So I've talked to these young men on
a number of occasions, and I'm very, very
interested in what they're doing.
I've wanted to know Miles's heart.
I want to know Evans's heart.
I want to know Eli's heart.
And each young man brings a specific role
and gift into the work that they're doing
as a triune, interesting, I hadn't thought of
it till now, triune evangelistic group moving out
there.
And they complement each other really, really well.
Under certain circumstances, Eli speaks.
Under certain circumstances, Evans speaks.
Under certain circumstances, Miles speaks.
And one thing I discovered about Eli, he's
got a heart to preach.
And the other thing I remember is that
I remember I used to just feel like,
I've got to talk.
I've got to preach.
Somebody give me a chance.
Put me anywhere, and I'll preach.
Well, that's how he is.
And he's just got this burden inside to
share the word of God.
And so I want to pray for him
as he comes up to the pulpit to
share what God has laid on his heart.
And I know that you'll be blessed by
this, young man, because he has a real
heart for Christ, a real heart for the
word, and a real heart for you.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, now as Eli comes to share
his word, your word with his words and
his lips, Father, may you bless him.
May you speak through him and his heart.
May you organize his thinking and his mind
and his words to speak the exact message
that you desire him to speak.
May we have open minds and open hearts
that we see that message with great joy,
with conviction when conviction is necessary, with encouragement
when encouragement is necessary.
And Father, may we do it all for
the glory of God.
May we do it all for our benefit
and blessing.
In Jesus' name, we pray.
Amen.
Thank you, Pastor Chuck.
All right.
Wonderful to be here again.
Am I all right, sound-wise?
I don't want to knock these plants over.
Do you think I'll just, well, I'm not
going to touch it.
All right.
Oh, that's right.
That's right.
Are they just plastic, too?
OK.
How many people can remember what we talked
about last week?
There's three things that hinder the fruit that
we grow as Christians.
They were, one, taking right of scripture, the
cares of this life, which aren't sin, but
just the everyday things that take priority over
the things of God.
The second one was the deceitfulness of riches.
And we sum those up as lovers of
self, lovers of money, lovers of pleasure, all
deceitful.
You're just laying up for yourselves a fortune
on earth when really, as Pastor Chuck read,
we need to be building up our treasure
in heaven.
And the third thing was the lust of
other things.
And I talked about how we need to
have a singular vision on Christ and Christ
alone.
As I talked about, the eye is the
lamp of the body.
And if the eye is single, the whole
body will be full of light.
So I just want to summarize that to
refresh you.
And this morning, I'd like to turn to
Hebrews chapter 11.
We're going to be talking about a little
bit different subject this morning, but nonetheless important.
Hebrews chapter 11, famous chapter in the Bible,
often called the hall of faith, the chapter
of faith, records all these great men of
old who did amazing things for God.
And so we'll start right at verse 1.
Now, faith is the substance of things hoped
for and the evidence of things not seen.
For by it, the elders obtained a good
report.
Through faith, we understand that the worlds were
framed by the word of God so that
things which are seen were not made of
things which do appear.
By faith, Abel offered unto God a more
excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained
witness that he was righteous, God testifying of
his gifts.
And by it, he being dead yet speaketh.
By faith, Enoch was translated that he should
not see death and was not found because
God had translated him.
For before his translation, he had this testimony
that he pleased God.
I like that.
I want to please God.
Don't you, brother and sisters?
Don't you want to be pleasing to God?
But without faith, it is impossible to please
him.
For he that cometh to God must believe
that he is and that he is a
rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Let's go to verse 32.
And what shall I more say?
For the time would fail me to tell
of Gideon and of Barak and of Samson
and of Jephthah and David also and Samuel
and of the prophets who through faith subdued
kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths
of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped
the edge of the sword, out of weakness
were made strong, waxed valiant in the fight,
turned to flight the armies of the aliens.
Women received their dead raised to life again,
and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance that
they might obtain a better resurrection.
And others had trial of cruel mockings and
scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment.
They were stoned.
They were sawn asunder.
They were tempted.
They were slain with the sword.
They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins being
destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was
not worthy.
They wandered in deserts and in mountains and
in dens and caves of the earth.
And these all, having obtained a good report
through faith, received not the promise.
God, having provided something better for us, that
they without us should not be made perfect.
