I'm going to read a passage from
the book of Hebrews, Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10, verse 37 through
39. My subject tonight is the just. The just shall live by faith. Hebrews 10, 37, for yet a little
while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Yet a little while, and he that
shall come will come. Now, you can apply that to the
coming of the Lord, the return of Christ, in glory. in his second advent. Or you
could apply that to the coming of Christ to receive his own
unto himself individually. It's appointed unto men once
to die, once to die. And our Lord may tonight come
for one of us, yet a little while, and he that shall come will come. maybe unexpectedly. I wonder
if, like John prayed a while ago, if the Lord has been pleased
for me and you to tear down all false foundations and enable
us, by faith, to lay hold of Christ. Has he? Are we ready
for that experience? Are we? That's what I want to
talk about tonight. Verse 38, Hebrews 10 says this,
verse 37, yet a little while, and he that shall come will come. He'll come, he'll knock, and you'll answer.
You'll answer. It's not a matter of adding to
my years. Pay that doctor all you want
to and he can't extend your life one moment. by all the insurance
you want to, take all the medicine you want to, submit to all the
surgery you want to, but you're not going to be extended one
moment beyond when he that shall come will come. Now, we know
that. We know that. And he will not
tarry, and it says, verse 38, that the just shall live by faith. I've preached from this text
several times, and I plan to speak from it many times more,
for four reasons. Number one, because this particular
phrase occurs so many times in the scripture, four times, almost
just like this, the just shall live by faith. It's in Habakkuk,
it's in Romans, It's in Galatians, and it's here in Hebrews. And
it was the scripture that the Spirit of God used to bring Martin
Luther to a knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was
this scripture right here, that just shall live by faith. The second reason why I intend
to preach on it is because faith is the foundation grace. Faith
is the foundation grace. I mean the foundation, the basis. of all grace, all other graces,
whether it be the grace of hope, or the grace of love, or the
grace of kindness, of patience, of joy, or anything else. All
other graces and all other blessings flow from and because of faith. Without faith, it's impossible
to please God. Our Lord said to that father
of the boy who was sick, he said, He said, Heal my son, and the
Lord said, Well, if you can believe, if you can believe, if you can
believe, can you believe? All things are possible to them
that can believe. That's what he that believeth
on the Son hath light. He that believeth not shall be
damned. Whatever else, I've got to believe. He turned to Peter
and said, I've prayed for you that your faith fail not. Whatever
fails, I pray that your faith fail not. Faith without faith
is impossible, not difficult, but impossible to please God. The third reason why I intend
to preach from this is because the scriptures are written that
we might believe. This is the object of the scriptures,
that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ. That's what John
said when he closed his book, he said, these things are written.
Not that you might have an almanac, not that you might have what
they call the good book to refer to in your time of problem, not
that you might have an accurate historical account of the Jewish
nation, not that you might have a love story, not that you might
have some Book of Proverbs, these things are written that you might
believe that Jesus is the Christ. That's why these things are written,
that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ. And believing,
you might have life. And then fourthly, I intend to
preach from this text many times because we have no reason to
speak anything in the name of God unless we believe. I have
no right to speak anything in the name of God unless I believe
God. Let me show you that in the scriptures.
First of all, David said it. David said it. Psalm 116, verse
10. You know, it's been said of our
television ministry and also of my preaching in other places,
he speaks so dogmatically. He speaks with such confidence
concerning the things that he preaches. Well, the reason is
this, I believe them. I believe them. If a man believes
something, he can speak dogmatically. He can speak with authority.
If a fellow doesn't believe something, he may be just a little shy about
promoting it. But I believe it, and that's
what David said in Psalm 116, verse 10, I believe. Therefore have I spoken." I believe. And then over here in the book
of II Corinthians 4, and the reason I ask you to turn to these
is because you may want to refer to them yourself sometime, but
in II Corinthians 4, verse 13, the Apostle Paul took it up,
and this is what he said. In verse 13 of 2 Corinthians
4, we, having the same spirit of faith according as it is written,
the same spirit of faith as David, I believe and therefore have
I spoken. We also believe and therefore
we speak. We believe and therefore we speak.
