reason he would say
that to me is because the faith that saves is the same faith
that obeys God. And if you don't obey God, it's
just like somebody said, well, I know so and so, they got saved
about 10 years ago and they've never grown a bit. That's like
saying that a baby was born 10 years ago and it's never grown
one bit. Well, you tell me about that
baby, I'll tell you the baby's dead. If the baby was alive,
it would be growing in faith. It would be making some progress.
And those who are born of God will grow unto God in faith and
love. And they will obey God and walk. after the will and the commandment
of their God. Not everyone that saith unto
me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but they
that will do the will, the will of my Father which is in heaven.
And so you this morning that entertained the idea that you're
going to heaven, You that entertain the idea that you have saving
faith. Let me tell you that there's
coming a time when God's going to cross your path with his word
and with his truth. And you're going to understand
what God would have you to do in your life. Maybe it's over
some habit or some sin in your life. Maybe it has to do with
where you live, or it has to do with what God wants you to
do with your substance, or what God wants you to do with your
life, your talent. Maybe it's something that the
Lord has called you to do, and you've been fighting against
it, or it's something that you know in your heart is wrong in
your life. And you say, well, I believe
that I'm saved. Well, God's going to cross your
path with that, and you're going to do what God tells you to do
about that thing, or you're going to hell with all of the fearful,
the unbelievers, and the abominable, the wicked. You're going to hell
with them. Because I'm telling you, there's
only one way that we're going to walk in this world and please
God and obey God as we believe Him. And saving faith believes
in the Lordship of Christ and bows the knee to the will of
God and walks trembling before God in reverence and godly fear. We regard obedience as the great
design for which the Savior died. We believe that Jesus Christ
died in order that he would have a people that would love him,
love his father, and walk in obedience unto his will. He shed his blood that he might
cleanse us from dead works, purifying unto himself a people zealous
of good works. It is for this that we are or
were chosen, we are elected of God, chosen of God unto holiness
of life. We are called to be saints, and
the word saints means holy ones. We are called to obey God. And
we know nothing of election to continue in sin or in rebellion
against God. We know nothing about that. And
any man who says, well, I'm chosen of God, but he can flag his nose
at the Bible and the plain teachings of the scriptures is a man that
is a liar. He knows nothing about the true
grace of God that comes down from God and comes into a man's
heart and changes him from the very foundation and changes his
whole life. wherein he can bear fruit unto
the glory and praise of God. The Bible is clear on this subject.
If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things are
passed away. Behold, all things become new
in that man's life. Saving faith will affect everything
you do, and so do not claim to have it. and then say, Lord,
I'm not going to do what you say to do. I'm not going to obey
you. I'm going to have your salvation, but I'm not going to obey you.
God will have no part of that kind of an arrangement. You bow
your knee to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, or you
will die and go to hell. There is no way that a man can
live in this world and not submit himself to God and expect to
go to heaven when he leaves this world. Obedience is the grand
object of the work of grace in the hearts of those who are chosen
and called there to become obedient children conformed to the image
of our elder brother with whom the father is well pleased. The
Father's well pleased with the Lord Jesus. Now let me emphasize
something here. The obedience that comes of faith
is pleasing to God. The obedience that comes of faith
is pleasing to God. The obedience of a slave ranks
very little higher than the obedience of a well-trained horse or a
dog, for it is tuned to the crack of the whip, don't you see? But
obedience which is not carefully rendered is not the obedience
of the heart and consequently is of little worth before God.
If a person obeys because he has no opportunity of doing otherwise,
and if he were free, he would have once become a rebel, then
there's nothing in that person's obedience. Nothing whatsoever.
We are free in the Lord Jesus Christ. We're free in Christ,
and the motive for our service to God is love toward our Lord
Jesus Christ. If a person obeys because he
has no opportunity of doing otherwise, there's nothing in that person's
obedience. The obedience of faith springs
from a principle within. There's gotta be something inside
of a man, inside of a woman, inside of a boy or girl that
would move them toward, that would compel them to trust God. It comes from a sense of our
great obligation, our love debt to the Lord Jesus Christ. He
who bore our sin in his own body on the tree that we might be
reconciled unto God. We have a debt. to the Lord Jesus
Christ. The poet said, if there's a heart
that will not bend to thy divine control, descend, oh sovereign,
love, descend and melt that stubborn soul. God must come and do a
work in a man's heart before he'll bow his knee to the Lordship
of Christ. He must put this principle within,
that principle of love and that principle of faith. You can't
buy it and you can't work it up. God's sovereign and he'll
put it in whomsoever he will. I preach to you obedience, absolute
obedience to the Lord God. I preach the obedience of a child,
not the obedience of a slave. The obedience of love, not of
terror. The obedience of faith, not of
dread. I preach the obedience of faith.
