...indicates that God's gonna sing to us.
Did you know that?
There is.
Zephaniah chapter 3, 317.
The Lord thy God in the midst of
thee is mighty.
He will save.
He will rejoice over thee with joy.
He will rest in his love.
He will joy over thee with singing.
And it'll be a trio, right?
Listen, after God sings, after God sings, I
don't know who'd want to sing.
After hearing God sing to his children, the
picture I get is the redeemed of all
the ages and held in the arms of
God, and it's kind of God's lullaby.
He's gonna sing to his children.
Boy, you know something?
Love is the language of heaven.
You better learn how to talk it before
you get there.
You know, it's just the language of heaven.
For a text, I want to take Hebrews
3, 12 and 13.
It's one of the many take-heeds in
the Bible.
Take heed, brethren.
He's addressing us as Christian believers.
Lest there be in any of you an
evil heart of unbelief in departing from the
living God, but exhort one another daily.
This is the antidote.
Exhort one another daily while it's called today.
Lest any of you be hardened through the
deceitfulness of sin.
So Christians may be filled, and sometimes are,
with unbelief.
I think it's probably the greatest problem we
have in Christian work around the world.
There's just straight unbelief.
Remember, there are 7,487 promises in the
Bible.
And promises are meant to be believed and
trusted and stood upon.
We sing about it.
Sometimes we don't really do it.
Now, faith, hope and trust are words that
are closely related.
And between the three of them, I think
there's 468 references in the Bible altogether.
Faith is basically a New Testament word.
It occurs only twice in the Old Testament.
Trust is basically an Old Testament word.
It occurs several times, a number of times
in the New Testament.
And hope is found in both Testaments.
Now, there's a little phrase, two words, that
occurs 33 times in the New Testament.
It's the phrase, the faith, the faith.
In earlier times, a person might meet another
person and say, Are you in the faith?
Hey man, are you saved?
Are you a Christian?
Are you a believer?
Are you in the faith?
Why is, like the two words, the faith,
refer really to the entire Christian theological thing
and the whole Christian enterprise, the whole package?
The faith.
Paul said he was now preaching the faith
which once he destroyed.
He didn't mean he was going around just
preaching faith.
He was preaching the faith.
Everything the Word of God had to say.
And when Paul said that in the last
days or later days, some would depart from
the faith, he meant from the whole Christian
revelation, the faith.
And I think one of the reasons why
this term is used is because faith is
really at the core of everything on man's
side.
For example, we all know we're saved by
faith, right?
Ephesians chapter 2.
How many know we're kept by faith?
In 1 Peter chapter 1.
2 Corinthians 1 says we stand by faith.
2 Corinthians 5 says we walk by faith.
Hebrews 12, 1 and 2 says we run
the Christian race by looking unto Jesus, the
author and finisher of our faith.
1 John 5 says we overcome the world
through faith.
Ephesians chapter 6 says, above all, taking the
shield of faith, we shall be able to
quench all the fiery darks of the wicked
one.
So we overcome Satan by faith.
We draw near to God by faith in
Hebrews chapter 10.
Let's draw near with a true heart and
full assurance of faith.
We receive the righteousness of God by faith
in Philippians 3.
We receive the Holy Spirit by faith in
Galatians chapter 3.
We're sanctified by faith in Acts chapter 24.
And we live the Christian life, Galatians 2
.20, the life I now live in the
flesh, I live by faith in the Son
of God.
The whole thing.
There are 24 different things in the New
Testament that happen to us Christians through faith.
It's at the core of everything.
And this is why unbelief is our greatest
problem.
Now, Spurgeon said that unbelief was the bottom
line of all sin.
And he based that in 1 John 5
.10, which says, He that believes not God
has made him a liar.
Who would dare to call God a liar?
None of us would.
But every time we doubt God, we're calling
Him a liar.
Ever notice how the four Gospels end the
last chapter, or the last two chapters, Matthew
last chapter, and they worship Him, but some
doubted?
Mark, he reproached Him with their unbelief and
hardness of heart.
Last chapter.
Last chapter of Luke, O fools and slow
of heart to believe all that the prophets
have spoken!
Ought not Christ to suffer these things, and
to enter into His glory?
And beginning at Moses and all the prophets,
He has found unto them in all the
scriptures the things concerning Himself.