My friends, I want to share with you one other passage of scripture
in Romans chapter 4. Now, this subject of faith, we're
not looking at a different type of faith and different dispensations. I know so often we're prone to
think, well, you know, Abraham believed God, but Abraham was
Abraham. David believed God, but David
was David. But Paul went back and said the
same thing that David said I said. David said, I believe, therefore
have I spoken. Paul said, I use the same words,
we believe, therefore we speak. And I want to show you from this
passage of scripture in Romans 4 that our faith is the same
faith that Abraham exercised, same faith in the same Christ. In Romans 4, verse 21. and being fully persuaded that
what God had promised he was able also to perform. And therefore
it was imputed to him for righteousness. That's saying that Abraham believed
God. He believed God. He was fully
persuaded that what God promised he was able to perform. And therefore
this faith, this faith, it was imputed to him for righteousness
on the basis of this faith. Now, it was not written for his
sake alone that it was imputed to him, but for us also to whom
that same blessing, that same righteousness, that same life
shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our
Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and was raised
again for our justification. Abraham has no better claim to
life than I do. That's exactly right. Abraham
has no surer hope than I have, if I believe. That is, if I believe. You say, wait a minute, Abraham
left his father's house and wandered across the desert and never owned
a piece of ground and sacrificed his son and all these great things
only by the grace of God. Abraham has the same faith I
have, and I have the same faith he has in the same Lord, and
I have the same hope and confidence and assurance that he has, the
same provision. That's what that said. This was
not written for his sake alone, but for us to whom it shall be
imputed, if we believe also. Now look back at our text, Hebrews
10. I've got so much material and I want to give it to you.
Our text again, verse 38, Hebrews 10. Now, what I wanted to show
you in those illustrations was this importance of faith. I want
us, when we leave here, I want us to leave here believing God. Believe in God. Believe in God. Now, it says in the just shall
live by faith. Now, notice what the text does
not say. It does not say the just shall
live because of his faith. That's not what it says. The
just do not live because of faith. We live because God chose us
to live. He set his affection on us and
elected us in Christ and gave us by his purpose and decree
the gift of life. We live because the Lord Jesus
Christ came to this earth and perfectly obeyed the law of God,
imputing to us a righteousness, went to the cross and honored
the justice of God and gave to us a legal righteousness and
holiness before God's justice. We live because the Holy Spirit
in time came and regenerated us and gave us life. That's why
we live. Life is, eternal life is the
gift of God. We don't live because of faith.
We live because God loved us and Christ died for us and the
Spirit awakened us. Christ is the way, the truth,
and the life. Christ is our life. And I don't
live because of my faith. A lot of people get the cart
before the horse. They say you believe and then
you're born again. But that's not how you're born
again. Life is the gift of God. Now, that's what I'm saying.
Life is the work of God. We are begotten by his power
and decree. I don't live because I believe.
And secondly, it does not say the just shall live on his faith. On his faith. We can't feed on
anything in us and of us. I don't live on my faith. I feed
upon Christ. My faith does not give me comfort,
Christ does. I wish I could make this clear.
It's the most difficult, mysterious thing in the world to convey
to anybody. In fact, it's impossible unless
the Spirit of God gives understanding and a revelation to the heart.
It's a mystery that no man can understand. But I don't live
on my faith. I tell you this, I'd be starved
to death. If I lived on my faith, my faith
is not that strong. I live on Christ. I feed on Christ. He is the bread of life. He is
the water of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger and never thirst. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood hath life, everlasting life. I feed on Christ. He is my soul's nourishment. He's my source of all things. I feed upon him." This, I think,
is the serious mistake that most religionists make. They give
mental assent to some truth, some Bible facts, and call it
salvation. Let me show you something over
here in the book of James. In James it says this. Now listen
to this. In James 2, verse 19, "...thou
believest that there is one God I believe this is one God. This
belief is a mental ascent. This is a mental acceptance of
some facts or some truth. You believe there's one God.
Well, you do well. The devil also believes in criminals. And I believe this includes other
things besides just an acceptance, a mental agreement with the fact
that there is a God. That kind of faith doesn't save.
