Hebrews chapter four, if you
would like to turn there. This hour, our subject is faith.
It's our topic, faith. Scripture says without faith,
it is impossible to please God. Here in the first two verses
of chapter four, it's a continuation of the last bit of chapter three,
where we find that all of the children of Israel could not
enter into the promised land for one reason, unbelief. Unbelief. Unbelief is the opposite
of faith. Unbelief is the cause of unrest. Unbelief is the cause of our
fears. You ever feel fear? It's unbelief. You ever doubt? It's unbelief. The Lord said, oh, ye of little
faith, the disciples, didn't he? Oh, ye of little faith. They
came to him. He was sleeping. And I love the
picture of our Lord sleeping through the storm. They were
on a boat. It was a small boat, no doubt. And he was in the hinder
part of the ship, scripture says. Waves were coming, blowing. The
wind was blowing. They thought, we're going to
die. God's asleep in the back of the boat. They're not going
to die unless the Lord's purposed it to happen. But they wake him
up, don't they? And they say, Lord, do you not
care how many times have we Maybe not thought it in that sense,
but how many times have we really thought, oh no, the Lord must
have certainly departed from me. He must certainly be leaving
me to myself. That's what unbelief does. Lord,
do you not care that we're about to perish? Carest thou not? We're going to die. And the Lord
stood up and he said three words, peace be still. Everything stopped. The wind ceased, the waves ceased. I would imagine, and you know
it's true, the ocean, the sea became just glass. You've seen
that before, just peace. No sound whatsoever. And he turned
around and said, oh ye of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? Is it not true that he says that
to you and I often? Aren't you glad he doesn't say,
oh ye of no faith? He says little faith, doesn't
he? You have a little bit of faith, you have faith. Same faith
Daniel had when he went in the lion's den. Same faith the children
of Israel had. Three Hebrew men where they was
thrown in the fire. Same faith that David had when
he faced Goliath. The same faith that's given by
God in Christ Jesus. Without this faith, it is impossible
to please God. It's impossible to please God.
It's the gift that he gives He did not give it to these children
of Israel that he mentioned. He said, they heard, well, let's
read our text here. Unbelief is all that we can produce
by nature. Faith must come from the Lord.
And he says here in chapter four, verse one, let us therefore fear,
lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any
of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel
preached as well as unto them But the word preached did not
profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard
it. Not being mixed with faith. I've
titled this message Mixed with Faith. The scripture tells us,
he that hath ears to hear, let him hear. One time I was preaching
a message and I said those exact words and at the end of the service,
and I may have told you this before, a woman came up to me
and she said, my ears work perfectly fine. Thank you very much. And
I said, you didn't hear a word I said. He's not talking about
just physical ears. He's talking about spiritual
ears. Spiritual ears hears the Lord's voice. Can't hear the
Lord's voice physically. God is a spirit and he speaks
through his word. He speaks through his spirit
according to his will. He that hath an ear to hear,
let him hear. But hear it says, they heard
the word, but it didn't profit them because it was not mixed
with faith. It was not mixed with faith.
An example I can give us is, as our Lord is the potter over
the clay, so is he the one that determines how to mix the clay.
If he doesn't add water to it, it will remain hard, and it will
remain cold, and it will remain useless. when he puts his hand
to it and he mixed water, and that's what the scripture says
the word is likened to, that he would wash us, his church,
the washing of water by the word. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
He washes us in the blood. It's also likened into washing
with water. The Lord's the one that does
the mixing with faith. You and I, we don't have the
hearing and then have the faith and say, okay, I need to try
really hard to put these two together. I gotta mix them together.
No, the Lord's the one that does that. He mixes the hearing with
faith for his people. Thank God he does because you
and I are not able. We're born deaf, we're born dumb,
we're born blind, we're born lame. Why don't we believe? Why didn't the children of Israel
believe? Well, they had seen all the miracles. I think I've
mentioned this the last few times we've been in Hebrews because
it's so, Well, it's amazing to see everything that they saw,
everything that they saw, from the death angel coming and the
blood on the doorpost and lintels, on the doorpost and lintel, all
the plagues in Egypt, the frogs coming up out of the rivers and
the streams, the flies that came, the locusts that came, the hail
that fell and was on fire, all the, judgments of God that came
upon Egypt, but it never touched the Israelites. They saw that.
