It's good to see you here tonight.
You know, it's just good to even be
here, isn't it?
Amen.
I pray that the Lord has spoken to
your heart and you've been blessed.
I think that song, Much More, So Much
More, that within itself should have blessed you.
Nothing else did.
And I pray that you'll realize tonight that
regardless of where you have come to, there's
still much more.
And when you get to heaven, there's still
going to be more.
Amen.
The Lord hasn't even started, or I should
say you haven't started on what he's got
for you.
He's already given to you.
We're delighted tonight for all of you visitors
and I pray that you will just simply
let the Lord speak to your heart and
just really open up to him and let
him do for you what he wants to
do because he is doing some things around
here.
He is meeting some people's needs and I
haven't given him a chance to testify of
the fact of what he's done for them
because I haven't preached yet, but I'm planning
on preaching tonight.
And I'm glad a few people are here.
I have Brother Bobby over there.
And I love to preach to these preachers,
but it is a real joy to have
you.
And I pray that God will speak to
your heart tonight.
Regardless if you're a member of this church
or a visitor, I hope you came for
the purpose of letting God speak to you.
I hope you came to get changed and
not entertained or enchanted, but changed.
That's what the Lord is out to do
with you and that's what he plans for
you.
Changes you.
He's out to change you from day to
day, from victory to victory.
That's what he wants to do for you
tonight.
And so I know that he, I know
his plans, I'm just really not sure about
yours.
But I'd encourage you to let him have
his way.
And the Lord will bless you.
I'm grateful to have a young man here
tonight visiting with us.
He was here last night, and I don't
know how many more times he's going to
be or what his plans are.
But we're glad to have a young man
up here, David Hill, in front as quite
a testimony.
And I'm afraid if I let him get
up here and testify for about 10 minutes,
I never would get you down long enough
to preach to you 30 minutes.
But the Lord may just open up the
way.
This young man, God has really done something
in his life.
And you'd have to know his background to
know how much God has done.
And it's just amazing how the Lord saves
people.
And really has a tremendous testimony.
And I praise the Lord for him being
here tonight.
He's a young evangelist.
The Lord's really using him.
I don't think he understands all that's going
on, and I'm glad he doesn't.
But it's still going on, David.
And God's not dead.
And we're real delighted to have him.
He's up from San Antonio.
God has a fantastic testimony.
I asked the preacher, I said, you think
I ought to mention that book that David
wrote?
Because he read some of it today.
He said, Lord, it might, or he said
something like this.
I said, well, it might scare these people
to death.
He said, it might.
But it's fantastic, David.
It's a tremendous book.
And it's a tremendous message of how God
has brought this young man in and out.
And a wonderful, wonderful testimony.
I'm taking my time about getting into service
tonight, because I'm not probably going to preach
over about 25 minutes, 20 minutes.
And I've been preaching about an hour.
I'm just waiting on you to settle down,
because I've got something to say.
And you may not enjoy what I've got
to say.
Because when God said it to me, I
certainly didn't enjoy it.
And you might say, well, why, preachers?
Because it was so profoundly different.
And so simple.
And so applicable.
And that's what hurt.
You know, it was so applicable to me,
that I didn't want to take it.
And I really resisted it.
As I said last night, this puts the
grease to the squeak.
And it's really nothing but a message on
what is faith.
I've been preaching along this line almost every
night.
But this, tonight, is another approach.
Something the Lord gave me just a few
weeks ago on what is faith.
A lady came to me several months, years
back now, I guess.
And she said, preacher, said, boy, I knew
just exactly what you were talking about tonight.
You ever had any of them tell you
that?
Oh, brother, I get scared when people tell
me that.
And I said, she said, boy, that message
on faith, I tell you, she said, I
know exactly what you're talking about.
She said, I tell you, preacher, I've got
all the faith in the world.
And I looked at that woman, you know,
I backed off.
I said, Lord, if she's got all the
faith in the world, then bless God, we'll
see the dead raised tonight.
And we'll see some miracles here tonight.
We'll see something happen.
And I looked at her.
And she just kept on talking about what
faith she had.
And I kept listening.
And before she got through with her conversation,
she turned to me.
And she said, Brother Beasley, would you please
pray with me for my son who's lost
and is not saved?