That kind of faith doesn't save. The kind of faith that saves
is that faith that receives Christ, meaning has received him. Not
just acknowledge his existence, not just admit that he lives,
not just to give some agreement to the fact that he died on a
cross, but to literally and actually, personally receive him as my
Lord and Savior. And faith not only receives Christ,
but it comes to Christ, continually comes to Christ, to whom coming
as a living stone. And that saving faith looks to
Christ. It looks out of a need to Christ. It looks. He said, look unto
me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. Keep looking, keep
looking. And this faith not only receives Christ, comes to Christ,
loves, looks to Christ, but loves Christ, genuinely loves Christ. If any man loved not our Lord
Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. And this saving faith confesses
Christ. If thou shalt confess with thy
mouth Jesus to be Lord, and believe in thine heart God raised him
from the dead, thou shalt be saved. And this faith that saves
continues in faith. continues in Christ. So I don't
live because of my faith. I live because of the mercy of
God. I live because of the work of Christ. I live because he
has given me the gift of life. Nor do I survive on my faith. I don't feed on my faith and
feed on my religious work and feed on my loyalty to Christ.
I feed on Christ himself. And that faith that enables me
to feed on Christ is a faith that has brought me to the fountain,
and has brought me in receiving Christ and looking to Christ
and loving Christ and confessing Christ and continuing in Christ,
has brought me to be nourished daily by Christ. I look back
at the text in Hebrews 10. What does it say? What does it
say? It says, the just shall live
by faith. The just shall live by faith. By faith. What does that mean?
Four things. It means, first of all, that
we live a life by faith, through faith, a life that is justified
before God. In Romans chapter 3, the Apostle
Paul, the first two or three chapters of Romans, he talks
about man's depravity and corruption and false, both Jew and Gentile,
man's inability. There's none that seeketh after
God, none that understandeth, none good, no, not one. And when
he comes to the last part of chapter 3, verse 28, he says,
therefore, we conclude. This is my conclusion. that a
man is justified by faith, not by works. Justified by faith,
not by works. Then right across the page in
Romans chapter 5, he begins chapter 5 verse 1 with this statement,
Therefore being justified by faith. What does the word justified
mean? I think I can illustrate it best
by repeating something I gave you some time ago. When I was
down preaching on St. Kitts Island with Dan Shanks
a few months ago, he took me over to the prison. There's a
prison on the island, Her Majesty's Prison. And I spoke to about
between 60 and 80 prisoners, all black prisoners dressed in
their white prison uniforms sitting out there before me, about as
many people as, oh no, more than in the center section, all guilty
of all manner of crimes. And I stood before them and I
thought, before I got up there, he was leading some singing,
and I was sitting over here and I was trying to think, now what
do you preach to these criminals? These men are guilty of all kind
of crimes, they're in prison here, and some of them are totally
ignorant of the Bible and ignorant of of the gospel and ignorant
of everything. They're just plain, what do you
preach? So I got up in front of them
and I said, I looked out over the group and I said, how many
of you men know what the word pardon means? I said, if I talked
about pardon, would you know what it means? Every one of them
nodded, every single one of them. I said, in other words, I said,
if you're guilty of a crime, you've been put in jail And they
come to you and tell you you've been pardoned. You know what
that means. They'd set you free. You'd be
pardoned. But I said, even though they
pardoned you, you're still guilty. Right? They said, you're still
guilty. You pardoned a guilty man, but
you're still guilty. I said, how many of you fellas
know what the word parole means? Everyone smiled and nodded. They
enjoyed this, you know. I gave them a little moment for
a fact. And they all nodded. And I said,
well, I said, parole means a parole board meets and they set you
free from the prison here, but you have to report to your parole
officer every two or three weeks and stay in town. And they grinned,
you know, and I said, but you're still guilty or you wouldn't
have to report to that parole officer. I said, how many of
you fellas know what the word forgive means? They all nod. I said, in other words, if you've
robbed a store and beat up the proprietor and they caught you
and put you in jail, a proprietor may come visit you and say, I
forgive you. I forgive you for doing me that
way. And let's be friends. But I said,
you're still guilty. I said, all right, how many of
you men know what the word justified means? And that's us. You know,
God may pardon us. God may forgive us. God may parole
us on good behavior. still guilty. And the soul that's
guilty is going to die. But I said, how many of you men
know what the word justified means? Justified! Not a move,
not a blink of an eye, not an acknowledgment of any understanding
at all. Well, I tell you what justified
means. Justified doesn't mean pardoned
or paroled or forgiven. Justified means not guilty. Not
guilty. In other words, they have to
put me out of here because I didn't do what I'm charged with. That's
what justified. I didn't do what I'm charged
with. They all grin so big, you know. I said, no danger of any
of us being put out, is it, because we're all guilty? We are all