And eventually by God's providence, Pharaoh said, you can go. You
can go. And Israel was released from
bondage. We know that's a picture of the
Lord Jesus Christ releasing us from the bondage of the law that
we could not fulfill, the life that we could not live, the things
which we could not do. And yet because he fulfilled
it on the cross of Calvary, enduring the judgment of God, now we are
set free from the bonds of law and of sin and of death. Children
of Israel depart Egypt. They get to the Red Sea and they
think they're gonna die and they look at Moses and said, if you
brought us here Have you brought us here for us to die at the
hand of Pharaoh and all the Egyptians? Have you just led us to die?
And is that not us? We hear the gospel and then something
happens and we start murmuring and complaining. Well, This,
you know, I don't know what I'm gonna do with all this. Is this
just, did I hear for nothing? I mean, and we see that in scripture.
And many of the men that saw in the Old Testament, they got
to the point of despair. And the Lord brings us to that
point. He calls us to do the same thing Peter had to do. Lord,
save me. Lord, you never get desperate,
you never cry out. Only the baby cries when it's
hungry or it needs something, whether it's to be picked up
or whatever it is. Baby's fine when it's sleeping.
Whenever the baby needs something, it cries. Well, aren't we babes?
We just cry out. What does the Lord do? He says,
look what I've done for you. And he picks us up and shows
us goodness and mercy all over again. But they saw all the miracles,
the Red Sea parting. They walked across on dry land.
They got in the wilderness. They saw
Pharaoh's army drowned in the deep. They saw the manifold from
heaven. They saw all these things, and yet they did not believe. He makes an interesting statement
here in verse two. Look at verse two. The gospel
for unto us, the gospel was preached as well as unto them. Now he's
talking about Israel. He's talking about they that
came out of Egyptian bondage. The gospel was preached unto
us as well as them, but the word preached did not profit them,
not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. They heard
the gospel. When did they hear the gospel?
They saw the blood upon the doorpost and the lintel. And the Lord
said, when I see the blood, I will pass by you. That's a picture
of Christ, isn't it? They saw the water that came
out of the rock. They're thirsting to death and
if the Lord doesn't, if the law doesn't smite the rock, then
the life-giving water doesn't come forth, does it? That's a
picture of the law demanding justice and the Lord satisfying
that justice and forthwith come blood and water so that you and
I can have life and have it more abundantly. What else did they
see? They were bitten with serpents,
weren't they? Because of their unbelief, the Lord afflicted
them with serpents. And what happened? Well, they
were dying. And they said unto Moses, we're
sorry. Fix it. We can't fix it. And that's us
by nature. We've been bitten with the bite
of sin. And we're going to die. Lord,
you're going to have to fix it. We can't fix it. And the Lord
said, take a serpent, a brazen serpent, and put it on a pole.
And he that looketh upon the serpent will live. All you have
to do is look. All you have to do is look and
live. That's the gospel. Look unto the Lord Jesus Christ.
Don't look at yourself. Don't look at the serpents around
you. Don't look to others. If you've been bitten and you
have the need, look to Christ. That's the message. It's all
the gospel that was preached to them over and over. The manna
that fell. Lord, we need your manna today.
It's the life giving sustenance. Otherwise we're going to perish
in the wilderness. It's all the gospel, isn't it? They saw it
and they heard it. Moses preached to them and said,
the word is nigh unto you. Even in your mouth, you know
the right words. You know the truth. Believe on
the Lord. And yet they didn't. They didn't. Lord said to them,
I've set before you life and death. I've set before you life
and death. Believe on the Lord and live.
Look to the serpent and live. Why the serpent? You ever asked
yourself that? Why was it a snake? Because a
snake was the only cursed creature other than man. Snake had to
crawl upon its belly, didn't it? That was part of its curse.