I said, lady, I thought you had all
the faith in the world.
I said, it'd be stupid for me to
pray for your son, if you've got the
faith.
I said, if you've got all the faith
in the world, you don't need me to
pray for your son.
I said, I need for you to pray
for me, but not me pray for your
son, if you've got all the faith in
the world.
Because the Bible says, very plainly, that according
to your faith, God is working.
And if you've got all the faith in
the world, well, you're not worried about your
son getting saved.
As far as you're concerned, it's settled.
And you know what that lady did?
She said she had faith, but her actions
did not correspond with what she said.
Which brings me to a scripture in the
Bible that says, What does it profit, my
brethren, though a man say he hath faith,
and have not works?
Can faith save him?
Now, the Weymouth Translation says it like this,
and I'll tell you, it's tremendous.
And I'm reading from James, the 2nd chapter,
the 14th verse.
What, and I'll wait if you're going to
turn to it, until you get over there.
I shouldn't have told you what verse it
was.
You get your attention on that and won't
listen.
In the Weymouth Translation, it says, What good
is it, my brethren, if a man professes
to have faith, and yet his actions do
not correspond?
Quite something, isn't it?
And here this woman was confessing she had
faith.
But before she left, her actions did not
correspond with her confession.
And Weymouth Translation says, and the King James
really says it, What good is it, my
brethren, if you say you have faith, and
your actions do not correspond?
In other words, you do not have actions
that correspond with your confession.
What good is it?
Now, a lot of folk get confused, and
some great people can be blinded.
And I'm sure that I have blind spots
in my own life.
But Martin Luther looked into the book of
Romans and saw that justification was by grace
through faith, not of works at all.
And he was saved by grace through faith,
and he saw this great truth of justification
by simply trusting Jesus for salvation.
And then he read the book of James,
and he said it was not supposed to
be in the Bible.
Do you know that?
Martin Luther, he said, Brother, that's not supposed
to be in the Bible.
Because James says, faith without works is dead.
And boy, this blinded Catholic man that was
a priest saw that you didn't have to
work and take the sacraments to be saved,
that you were saved simply by grace without
works.
And he was so excited about it that
he was blinded to what James was saying.
And my dear friends, James is talking about
justification before man, where Romans is talking, and
Paul was talking about justification before God.
And sure enough, you are justified before God
by simple faith.
And James is saying, if that faith is
real, genuine, as the old country fellow said,
genuine faith, there will be works that will
prove it.
And you not only will be justified before
God, but you will be justified before man.
So Paul is saying that when you're really
justified by faith, the same thing as James
is, only one's talking about justification before God,
and the other is talking about justification before
man, and they're, because if you really have
genuine faith, it's real, there will be genuine,
corresponding action that proves that your faith is
real before God.
You see, if you are righteous, or if
you're holy before God, you're righteous before man.
If you believe with your heart, you will
confess with your mouth.
It's inevitable results.
They're inseparable.
So here, James saying, what good is it
if you say that you have faith, and
yet your actions do not correspond with your
confession, then your faith is not real.
Now there's another verse along that line that
really gets to the heart of things, and
I want to get to it in a
moment.
But as I want to, I want to
go back now to that French Bible that
I quoted the other night, where it says,
Romans, Hebrews 11, 1, where it says, Faith
is the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen.
And this French Bible says that faith is
rendering present that which you hope for.
Let's just turn it around for simplicity's sake.
That which you are hoping for, faith renders
it by action as present.
Oh, that's beautiful, isn't it?
That thing for which you are hoping.
Now you realize this message is in the
context of three other messages.
Now you remember that.
And hope is not faith, folk, it's just
a part of it.
But that thing for which you are hoping
is if it's of God, then your actions
are supposed to render it present.
Now this is all through the Bible.
For instance, at the Red Sea, Moses stood
up and said, Stand still and see the
salvation of the Lord.
And then all at once he began to
doubt, and he said, Oh God, do something.
God said, Why callest thou me?
He said, I'm committed, brother.
He said, No, you don't need to be
begging me to do something.
He said, When I come to see you
through.
Some of you didn't know that, but he's
committed to you.
Amen.
I'm not as concerned, half as concerned about
my commitment to God as I am God's
commitment to me.
Amen.