guilty, no danger, no danger of the curse of the law being
lifted, no danger of the judgment of God being lifted, no danger
of the wrath of God passing us by. Guilty, all the world is
guilty before God. So how in the world can a man
be justified with God? How can it? That's the question
of question. That's the universal question,
the eternal question. That's the Bible question. That's
the important question. That's the question preachers
aren't answering. One reason they don't know the
answer. How can man be just with God? How can God be reconciled
to sinners? How can God say, you're free,
you're not guilty, justified? Just one way. We're justified
by faith. In whom? In Christ. Therefore,
look at verse 1, chapter 5. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
And that's it. It's by faith. Now, you do what
you want to with that, but that's where it is anyway. That's where
salvation in the gospel is. I'm justified, just as if I had
never sinned, not guilty, by faith through the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the reason that I'm not guilty
is because he became guilty. The just died for the unjust
that he might bring us to God. I'm not guilty. All right. Secondly,
we live a life not only of justification before God, but we live a life
of righteousness before God. a life of righteousness. You
see, if Christ justifies me before the
throne of God and justifies me before the wrath of God, the
charge against my soul, the charge against my soul of sin and death,
I've still got to have something else. That is, I've got to have
not only my sin put away, but I've got to have a perfect holiness,
a perfect righteousness. You understand what I'm saying?
It's twofold. Cleanse from wrath and make me
pure. It's not enough that I be not
guilty. That's not enough. You say, looks
like to me it'd be enough to be not guilty. No. I've got to
be not guilty of sin, but I've got to also have charged to me
a perfect righteousness and obedience to God's commands and to God's
will and way. I'm trying to say this, this
is what I'm trying to say, that in order for God to accept us
and receive us and for us to enter his glory, we've got to
have not only The fact that we're not guilty,
this pulpit's not guilty, but this pulpit doesn't have any
active obedience. It's totally passive. I can be
not guilty, I can be before the law, before justice not guilty,
but the law comes along and says, but he hasn't done anything.
You see what I'm saying? It's not just that I haven't
done anything, I've got to do something. I've got to live before
God in a perfect fashion, and that's what Christ did. Now turn
to Romans 5.19. It says here in Romans 5.19,
"...for by one man's disobedience many were made sinners. So by
the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." Christ, when
he came down here, not only died on that cross and satisfied justice,
and satisfied the charge against me and removed it. But in his
daily life, from the time he was born of Mary to the time
he died on that cross, he loved, he lived, he walked, he talked,
he thought perfectly in the sight of his Father. And I have not
only in his death a justification A clean bill before justice. It can't kill me because it killed
him. But I also have an active obedience and holiness. When
the law says, I shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
I did. When the law says, I shall love
thy neighbors as thyself, I did. When the law says, I shall do
the will of the Father, I did it. You see that, Tom? That's
important now. That's important. The just live. They live a life of justification
before God by the death of Christ through faith in that death.
And they live a life of holiness, perfect righteousness before
God. He who knew no sin was made sin
for us that we might be actually made the righteousness of God
in him. That's what she was singing about.
When I stand before his throne clothed in beauty not my own,
when I see thee as thou art, love thee with an unsinning heart,
then shall I know, and not till then, how much I owe. I'm trying
to make it as plain as I can, but that's the way it is. Thirdly,
the just shall live by faith. And this is all by faith. And I'll tell you this, this
will junk your reward system. This will give courage and confidence
and assurance to the weakest. and to the frailest, and this
will humble the strongest and bring us down on the level on
which grace places us, because it's all what he did, not what
we did, or do, or ever shall do. But we live a life of peace
and joy through faith in Christ. He is our peace. We have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have peace in our
hearts. Our Lord said this, My peace
I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I you. Let not your
heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Every time you
feel a fear about judgment or death or condemnation before
God, don't scout around back here and try to remember how
you felt when you walked down the aisle. When you feel Well,
maybe, you know, my thoughts are so bad and my tongue gets
away from me, and I do things I shouldn't do. You know, am
I really saved? If I were to die, would I really
go to glory?" And then you start to look, well, I believe Calvinism. Don't look to the doctrine. Don't
look to the experience. Don't look in here and say, well,
I haven't been all bad. Yes, you have. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. Do that. Turn
your eyes on Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face. And the things of this world,
social world, religious world, or any other world, will grow
strangely dim in the light of his glory and his grace. It's
Christ. And then we live a life of hope.