The Lord had to become the cursed thing so that you and I could
be made the righteousness of God in him. Christ became that
serpent on the pole and endured the wrath of God for his people
so that you and I can look and live. Only those that were bitten
looked. They had the need to look. They
weren't able to look. You can imagine the congregation
of Israel, three million came out of Egypt. By this time, it
had been more than that. How many people was around this one
pole and a serpent? I mean, that'd be a lot of people,
wouldn't it? They just said, look, it didn't matter where
it was. Where is it at? It's there, and they were looking.
Maybe they just caught a glimpse of it. Maybe they didn't even
see it at all, but they were looking to it. That's the point.
We don't look at our ability to look to it. We're looking
to Christ. We're just looking to him. He's
our hope and the only remedy for our sin. Well, they saw all the signs,
but the gospel was not mixed in faith with them that heard
it, and so it is today. So it is today. Men come in their
life to call a fabricated God Jesus. They call him that. And if they hear the gospel,
and you can look in all of nature, scripture says that all of nature
is given so that they are without excuse. Think about spring that's
happening right now, the life that's coming forth. What caused
that? Is it not the sunshine and the water? It is, isn't it? What causes life in a believer? What causes life in you and I? Is it not the son of righteousness
and the washing of water by the word? It's him. What about the
transformation of the caterpillar into a butterfly? It feasts upon
what's been provided by God, but the Lord is the one that
causes that transformation. Comes forth a new creature. Is
that not a picture of the Lord birthing us? New life given.
Making us a new creature in Christ. Totally different creature. no
longer eats the leaves anymore. No, it has to have the sweet
nectar now. Is that not the honey of the
gospel that we have to have? We no longer crawl, we eat. We're
flying unto him on his wings. That's the picture. What about
all the other pictures, the moon itself, no having any light whatsoever,
but having the reflection of the sun? Is that not the Lord's
people? We don't have any light in and
of ourself. If the sun doesn't shine, we would be dark, just
darkness. But yet he shines his light upon
us and in us by his grace. And how many other countless
things can you find in nature? The birth, life being given,
just natural birth. I mean, life coming forth and
the child being alive prior to breathing. Prior to breathing. That breathing isn't... That's evidence of life, isn't
it? It's not the cause. You have to breathe to live,
but that baby in the womb is alive before it ever takes its
first breath. What a picture of the Lord causing
us to be birthed and saying, live, and we breathe. That's all a picture of God's
gospel, every bit of it. The marriage between a man and
a woman. It's all about the Lord and his bride. That's why he
said they're without excuse. Everything in nature points to
the Lord Jesus Christ, everything. And yet, not given faith, men
will set up their dead God that they fabricated in their mind
upon the shelf of their heart, and they will worship him. They
will give it glory for their achievements. They'll give it
praise for what they call their good works, and they don't have
any. They'll have their diseases healed
just as Israel had their diseases healed. They'll have their bellies
full just as Israel had their bellies full. They'll have their
thirst quenched. They'll have a righteousness because they
have done this and they have done that for their God. And
they see evidences in their life and call them blessings. The
evidence that the believer has. The evidence that the believer
has is we look to Christ, that's it. That's it, looking unto Jesus. And who causes us to do that?
