What is Biblical Faith?

Heb.11:6-7

INTRO: The single most important thing in a person's life is faith.  Eph. 2:8-9 Saved by faith. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast."
Heb. 11:6 We can not please God a part from faith.  "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."
2. Noah lived in an evil time. (READ) Gen. 6:5-8. He lived in a time when men did not believe there was God. The evidence of that was how they lived. They lived without any respect for life. Murder was rampant and men did every sin imaginable.

a. We also live in an evil time. I believe America is fast becoming a nation whose "Every imagination of the thoughts is only evil continually." Homosexuality and abortion are accepted in our society as normal. Many Americans think nothing of committing these gross sins. Lying is perfectly all right if you get some benefit from it. America is fast become a nation devoid of any moral character.
It may be too late...some believe our nation has gone too far...I do not know...spiritually things look awful bad. God's word tells us that times will grow worse as we get closer to the Rapture.  But I thank God that based on God's Word it is not too late for the sinner who will believe in God and trust in HIS promises...to escape the judgement that is SURELY coming.

b. In the days before the Flood there were evil times, Yet one man believed God...One man found Grace because he trusted God who created him. Salvation and obedience is an individual thing and is not dependent on what others are doing. God still will accept all who believe and repent and follow Him.  Judgement is for the unbelieving and God is warning men today just as He did through Noah before the Flood.

c. When God spoke Noah believed! He trusted God and in what God said.
Noah was a man, just like you and I. What made him outstanding was....He believe in God!
He based his whole life, NOT JUST PART OF IT, on the promises of God.  He understood the principle that the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write centuries later in Rom.12:1-2.
"I Beseech you therefore my brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable to the Lord, which is you reasonable serve, and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed...by the renewing of your mind.. that ye may prove, that good and acceptable, and perfect will of God."
Paul Harvey made a statement that is very true. He said," IF you don't live it, you don't believe it!"

Many are mistaken into thinking that if we give mental accent or lip service to the Bible it is the same as faith. The Word of God says that is not so.
3. I want us to look at the Faith...Biblical faith. Faith that condemned the world, and faith that made Noah heir of the righteousness of God. I want us to understand the faith that saves the soul from sin and an eternal Hell.
I. WHAT WAS THE BASIS OF NOAH'S FAITH?
A. The verse says being, "warned of God."
1. Faith is not a leap in to the dark. Many think faith jumping off a building. All the way down you hope there is something that will break your fall and save you. This is not faith at all.
Biblical faith knows the final outcome.
2. True faith is based on TRUTH. It is based on the One who is Truth...it is based on God's own Word.

3. It is based on the promise of One who is all powerful and can bring what He wills about. What He promises HE can DO!
B. THERE IS A FALSE IDEA OF FAITH.
1. Christians have too often let the world, or the false teachers define for us Biblical truths. We have gotten our understanding of faith from the Pentecostals and the Charismatics and the so called "Faith Healers" on TV and Radio. The faith they present to their listeners is a distorted and deliberate perversion of Biblical faith. It is obvious they do it for "filthy lucre."
2. Their false idea of faith has misled many.
a. Many have the idea that faith is something mystical. Faith to many is an invisible attribute. Some unseen force, a power one might have and conjure up by force of one's mental abilities.
b. Some think it to be a mental exercise. We focus our attention on believing something and then make ourselves believe it.
c. This warped view presents faith as a work of ones mind in which we coerce ourselves into accepting something.
THAT FALSE TEACHING, SAYS WE CAN MANIPULATE GOD AND MAKE HIM A PUPPET OF
OUR SUPPOSED FAITH. If we believe something God must perform it.  Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us we can control God by believing. IT IS A FALSE IDEA THAT SAYS THE ONLY LIMIT TO OUR USING GOD IS OUR ABILITY TO MAKE OURSELVES BELIEVE SOMETHING.

d. Folks that is not faith as presented in the Bible! When one has this view, it actually clouds true faith, and leads us away from real Biblical faith.
IF YOU GET NOTHING ELSE OUT OF THIS MESSAGE UNDERSTAND THIS: BIBLICAL FAITH IS ACTING ON THE PROMISES OF GOD. IT IS A MATTER OF ACCEPTING GOD'S WORD, TRUSTING HIM BECAUSE HE IS OUR CREATOR, OUR GOD, AND THEN DOING WHAT GOD HAS SAID. IT IS LIVING BY THE PROMISES OF GOD MADE IN GOD'S WORD THE BIBLE.
WE BELIEVE....WHAT HE HAS SAID.!
3. The greater your trust in God, the more dependent on Him you are...the greater things God will do through you.
THIS IS NOT GREATER THING YOU WILL DO...BUT GREATER THINGS GOD WILL DO THROUGH YOU.
C. GOD TOLD NOAH THE WORLD WAS GOING TO BE DESTROYED BECAUSE OF SIN.
1. So what was Noah's great act of faith??!! Did Noah do something we can not do. Did he have some ability that we today do not have.....the answer is no. He was just like you and I.
What was his great act of faith...simply this: He believed it was God who spoke to him and he obeyed God.
2. If it was God who spoke to him, then what he heard was true so he acted upon it!