of hope. Not because we're good, but because
he's good. Not because we have been faithful,
but because he has been faithful. We live a life of hope for eternity
in Christ, who is our hope. The just shall live, live, live,
and live a life of justification, a life of righteousness, a life
of peace. peace with God, peace in our
consciences, peace in our hearts, peace with other people because
of Christ, faith in Christ. The just shall live by faith,
not by experience, not by feeling, not by prayer, not by faithfulness,
not by church attendance, not by loyalty. And these things
have their place, you know that and I do too. But they all fade into insignificance
when it comes to faith in Christ. That's how I live. And I live
a life of hope. I begin to live by faith, I continue
to live by faith, and I shall live by faith. Now, what is faith? Now, this is a hard one. Hebrews
11. Hebrews 11. Sometimes when I
prepare messages, I wish I didn't write points like this down.
That way you don't get in a corner you can't paint yourself out
of, you know. But I've got a question here, what is faith? What is
the faith by which we live? What is the faith by which we
live? All right, Hebrews 11, verse
1, and this is what the scripture says. Plain, let's see if I can
make it plain. Verse 38, my text says that just
shall live by faith. Now, verse 1, chapter 11 says,
now faith is. Now faith is. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Faith is
the substance of things hoped for. What do we hope for? What do we hope? Faith is the
substance, or ground, or confidence of things hoped for. What do
we hope for? Well, I hope for justification. I hope for forgiveness. I want my sins forgiven. Is that
what you want? That's what I want. That's what
Richard Pardwell had told us. We think we need a lot of things,
but we just need one thing. We need pardon and justification. And what do we need? The grace
of God. So I hope my sins are forgiven. I hope that I have
that righteousness before God. That's what I hope for. That's
what I'm hoping for. Thirdly, I'm hoping for a perseverance
in faith. There are some folks quitting.
There are some folks laying this thing down, and that bothers
me. Will I lay it down? There are some folks who are
not as excited about Christ as they once were. There are some
folks not as tender and not as sensitive to the gospel as they
once were, and they'll get harder. Mark my words, they'll get harder.
You see, hardness is a gradual process. You're not just hot
today and cold tomorrow, you're lukewarm for a while. That's
the way I observe it through the years that I've been trying
to preach. I observe people, they get through the deceitfulness
of sin, but, Charlie, it's a gradual process. It's light and then
a little heavier and a little heavier and a little heavier,
and after a while, how did I get out here? I don't even know how
I got out there, but here I am. I don't know how I got there,
but here I am. Well, I don't want that. I want perseverance
in faith. I want this Bible to live today.
and live tomorrow and live even stronger in my conscience 15
years from now if I have that long. I want it to live. I want
to die in faith. That's what I hope for. I hope
for perseverance. And then I hope in the next place
for grace in death and I hope for mercy in judgment. Boy, I'll tell you, that other
verse of that psalm she sang when they called for the rocks
and mountains to fall on them, my friends, I sure don't want
that. and hide them from the face of
him that sitteth." He said, I'll never do that. Well, somebody
is going to, because it says that in the book. Somebody is
going to. Meaning, meaning. And then I'm hoping for eternal
glory and fellowship with God. That's what I'm hoping for. Justification,
righteousness, Perseverance in Christ, grace in death, mercy
in judgment, and eternal glory and fellowship with God. That's
what we hope for. All right. Faith is the substance
of all those things. Faith is the substance of all
those things. Faith is the ground or the foundation
or the confidence that those things not shall be, but are
mine in Christ. That's how important faith is.