Because I'll tell you, folks, as long as
I know he's committed to me, I'm not
too worried about my commitment to him.
You said you're not?
Aren't you trying to get us committed to
God?
I'm really trying to get you, or trusting
God to get you, to the place where
you get in such a relationship that he'll
commit himself to you, and I'm not worried
about the rest.
If God ever starts committing himself to you,
folks, the rest will take care of itself.
Amen.
You know, people tell me, Man, I'm coming
to get saved.
Well, that's wonderful, folks.
And it's wonderful when you come to Jesus
to get saved.
But I'll tell you what salvation really is.
It's not when you come to Jesus to
get saved.
It's when you come so adequately in faith
and repentance that God commits himself to you.
Jesus did not commit himself unto them because
he knew their hearts.
For salvation is not you committing to Christ.
Salvation is Christ committing himself to you.
And, folks, when you get him committed to
you, you're saved.
Amen.
And when you get in such fellowship and
relationship to Jesus that he commits himself to
you, boy, and he committed himself to this
man Moses.
And you know what Moses had to do?
Moses had to stand up and tell over
a million people to walk into the Red
Sea as if there was a hole there
when there wasn't a hole.
Amen.
He didn't walk out there and hit that
water, did he?
No, he told them to march.
Over a million people, they believe, he told
them to render presence.
Of course, they had a good bit of
pressure on them.
They could see the dust in the background.
The desert was running, and the cloud was
there, and the fire.
And he'll do that for you if you
want to trust him.
Some of you hadn't realized that God's answered
your prayers by giving you a problem.
That's what he did for that bunch.
He brought them down to a problem so
he could show them how he could work.
And so he brought them to the Red
Sea.
But I'll tell you what, Moses had to
render presence that which he hoped for.
Boy, he had to act like it so
when it wasn't so in order for it
to be so.
You say, I can't understand it.
You never do.
The Bible says, Faith comes before understanding.
You look in the book of Hebrews, and
if you start reading it, and he said,
By faith we what?
Understand that the world.
Hey, which one says, which one comes first?
Faith or understanding?
You faith it, and then you understand.
Amen.
Brother Bobby, you could try and understand it
and start faithing it, hear?
Amen.
I know Bobby real well.
He tries to understand everything before he faiths.
And I can take on him if I
want to.
Now, can't you see this beautiful story?
And I'm just showing you a definition of
what is faith.
God walked out one day and said, Abraham,
I'm a man.
You're children.
He said, There's going to be so many.
He said, You won't be able to count
them.
Well, Abraham told Sarah about it.
And they went out and tried to help
God out.
They got a little program up.
God said, I'm sorry, I don't accept your
program.
For 20 years he begged God to accept
his program.
He said, No.
Well, finally, he was about 100, and his
wife was almost 100.
And the original says his body was as
dead as hers.
And boy, that promise.
We'll make you a father.
And that ate on him.
That ate him up.
He couldn't stand it.
You know what?
That promise was the living Christ.
Did you know that?
And he, the question was, What am I
going to do with Jesus?
Really?
Because that's the living word.
And so, he counted his body as though
it was dead.
And you know what this fellow did?
Of course, you'd send him to Terrell for
this.
Amen.
And how some of us have stayed out,
has acted like this, I don't know.
But he went around and said, Praise God.
He said he did.
Romans 4, beginning at 17th verse.
100 years old, he said, Praise God, I'm
a father.
Hallelujah, I'm a father.
Glory to God, I'm a father.
You go check it out.
He may have even gone.
I don't know what all he did, but
the Bible said, He gave glory to God.
And I'll tell you what, Sarah hadn't been
to the doctor.
And there was no signs or evidence that
rendered it present as though it was so.
That's faith.
Faith renders present that which you hope for.
You can go all the way through the
Bible, just like that.
You can go on and on and on.
And I could just give you one illustration
right after another.
Only.
But now watch this.
James also says, And this is where it
gets down to earth.
Oh brother, this is what stings.
Be ye doers of the word, and not
hearers only.
Now you know what faith is?
Faith is being a doer of the word.
When God reveals, gives you his truth, you
know what you're supposed to do?
In spite of what you see, smell, taste,
feel and hear, the sense world, you're supposed
to act on the word of God.
Peter said, Lord, if that be you, bid
me to come to thee.