I think I'll just say a word of
prayer before I begin.
Heavenly Father, I just thank you again for
being here and this privilege to speak your
word, Lord.
And I just pray that the word of
God that you just read, Lord, would be
like a fire and would burn us up,
Lord Jesus.
And whatever is in us that is not
of you may it burn it up, Lord,
as you are a consuming fire and you
burn up everything that is not of you,
Lord.
And I just pray that you do that
work this morning, Father, that you would search
our hearts and allow us to examine ourselves,
Lord, and to look within, to see whatever
is in our lives that is not of
faith, Lord.
Whatever is in our lives that's going to
be burned up, Lord, at the judgment seat,
Lord, I pray that we would examine it
and rid ourselves of it now before it's
too late, Lord.
And I pray that you put within us
a fire, Lord, a Holy Spirit, Lord, the
Holy Spirit of power, Father, and the unction
and the vision, Lord, and the faith that
we need, Father, to live as your children
in this day.
Lord, I pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
OK, when I read that last scripture, the
last verse, and these all, having obtained a
good report through faith, received not the promise,
oh, it blows my mind.
God having provided something better for us.
And when I think of that, I mean,
we read here these amazing accounts of men.
Faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped
the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of
fire, escaped the edge of the sword, and
weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in the
fight, turned to flight the armies of aliens,
women received their dead raised to life, and
so on, and so on, and so on.
They received not the promise, and we have
something better than what they have.
And then I have to ask the question,
wait a second.
That doesn't make any sense.
What?
How many people feel that when you read
that?
You read of these great accounts, and it
says, we have something better?
And you say, what?
How can that be?
I mean, these guys put us to shame,
don't they?
These guys, as we read this, living in
dens, living in caves, being sawn asunder, all
for faith.
And they still didn't receive the promise.
They still didn't have as good a promise
as we had.
This ought to cause us to tremble.
This ought to cause us to wonder, what
did they have that we didn't, that we
don't have today?
Why did they have such faith?
Let me just make this seem even more,
let me just shape this picture a little
bit more.
Today, I'm going to say why we have
the better promise.
Today, Christ has come.
Jesus Christ is Messiah, and he has come.
And we know who he is.
He fulfilled all the prophecies, and we can
easily look into scripture and see Jesus fulfilled
that, Jesus fulfilled that, Jesus fulfilled that, Jesus
fulfilled that.
Jesus is Messiah.
So Messiah has come.
These men were hoping and looking and having
faith that he would come.
They had the prophecies.
Some of them didn't.
Some of them lived before the scriptures were
even written.
Cain and Abel.
But these guys, whether they had the prophecies
or not, they didn't have Messiah.
They looked forward to him.
So they didn't have that confidence saying, he's
come.
They're saying, he's coming one of these days.
So they were living their lives in faith,
in one to come that hasn't even happened
yet.
And they lived the way they lived.
Now, another thing is Jesus died on the
cross and put to death.
He conquered death.
He conquered sin.
He conquered the devil.
Before that, Christ hadn't come.
And these men still, we have the better
promise.
Christ Jesus has died on the cross for
us.
One sacrifice done away with all sacrifices.
These guys had to take a lamb or
a bull or an animal, put it on
an altar, take a knife, stab it through,
and hope that their sins would be forgiven
and hope that Messiah was to come.
But we can look back to Jesus on
the cross, our final sacrifice who did away
with all those ordinances, disarmed the power of
the devil, and rose again third day.
And he's our sacrifice, our perfect lamb, the
lamb of God.
I mean, if we were to read about
all that in Hebrews, we'd know that the
sacrifice of Christ's a million times, unfathomably times
better than the sacrifices of lambs and goats.
Another advantage we have is we have the
Holy Ghost.
Where in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit
of God was given to specific people to
do specific tasks.
But Joel said, in the last days I'll
pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.
Therefore, the Christians are filled with the Holy
Spirit.
The Christians have the opportunity to be indwelled
with God's Spirit, the power from on high,
gifts of the Spirit, fruit of the Spirit.
These guys didn't have that.
Only a few.
This is serious stuff to consider.
Let me bring something a little more practical.
We today have a Bible, a B-I
-B-L-E.
We got all the 66 books in one.
Nice, handy, you can go to the store
and buy a little pocket Bible.