Faith is the substance of all those things right now. Faith
is the ground of all those things right now. God says so. Faith gives substance to those
things for which I'm hoping. God says so. We believe God and
therefore on the basis of his word we have full reason to expect
these things to be ours. On the basis of his word. That's
the best I can do with that phrase. Faith is the substance. Faith
gives substance to those things. Faith gives substance to them.
Faith is the very ground and confidence and assurance and
foundation of these things for which I just hope. There's nothing
wrong with the word hope now. Nothing wrong with it at all.
Nothing wrong with the word hope. Because it's not just a wish,
but a believer's hope is based on evidence, and it's based on
expectation, and it's based on a promise from God who cannot
lie. Notice the next line in Hebrews
11. And faith is the evidence, the evidence of things not seen. Well, what are the things not
seen? Let's try the same way we looked into that other phrase
up there. Let's try this. What are the
things that are not seen? God is not seen. God is not seen. No man has seen God at any time.
He's called the invisible God. God is not seen. God's eternal
counsel is not seen. We talk about, somebody prayed
about that a moment ago. I heard that in one of the men's
prayers, the eternal counsel. You're talking about something
you've never seen. The eternal counsel, when the Father gave
the Son of people, the Son assumed the responsibility of those people
as a surety, and the Holy Spirit assumed the responsibility of
calling those people. That's unseen. And then Christ's
incarnation and death and resurrection, I didn't see. And I don't want
to see pictures of them either. I don't want to see some artist's
portrayal of something he didn't see. Do you understand what I'm
saying? I don't want to see you draw
a picture of something you didn't see. Now, I want you to draw
a picture of something you did see, but not something you concocted
in your mind, because that's not real. The incarnation and
the death and resurrection of Christ is unseen. I'll tell you
something else that's unseen. It's something that you've participated
in. The regeneration of the Holy
Spirit is unseen. The wind bloweth where it lifteth.
You can hear the sound. You don't know where it's coming
from or where it's going. And I'll tell you something else
we don't see. We talk about those graves that are going to open.
I own a lot out here where plans are to bury this body. And one
day that grave is going to open. And I'm going to be raised in
the glory of God. You've never seen that. You've
never seen anybody rise from the dead. What proof or evidence do you
have that there is such a thing as God, an eternal counsel, an
incarnate redeemer, a crucified Savior, a risen justifier? A
living mediator? What proof, what evidence, and
evidence is proof, isn't it? The evidence of things not seen.
What evidence do you have that that is true? Faith. That's it, Ron. Faith, I believe. And that's the only evidence. In a case of logical court trial,
God would lose. That's the reason these trials
and all are a bunch of malarkey, like the Scopes trial and the
rest of it. God ain't got a prayer to natural men, because they
can't see God. God would lose every time. He'd
lose every time. In a court of human law, and
I'll tell you this, in a court of God's law, we're going Because the natural is not the
spiritual. And the two don't comprehend each other. No way. Somebody says, well, prove there's
a God. Well, just factual proof? I can't do it. I can take you
out, show you the heavens and all these things, and you can
argue me up and down as those things just came to be. But I'll
tell you this, you don't have to prove to a child of God that
there's a God. He's got the proof in his faith. You don't have to prove it. Faith
is that evidence, that proof of things which are not seen.
That's what faith is. And you can't convince him otherwise.
In fact, you can bring a John to bed, just lay his head on
the block and raise the axe and say, deny it. He'll shake his
head for the last time before the axe falls. How can a man
die for something he's never seen? Well, he's seen it by faith. Now, that's what faith is. Faith
is the substance, the very substance, the very ground and foundation
of these things for which we hope. It's faith. And I know
it's like when the men pray, how good you people are to give
and support. Why do you do that? Well, you
could keep the money you give to this church and buy you another
home, a summer home in Florida. You could keep the money you
give to this church and give your wife a brand-new automobile
and pay for it with the money you give to preach the gospel.
Why do you do that? Why don't you use it for yourself?