And the second last chapter of John, doubting
Thomas.
Thomas, be not faithless, but believing.
Thomas, because you see, you believe.
Blessed are they that have not seen, and
yet have believed.
So you see, faith is the core of
everything.
Unbelief is obviously our greatest problem.
In Psalm 78, 41, it says, They turned
back, and they tempted God, and they limited
the Holy One in Israel.
That is, they limited what God could do.
And God said to Moses, in Numbers chapter
14, How long will this people provoke Me?
How long will it be that they believe
Me, for all the signs which I have
done among them?
Unbelief.
And so, take heed, brethren, lest there be
in any of you an evil heart of
unbelief.
And you know, it's one sin we can
hide.
Nobody knows when we're committing this sin.
You know, if our people came to church
every Sunday, believing that God was going to
work, what would happen?
Yeah, Wau was right.
And if we preachers always preach believing that
God is going to bless, what might happen?
You know, George Mueller co-pastored Bethesda Chapel
in Bristol, England, with a man called Henry
Craik.
And Mueller noticed that when Craik preached, people
got saved.
When he preached, they didn't get saved.
So he went to talk to Craik and
said, Brother Craik, I see it this way.
What do you think the problem is?
And Craik said, Brother Mueller, when you preach,
do you expect God will use you and
save people?
Well, he said, not really.
He said, I do.
So Craik, or Mueller, began to believe God,
and then he found that God was using
him in the same way he was using
Brother Craik.
Billy Sonny said the average preacher, he spends
all week preening the feathers of his shamanic
peacock, and he stretched it out to Sonny
for the admiration of the public.
Instead of really believing from our heart of
hearts that God's going to speak through us,
God's going to bless his people, he's going
to refresh us, he's going to restore souls,
that's the problem, unbelief.
Psalm 78, 41, we gave you.
Now, New Testament, Mark, chapter 6, it says
about Jesus Christ.
In his hometown Nazareth, he could there do
no mighty work because of their unbelief.
So whether it's Old Testament or New Testament,
the problem is the same.
It's unbelief that stands in the way.
Our people are not believing God, and many
times we are not believing God.
And consequently, God is tied up.
It's incredible, but it's true that we can
actually tie God up and prevent him from
working by our wicked unbelief.
It's frightening to think of, but it just
happens to be the way that it is.
Now, unbelief grieves God greatly because it denies
his attributes of love and faithfulness and other
things besides.
And aggravated unbelief leads to agnosticism and atheism.
This grieves God greatly.
Do you know that Moses, Moses was denied
entrance to the Promised Land because of unbelief.
Did you know that?
Do you remember what happened?
They needed water, so God said, I'll stand
on the rock, you smite the rock with
your rod, and water will come.
Well, whoever heard of hitting a rock with
a wooden stick and expecting water to come
for a million and a half people?
I mean, it's crazy.
But Moses believed, and it happened.
Another occasion they needed water.
This time God said, Moses, speak to the
rod.
And Moses didn't believe that speaking to the
rock would do it, so he smote it
twice with his rod.
And God says, because you did not believe
me, you will never enter the Promised Land.
See, even Moses failed at that point through
wicked unbelief.
There's a story in Matthew 17, parallel accounts
in Mark 9 and Luke 9 about a
father with a demon-possessed child.
You have to read all three accounts to
get the whole story.
But basically it went like this.
Jesus and three of his disciples were on
the Mount of Transfiguration.
The rest were down here.
The Pharisees were needling their disciples because they
were trying to cast a demon out of
a child and it didn't work.
And Christ came on the scene.
What's going on here?
And the father of the child told Jesus,
Well, my child's got a demon and I
brought him to your disciples and they couldn't
cast him out.
And here's a funny thing.
In Luke 9, verse 1, Jesus had just
given the apostles power to cast out demons.
Now they try to do it and it
doesn't work.
See, and it really embarrasses.
So the father said to Jesus, If you
can do anything, have mercy on us and
help us.
And Christ said, If you can believe, all
things are possible to him that believes.
So people, it went like this.
He was saying, Jesus, Jesus, do something.
Do something.
I'm sorry.
I can't do anything unless you believe.
All things are possible to him that believes.
And immediately the father of the child cried
out with tears and said, Lord, I believe.
Help my unbelief.