3. What did Heb. 11:6 say? "He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him."
4. Noah believed in God, and he accepted and fear God, thus when God said He was going to destroy the Earth....Noah believed it knew it was true and started getting materials together to build the Ark. All this was based on very simple thing.....God said it.
ILLUS: Noah believed what the bumper sticker I once saw says: "God said it, I believe it and that settles it!"
D. QUESTION? DOES GOD SPEAK TODAY? CAN YOU HEAR GOD SPEAK THIS MORNING???
1. What is it that I hold in my hand?
The Bible...God's recorded and preserved Word to man. As surely as Noah heard God speak to him audibly....we can hear God speak to us!  "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgement, but has passed from death into life" (John 5:24).
Folks, God can and does speak to us with the same power as He spoke to Noah.
Nothing is lost in the fact that we have the written WORD.  "God, who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets. has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds." (Hebrews 1:1-2)
It is the same Word, that Word that can save the sinner from his sin, that can take the vilest of sinners and wash him white as snow in the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. God's promises are immutable! They do not change!!
Noah believed God, so he acted on it and based his life on it!"
2. NOAH prepared the ark and he preached to the lost souls around him. That is what God's word said to him.

3. Not one other person believed out side his family! But Noah did! Faith is not a action of the masses, but of each separate individual.  His faith in God's Word, in God's promises saved Noah and his family.  By trusting in God's Word today...God will save you. If you are here today and saved....you were saved the same way Noah was saved.  No one in this room was saved apart from believing God and trusting it him.  And no Christian can please God apart from obedience to God's instructions and promises.

II. WHAT WAS NOAH'S FAITH BASED ON?
A. Was Noah's faith based on what he could see?
1. No. It had never rained, or had there been a world wide flood.
2. There was no physical evidence in Noah's life or knowledge that what God said could happen.
3. He had no knowledge to base his belief on except that God said it would happen.
a. The basis of Biblical faith is not in miracles and visible demonstrations of God's power.
The heart of the error of the popular false religious movements, yes even some Baptist is....is that they look to signs for their faith instead of the promises of God.
b. Many who claim to know Christ are not experiencing His presence and power in their lives.
Some then turn to look for some tangible thing that can hang their faith on.....some sign that God is real.....some outward manifestation of God in their lives.

They conclude God is present because they feel He is there. YET, if they have no experience, no feeling, nothing exciting happens....God was not there!
Do you see the error of that kind of thinking?
Folks God is not a fair-weather God! He is always present in the believers life....whether we recognise it or not. It is a lack of faith, a lack of taking God at His Word IF we conclude that God is not present in the believer's life.
Many feel that if things are going well then God is there and blessing, But when things are bad or not so good they lose sight of God.  But when the miracles are not happening they become disillusioned and their faith wanes.
Sad to say....I have seen occasions when miracles and supposed acts of God were made up or even faked to keep folks excited about God!  For some churches it is a regular practice to try and stir up emotions so folks can feel like God is there.

How sad! To ignore God who is present and try to lure people into a false sense of God's presence. Folks the entertainment churches are doing just that.
c. The Biblical record is that the great miracles of God have not really turned men to the Lord and have not increased men's faith in God.  Folks I do not mean to lessen the importance of miracles in the Bible. God used them and they always achieved the effect God intended.
d. FAITH IN GOD WAS ONLY REAL WHEN MEN AND WOMEN SIMPLY BELIEVED GOD AND TRUSTED IN HIS PROMISES.
e. What a great miracle God performed when he divided the waters of the Red Sea and the Children of Israel escaped Pharaoh's chariots that were bearing down on them. Yet, in only a short time the people had forgotten what God had done and began complaining bitterly.... mad at Moses and God.

The whole history of Israel is one of God's deliverance over and over again....but when God performed the miracles their faith was short lived and they soon returned to unbelief.
f. In the New Testament Jesus performed miracle after miracle. Everyone in Israel knew of Christ's supernatural acts. Nicodemus, said what was the indisputable fact...."no man can do these mirages except God be with him."