You know, you can choose whatever kind of
Bible you want.
Large print, small print, small Bible, pocket size,
you know, pulpit size, pastor size, study notes,
commentaries.
They didn't have anything like that.
Some of them didn't even have the Scriptures.
And if they did, they were all bulky
scrolls, and they were maybe one book.
You have the scroll of Isaiah from chapter
1 to chapter, you know, 12, and then
the next big scroll would be chapter this
to that.
We have the better promise.
Amen?
Oh, it puts us to shame, it puts
us to shame, to shame to say that
we have this book at our hands, at
our fingertips, so easy access, and all the
books, how wonderful.
You know, these guys would have probably died
to get one of these.
They could see in the future and say,
you guys have a handy, bound, disposable, you
know, you can get another one if it
wears out.
With all the books, all the prophets, old
and new.
Oh, they would have loved it.
Bear in mind now, they didn't have the
New Testament.
No epistles.
No epistles from Paul, those letters we love
to read, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1st and
2nd Corinthians, Romans, which is such a blessing
to have, Hebrews, Revelation.
They didn't have all these wonderful epistles.
They didn't have the writings of Peter or
John.
They didn't have the verse, nothing is impossible
with God.
You know, we have that verse and most
of us don't even believe it.
You know, we have that verse.
They didn't have that verse.
They couldn't say, they couldn't look at the
situation around them and say, yes, but the
Bible says nothing is impossible with God.
They didn't have that verse.
But you know what they had?
Faith.
They had faith that nothing was impossible with
God.
As we read Hebrews 11, let's look at
that.
Hebrews 11, verse 3.
Through faith we understand that the worlds were
framed by the word of God so that
things which are seen were not God and
His power spoke these things into existence from
what was not.
Therefore, nothing is impossible with God.
They just used their faith.
They just saw and they understood by the
things that were made and by faith that
nothing was impossible with God.
It's just fascinating.
Just think about this for a minute.
They just understood that God was all-powerful
because He made the whole earth.
They didn't have the verse, we walk by
faith, not by sight.
Now a lot of us, when we fall
into trials and temptations or whatever, we say,
oh, but the Bible says we walk by
faith and not by sight.
And so we take comfort in those verses.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't take comfort
in those verses.
I do.
I'm just drawing an illustration that these guys
didn't have it.
And guess what?
Enoch walked by faith and not by sight
and he was translated.
He was gone.
He was taken.
And that puts us to shame.
Enoch was before the Bible was even written.
And he walked by faith and not by
sight.
Now we who have the scriptures and have
the promises, have the prophecies, have Jesus Christ
has come, have the blood of Christ.
My question is, do we have the faith
that these men had?
Now it says here in a couple of
verses, verse 2, for by it the elders
obtained a good report.
And also verse 39, all these having obtained
a good report through faith received not the
promise.
I want to talk this morning about obtaining
a good report.
But these men had the substance of things
hoped for and the evidence of things not
seen.
That's what they had that I fear that
we lack today.
We lack faith.
Faith, the substance.
It's stuff.
It's not just a thought.
It's actual substance of things not seen and
evidence of things hoped for.
1 Peter 1.7 says it's more valuable
than gold, more valuable than riches.
And Revelation 3.17 says, you know, you
think you have all, but you don't understand
you're wretched, poor, miserable, blind and naked.
He's talking to the church.
Because there's a tendency to get, when we
have, when we have stuff.
You know, when you don't have everything, you're
grateful.
When you don't have everything, you're mindful of
God.
But when we live, you know, we live
in a very rich society.
I'm just talking in material senses now.
You know, we're not very grateful.
We're not very thankful.
You know, Miles is commenting, you know, when
you want to go out to eat, you
can pretty much choose where you want to
go to eat.
I want this kind of food, Japanese food,
Italian food.
You know, in America, you can get whatever
kind of food you want.
You know, he went to Ukraine, and you
don't have that luxury to say, I feel
like eating Chinese today.
You know, you have to eat what the
Ukrainian farmers raised, basically.
Which is?
Horses.
That's right.
It's just that simple.
I mean, but it's the same in the
spirit.
You know, we have the Bible, we have
the better promises.
Are we getting complacent like the lay to
see in church?
Do we have the faith that these men
have?
Are we going to obtain a good report?
This is what I'm worried that we won't.