And the unbelief was rising, but faith was
in the ascendancy and the child was healed
by the word of Christ.
Afterwards, the disciples, they talked to Jesus privately
and said, Why couldn't we?
Man, it was so easy.
Why couldn't we?
Eight of us.
Nine of us.
Whatever.
And Jesus said, Because of your unbelief.
That's why.
They didn't believe the demon wouldn't go and
they weren't disappointed.
He didn't go.
Because they didn't believe the power would be
there.
In spite of the fact that Christ had
given them this power.
And also in Luke chapter 9, they were
further embarrassed because they met a guy who
wasn't even an apostle and he was casting
demons out.
So they forbade him.
Because it made them look so bad.
Then in chapter 10, Jesus sent 70 men
out.
He did not give them power to cast
out demons as some articles tell us.
He didn't give them that power.
He just said, Heal the sick.
Preach the kingdom.
And they returned with joy saying, Lord, even
the demons are subject unto us through your
name.
And the 70 could do what the 12
couldn't.
Because they had faith to believe.
What a lesson, you men, for us today.
To believe, just to believe God.
And so, it cripples God.
It prevents God from answering prayer.
It robs the word of God of its
power.
The gospel is the power of God unto
salvation to everyone that what?
That they believe.
In Mark 1 15, Jesus Christ said, The
time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God
is at hand.
Repent and watch and believe.
Then in Hebrews 4, it says, The word
preached did not profit them because it was
not mixed with faith in them that heard
it.
There was nothing wrong with the gospel it
was preached.
It was the attitude of the hearers.
They didn't believe.
So it did nothing for them.
I think of two brothers raised in the
home.
No favoritism by the parents.
One's in penitentiary on a seven-year stretch.
The other fellow's a missionary in Indonesia, I
think.
I mean, what made the difference?
One believed the gospel and one didn't believe.
And that applies to us as Christians in
Christian work.
Do we believe God's going to lead us?
He'll lead us.
Do we believe God's going to bless us?
He'll bless us.
Do we believe God's going to use us?
God will use us.
If we don't believe, nothing happens.
And then this goes on for a while.
We retreat into a shell.
And we become almost impervious to any kind
of appeal because we're saying it just doesn't
work.
Oh, yes, it does.
If I believe.
All things are possible in the belief.
In Ephesians chapter 1, Paul prayed a prayer.
There are three points to it.
And the third one was that God's children
would know the exceeding greatness of his power
to us who believe.
Then in chapter 3, he kind of put
the icing on the cake unto him that's
able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that
we ask or think.
What does that say?
People arise open to see the greatness of
God's power to us who believe.
When Jesus Christ raised Lazarus from the dead,
you might not agree with this.
I'll try and prove it.
He did it because Mary and Martha believed.
What did he say to Martha?
He said, Didn't I say to you that
if you would believe, you would see the
glory of God?
What if she hadn't believed?
In Hebrews chapter 11, the writer says, Through
faith, women received their dead, raised to life
again.
I just have a feeling he was talking
about Martha and Mary.
He may have been.
We don't really know.
But even there, it's faith just to believe
God.
Nathan, the prophet, came to David and said,
David, here's some things God wants to do
for you.
I listed them.
There's ten of them.
So how did David handle it?
Do you remember?
He went into the temple and he sat
down and here's what he said.
He said more than this, but this is
what he said basically.
Lord, he said, do as you said.
Do as you said.
You've given me these wonderful promises.
Now, Lord, do as you said.
Let's see it.
He believed.
God said to Abraham, you're childless, you're a
hundred years old, but your feet will be
like the stars of the heaven and the
sand by the seashore.
And what did Abraham do?
Well, really what he said in the Hebrew,
he amened God.
He believed.
He had nothing to base his faith on
but the word of God, that's all.
Then God came to Zacharias, the father of
John the Baptist, and told him the same
thing.
He was an old man.
You're going to have a son.
His name will be John.
And he says, well, you know, how, I
mean, how in the world can this happen?
Look at my age.
God says, you'll be dumb.
You won't be able to speak until the
child is born because you didn't believe.
There it is.
I mean, all through the Bible you find
this kind of thing.
Blessed is she that believes, for there shall
be a performance of those things.
You believe, God performs.
The most high God who performs for me,
Psalm 57, 2.
There it is.
I believe.