Yet, did the people in seeing the signs and wonders turn in faith to God?
The answer is NO!
They say the dead raised from the grave, those born blind and lame healed totally. They saw the Lord feed on two occasions thousands of people.  Folks many of them ate the bread and fish Jesus made.....did it cause in them a great faith.. NO! They did not believe His promise of eternal life and forgiveness of sin. The miracle made do difference.  C. In John 6:26 (READ) They followed Jesus for the food he put in their bellies. There bellies were filled by a clear miracle of God and all they could think of is "Do it again!"
They were not motivated to faith by the miracles!  John 6:30 says they continued to ask for a sign. They had seen the miracles yet it was not enough.
Note what they said: Show us a sign that we might believe!
Look at V35-36. They saw and did not believe.

V40 This is the will of God...BELIEVE on the SON.  V47 "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life." John 6:47 Jesus then told them again, but look at verse 60, "This is a hard saying; who can hear accept) it."
V66: READ. They all left but the twelve. The Bible records the heart wrenching statement of Christ. "Will you also go away?" What did Peter respond to Christ's question? You have the signs the miracles...NO.. you have the words of life.
Luke 16: Jesus told the story of Lazarus and the rich man.
Rich man in Hell, begged for Lazarus to be sent back to warn his brothers.
Abraham replied to him:
"Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. V29 "And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent." Luke 16:30 The rich man knew his brothers did not believe the Word of God....He knew he had not believed it. His wrong thinking continued even in Hell. He concluded that they would believe if they saw a dead man return to life.  "And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. LUKE 16:31 What saved Lazarus was simple faith, he believed and trusted in what God said. He trusted the promises of God.

He was a poor beggar. God chose not to bless him with material things....he could not say his faith was evidenced in God's material blessings.  B. Noah believed God in spite of what logic and experience had taught him.
1. The verse says he moved with fear".
2. Greek Word is used here means to be circumspect, (by implication) to be apprehensive; to reverence:
3. When he heard the Word of God, that God was going to destroy the world, he became apprehensive. Fearful.
4. With no physical evidence on which to base his actions, he acted anyway.
III. WHAT ACTION DID NOAH'S FAITH DIRECT HIM TO TAKE.
A. With God's warning was also a promise of
deliverance!!!
1. Noah believed God, and accepted God's promise of salvation.
2. Note the evidence that he truly believed.
"he moved with fear, prepared an ark in order to saved his house."
B. He built something no one there had ever seen.
1. He build a large barge or boat (actually a barge) on dry land.
Noah could see the action of faith in his life. Others could see too.  IF YOUR FAITH IS BIBLICAL FAITH..REAL FAITH IT WILL PRODUCE ACTIONS...IT WILL BE SEEN...
2. How did the people who did not believe in God react? Folks they laughed, they ridiculed, they made fun...BUT it did not turn Noah from believing God.

His faith was in God....Not in people, not in the world.
B. Could these people have been saved?
Yes. Absolutely! Did God warn them? Yes. He warned them through his preacher Noah.
I Peter 3:19-20 - "by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water."
II Peter 2:5, "and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly;" 2 Peter 2:5 Noah preached for 120 years while the ark was being built, yet only his family believed.
Conclusion:

IS GOD WARNING MEN TODAY?? OH YES! MOST FOLKS THANK IT IS FOOLISHNESS.
A. But some wise men.. believe God. They hear God's preach and teach God's word.
They know in their hearts it is true as the Holy Spirit of God bring conviction.
1. Some are saved!
God is offering redemption today! God warns us we are in our sin...lost headed for a devil eternal hell. Can't see it, can't feel it....But folks it is God who is saying it.
2. Thank God that is not all God has said!! He promised to save all who will believe.
3. Noah is safe with the Lord even at this moment, as well as all who down through the ages have believed and obeyed God.
He was saved!!!! Not only physically from the Flood, but more importantly God saved his soul.
4. Folks the question is simply this: WILL YOU BELIEVE GOD TODAY?
That yes, you are a sinner. Yes you know that if you die you would spend eternity in hell.

You know it is true...not because a preacher said it...but because God said.
Would you also believe what God has said about the Lord Jesus Christ..  You do not have to spend an eternity in hell. Christ Jesus has already paid you for your sins...and God says he will wipe the slate clean...if you will by simple faith trust him...right now. God has promised that to you and I.
Would you pray right now as the words of the wonderful song,
"I am trusting Lord in thee, Oh thou Lamp of Cal-va-ry, humbly at your throne I bow, save me Jesus....saved me now."
B. You have God's word on the matter, He will save you, simply take God at His word.