He said, come on.
He got out of the boat.
What was he?
He was a doer.
And when he was a doer of the
word, he so put God on the spot
that God had to perform a miracle to
keep his word.
Right?
Now you know what faith is?
It's being a doer of the word.
That simple isn't it?
But brother, that gets close to home.
F.B. Meyer, the great man of God
that lived, died I suppose, what about 60,
70 years ago?
But you've probably read after him, at least
you preachers have.
Was awakened one early morning, and he looked
out his window and he saw a light
on in another room in the same hotel.
And he recognized that it was the room
that was occupied by a young man by
the name of C.T. Studd.
Now when C.T. Studd got saved and
surrendered his all to Jesus, he gave away
what would be equal to over a million
dollars today.
Just gave it away.
You know why?
Because he wanted to trust and learn to
trust him.
His last $20,000 he gave to the
girl that he was going to marry, and
they were married in China as missionaries, and
when they got married she still had it.
He said, Oh, I gave that to you.
He said, I gave away everything I had.
He said, I gave you the last $20
,000.
She said, Well, since we're married, we're one,
so what God told you, I have to
obey.
So here's the $20.
Give it to me.
And man, they had nothing left but Jesus.
And he was a fantastic fellow.
A marvelous man of God.
And F.B. Meyer saw him up.
And so up in the day, F.B.
Meyer ran into C.T. Studd, now listen
to this, and said, Brother Studd said, I
noticed that you were up this morning around
4.30 or 5.00, and I noticed
you were reading.
He said, If I'm not being too inquisitive,
what were you doing?
He said, Doctor, he said, I was up
looking through the pages of the Bible to
find a scripture that commanded me to do
something that I wasn't doing.
Because the Bible says, If you love me,
you will keep my commandments.
And he said, I was looking through the
word to just find a scripture that I
could obey to let Jesus know that I
love him.
Oh, brother.
What about that?
Be a doer of the word and not
a hearer only.
You know what's wrong, folks?
For if any be a hearer of the
word and not a doer, he is like
unto a man beholding his natural face in
a glass, and he beholdeth himself, and goeth
his way, and straightway forgeteth what manner.
We hold the word of God up, and
people sit there, and I
don't know about you, but this convicts me
as much as anything I've ever got a
hold of in my life.
But whosoever looketh into the perfect law of
liberty, or the word of God, and continueth
therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but
a doer.
You know what this is?
It's obeying the word.
I'll tell you what we need to do
tonight is quit loving the devil.
Why, brother Manley, I don't love the devil.
You don't love the devil?
I mean, now, I know you wouldn't agree
with me that you love the devil.
But I don't think you'd even agree with
yourself.
Well, let's think, if you love the devil.
Now, how does the Bible teach us to
love Jesus?
By saying, Jesus, I love you?
By singing, Jesus, I love you?
Is that the way?
No.
He said, if you love me, you'll do
whatsoever I command you to do.
Right?
So how do you love Jesus tonight?
By doing what his word says do.
Well, then, if that's the way you love
Jesus, if you do what the devil says
do, then who do you love?
He said, well, now, brother Manley, we
need to quit loving the devil.
The doing, the sense of obedience.
Who do you really love?
I wish I could get you out of
this emotional and intellectual stuff and get you
in with God.
I say, have you ever looked at this
portion of Scripture, Matthew the 7th chapter?
Now, this really got a hold of me.
Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, I'll
give them to you.
This is Matthew 7, chapter 24th verse.
Listen to it.
Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and
doeth them, I've used that all my life.
Haven't you?
Haven't you used that as a little song?
Built this house upon a rock, and all
built this house upon the sand by the
man.
Haven't you?
Well, listen to it.
Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and
doeth them, I will liken to him, I'll
liken him unto a wise man who built
his house upon a rock.
Who is the man that's wise?
He's a man who hears the sayings of
God and what?
Doeth them.
Obeys them.
You know the word faith is only mentioned
twice in the Old Testament.
It's obeyed back there.
Same thing.
Faith in the Old Testament is obeyed.
Same as the New Testament.
Faith and believing in the New Testament is
obeyed.
Old Testament, faith, word, obey, is believed.
And you just reverse it.
But beloved, listen.
He says, listen.