I trust.
And sometimes, of course, God will tie our
faith right down to the last wire.
He loves to do that.
God loves to do new things.
You know, Abraham had Isaac tied on the
altar, everything ready to light the fire.
He had the knife in his hand ready
to plunge it into his son before the
voice from heaven called.
But it says in Hebrews 11 that Abraham
had so much faith that he actually believed
that if he killed Isaac, God would resurrect
him from the dead.
That's how far his faith went.
And also, sometimes it's so shaky and so
snaky, you know.
And we wonder why the Spirit of God
is grieved by a wicked unbelief.
Unbelief and nothing else sends sinners to hell.
He that believes not is condemned already because
he does not believe in the name of
the only begotten Son of God.
He that believes and is baptized shall be
saved.
He that believes not shall be damned.
There it is.
Sinners think they have to commit, you know,
murder or something in order to go to
hell.
No, no.
It's straight unbelief.
He that believes on the Son has, present
tense, everlasting life.
Thank God for that.
But he that believes not shall be damned.
Unbelief stands in the way.
It says of Stephen in Acts chapter 6
that he was full of the Holy Ghost.
Then in the same chapter it says he
was full of power.
But in both cases it first says he
was full of faith and the Holy Ghost.
He was full of faith and full of
power.
It just simply has to go together.
Now the world says seeing is believing.
They said let Christ the King of Israel
descend now from the cross who we may
see and believe.
Well, that's the way the world is.
I'm from Missouri.
Show me, you know.
Isn't that the old saying?
Hope there's nobody here from Missouri.
God says believing is seeing.
And he actually said that in Psalm 27.
I have fainted unless I had believed to
see the goodness of the Lord in the
land of the living.
And then in John chapter 11 said I
not unto thee that if you would believe
you would see the glory of God.
So believing is seeing.
Believing is seeing.
Many years ago I bought 140 acres of
land up in the Canadian wilderness for a
Bible camp.
Beautiful, beautiful campsite.
Only about eight acres cleared.
The rest was in forest and rock hills
and everything.
And we had two rivers that came together
there.
Just a gorgeous place.
And we had, oh, we had for years
we had people there.
Many people stayed there.
Wonderful time.
And then one winter we had very little
snow.
And in the spring no rain.
And the forest was so dry.
Every half hour on the radio programs no
open fires in the forest.
No open fires in the forest.
And one day there was a 50 mile
an hour wind blowing.
And some, what should I say, some fellow,
he lit a fire.
He lit a fire and the wind blew
it into the forest.
That was nine miles south of our camp.
And by the time it got down near
Bird River where our camp was it was
burning on a two mile front.
With a 50 mile an hour wind pushing
it there goes the camp.
I heard about it.
I get down to pray.
My first thought was Lord, it's your letter
burn.
I mean, and then I thought well, wait
a minute now.
A lot of people have been saved down
there.
Jesus hasn't come back yet.
I know he can come back anytime.
Maybe I should pray for God to save
the camp.
So I did.
And I remember I said Lord, I believe
you with all your, I don't know how
you're going to do it, but I know
you're going to do it.
And he did.
We never lost a tree.
Not even a tree.
You know what happened?
I talked to a fellow.
They cleared everybody out of the area.
But one fellow hid and they didn't find
him.
He stayed to try and save his house.
And he poured buckets of water on the
roof and he managed to save his house.
And I said, Hans, what happened?
He said it was the strangest thing.
He said that fire was just a roaring
and suddenly the wind stopped dead like that
and turned around to the west and blew
the fire to the east.
And then you read one of these books
that says God doesn't do nature miracles anymore.
Apparently God hasn't read their books.
If you believe, you'll see.
If you don't believe, you'll not see.
What's the core of the Jewish problem?
It's unbelief, isn't it?
Yes, it is.
They made their hearts as an Adam and
stone, lest you should hear the law and
the words which the Lord of hosts has
sent in the spirit by the former prophets.
And then three things happened as we pointed
out yesterday.
And the first one was God refused to
answer their prayers.
I read an article one time written by
a Jew who became an atheist because of
what happened in Nazi Germany during the last
war.
He said, Jewish people, relatives of mine, we
prayed by the hour to the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and he never answered.
He said, I'm an atheist, there is no
God.