And here's the thing.
It's faith that pleases God.
Amen.
It's faith that pleases Him.
And without faith, you cannot please God.
And, you know, we have to watch out
that we don't lose our faith.
Our faith might be so small.
But God needs men that have large faith.
If we're going to, you know, do what
these men did, you know, conquer cities, subdue
kingdoms, wrought righteousness, the lions of the devil,
we're going to need faith.
And not just a little bit of faith.
You're going to need the faith that these
men have.
The faith that believes the impossible.
The faith that says nothing is impossible with
God and then acts because faith acts.
Faith is not dormant.
Faith works.
But I'm jumping ahead.
You know, this is the hall of faith.
This is the hall of faith.
But today, you know, most people are more
concerned with the hall of fame.
You know, the hall of fame.
Who hit the longest home run.
And we're more concerned about that than, you
know, This was my favorite movie.
God says, come on in, thou good and
faithful servant.
How many times did you watch it and
memorize all I had to say?
How many of you can quote more quotes
from a movie or a song than you
can scripture?
Well done, thou good and faithful servant.
You obtained a good report.
A, B, C, D, E, F.
You know?
Or E's not in there, I guess.
But A+.
You know, what report are you going to
get?
What is your eternal?
Where's your treasure?
That's the question.
Where's your treasure?
Eternal value is not found in sports.
Kind of takes us back to what we
talked about last week.
The priority.
The things of God.
I said yesterday, or last week, that those
things choke the word.
And they do indeed.
They choke our faith.
They make our faith small.
You know, the pagans chase after all those
things.
The pagans, you know, all they're interested in
is the things of this world.
I remember I was working last summer at
the university in New Brunswick.
And I was working for the physical plant
guys.
And my worker mates were just infatuated with
sports.
They just, they would not stop talking and
they'd talk about other things.
They were infatuated with sports.
And they would say, did you see this
play that this guy made?
And they'd talk about it all day.
This guy's play that he made.
And they said, Eli, don't you think that's
amazing?
I said, okay.
He did something great, but it has no
value in it.
What does it matter?
And they said, what does it matter?
And they're trying to come up with every
reason in the book why this is important.
So a guy, you know, caught a piece
of leather ball and ran down a field,
you know.
My focus is not on those things.
It shows where your heart is.
Those people's hearts are in the dark.
Ephesians 4.
These people are alienated from the life of
God because of the blindness of their heart,
because of the ignorance that is within them.
But if the pagans are acting like this,
I have to make this observation.
I see the church acting like this, too.
The church is acting like the pagans.
And it's time to wake up.
When souls are going to hell, it's time
to wake up.
Let me ask you, when is the good
time to wake up?
After 200,000 souls go to hell, 1
,000,000 souls go to hell, when is
it time to wake up?
When all your family members go to hell,
is it time to wake up?
When the Word of God, the truth, has
fallen in the streets, is it time to
wake up?
When the homosexuals are parading, is it time
to wake up?
When people are being imprisoned for homeschooling their
kids, is it time to wake up?
Because they want them to go into secular
school and learn evolution.
They want them to go into secular school
and learn about sex as good as a
little child.
When is it time to wake up, church?
That's just the question.
It blows my mind.
How many people have lost loved ones?
I do.
How much time do you spend praying for
your lost loved ones?
As opposed to how much time do you
spend doing useless things that are important?
What does God see?
Now, the reason is because we don't have
faith.
That's just as simple as it is.
We don't really believe that it's worth it.
Or we don't believe God will really do
it.
And you know, faith is not just intellectual
assent.
Faith is unyielding assurance that God will.
That God is, and that God is a
rewarder of those who seek Him.
That's faith.
Substance.
And it's faith that moves mountains.
It's faith that conquers kingdoms.
It's faith that shuts the mouths of lions.
And faith works.
If you don't have a working faith, James
says, faith without deeds is dead.
It's not alive.
Because faith works.
If you believe God, you'll do.
Didn't Paul say, I believe, therefore I have
spoken?
And, you know, if you believe God can
save, if you believe in the power of
prayer, you'll pray.
That's the point I'm trying to get at,
folks.
If you believe in the power of prayer,
you'll pray.
If you don't believe in the power of
prayer, you won't pray.
If you believe in the Scripture that says
God has used the foolishness of preaching to
save the lost, you'll preach if you believe
it.