He does. The Lord calls me to look, calls
me to believe, calls me to drink from the fountain, calls me to
eat the manna. The Lord said in Revelation 3.17,
because thou sayest I am rich and increased with goods and
have need of nothing, And knowest not that thou art wretched, and
miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. What many believe
they have done to be acceptable to God is actually their undoing
before his throne of grace. Men say, well, we're rich with
righteousness. We're rich and increased with
goods. We know that we've got it marked down. We know that
we've kept this. We've done this. We're OK. We're not as bad as this person
or that person. And they don't know that they're miserable and
they're blind. They're dead in trespasses and
in sin. And everything that they do is
they're very undoing before his throne of grace. See, having
a knowledge of God isn't enough. Having a knowledge of God isn't
enough, praying a prayer isn't enough. God didn't say when I
see your prayers. When I see your works. Whenever
I see how much you know. And thank thank God he didn't
say that when I see how pretty you are or or how strong you
are. or how rich you are, how poor
you are. He didn't say, matter of fact,
he didn't say anything about us in this statement. He said,
when I see the blood of Jesus Christ, I will pass by you and
wrath will not come upon you. When I see the blood, he that
looketh unto the serpent shall be saved. If he doesn't wash
us in his blood and enable us to look upon the serpent, the
Lord Jesus Christ, make us needy, we're lost. If he doesn't say
live and give us faith, if he doesn't cause us to hear and
mix it with faith, we can know the doctrines of grace, we can
know the five points of Calvinism, we can know many doctrines for
that matter, we can have the Bible memorized. If he doesn't
wash us in the blood and mix the truth with faith, if he doesn't
give us the gospel, the hearing, and mix it with faith, we're
lost. We're lost. We have to be given faith. And
what is faith? Faith is the gift of God. For by grace are you saved through
faith, in that not of yourself, it is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. If he doesn't say live and give
faith to believe Christ, if he doesn't mix our hearing with
faith, we will die believing the lie, as these did in our
text. They said they fell in the wilderness,
they didn't make it into the promised land. This is why Paul
said in 1 Corinthians 2, 4, my speech and my preaching was not
with enticing word of man's wisdom, but by demonstration of the spirit
and of power, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom
of men, but in the power of God. See, our flesh desires the praise
of man. Our flesh desires the praise
of man, but faith looks to Christ. Faith doesn't desire the praise
of man. Faith desires all glory unto
the Lord. Our flesh desires to be seen
and heard, but what does faith do? Faith just rests in Christ. Faith says, not unto us, O Lord,
not unto us, but unto thy name be all glory and honor and praise. Faith just believes Christ. He
must cause us to hear his voice. He must mix his word with faith. Romans 10, 17, so then faith
cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Where does
faith come from? The word of God. How do you hear
it? By the word of God. Are you saying
to me that if we read this, then we'll have faith? Well, that's
what a lot of men believe, but they forget one thing, the word
of God is Jesus Christ. Faith comes by Him. It was produced
by Him. He gives it unto His people.
Faith cometh by hearing His voice when He gives ears to hear. He
mixes the hearing with faith. It's all of Him, by Him, and
for His glory. This is something that's bestowed
as a free gift to His people for His glory. Notice in verse one, he says
a word here that I wanna point out. Let us therefore fear. Fear is the word I wanna look
at. What does he mean, fear? Let us therefore fear. Lest a
promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should
come to seem to come short of it. Okay, so we need to be really
afraid or we're gonna come short of this promise. Is that what
he's saying? That's not what he's saying. But that's what
men preach. Fear mongering, law mongering. What does that mean? That means
you better be living this way. You better be doing this. You
better not be doing this. And they create fear in other
men to motivate them in order to seem like they are acceptable
unto God. Fear is a very good motivator.
It's happening all over the world. Men are preaching fear. What
did the Lord say? Perfect love casteth out fear. What we preach in the finished
work of Christ gives us godly fear. And what does godly fear
do? points us to Christ, causes us to flee to Christ. It doesn't
say do, it says rest in him. Be afraid of not resting in Christ
is what he's saying here. Be afraid of adding or taking
away anything to the finished work of Christ, for if you do,
you've missed the promise. The promise is that it's finished.
Don't miss that, it's finished, rest. Lord, mix this hearing
with faith. Cause me to rest in your finished
work. Otherwise, I'll think I have to do something so I don't have
to be afraid anymore. You know, it's like a baby in
the dark. I've used that example of the
babe already crying, but you with children understand that
your child has been afraid before. Crying out, the child only wants
to see one thing, and that's mom and dad's face. Most of the
time it's the mother, you know that. wants to be scooped up
and protected. Maybe it's from a bad dream.
