Faith...

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God has not given us faith so we can change God’s mind. God has given us faith so we can hear God’s voice clearly and obey Him diligently.

The righteous are to live by faith, according to Habakkuk and the Apostle Paul. This is how we are to live. Living by faith is not speaking about theological belief. The contrast, in Habakkuk, is between those who are "puffed up" and have unrighteous desires, and those who are not puffed up and who have righteous desires.

The person who is living by faith is walking humbly with God, not thinking and acting according to his or her own desires and goals.

(3/21/2010) The eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews is one long definition of "the righteous shall live by faith." It tells us what the Bible means by "faith."

We are informed that "faith is being sure of what we hope for." The term "hope" is significant. Many of the errors of today emphasize getting what we want "now" from God. Actually, the Christian redemption is a vision of the future. This is why patience is such an important part of our salvation.

"Sin" is a shortcut to what we want. We become deceived when we seek to live in pleasure with our desires satisfied immediately.

God commended the heroes of faith of history because they lived their lives according to the vision of God they held, not in terms of their present circumstances.

When we look about us at the marvelous works of the universe, we become aware of the might and glory of God. We glorify God by faith because of His handiwork in nature, although He remains invisible to us.

Abel’s sacrifice was acceptable to God because in his heart, Abel was worshiping God in faith. Cain gave his offering out of duty. His heart was elsewhere, as sometimes is true of the church people of our day when they are singing hymns.

Abel’s faith instructs us that God is more aware of our heart than He is of our offerings or our religion. If our heart is not in our religious service, then God is not pleased with us.

Enoch was obsessed with God. Because of Enoch’s faith, his thoughts continually were focused on the Lord rather than on his earthly circumstances. God was pleased with Enoch’s attitude; and God is pleased with our attitude when we keep Christ in our consciousness at all times.

Noah’s obedience to God is an excellent portrayal of faith. Notice that Noah did not "dare to believe God," as we say today. Rather Noah "dared to obey God." "Faith" and "obedience" are synonymous.

I wish to emphasize this concept. Faith is not our attempt to change God’s mind or get God to do something. Faith has to do with our seeking God until we know what He wants of us, and then obeying Him promptly and diligently.

The errors in today’s Christian teaching seek to put man in control. Man is to discover and practice spiritual principles that will move God’s hand. Man in control of the power of Christ is nothing less than the "False Prophet," the deceiver who will assist Antichrist in his effort to gain control over the nations.

Historically, neither the religious nor the secular realms have emphasized the daily, diligent doing of God’s revealed will. This is the central problem of life on the earth, and it will not change until Christ returns in His Kingdom and His will is done in the earth as it is in Heaven.

Faith is used today as a synonym of "presumption." This is what we would expect of a society that is in love with itself, that seeks pleasure rather than God. There are so many books and tapes that tell us how to have power with God; how to move God’s hand. There does not appear a hint of such an attitude, in the eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews.

Rather, the focus in the "faith" chapter of Hebrews is on seeking and obeying God. None of the people described here were trying to "do great things for God" by "stepping out in faith." Rather they were occupied with obeying God, and in some cases with their survival.

What do we hear today? We by "faith" are to take spiritual dominion over our city. Try to find that sort of thing in Hebrews, Eleven!

The temptation of Christ in which Satan counseled him to jump off the roof of the Temple in Jerusalem is the sort of action that is presented today as faith. "Find a passage in the Bible and dare God to fulfill it at your command." This is what Satan was saying, along with many Bible teachers of our day.

"Take hold of God and make Him do what you want." Can you imagine such an attitude? Yet, how is this different from "take the gifts of the Spirit and go out and save a lost and dying world"?

"Dare to be a Daniel." Personally, I do not believe even Daniel would have dared to be a Daniel. Rather, all Daniel wanted to do was to be left alone while he prayed to God.

We have a choice today, don’t we? We can go to the Lord Jesus, and at every moment of our waking hours ask Him what He wants us to do. This is how we live by every word that comes from the mouth of God. This is how we live by faith. (What a wonderful adventure such a life is!)

Or we can do, as I was taught in Bible school, "Go forth to the nations and burn out for Christ." Of course, none of our teachers had any intention of doing this; but it was what everyone seemed to be saying.

I wish we all would cease from our own works and find out what Christ wants each one of us to do. Our nation, America, is sinking into sexual lust rapidly and no human agency can arrest this trend.

But how about prayer? When I pray, the Lord seems to tell me that we American people are getting what we deserve, the kind of government we deserve. We have asked for Tash, and Tash has come (to quote Lewis).

The word of the Lord to me is, encourage everyone to get close enough to Jesus to hear what God’s word is to them as an individual. Then they will save themselves and their loved ones when God begins to judge America because of its love of money and excessive and perverted sexual activity; and also because of the practice of abortion-on-demand.

You can hear the morning sermon at morning. http://www.wor.org/audio/audio.htm

You can hear the evening sermon at evening. http://www.wor.org/audio/audio.htm

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