I read that and thought, oh God, if
I could just have an hour with that
man, I could show him from his own
Bible.
Why?
God didn't answer.
Paul said in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, they
don't please God, they're contrary to all men,
they forbid us to speak to the Gentiles
that they might be safe to fill up
their sins always for the wrath has come
upon them to the uttermost.
And that praise, dear people, is in point
of time, to the end of time, the
wrath of God is on this people because
what they did to the prophets and finally
their crowning sin, what they did to Jesus
Christ, to standing with you, to sin everywhere
and a warning to the rest of us.
You see, in Romans chapter 11, Paul said,
they were broken off their own olive tree
by unbelief.
That was the problem.
Unbelief.
That every reason to believe, no nation on
earth was blessed the way they were.
God said, you only have I known of
all the nations of the earth, therefore, I
will punish you for your iniquities.
God expected more from them and He had
a right to expect more from them because
He poured out His Spirit on them in
such a way.
Those miracles in Egypt, no nation ever saw
miracles like that.
Yet they weren't in the wilderness very long
before they were doubting and complaining and murmuring
and all the rest of it.
The Bible says, do all things without murmuring
and disputing that you may be blameless and
harmless as sons of God without rebuke.
So sometimes we murmur and complain, why me
Lord, why you, how come I lost my
job?
Hey God, how come my car got, you
know, you're driving, a little while ago I
was in a parking lot and I came
out from between a couple of cars, I
got rammed, the lady was driving, I don't
blame her, I just never saw her coming,
you know.
So $2,000 worth, why me God, you
know.
We have to learn to take things in
our stride and praise God.
I will bless the Lord, oh my soul,
or bless the Lord, oh my soul, and
all that is within me, bless His Holy
Name.
No matter what happens to your people, praise
God.
It's not bad, all things work together for
what?
For good, for them to love God.
Sometimes God rebukes us by what He allows
to happen to us.
He loves us so much, He will not
let us go our own way.
Let me say this from the Word of
God, that if you're a Christian, or if
you claim to be a Christian and you
sin and get away with it, then you're
not a believer.
Because you can't get by with anything as
far as God is concerned.
If you be without chastisement whereof all are
partakers, then are you illegitimate children and not
sons.
Whom the Lord loves, He chastens and scourges
every son whom He receives.
Hebrews chapter 12 makes it so clear.
So we better line up with God.
Don't complain when God spanks you.
Thank God that He's faithful.
He loves you.
That's why He spanks you.
That's why He spanks me.
I've been spanked too.
Many times.
By my faithful, faithful, loving God.
So Israel's problem, then, is unbelief.
And it's really frightening to think this has
gone on now for 1,900 years.
Actually, longer than that because it went back
centuries before the days of Christ.
But I mean, from the time they said
no to Christ, and I'm not overlooking the
fact that thousands of Jews have found Christ.
I understand that worldwide about 8,000 Jews
are accepting Christ every year.
And they're mostly in the United States of
America.
Thank God for that.
And let's pray that a greater work will
be done among them.
But the problem's unbelief.
Now, Romans 14, 17, 18, remember it says,
The kingdom of God is not meat and
drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in
the Holy Ghost.
For he that in these things serves Christ
is acceptable to God and approved of men.
Then Romans 15, 13, it says, now that
it's like a prayer of Paul's, if not
a prayer of strong wish, that God of
hope fill you with all joy and peace.
And where are the next two words?
In believing.
You don't get it unless you believe.
In believing.
And then Peter said the same thing in
different words in 1 Peter 1, 8.
Speaking about Christ whom having not seen you
love, in whom though now you see him
not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory.
You know, David came back to Ziklag and
in his absence another bunch of guys had
come, a bunch of ruffians and they, they
raped, they burnt the place and stole, took
all the women and children and they were
gone with the spoils of war and David's
men were so upset they spoke of stoning
David.
And you know what it says about David?
It says, David encouraged himself in the Lord
his God.
There's an old, old translation.
You know what it says?
David chided David out of the dump.
It's an old English translation.
He talked himself out of it.
You can get under your problems, you're on
top of your problems, it's up to you.
It's in your hand and power.
You can say, oh man, man, I'm going
to have a terrible day.
Yeah, you'll have a terrible day.
Hey, this is a great day.
I don't care what, I've got a few
pains and aches, it's a great day just
to say.