Maybe it's danger, whatever it is. But if it's in the darkness,
it's afraid. It wants to hear one voice. And that's exactly
what the fear of the Lord causes in his people. What I want, I
have to hear you. It causes us to cry out, Lord,
save me. Lord have mercy on me, the sinner. Doesn't cause us to to wander
around aimlessly in the dark trying to work harder in order
to win God's favor so then maybe he'll save me. No, it's just,
Lord, save me. I can't. I'm in utter darkness. I am utter darkness. So I have a question for you that
professed to believe this morning. What does your faith make you
do? What does your faith make you
do? What does your fear make you do? Does your faith make you rest
in Christ alone? That's the faith of the Lord
given. Does your faith cause you to
examine and say, yeah, I've done this or I've done that? That's
not faith at all, then is it? What does your fear do? Does
it cause you to be afraid of, some of you may be able to relate
to this. Whenever I would get in trouble
as a boy with my mother, My mother just had to say one thing to
me, and I would straighten up really quick. Do you want me
to tell your daddy? You ever heard anything? Anybody
ever heard anything like that? And I knew what that meant for me
if she did. Dad was not merciful. Dad disciplined according as
he thought was best. And there was no negotiating. He made mom angry. And some of
y'all know exactly what I'm talking about. If I made mom angry, mom
went to dad. It was just like mom threw gasoline
on dad's fire and here he came at me. Made sure I didn't do
that ever again. Is that the fear he's talking
about here? Being afraid of dad? Being afraid of your earthly
father getting in trouble? Being afraid of the law? Well,
you better be afraid of the law. You better do better. You better
work harder, you better not agitate God, you better not upset him,
or you'll miss the promise. No. What does the Lord's fear
given do? The Lord's fear shows us God,
the sovereign creator of the universe, the successful redeemer
of his people, the one that is seated in the heavenlies right
now, the one that created all things, it shows us him, high
and lifted up. We see ourself the sinner, the
chief sinner, and we see the substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. This fear causes us to have repentance
and faith in Christ. This fear causes us to flee to
Christ, to rest in Christ, to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
If your fear does not do that, it's not godly fear. It's not
godly fear. But if your fear causes you to
flee to Christ alone, causes you to see there's nothing within
you that can save you or help you in any way, spiritually speaking,
causes you to run to Christ, if you have that, that's godly
fear. If you answer or I answer anything
other than what does faith or this fear make us do, If it does
anything other than believe, Christ is all in salvation, Christ
is all in regeneration, Christ is all in redemption, Christ
is all in sanctification, Christ is all in glorification, Christ
is all in righteousness, holiness. If my faith does not cause me
to confess all of that, I don't have the faith of God. But to
the contrary, and I suppose this is the gift, isn't it? The gift
is the Lord giving faith that says Christ is all in salvation. Christ is all in redemption and
in justification. Christ is all. If our answer is anything but
that, then our hearing has not been mixed with faith. We just
have a understanding of God, but we deny the power thereof. What does godly fear look like? Somebody asked me a question
one time, what does, and I despise that kind of talk when you're
talking to another person and they're, what does your life
look like? What does a Christian life look
like? You ever been asked that? I just, that's just not even,
where you find that in the scripture? I'll tell you what it looks like.
Fleeing to Christ daily, every moment. That's what it looks
like. You won't see it on the outside. It's in the heart. That's where you flee to Christ.
That's it. It looks like a dead dog sinner coming to the table
one more time saying, Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner. If you
don't drop a crumb, I'm going to die. That's what it looks
like. Now, if you want to explain how that looks on the outside
to other men to see, you'll be despised because your rest is
completely in Christ and not in what you do. Our motivation
is love. That's why we do what we do unto
the Lord is love. That's it. And we love him because
he first loved us. If the faith that we claim that
we have makes us do one thing. Don't miss this. If the faith
that we claim we have is given of God, and yet it makes us do
one thing as part of salvation before we're saved, during, or
after, it is not godly faith. We have never heard and have
been mixed with faith. But if the faith given of God
has indeed been bestowed freely by his grace, Causes us to flee
to Him. It causes us to fear Him and
reverence Him and praise Him. Causes us to worship Him. Causes
us to say, Lord, I put my hands over my mouth never to speak.