But if you don't believe it, you won't
preach.
If you believe that God can make a
man holy and is able to, you know,
what's the Scripture say?
To him who is able to keep you
from falling and preserve you blameless under the
day of Christ Jesus.
If you believe that, you'll walk in it.
If you don't, you'll fall to the left
and you'll fall to the right.
If you believe a man can be holy,
you'll be holy.
If you don't, if you don't have any
faith that God, you can't overcome the world,
you won't.
This is the victory that overcomes the world.
Even our faith.
Isn't that a wonderful Scripture?
Our faith overcomes the world.
Not our programs.
Not our, you know, 12 steps to being
a happier person.
Our faith overcomes the world.
And if you believe it, you will.
Now, if we look at Hebrews 11 again,
it goes through a whole list and it
says, by faith, by faith.
Abraham does this, Moses does this, by faith
Joseph does that, by faith Gideon does this.
And, uh, that's the wonderful thing about it.
They had faith.
And so they did.
We looked at a Scripture the other day.
By faith, Moses, when he was come to
years, refused to be called the son of
Pharaoh's daughter, verse 24 over 25, choosing rather
to suffer affliction with the people of God
than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for
a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ, greater
riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he
had respect under the recompense of reward, as
I was saying yesterday.
Look ahead, look, set your affections on things
above, and by faith, by faith, if you
believe that, you know, that we will stand
before the judgment seat of Christ, Christ will
return and reward everyone according to what he's
done in the body.
You know, you're not going to enjoy the
event, you'll turn from it, you'll run from
it, you'll esteem the reproaches of Christ, greater
riches.
Alright, there's nothing, I think one of my
greatest pet peeves in the church, my greatest
pet peeve is Christians who are ignorant.
Christians that, it's a willful ignorance, it's dumb
on purpose, it's a, I don't know because
I don't read, that sort of ignorance, you
know, or I read, but I don't know
because I don't understand, because I don't read
by the Spirit, I don't ask for wisdom,
I just read, read, read mindlessly.
It's a willful ignorance.
A lot of Christians are ignorant, a lot
of Christians don't know anything, they just don't
know anything.
They know like the basics, but they haven't
moved on.
Paul says in, whoever wrote Hebrews, could be
Timothy, could be Paul, could be somebody else,
but he says in Hebrews 5, he says,
you know, at this point, you should be
teachers, but now you have someone to teach
you all over again.
You should be teachers, and folks, we should
be teachers.
We got this book, 66 books in one
little binding.
Lots of time.
No persecution.
We should be teachers.
We should know this book.
How many people know this book?
It's like a part of you, it lives
in you, it dwells in you richly.
How many people know this book?
You know it.
It's like a third arm.
You can, as easy as it is to
move your hand without thinking about it, you
can navigate this book, you can quote this
book, you can speak this book, you can
teach this book, it dwells in you, and
you love to teach it.
It's your third arm, and without it, you'd
be handicapped.
That's how it should be.
This should be so a part of us,
really, let the word of God dwell in
you richly, it should be our heart, it
should be the life of our body, that
if we lose it, we die.
We should be so much a part of
God and so much a part of his
word dwelling in us.
Just read Psalm 119.
That without it, we just die.
We just love your word.
Oh how I love your word, oh Lord.
You know, if you meditate on this book
and dwell it in you, the Bible promises
you'll be like a tree planted by rivers
of water, who believes does not wither.
Bears fruit in season.
Wonderful promises.
But who obtained the promises?
The men of faith.
In verse 33, obtained promises.
That's how you obtain promises.
You know, a lot of promises in this
book, you could find them every day.
A lot of people read promises, but they
don't actually obtain them.
You read the promises, but you don't obtain
them.
Because you have to obtain them by faith.
You know, I can do all things through
Christ who strengthens me.
You'll never obtain that if you don't have
faith.
Never.
Same with salvation.
You can read John 3.16 all you
want and go to hell, unless you have
faith.
It's just as simple as that.
You have to actually believe.
Not intellectual assent, but unyielding assurance that Jesus
Christ is Messiah, is Savior, died on the
cross for your sins, cleansed you of your
sins, and is making intercession for you, and
is able to save to the uttermost, and
will take you to heaven when you breathe
your last, unyielding assurance.
So it's this ignorance.