And the rains descend, and the floods came,
and the winds blew, and the beat upon
the house, and it fell not, and it
was fallen.
Isn't that beautiful?
Who is the wise man who hears the
sayings of God and obeys them?
What is faith?
It's obeying the word of God.
I couldn't make it any simpler than that.
Let's see the unwise man.
Everyone that heareth these sayings of mine and
doeth them not shall be like unto a
foolish man which built his house upon the
sand.
And the rains descended, and floods came, and
the winds blew, and beat upon that house,
and it fell.
You know you have men and women in
churches.
The length of time that the average professed
Christian today that's baptized in a Baptist church
will attend actively, that is on fire, what
people consider...
You know how long they'll last?
Five years.
Did you know that?
Five years is that.
And you know what happens today?
And we get all upset about these storms,
don't we, in our life.
But, folks, let me tell you something.
If you're a doer of the word, and
the storms come, boy,
I'll tell you what, I'm not for divorces.
Oh, the fact that their faith was not...
And I almost had to thank God for
that.
I know it's hard to say, but it's
still true.
You know that?
I got so tickled at the different people's
opinions about what your
faith in Christ was.
And the greatest thing I know, folks...
I don't know, that may not make you
feel good, but it sure helps me.
Now, ain't that a simple definition of faith?
Is you hear the word, and like C
.T. Studd, you hear it, and it's not
operating in your life, and so immediately you
say, well, Lord, that spoke to me tonight.
Then right there on that spot, you act
on the person of Jesus, the living word
of God, and say, now, Lord, I'm so...
In fact, I wrote a statement down here.
Faith is action that converts doctrine or truth
into reality.
Amen.
That's why folks don't believe us too much.
It's because we say God's real, and they
can't see the reality.
They just hear our words.
We confess one thing, but there's no corresponding
action.
Now, let's get a little closer to home.
This is a testimony.
I went through North Carolina one time to
a camp meeting with a friend.
And I was in this camp meeting, and
about, oh, I think, a thousand, twelve hundred
people there.
And if you've never been to one of
those Baptist camp meetings in South Carolina, you've
missed one of the nine wonders of the
world, no doubt, about it.
It's unusual.
It's quite different from anything you normally will
see.
And they're quite expressive.
And what I mean is they believe in
shouting.
And I mean they don't only believe in
it, they practice it.
And of course, I wouldn't say it was
all of the Lord, but they still do
it, brother.
I mean, they shout.
I've seen a thousand people shouting at one
time.
And I mean they were Baptists, too.
They didn't have to go get Pentecostals to
shout for them.
They'd do their own shouting.
And so they, boy, it was something.
So I was in this meeting, and I
was just a visitor, and I wasn't known
there.
And I was in this meeting, and the
preacher got up and said, Now, folks, who
will give $20 here tonight?
And, boy, as he started begging for the
offering, I got sick.
Now, I had $8 in my pocket, and
I was 700 miles away from home.
And that day I'd left my shaving equipment,
and I knew I had to replace that
before I could preach in the revival starting
the next day.
So I asked the Lord what part of
that $8 he'd have me to give.
A $5 bill, $3.
So I asked the Lord about the $3
and the $5.
So the man just kept begging for the
money, got down to $10, and then he
said, Who will give $5?
Well, I went with the preacher that was
to be there the next week.
And everyone knew him.
He was born and reared in that area,
and all of those people knew him.
And they knew he didn't have any money,
and he was just a poor preacher.
And so he got up and said, I'll
give $5.
Well, Lord, when he did that, then those
women got to squalling and bawling because their
little darling, God didn't have a thing to
do with it.
And so when that got through, of all
things, they asked me to come up and
pray.
Well, sometimes I'm pretty mean.
And I said, when I got up there,
I said, Folks, I could no more pray
over that offering than I could get to
the moon tonight because God didn't take it.
He said, Well, you're going to offend those
people.
I'd rather offend them and please God than
not do it, I'll tell you.
So I just told them I wouldn't pray.
But the Holy Spirit showed me what to
do.
And I said, Lord, when he showed me,
I said, Lord.
And I said, Now, folks, listen, do you
believe this Bible?
And as I said, they were quite expressive.
And I said, Do you believe the word
of God?
God watches over us
all the time.
Amen.