I want to hear what you have to say. Lord, I'm not going to
tell you about my life I'm living. I want to hear about the life
you lived as my substitute. I'm not going to tell you about
the sacrifices I made, Lord. Tell me about the sacrifice you
made for your people on the cross of Calvary. I'm gonna tell you
about my blood, my blood's polluted. Tell me about the blood of Christ,
how it really redeemed, how it really set the Lord's people
free from the bonds of sin and death, from death, hell, and
the grave. Tell me about how your people have been made the
righteousness of God in Christ. The Lord's faith causes his people
to run to Christ in desperation. right now, and right now, and
right now. It doesn't examine our believing.
I used the example a few moments ago about the babe coming into
the world and how that it didn't breathe to become alive. It was
alive prior. But then when it came time, it
had to breathe in order to continue to live. And that's exactly what
the Lord's people do. They breathe in Christ and they
exhale all unbelief in Him. Likewise, We never, how often
do we really look at our breath to see if we're living? Think
about that. We don't ever, I don't ever examine
my breath. Okay, am I breathing? Am I still
alive? That doesn't, we don't do that, do we? Okay, I'm still
alive. Okay, I'm still alive. That's
kind of silly, isn't it? Well, that's the same with faith.
We don't look and say, okay, am I still looking to Christ? We just look to Christ. That's
what faith does. Just breathes him and breathes
him. We don't examine ourself at all. The gift of the Lord. Gift of
the Lord is like J. Iris and the woman with the issue
of blood. The woman with the issue of blood came to the Lord.
It happened in 12 years, the issue of blood. And Jairus had
came first and said, Lord, my daughter's going to die if you
don't come to my house. He was desperate. He was desperate for
the Lord. And while he was going with Jairus,
the woman with the issue of blood touched the hem of his garment
and was made whole. And he stopped and said, who
touched me? And you and I know All too well how many times we
feel like the Lord's too late. We feel that. Martha said, Lord,
you four days late. Lord said, no, I'm right on time.
I'm God. I made time. I am the resurrection
and the life. Jairus learned the same lesson.
At the time she, the woman with the issue of blood, confessed,
I touched you, I needed healing, and I knew you were the one to
do it. And he told her, you've been healed. And then servant
came to Jairus and said, trouble not the master anymore, your
daughter's dead. And I love the wording of our Lord. Jairus didn't
speak, nobody else said anything, but immediately after that, the
Lord says to Jairus, fear not, only believe. Do you know the
Lord's never offered peace to anybody? If you do this, then
you can have peace. No, he says, peace be still.
He says, fear not, only believe. And that's what he told Jairus.
I love the thought that maybe, I believe this is how it was,
the moment Jairus' heart started sinking because his daughter
had died, the Lord's word took that all away immediately, gone,
because he believed. The Lord gave him faith to believe.
Isn't that what he does for his people? We feel the weight of
sin, the death that's coming to each of us, and we fear that,
but then we see Christ, and it's just gone all of a sudden. We
have peace. We have rest in his finished work. Well, Jairus, Jairus' daughter was resurrected.
The Lord went to the house and resurrected her. The Lord says,
fear not, only believe. This is the gift of resting in
the wisdom of God. Without it, we have no life.
Lord must create the need that only he can feel. That need is
him to mix the hearing of the word with faith. And he feels
that need with the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what it means. Remember the scripture and men
get this twisted. You should be doers of the word
and not hearers only as if that's a condescending type of law that
you better adhere to or else. You know what being a doer of
the word is? Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's being
a doer of the word. That's evident that the Lord
has mixed the hearing with faith. Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ
is everything pertaining to life and salvation. Believing, how
do I know if I have this faith? How do I know if the Lord has
given me faith? If he's mixed my hearing with
faith, if I've heard, how do I know that? I want to know that.
It's life and death because you believe. on the Lord Jesus Christ
as everything pertaining to life, pertaining to salvation, pertaining
to all things that are godly. You see nothing in yourself that
can add to or take away anything from the finished work of Christ.
You have to have him. That's what faith believes. This
is the free gift of God to his elect. Let's pray. Father calls
us To hear and then mix our hearing with faith according to your
will. In Christ name, Amen, let's take
a break.