One of the ignorant things a lot of
people, you know, people just don't know.
People just don't know.
You know, in Fredericton, I hear this all
the time.
I don't know if this epidemic plagues us
here, but they say, the Old Testament, that's
gone.
That's obsolete.
That's no more.
All you need is the New Testament.
I don't even read the Old Testament anymore.
It's just useless.
Don't even need it.
They might as well just cut it right
out of the book and throw it away.
Of course, we know in Timothy, it says,
all Scripture is useful for instruction, righteousness, teaching,
rebuke, exhortation.
And, uh, he wasn't talking about his letter
when he wrote it.
He was talking about the Old Testament.
Paul wasn't saying, my letter is useful for
instruction.
You know, he wasn't thinking like that.
It is, but he was thinking Old Testament.
And, uh, the Old Testament is not obsolete.
It's just fulfilled.
All of the law, all of the law,
all of it is summed up in two.
Love the Lord your God with all your
heart, with all your soul, with all your
mind, with all your strength, and love your
neighbor as yourself.
All the law.
That's all the law from thou shalt not
kill to you shall not tattoo yourself.
All the law is summed up in love
God and love your neighbor.
It's all there.
Everything.
It's not gone.
It's fulfilled.
Romans 7.
You can't stop sinning.
You're only human.
I'm just human.
It's inevitable.
I'm going to sin tomorrow.
I'm going to sin tonight.
I just can't help myself.
I just have to go to the bar.
I just have to get drunk.
I just can't help myself.
It's just not my fault.
That's not true.
For the law of the spirit of life
set me free from the law of death.
And, of course, 1 Corinthians 10.13 says,
No temptation has come upon man except that
which is common.
And God always gives a way of escape
for us.
Now, here's the catch.
Do you believe it?
Do you have faith that that's true?
Because you're not going to obtain the promise
if you have no faith.
It's just that simple.
Faith obtains the promises.
Faithlessness always falls to the wayside.
You'll never get the promises without faith.
And so, here's my point.
We read Hebrews 11.
We say, Wow, I could never do that.
Wow, I could never be like these guys.
Moses is different than me.
Enoch is different than me.
Elijah, oh my goodness, I could never be
like him.
Paul, no way.
He's just some superman that's unattainable.
You know, Peter, give me a break.
Quench the violence of fire, not for me.
Escape the edge of the sword, no.
Weakness, we're made strong.
Wax valued in the fight.
Turn to fight the armies of aliens for
the old guys.
Women received their dead raised to life again.
And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance.
I don't think I have the strength to
do that.
They might obtain a better resurrection.
Others had mocking scourgings, yet moreover bonds and
imprisonment.
They were stoned.
They were sawn asunder.
They were tempted.
They were slain with a sword.
They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being
destitute, afflicted, and fermented.
Not for me.
You know what?
Elijah was a man of like passions.
Read James.
Elijah was a man of like passions.
Paul went and did a miracle with Barnabas
and all the people began to worship him
as Zeus.
And he said, no, no, no, no, no.
I'm just a man of like passions.
You know, Paul was just like you and
me.
The difference is he had faith.
And Elijah was just a man like you
and me.
But the difference is he had faith.
All these men and women were just like
you and me.
If I could just if you could just
understand, they're just like you and me.
The difference is they believe God.
If you believe God, nothing is impossible.
If you just believe God, all things are
possible.
And what are the limits?
You know, when God calls us, as he's
calling this church to do, do you believe
God?
That he could do exceedingly abundantly above all
that we can ever ask or imagine?
We believe we can see souls saved, our
lost family members won, and shut the mouth
of the devil.
Stop the forces of evil.
When the enemy comes in like a flood,
the spirit of God will lift up a
standard against him.
Do you believe it?
And will you be a part of it?
See, this whole attitude of like I can't
do it is just of the devil.
Where in the Bible does it ever say
that?
You know, that's actually, I hear more from
Christians I can't do it, and it's just
not possible.
Actually, that's pretty much that's pretty much the
99% of things you hear.
It's just not possible.
Where in the Bible can you quote me
the scripture that says it's just not possible?
Where is that scripture?
Second Opinions, Chapter 3?
Where is that?
Where is it?
It's just not possible.
Where is it?
I've been searching my whole life for it.
I haven't found it.
Still looking.