I urge you to seek after stronger faith, for by faith Abraham obeyed
God. And in every case where the father
of the faithful obeyed, it was the result not of his upbringing. It wasn't the result of some
preacher's influence. It was the result of his faith,
naked faith in a holy God that moved Abraham to obey. And in
every case, Abraham believed it was the result of his faith.
If you now render true obedience to God, it'll be the product
of that faith, which was given to us, of God. And we render
obedience because it's there. Because it's there. You say,
preacher, I just can't believe God. That's because you don't
have the faith of God in your heart. It's because you don't
believe God. That's why you can't obey God.
You don't believe Him. If you believed Him, you would
indeed obey Him. Now if you and I render true
obedience, then it will be the product of this faith. Obedience
such as God can accept never comes out of a heart which thinks
that God is a liar. If you think God is a liar, you
ain't never gonna believe Him, and you ain't never gonna submit
yourself to Him, and you're not gonna obey Him. We must believe
in the truth, in the love, and in the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ. We must believe in our God. Now, there is a free grace road
to obedience, and that is by trust, that's by faith. The more
faith in Him you have, the more obedient to Him More obedience
to him will be manifest, the more you trust him. Obedience
naturally flows out of faith, then. For as a man believeth,
so is he. And in proportion to the strength
and purity of his faith in God, as he is revealed in Christ Jesus,
will be the holy obedience of his life. Now that's my opening
statement here this morning. Some people said, well, that'll
be, that's enough of a sermon right there, you don't need anything
else. But we got some other things we need to say. First of all,
let me say this. Our first point, the kind of
faith which produces obedience. What is that? What kind of faith
is it that causes a man to bow his knee and submit himself to
God when the will of God runs cross-grain with everything he
is in a state of nature? You say, I just believe that
God is like we are, and I believe anything we feel is how God feels,
and the way we want things is the way God wants things, and
you got it all backwards, my friend. God is an absolutely
thrice holy God sitting on the throne. And your ways are not
His ways. Your thoughts are not His thoughts.
And it don't go from you to Him. It comes from Him to you. And
your standard is Him. His standard is not you. And
you need to understand that. And when you come to see that,
it's going to help you a great deal to understand what we're
talking about here this morning. You understand that one of these
days when God speaks to your heart, if He ever does, and the
silence of God in a man's soul means that that man has already
been given up by God. He's already given up on by God. God said he's going to hell. Ephraim is joined to his idols.
Let him alone. Let him go on to hell. the silence
of God in a man's soul. But listen to me now, listen
to me. The kind of faith which we're talking about is this kind
of faith. First of all, it's a faith in
God as having the right to command our obedience. In other words,
there's coming a time when God's going to say something to you
This is what I want you to do. This is what I want you to give
up. This is where I want you to go. This is what I want you
to do. And if you believe God, if you
have Bible faith, saving faith, that kind of faith says, well,
that's not exactly what I had in mind, Lord. But you got the
right to command me. You have the right to do with
your own whatever you will. Whatever you will, you can do.