Faith? I believe God. I believe God. That's the reason I do it. I
don't need a receipt from God. And I don't need God to draw
me a blueprint of what he's going to give me in return. I believe
him. I believe him. There are many evidences of God's
presence and hand in this universe to the believer, but when it
comes right down to God's redemptive promises concerning Christ Jesus,
all of these rest on faith. And do you know how triumphant
faith is? And here's my last statement. Hebrews 11. Here is the victory of faith. Now, John said this, he said,
This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. But
I want to show you how faith overcomes. The victory that overcometh
the world, even our faith. First of all, in Hebrews 11.4,
and one of you fellows that are going to one of these days for
long, take down this outline, because this is a whole sermon
right here. This is a whole outline, a whole sermon, and you can do
something with it. You really can now. Hebrews 11,
verse 4, By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice
than Cain. Faith triumphs over works. Faith
wins the victory over works. Cain brought his sacrifice of
what he had And Abel, by faith, brought the right sacrifice.
His faith in Christ triumphed over whatever temptation he had
to bring what he had done. It was greater. It triumphed
over worse. Then in verse 5, by faith Enoch
was translated that he should not see death. Faith triumphed
over death. Enoch never did die. Faith won
the victory over death. Then in Hebrews 11, verse 7,
by faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet,
moved with fear and prepared an ark. How long did he move? 120 years. Faith triumphed over
time. Faith was still there when time
rolled by 120 years. I don't know whether some of
us could have made it 12 years, let alone 120. If we don't see some immediate
response to our prayers, we quit praying. If we don't see some
immediate response to our efforts, we quit putting forth any effort. But, O Noah, faith triumphed
over all those years, times. And then verse 8, Now faith Abraham,
when he was called to go out into a place which he should
receive And for an inheritance, obeyed, went out, not knowing
where he went. Faith triumphed over family,
home and family. He left his home. He's 75 years
old. He lived there all those years
with his family. And he left. He left. Left everything. Faith triumphed
over home and family. And in Hebrews 11, verse 11,
through faith, Sarah herself received strength to conceive
sin and deliver a child when she was ninety-some odd years
old. Faith triumphed over human weakness. I just can't do it.
Sarah says, I can't do it. I can't give birth to a child.
I know you can't, but God can through you. But I just can't
do this that night. I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me. Faith triumphs over human weakness. And then verse 17, look at this,
"...by faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac."
Offered up by faith, triumphs over natural affection. Let me
tell you something. I don't know, I read these verses
about Abraham and Isaac, and it sends cold chills up and down
my back, doesn't yours? A man tied his own son, only
son, his heir to an altar and raise a knife to kill him because
God commanded him to do so. He believed God now. Do you know
what he believed? That God would raise him from the dead. He fully
expected to kill him. God didn't tell him about the
ram he was going to find. He fully expected to kill that
boy. But he fully expected God to
raise him. That's faith. And faith will
triumph over natural affection. It just will. And then Hebrews
11, 24, By faith, Moses, when he had come to years, refused
to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to
suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures
of sin for a little while, esteeming the reproaches of Christ, greater
riches, and all the treasures of Egypt. Faith will triumph
over riches and material prosperity and wealth. It will, true faith
will. Because, like David said, the
Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. I'll never want for
food, he makes me to lie down in green pasture. I'll never
want for peace, he lays me beside the still waters. I'll never
want for salvation, he restores my soul. I'll never want for
holiness, he leads me in the paths of righteousness. I'll
never want for assurance, he is with me, though I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death. I'll never want for comfort.
His rod and staff comfort me. I'll never want for victory.
Why, he just prepares me a table right in the presence of my enemies.
All you fellows, you enemies, just sit down over there. We're
going to dine. That's how confident David was, right in the presence
of my enemies. I got the victory. I got the victory. I'll never
want for anything because my cup runs over. And I'll never
want for safety. or surely in goodness and mercy
will follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in
the house of the Lord forever. The just shall live. And like old John said, Lord,
tear down every foundation of flesh, every supporting pillar. I don't need any support Just
tear down every support and let that rest on Christ. Let me rest
on Christ. Let every support be destroyed. Swept out. I work here. What it is? Clear to go back
to my profession and all these things. Clear up to the time
I gasped for the last time with Christ, Alpha and Omega, by faith. I tell you this, you can come
to look to Him that way. all things are yours." All things
are possible, all things are yours, he said, in Christ. Those all things are yours, are
possible by faith to him that believes.