You know, it sounds like the devil.
It's the devil.
He's just trying to shackle us and choke
us by the things of this world and
hinder us from bearing fruit and stop the
church from doing its purpose.
It's kind of been the theme of this
last week.
The purpose of the church is to work.
Remember we were saved by grace not of
works through faith but we are his workmanship
unto good works, to do good works.
That's the purpose of the church, but we're
not going to ever do it unless we
have faith.
It's faith from the beginning.
It's faith till you die.
You know, you enter into the life of
Christ by faith.
You have access into grace by faith.
And it's not like that's over now that
once you become a Christian.
You know, I became a Christian by faith
but now faith is I don't need it
anymore.
Paul said, how did you receive the Holy
Spirit?
By the works of the law or by
faith?
When they healed the lame man.
It's not our own holiness, it's faith in
Jesus Christ.
That's what it is.
So faith is from your birth, the new
birth till your death.
Everybody understand?
Now I've been looking.
I look for people of this caliber.
I look for men of this caliber in
life.
Very rare.
Very, very rare.
I'm always on the lookout for them.
Everywhere I go.
Where is a man of the caliber of
faith that is this high?
And those are the people I want to
hang around with.
We want to walk with giants.
You want to walk with people who have
Goliath's heads on their belt.
You don't want to walk around with those
Israelites who are always running away at Goliath.
You want to be with guys named David.
They're the people I want to be with.
The Davids.
Saul has killed his thousands.
But David has tens of thousands.
That's who I want to hang around with.
David.
So where are these men?
Are there any here?
Where are these men?
God doesn't use machines.
God doesn't use programs.
God doesn't use instruments.
He doesn't use bullhorns.
He uses men.
He inhabits men.
It's faith is the breeding ground of the
promises of God.
It's not program.
Oh, if we only had a better program
here on this side.
Or a program for the young people.
Or this kind of a program.
If we only had that better sound system,
God would move.
If we only had a bigger building.
If we only had on and on and
on.
All those new gadgets.
Churches today are saturated with electronic gadgets.
Nothing wrong with them, Bob.
But churches are saturated with them thinking that
the better stuff we have, then people are
going to come.
And people are going to become Christians because
we have a high-tech sound system.
That's not why you come to Christ.
You could have a hole in the wall
and a person that believes God and something
would happen.
That's what happens.
All the revivals of old, you get two
people praying in a hole in the wall,
believing God and a revival came.
It's just that simple.
It has nothing to do with gadgets or
gizmos.
It's just men and women who have faith
and believe God.
And God loves it.
And God looks for it.
Those are the people God wants to move
through.
And just to wrap it up here.
We're living in a...
This is a nice sermon, you might say.
This is very good.
Very motivated.
But it's more than that.
This message of faith...
We're living in a time of intense spiritual
warfare, intense spiritual battle.
The devil is making his advance on all
sides.
If we say, that's a nice sermon and
close our ears or this Bible is really
nice and it says a lot of good
promises and we just close our ears to
it, we're going to be overrun.
My point is, it's not the time...
This is the time to act.
This is the time to get our act
together.
This is the time to get our faith
rising up.
Because we need it.
It's not just, I'd like that or that's
a good idea or yeah, I'll do that
tomorrow.
We need it now.
The devil is not waiting.
Why are the Christians waiting?
The devil is advancing.
Why are the Christians retreating?
You know, in World War I or World
War II, Hitler, he was rising to power,
doing a lot of evil things and people
sort of knew what was going on.
Hitler had, of course, an ambition to take
over the whole world.
And, you know, Chamberlain, you know, he went
to visit Hitler and tried to make peace
with Hitler and came back and said, peace
in our time.
It wasn't long after that till that was
all to the wind.
And he made the mistake of ignoring the
threat at hand.
There was an imminent threat to the whole
world.
People were dying.
People were being slain.
Hitler was gaining in power.
And Chamberlain, you know, he said no, nothing.
And Churchill, of course, Churchill was saying, look,
there's a problem.
Churchill was one of the only voices in
all of England that was saying, we need
to do something.
You know, rally the military.
Start building planes.
Start getting people ready for war.
We need to act now or Hitler is
going to overrun us.
People didn't listen to Churchill until it was
too late.
And then they had to scrounge Britain.
They had to really scrounge for resources.