Well, I'm not a psychologist, but I knew
where I was headed and what I was
going to do.
And I knew this, that the Lord told
me to do it.
Praise God over that statement, that God will
keep his word and he watches over it
to perform it.
Boy, they shouted.
Well, the next step was this.
I said, Well, if you believe God keeps
his word, I said, I'd like to share
a couple of testimonies with you.
And one of the testimonies I gave, and
I gave a couple, but one of them
was about how when George Mueller came down
for breakfast one morning with a thousand kids
and didn't have any food, he told the
kids to sit down, turn their plates over
and bow their heads and thank God for
food that wasn't there.
And I said, As they prayed and thanked
God for food that wasn't there, the doorbell
rang and there was a man at the
door who had delivered some hot food somewhere
and something went wrong and they couldn't take
it, so he just brought it by there
and it was hot and they just brought
it right off the wagon right in there
and said, I'll take it.
And I said, Do that again.
Don't you believe he can do it?
Something like this.
I said, Now, folks, you know God watches
over his word to perform it.
He'll keep it.
And I said, Not only that, but you'd
like to see God do that for you,
something like that for you, wouldn't you?
Boy, here they went again.
And folks, that is right.
They wanted God to do something for them.
And they were honest about it, don't you?
Aren't you tired of people just standing up
and telling you what Jesus has done for
them?
Oh, I love to see people get so
sick in meetings that they just get so
mad and sick they just say, Preacher, I'm
tired of you telling about what God's done
for you.
I'll tell you, he's got to do something
for me.
Oh, I love to see people get like
that.
And boy, they got excited.
I said, All right, if you want God
to do something for you, I said, the
thing you have to do is get out
there where he knew it.
And I said, He watches over his word
to perform.
Lord, yes, amen.
Praise God.
I really let them express themselves.
And I'm cutting the story short.
I just really let them off.
And I got them out there and I
said, Now turn with me, please, to the
word of God.
And I turned to a little verse, and
I'm not going to give you the chapter
and verse at this point, but I will
if you want it, if you don't know
where it is.
I said, The Bible says, and I gave
it to them, and I had them to
read it.
It says, Give, and it shall be given
unto you.
Good measure.
Press down, shaken together.
And run it over, shall men give unto
your bosom.
For with the same measure that ye meet
with them, it shall be measured to you
again.
I said, How many of you believe that's
the word of God?
Before they thought, they shouted again.
And I said, Now what does God say?
I said, God says if you give, he'll
take it, he'll press it down, shake it
together, and then turn around and call men
to give back to you.
I said, Now, folks, that is the word
of God.
And I said, You want God to do
something for you?
Don't do what you can afford to do,
but take that grocery check, don't give it
to this camp meeting, this camp meeting doesn't
need it.
But I said, Give it to the Lord,
and step out on that promise, be a
doer of that word.
Just take that one verse, write tonight, don't
worry about doing anything else, just do that
one verse.
One verse at a time, one
verse at a time.
You see, folks, we're just waiting, we're just
waiting.
Because God watches over his word to perform.
And all he's waiting on is you to
obey his word, so he can perform it.
You can tell me you've got faith all
day until you obey this truth.
You're just playing games.
You might as well quit and get out
in the ballpark with the rest of the
unbelievers.
Let the world know where you stand.
Because you're sure acting like the hypocrites sitting
in here amongst all these believers.
Of course, my opinion is most of us
aren't as much believers as we think we
are.
Amen?
You know what happened, folks?
In a few minutes, and those people who
don't make money like to do out here.
Most of those homes in North Carolina, most
places in that particular area, both man and
wife had to work to make as much
as the average person makes around this country.
But just the men worked.
And I saw women, I saw men step
out on that truth, become a doer of
it.
They took several thousand dollars off on that
night.
It broke loose.
And when the offering got through, God said,
Okay, now son, you preached your sermon.
He said, Now why don't you practice what
you preach?
Boy, and you know I've got to have
that change.
He said, Eight dollars.
Eight dollars.
He said, Now you be a doer of
the word.
He's a priest, folks, to
be a doer of the word.
And you know what happened?
Before I left that place that night, a
man walked up, God
told me, I
wasn't off.
I was big for that.
And really, I wasn't known.
Probably, I wasn't known personally by, is
to be converted into reality in our life.