And you're a sovereign God, and you have all power in heaven
and earth, and you can command me. Do you believe that God has
a right? Do you believe that God has a
claim on your life and he has a right to tell you what to do? Do you believe that? I'm talking
about the God of the Bible. I'm not talking about a God you
took a little knife and whittled out of a block of wood. I'm talking
about the living God, the God of the Bible. He has a right
to tell you what to do. Do you believe that? Do you really
believe that? Okay, he is a sovereign and his
will is law. He's our God, he's our maker,
our preserver, our redeemer and father and should have our unswerving
service. We ought to obey God. We unite also in confessing to
you this morning that according to the Bible we are not our own
as God's people living in this world having been redeemed by
the grace of God, having been bought with a price, having been
delivered by the life of the Lord Jesus Christ laid down on
our behalf, we're not our own, we're bought with a price, and
we have no right to say that we belong to ourselves. Therefore,
we'll do whatever we good and well please to do. We have no
such right. God's people do not live that
way. The Lord our God has a right
to us which we would not wish to question by virtue of the
fact that his life was laid down That's the point. I beseech you,
therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your
body a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which
is your reasonable service, in view of the fact that you go
straight to hell if Jesus had not shed his blood on your behalf. Your reasonable service. The Lord our God has a right
to us. He has a greater claim upon our services than he has
upon the services of the angels. For while they were created as
we, yet they have never been redeemed by the precious blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Angels have not been redeemed. Angels never felt the joy that
our salvation brings. Yes, our glorious and incarnate
God has an unquestioned right to every breath we breathe, to
every thought we think, to every monument or every moment, might
I say, of our lives. To every moment of our lives,
the Lord has a right to every breath and every moment. Do you
believe that? You say, preacher, I don't hardly
believe that. That's the reason why you're living the way you're
living. That's why you thumb your nose at God. That's why
you can read portions of the Bible and say, oh, that was written
a long time ago for people that has no regard to me. That don't
mean a thing to me, and God has no claim on my life. If God don't
have a claim on your life, you're going to hell, just as sure as
I'm preaching to you this morning. you are going to help. God has
a claim on everybody that he saves. And that claim is you
obey me and follow in my will. The Lord is king. His will is
not to be questioned. His every word is law. He has
a sovereign right to decree what he pleases and then to fulfill
that decree and to command what he pleases. and to punish every
shortcoming. He got the right to. I'm talking
about the kind of faith we got. We believe he's got the right
to do that. Because we believe God is Lord of all, we desire
in all things to say, thy will be done on earth as it is in
heaven. We want the will of God to be
done because we know God's will is right. God's will is right.
Now the second thing about this faith is this. You just listen
carefully, and I'm not gonna take you too long. I won't preach
my whole sermon. I'll back off part of it. I'll just preach what I believe
God had me to here, and you just listen, and listen carefully.
Next thing about this faith is this. We must have faith in the
rightness of all God says or does, the rightness of it. Do you believe that what God
says in his Bible is right. That is right. Well, the Bible
says that his word is forever settled in heaven. His word is
forever settled in heaven. And I hope we do not think of
God's sovereignty as being, that God is a tyrant. I hope we don't
think that way or imagine that he ever could or would will anything
but that which is right. God is too wise to err and too
holy not to do right. And whatever God says is right
because it came from one who cannot lie, and it came from
one who is absolutely thrice holy, and he cannot say that
which is wrong. Neither will we admit into our
minds the incorrectness of the word of God in any matter, whatever,
as though the Lord could err. We'll not allow it. We'll not
allow it. In this church, we believe that what the Bible says
is right. We believe the word of God. We believe the testimony
of scripture. We believe that every word was
given by inspiration of God and it's profitable for our teaching
and instruction in order that we might come to maturity of
life. Brethren, the Lord never errs in deed or in word. And may we enter into that true
spirit of obedience, which is the unshaken belief that the
Lord is right. Nothing short of this is the
obedience which the Lord deserves. The Lord is right. And through
the testimony of those in Holy Scripture, We find where they're
often found saying, it is the Lord. Let him do what is right
in his eyes. It's the Lord. And the Lord Jesus
said, Father, even so it pleased you to hide these things from
the wise and prudent, reveal them unto babes, because it seemed
right. unto you, whatever is right in
the sight of God is right. And if you come on the other
side of the track, you are wrong. And you say, well, preacher,
we've got a lot of people that tells us that we're all right.
Well, living on this side of the track, you go ahead and listen
to them, and you along with them will end up in a never-ending
fire with the lash of God on your back for all eternity. God
is Right he is right and you say what you wanted this church
believes God's right amen Amen, God is right Okay, God must be
infallible He makes no mistakes in creation in providence and
in salvation And so God must be right now thirdly we must
have faith in the Lord's call upon us upon us to obey. Abraham went out from his father's
house. There came a day when God said
to Abraham, Abraham, I want you to get up and I want you to leave
your father's house. And I want you to go out into a place that
I'll show you. I'm not gonna tell you where
it is, you just go out, I'm telling you, go! Leave your father's
house. And he felt, Abraham felt that
whatever God said to anybody else, That was his prerogative. But to him, God said, you leave
your father's house. You go. It's my will that you
go. And whatever it is, you leave
your kindred, you leave your family, you don't have any forwarding
address to give them, you go. And Abraham believed God. This
was the special word of command which the Lord had sent to his
own soul. To the Lord, each one should
cry, Lord, what will you have me to do? We must be obedient
in life to him who for our sakes was obedient to what? To death. Today now others are bound to
obey Sure, they are Other people are bound to obey, but we should
attend most of our own personal Obligation what's God told me
to do? What is the Lord said to me when he crossed my path?