And you know what happened?
The Brits got beaten.
And they retreated.
And of course the Americans came in and
saved the day.
But, you know, they ignored Churchill, the one
voice who was saying, act now.
Now is the time to act.
Hitler is on the move.
And it's like in the church, you know,
there's these voices going out saying, rise the
church.
Wake up, because the devil is on the
move.
What are you going to do?
Are you going to be like Chamberlain and
say, peace in our time?
Peace in our time?
The prophets of old said that.
They were dead wrong.
You know, always it was the people that
were blowing the trumpet in Zion saying, wake
up.
Sound the alarm.
Those are the people that were speaking the
words of God.
And so church, we need to wake up.
We need to get faith.
And we need to fight.
We need to win souls.
We need to pray.
We need to act.
Because the devil is not slowing down.
Romans 13.
Turn with me there.
It's not peacetime right now.
See, in peacetime, people are at home comfortable.
But at wartime, the factories are working.
People are working overtime.
The men are overseas.
The women are, you know, in the factories
working.
People are busy, busy, busy.
It's stressful in wartime.
It's not peaceful.
The bombs are going off.
You're hiding.
And people need to be on the alert.
It's not peacetime.
But a lot of Christians live like it's
peacetime before peace is even here.
Jesus never came to bring peace to the
world.
He came to bring a sword.
I'm talking spiritual sense here.
We're engaged in warfare.
So Christians, it's not peacetime.
Just to remind you.
Peacetime is when, you know, you either rest,
you know, when you're asleep, as Paul said,
or when the Lord comes back.
And we rest.
And we'll eat supper with the married supper
of the Lamb.
But until then, Romans 13, verse
11, and that knowing the time that now,
now bear in mind when this is written.
This is not written yesterday.
Now it is high time to awake out
of sleep for now is our salvation nearer
than when we believed.
The night is far spent.
The day is at hand.
Let us therefore cast off the works of
darkness and let us put on the armor
of light.
Let us walk honestly as in the day,
not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering
and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but
put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and
make not provision for the flesh to fulfill
the lust thereof.
The night is far spent.
The day is at hand.
Let us therefore cast off the works of
darkness and put on the armor of light.
The imagery here is war time.
And just like David had his mighty men,
God needs his mighty men today.
Who are they going to be?
Are they going to be us?
Are we going to miss it?
David had his mighty men.
And where are the mighty men of God
today?
Where are the mighty men of God today?
Where are the men of faith?
God needs those men.
God's going to do stuff.
I believe He's going to raise up men
of God again.
Are you going to be a part of
it?
That's the question.
We read last week, 2 Timothy 2 4,
no man that warth entangles himself in the
affairs of this life because he wants to
please Him who has chosen him to be
a soldier.
Let me remind you why we're chosen.
And so folks just in closing here, it's
faith that's going to win these battles that
are up ahead in the future.
It's faith that's going to obtain the promises.
It's faith that sets the boys from the
men.
So when Jesus said here's the sobering thing
this is the sobering part of the message
Jesus said when I return will I find
faith on the earth?
Foreseeing that men would have little faith in
me.
When I return will I find faith on
the earth?
If Jesus was to come in through the
doors right now would He find faith in
the church here?
Would He come in and say I came
in here to recruit for the work of
the Lord but I need men of faith.
Is there anyone here?
Would He find faith?
Will you have faith?
Will you live for Jesus?
Will you be mighty in war?
Will you obtain a good report?
Heavenly Father I'm so humbled when I read
this chapter 11 Lord in Hebrews of these
men Lord who had not received the promises
that we have received Lord and of course
it says Lord that we have received the
better promises and God I pray for each
and every one of us here myself included
that God when we come face to face
with you and stand before you Lord at
that judgment seat Lord that we ourselves would
obtain a good report as these men have
Lord because we believe God we believe what
you said Lord Lord I'd rather die believing
you too hard than not believing you at
all Lord and Father I just pray that
this morning you would just put within our
hearts again a faith Lord that is unmovable,
a faith that works a faith that moves
mountains Lord a faith that believes the Bible
that we read week after week day after
day Lord that you put within us the
desire and a vision and a fire to
wake up and put on the armor and
to fight the good fight of faith Lord
that we may too receive that good report
when we meet you Lord Thank you Jesus,
Jesus name Amen