You know, and it's so different, it's so
different then.
God responds to faith.
God hates unbelief.
And so, let's look at something else for
a moment or two.
Unbelief, we see how God looks at it.
What causes it?
There's a number of things.
For example, faith comes by hearing and hearing
by the word of God.
If I neglect reading the Bible, studying it
carefully, as it says in Psalm 1 and
Joshua, meditating in it day and night, I'm
not going to have much faith.
If I neglect the means of faith that
God has ordained for me, how can I
expect to have faith?
George Mueller, the famous man of faith and
prayer, remember, he read the Bible through 200
times.
He read it through 100 times on his
knees, if you please, not because he was
worshiping the book, but because he was kneeling
before the God who spoke through the book.
200 times.
And some Christians after really putting a lot
into it and struggling real hard, they read
the Bible through once in 25 years, you
know, and think of something great.
In his law, doc, he meditates day and
night, but you're going to have to turn
the boob-tube off, you know.
Spend hours watching that garbage.
I remember a fellow saying to me one
time, I said something in a meeting about,
you know, if you watch that stuff, it'll
pollute your mind, and he said, Brother Bill,
that hasn't polluted my mind.
He said, I watch all kinds of programs,
doesn't pollute me at all.
I said, then one of two things is
true.
Either you're a liar or you're not a
normal man.
And you know what happened?
He bowed his head and said, okay, you're
right.
I said, I know, I said, because I've
seen something on TV and I'm down praying
on my knees and all of a sudden
my mind, while I'm praying or while I'm
reading the Bible, my mind is flooded with
some filthy thing I saw.
We're very vulnerable.
It's like throwing gasoline on a fire to
watch that kind of junk.
So, all right.
A wicked heart, an evil heart.
We notice in the Scriptures in Hebrews 3,
12 and 13, lest any of you be
hardened to the deceitfulness of sin, unconfessed sin.
James 1, 8, James 4, 8.
James 1, 8 says that a double-minded
man is unstable in all his ways.
But James 4, 8 says that double-mindedness
is the result of unconfessed sin.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your
hearts, you double-minded.
So, I'm double-minded.
I'm up and down when it comes to
faith and unbelief because of unconfessed sin.
Nothing shoots us down quicker, dear people, than
sin that we know about.
There may be some sin I'm not even
aware of.
God will show that to me if I
pray to this end.
But when I sin, I know I've got
sin.
I haven't dealt with it, or maybe I've
confessed it, but I haven't made things right
with some people that are concerned.
And every time I try to believe God,
I find I can't.
It's just not there.
I can't do it.
But when everything is right and the canals
are clear, man, you can believe God for
anything.
It's so different then.
Our heart is singing day and night because
of the goodness and the greatness of God.
You know, I sometimes say to myself, you
know, God is so great.
He fills the universe.
The Bible says He's still stretching out the
heavens like a tent to dwell in, that
the universe will never be big enough for
God because He's infinite in size and everything.
So He keeps stretching the heavens out like
a tent to dwell in.
You think of billions of light years you're
thinking of God and His greatness and power,
and then some little problem comes along, and
we're full of unbelief.
God can't do anything.
God can't help me.
And people get into this syndrome, you know,
poor little me, I'm just a little guy,
I haven't made any mark in the world,
and when I die, nobody will ever miss
me, and God can't use me, I'm just
so small, dear God, I know you can't
use me, and that's how people talk, and
they call it humility.
Do you know what it is?
It's pride of the worst kind.
That's what it is.
God can use anybody whose heart is right,
who believes Him, who walks with Him.
I was telling some of the brethren the
other day about two brothers, they're 20 and
21, they've moved from Elfrid, Saskatchewan, to Winnipeg,
they're in our church now, and they're going
after street kids.
They had 40 at the last meeting.
Kids are being saved right and left, and
they drag them out to the church on
Sunday.
It's just beautiful.
And these kids will believe God for absolutely
anything.
I've never seen faith like it really.
It's just so contagious.
But then you get some Christians who have
been Christians for 40 years, and man, you
know, it's like a 40 mile an hour
wind from the northwest and 40 below zero
to get close to some Christians.
So, unbelief, our greatest problem.
Now, how do we deal with it?
Well, to begin with, dear people, let's call
it what God calls it.