I? What has the Lord said to me when I opened up the book
and began to read? What did God say to me about
my lifestyle, about my life? What has God said to me about
my situation? What has God said? Well, we better
set our own house in order. We have an obligation, don't
you see, to prove that we're alive in the Lord by moving in
the direction that God has called us to move. And I've told you
this before. I want to press this on your
mind. You are a true believer. You believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and you're trusting God. You've been just going along
fine. The road's been smooth. Not been very many hills in your
life. Not been very many situations in your life where you was really
pressed to do something that was contrary to your nature and
contrary to your fleshly desires. Contrary to the carnal mind.
But sooner or later, God's gonna lay his hand on your shoulder.
Sooner or later, he's gonna say something to you. Sooner or later,
he's gonna say, this is what I want you to do. And whenever
that day comes, you say, well, the preacher, I mean, he'd been
preaching that if I believed on the Lord Jesus, that faith
would be counted for righteousness. But remember, the faith we're
talking about, the faith that says God has a right. to tell
me what to do. The faith that says the Lord's
word is right. He's right about everything.
The faith that says that God has a personal will for me and
that when he reveals it to me and shows it to me, it may look
like it's the worst thing that could possibly happen. But beloved,
that's what we ought to do. That's what we must do. And if
you don't Then, what it means is, you never did, you never
was. You just are not in the way,
and you're not. If you can thumb your nose at
the will of God, you're not in the way of faith. Abraham believed
God, and so he went out. Now, the next thing is this about
this faith. It's the paramount principle
of action, and the true believer believes in God beyond all his
belief in anything else. Now you, I want you to get this.
The true believer believes in God above everything, anything
else and everything else. Somebody said, well, you know,
I got a hold of an awful good book here a while back, began to read
it. Well, my friend, if that book disagrees with this book,
that book is wrong. He said, preacher, you're awful
narrow-minded. I may be narrow-minded, but I'm not going to hell by
the grace of God. I've been in this thing a long time and I've
been down a lot of roads I didn't want to go but I went because
God led me to and told me that's what I must do and there comes
a time when you gotta listen the scripture says it this way
in Proverbs 3 5 & 6 It says, lean not to your own
understanding, but in all thy ways acknowledge the Lord and
he'll direct your steps. Repudiate your own understanding
and give up to God and to his will and to his word and his
truth. Give it up. That's what I'm talking
about. He can say, let God be true,
but every man'll are. A man who says, I just believe
what God says, I believe God. To the genuine believer, the
eternal is as much above the temporal as the heavens are above
the earth. God is above. What is your image
of God? What do you believe about God?
That's the question. By thy command, I stay or go. By thy command, I stay, I go,
thy will is my will, thy pleasure is my pleasure. What pleases you, pleases me,
and if it don't please you, it don't please me. That's the attitude
of a believer. That's the attitude of a child
of God. That's the attitude of somebody
that's saved. S-A-V-E-D. Saved! That's the
attitude of a believer. You must have a paramount faith
in God or else the will of God will not be a paramount rule
to you. That word means superior or predominant. You must have
a faith that says the will of god he is the most important
thing in my life and i cannot imagine a believer somebody who
says i have i trust god and getting up in the morning and saying
well i did that the first thing i want to do is make sure that
i provide for myself or make sure that i do what pleases me
i want to be happy i want to be able to just do as i want
but i i i want to have everything right with me and so on so forth
i can't imagine that That's so foreign to my way of thinking.
My way of thinking is, Lord, what is thy will? What is your
will? What do you want of me? What
do you want me to do today? What do you want me to do about
this? What do you want me to do about that? The will of God.
Grant, may the Lord grant us a supreme over-mastering faith,
for this is the kind of faith which we must have if we're to
lead obedient lives. So then, what have we said this
morning? And I'm gonna close. There's
two more points this sermon. I'll preach one or two of them.