And you know how to convert it into
reality in our life?
I said it while ago.
By faith.
And faith is nothing but obeying the word
of God.
And when you get the word from God,
then all you've got to do, Lord, if
that be, you bid me to come to
thee.
And what did he do?
He obeyed the word.
And then there he went out.
And that's the most ridiculous story in the
Bible.
No logical reason for it, no apparent reason,
except if you understand that Jesus was out
to teach his disciples one thing, by practice.
He taught them doctrine, but he was out
to teach them one thing, most of all.
Because you see, Jesus never performed a miracle.
Oh, you said he did, preacher.
Jesus always allowed the Father, by faith, to
do it to him.
Now, you can say he performed miracles, sure.
But he really, in essence, let the Father
do it to him.
So he left.
As the Father hath sent me, and he
said, I live by the Father, so as
the Father hath sent me, so send I
you, to live how?
As I have depended on the Father, then
I want you to depend on me, as
the Father works miracles through me.
Now, I want to be...
And how was it?
Jesus was the greatest man of faith I
ever saw.
He's the greatest man of faith in the
Bible.
Jesus was?
Yes.
He said, Philip, how are you going to
feed these 5,000 men?
Philip said, I got $40, Lord.
He acted just like an angel.
If Jesus said, ask an atheist, sir, how
are you going to feed these 40,000,
these 5,000 men?
What would that atheist have done?
Checked on his bank account.
And Philip acted just like an atheist.
Do you know what he did?
And Jesus knew what he was going to
say, but he put him in that predicament
to show Peter, excuse me, Philip, that he
didn't have any faith.
And to teach his men how to trust
him.
Now, if you don't thank God, Jesus put
God on the spot, folks.
And they brought those little old fish and
those little old loaves of bread.
But he had that bunch already to eat.
For that had not been the case.
And do you know the poverty of your
needs tonight?
And the magnitude of the opportunity or the
potential or the blessing out there?
My dear friends have nothing to eat.
And the supply is met.
You know what the key is?
For when Jesus blessed those few fishes, it
met the need.
And you may have nothing tonight to offer.
And there may be a fantastic need out
there if you get the blessings of Jesus
on it, brother.
It sure will.
You talk about Jesus putting somebody on the
spot.
He said, come forth, Lazarus, and as God
had to raise that devil.
And all Jesus was doing was this.
He said, Father, you know what I'm doing?
It's what I see you do.
I get your word there, and I do
it down here.
He was obedient to what?
He said, that's all I'm doing is just
moving heaven and earth.
Amen.
I see what you want, and I obey
it.
Obey the word, and it becomes reality down
here.
Isn't that beautiful?
Amen.
Well, you wake up one of these days
and find out, folks, what we mean.
So much, so many times, right?
Oh, Christ.
Oh, amazing.
Be a doer of the word and not
a hearer only.
How'd you get saved?
It says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved.
As men is come to Him, I'll in
the wise cast out.
As men is received Him, to them gave
He the power to become the sons of
God.
And you know what?
There came a moment in your life when
you did what?
You obeyed the word.
And when you obeyed the word, what happened?
Well, if you got saved that way, the
Bible says you're supposed to spend the rest
of your life walking.
That's the simplest definition of faith I can
give you.
I don't think you can make it any
more simple than that.
And tonight, folks, if you're tired of just
being blessed and benefited, and you want God
to do something for you personally, let God
get you so sick of yourself that you're
just admiring and assenting over the word of
God.
And the fact that you received it is
doctrinal, and you start obeying it.
And you start obeying the truth.
And God will convert that truth.
You know what happened in that camp meeting?
That poor preacher didn't get preached just a
few times.
You say, why, Brother Manley?
Well, my friends, what do you think?
Here's a woman who gives all her grocery
money, and boy, if God doesn't perform, they
say, wait, preacher, I've got to say something.
I say, you the resident.
You know why we're all so surprised?
And we're dumb.
We're like John the Baptist.
John the Baptist said, God said, call him
John.
John the Baptist said, not
doers of the word, we forget.
Boy, when he speaks, if you be a
doer of the word, or just a hearer,
how long will you look at that?
And between
you and God, folks, I can't help you.
I've helped you all I could.
Would you bow your heads, please?