I hear people say, I've prayed many times
for God to give me more faith, and
He doesn't give me any more faith, so
I guess He doesn't want me to have
any more than I've got.
Ever heard that?
Ever thought that?
Well, this is the way some people feel.
They don't think unbelief is sin, and that's
a major problem in our churches today.
Nobody thinks that unbelief is sin.
They think it's unfortunate.
That's as far as I'm going kind.
It's the bottom line, of all sins.
We've got to call it what God calls
it.
And it's not what you can't believe, it's
who you can't believe.
And that puts a totally different face on
the whole problem.
I was in meetings with Sault Ste.
Marie, Canada one time, and a lady came
for counseling.
Well, she heard me preach on the prayer
of faith in James 5, and I pointed
out there's no such thing as the prayer
of unbelief.
There is the prayer of faith that God
responds to.
Well, anyway, she thought about this.
She went home.
She had several problems.
One, her husband, he had stomach problems.
He couldn't eat anything but milk and soup.
Then she was having these migraine headaches.
She used to get them once a month.
Then she got them once a week.
Now she's getting them once a day or
often.
And they were just killing her.
And she had
a
mental block.
I don't know what it is.
So the mother got pondering on this prayer
of faith thing and finally she decided she
was going to go whole hard.
She was going to believe God for all
three problems.
She talked over with the pastor and he
threw cold water and said, now, wait a
minute, sister, you know, supposing God doesn't do
it when you pray the prayer of faith
and you're going to really fall flat in
your face in the mud.
And so she listened to that counsel for
a bit but it kept coming back to
prayer of faith.
So one day she got along with God
and she said, dear God, I'm going to
trust you for all three problems.
And she started to pray the Lord.
I was back there 18 months later and
this lady came to talk to me.
She said, you know what happened?
God did.
My husband, she said, my husband, he can
eat cactus or barbed wire.
And she said, I've only had one migraine
headache in the last 18 months and that
came when I started to doubt God.
I'm not saying that migraine headaches are the
result of unbelief but in her case it
was.
And then she said, my daughter, do you
know what happened?
I prayed the prayer of faith.
The next day she came to me and
said, mom, guess what I just did?
I just asked Jesus to come into my
heart.
And she went to school and suddenly got
up in the classroom and faced the teacher.
And she just she guess what?
I just asked Jesus to come into
my heart.
she said,
mom, guess what?
to come into my heart.
And she guess what?
to come into my heart.
And she mom, I just
asked to come into my And she said,
mom, guess what?
I just asked to come heart.
And she said, guess what?
I just
Jesus into heart.
And she And if I'm really filled with
the love of God, then I will not
be praying selfishly.
You know how people, they pray they'll win
the sweet state, or one of these, what
do they do now, these illegal things they
call them, lottery.
And somebody wins $11 million, and you hear
Christians pray, not often but sometimes, Dear God,
if you let me win $3 million, I'll
give you, I'll give, I'll give you, I'll
give you $50,000.
It's a bargain, you know.
And God's really hard up, so God needs
that $50,000.
No, Jacob did that.
He said, Jacob said, If you will do
this and this and this and this and
this and this and this and this, and
bring me safe to my father's home in
peace, I'll give you the tithe.
Big deal.
Tell me, what would God want with a
bunch of flea-bitten camels and sheep?
You know.
People, we don't have anything to bargain with.
We have to come as empty-handed, empty
-headed, empty-hearted to the God who fills
the heavens and the earth.
He'll fill us, too, if we'll allow Him.
But the challenge of faith, dear people, oh,
what God can do.
I remember one time when I was with
the Shanty Commission, the bush camps, I used
to run children's camps in the summertime.
They were tent camps, simple camps.
We never had much equipment, but we saw
a lot of kids saved.
And I was to meet with a committee
in Winnipeg before I stuck out for these
five camps that summer.
I had a panel truck and all the
camp equipment loaded in the truck.
And I didn't have five dollars in my
wallet.
And I didn't want to tell the committee
that.
I never, ever shared my needs.
But I said, God, I'll not tell them
what the problem is, but if they ask
me, I'll tell them.
So we left it that way.
Nobody asked.
And they put their hand on my head.
Brother Bill, the Lord bless you.
Have a great summer, you know.
Have a great summer.
And I'm hoping that last guy at least
will have more than a pat on the
head, but he didn't.