Maybe I'll preach both up next week. Maybe I'll just preach
one of them. What have we said this morning? First of all, we
said faith in God. We have faith in God's right
to rule us. Faith in God's right to rule
us. He's a sovereign God. He sits
on the circle of eternity. All of the inhabitants of the
earth are nothing in his sight. We are as a drop of the bucket
as far as God is concerned. We're wiggling maggots in this
earth as far as God Almighty concerned. You are warm before
God. And we need to own what we are. God is sovereign and he has a
right to do with us as he will. Faith in the rightness of his
commands that he cannot err, that he cannot make a mistake.
He cannot be wrong. He cannot be. That's the kind
of faith that obeys God. That's the kind of faith that
Abraham had where he could get up and just go out. He didn't
know where he was going. He said, get up. God said, get up and
leave your father's house. Go. And he just got up and left.
Obeyed the Lord. Because he knew that when God
said something, That's right. Now you know in the military,
I remember a long time ago seeing a movie about a, it was in Burma
during the Second World War, and this platoon of soldiers
were dropped off, parachuted in, and they went and destroyed
a radar setup that the Japanese had.
And they got directions from a plane that went over and they
were told to do certain things and then one day the plane flew
over and they were having an awful time. Half of them had
been shot and the fellow that was leading the unit had a big
handful of dog tags in his pocket and where he'd taken them off
of his soldiers that had got killed. and uh... there was a plane went over one
day and said forget all other instructions and proceed to certain
certain place on your map which was just exactly opposite from
the way they were going and the opposite direction from where
the base was where they were trying to walk out back to their
base and uh... he said just go the opposite
direction go to the north to certain certain area and All
of the men, by that time they were wore out, they were just
ragged. And yet they said, that's where
we're going. We're going to go right there
because there's a reason why they said forget all other instructions
and orders and go there. So whatever you think, The smartest
thing you could do this morning, sitting right here in this building,
is saying, regardless of what I've thought before, I'm gonna
begin to think just like that preacher said that a child of
God ought to think. I'm gonna start believing what
God says, and I'm gonna read the book, I'm gonna find out
his will, and if it kills me, I'm gonna believe in the rightness
of what God says. When God says it, it's right.
and I'm gonna do it by the grace of God. And faith in our personal
obligation to obey God. That's what we talked about.
Our personal obligation to obey. I must obey God. It's my obligation
to. If he died for me, if he died
for me, if he put his spirit in me, if he's representing me
at the right hand of God now, I'm obligated to obey him. I
must do his will. I must do as well. And then the
faith that commands us must be the paramount authority of our
being. It must be the predominant and
the superior thing in our life. We will not listen to nothing
else. Speak, Lord, for thy servant
here. Just tell me, Lord, what it is.
Show me, Lord. Make it so clear, Lord. Just
make it so clear that I'll not miss what it is that you would
have me to do. And when we have that kind of
an attitude, the Lord's more interested in us doing his will
than we'll ever be interested in doing it. And so the Lord's
gonna show it to us. He's gonna show it to us. But
beloved, I hope this morning that you've been able to see
somewhat of how that faith and obedience is connected. And that
we show men and women our faith in God by our obedience to God. That's how we reveal it, show
it. That's what the book of James is about. Do we believe God? Do we trust him? Well, I think
we want to, and I think some of us maybe do on certain days,
and there may be days when we are full of unbelief. But remember, the fearful and
the unbelieving are gonna have their part. Let me read that
verse of scripture. You may not believe that's in
the Bible. That's in the book of Revelation, chapter 21. Let
me just read it to you, and we'll close on this note. But the fearful
and the unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and whoremongers
and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall have their part
in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is
the second death. Isn't that in the Bible? Is that
in your Bible? Yep, that's in the Bible. That's what it says.
It's exactly what it says. Fearful and unbelieving. Well,
I just wanna believe God, don't you? I wanna believe God. Well,
let's have a word of prayer and we'll be dismissed. Father, in
the name of Jesus, bless this word. And Father, in the name
of Jesus, if there be one in our group here this morning that
is so under the power of a demon, so under the power of demon forces,
that they might, in their hearts, say, I would love to obey God. I'd love to be a child of God.
I'd love to be a Christian. I'd love to be one of those that
said, I want the will of God done in my life. Father, I, in
the name of Jesus, ask that you would, at this very time, confront
the demons and drive them out of that person's life. Drive
them out. In the name of Jesus, take hold
and rescue and deliver souls from the hand of the devil. And
may Christ be glorified in all of our lives, and may the faith
of Christ be in our hearts. For Jesus' sake, amen.