And so away we went.
We ended the summer in the black with
money in the bank, you know.
Because we just believed God.
I was running a camp one time at
Atatomic Lake near the Palm, Manitoba.
We had 40 kids.
We ran out of money the third last
day of camp.
We had no food left.
And so I called a few leaders we
had together and our resources between us.
I think we had ten dollars or something.
And so we had nothing.
The committee had sent me a check in
the mail, which never came.
And the promise of God, it never came
because he wanted to show us what he
could do apart from a check in the
mail.
So we had a prayer meeting that night
next morning right after breakfast.
I don't remember if we had breakfast or
not now.
I know we had practically nothing in the
camp.
A truck rolled up to camp and a
fellow said, Is this McLeod's camp?
Well, I said, Yeah, my name is McLeod.
Why?
He said, A fellow came into our store
and bought all these groceries and said, Take
them up to your camp.
I mean, there's more groceries than we needed
for the rest of the days or three
days.
There was even ice cream and watermelon, you
know.
And you know who did it?
A wicked sinner.
You know what happened, I think?
I think God knocked on some Christians' hearts
and they weren't willing to do it, so
God got a sinner to do it.
Because remember, when Elijah was in the wilderness,
who fed him?
The ravens.
And they were an unclean bird.
And sometimes God will use an unclean bird
to do a thing like this.
But God will never forsake us, never forget
us.
I'll tell you, some of the most exciting
things ever happened in my experience, was things
of this kind, when you were right down
to rock bottom and you had nothing.
You know, my son, I just have one
son, I have four daughters, well, five daughters,
one in heaven.
And my son, we were riding one day,
he's a little weak guy, two years or
whatever, and suddenly I said to my wife,
Honey, look at Tim.
She looked at him, he was out like
a light.
We talked and he never heard us.
We finally took him to a doctor, he
was taking these seizures, he was in epilepsy.
And well, we wondered about this, we talked
to God about it, and nothing happened.
And I was sort of trying to hide
it, you know, epilepsy.
And then God spoke to me about my
pride.
So Wednesday night, I shared it with the
church.
And the church prayed for him, he's never
had a spell since.
Not a spell since, he's 40 years old
now.
Sometimes our pride gets in the way of
God doing things and answering our prayers.
Well, people, I stop and I say to
myself, 7,487 promises and I'm fretting?
The foolishness of man perverts his way and
his heart frets against the Lord.
And God hates fret-words of that kind.
He wants us to believe.
Why can't we believe?
And then, remember, there's something else here, another
thought before I conclude.
Jesus said to some of his contemporaries, John
the Baptist came unto you in the way
of righteousness and you did not believe him.
But the publicans and the harlots believed him.
And you, when you'd seen it afterward, did
not repent that you might believe.
If you don't repent, you can't believe.
And that's a major problem.
Dale Faison felt he's gone now to be
with the Lord.
Some of you know who he was.
Head of Life Action Ministries for years.
He gets into all kinds of churches, some
very large churches.
He said he's been really distressed sometimes getting
to a church, maybe several thousand members, and
then the head pastor will say, now, Brother
Dale, never mind this repentance stuff, just tell
him to come to Jesus.
Really?
What did Christ say?
Repent and believe the gospel.
People say, well, repentance and faith, it's the
same thing.
No, it isn't.
In Acts chapter 20, Paul said he went
everywhere preaching two things, repentance towards God and
faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, in that
order.
And you, when you'd seen it afterward, did
not repent that you might believe.
So, dear people, it's a problem of an
evil heart of unbelief, and we must confess
it as being evil, and as God's forgiveness,
and get in the mainstream of the will
of God in our church and our work,
whether we're a Christian worker or not.
All of us are Christian workers in one
sense, or should be, but to believe that
God will use you, and God will use
you.
You know, that Bible camp I mentioned, the
fellow was selling all his property with a
house on it and some other stuff for
$2,000.
Now, remember, this was 45 years ago, see.
And anyway, all I had was $6 on
me, and I made the deal for $2
,000.
And within one month, God sent in enough
money to pay it all off and have
some in the bag, pay the lawyers' fee
too.
But I find when I don't believe, I
don't get anything, everything gets jammed up and
fouled up, and God's Word grinds to a
halt.
So I have to...