[0:00] Open up to the book of Hebrews and chapter number 11, the same passage we were at last Sunday. We're going to take off from there and dig out a little something more from Hebrews chapter 11.
[0:20] Thank you for being with us this morning. Some visitors here, some first-time visitors. I'm glad to have you here. We're glad to have you with us. And I hope you understand that and feel welcome.
[0:32] Last Sunday, we considered Abraham and what the Apostle Paul told us to walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham.
[0:45] The Bible says in Romans 4 that he was strong in faith. And what we did last week was analyzed his steps in what they call Hebrews 11, the hall of faith.
[0:56] And we went through this hall and we noticed that he's got an exhibit larger than anyone else. And his exhibit has four different compartments to it. And we studied those compartments, those steps of that faith of our father Abraham as the step of obedience.
[1:11] From verse 8, the step of patience. And verse 9, we call it the step of conveyance with his wife and his children. And then the step of total dependence when he offered his only begotten son Isaac, according to what the Lord had told him.
[1:27] This week, though, I want to analyze that faith that both he and Sarah, his wife, possessed. And by analyzing it, I believe we'll see that there's qualities and characteristics of their faith.
[1:41] Look at verse 1 to begin. It says, Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Now, whether you know grammar well or not, the word substance and the word evidence are predicate nominatives.
[1:55] Amen. I didn't hear an amen there. What's wrong with you people? Thank you. Faith is substance. Faith is the evidence. It is the same as faith.
[2:07] It's replacing it. Faith has some substance. I shouldn't even say that. It is the substance, according to the scriptures. So what I'm trying to get you to think on, first of all, is we're going to analyze this.
[2:19] Faith is not abstract. It's not some concept, just imaginary. No, it's real. It's very real. And we're going to be able to scrutinize and examine the faith of our father Abraham and learn something from his faith and even try to imitate it as well.
[2:38] So in the middle of our passage from last week, which was verses 8 through 19, I want to just pick it up in verse 13 and read 13 through 16. We kind of skimmed it quickly last week so as to save it for this Sunday.
[2:52] Verse 13, the Bible says, These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off and were persuaded of them and embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
[3:06] For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, and heavenly, wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city.
[3:27] We're going to dissect in these passages the faith of these two people and try to learn something and apply it to our lives and try to imitate it and have it coming out of you the same way it was coming out of them.
[3:40] Every one of you, myself included. We're to walk by faith according to this Bible. We're to live by faith from this word of God. That's what he expects. God operates.
[3:51] He always has. He operates in faith. Back in the old days, yes, he did miracles. Yes, there were things, signs for that nation Israel for them to see and understand that that prophet was son of God and follow the prophet and all that.
[4:03] God doesn't operate in signs today. And he doesn't tell you to, he doesn't give me powers to heal somebody and to fix some things so that you can believe me and what I say. That's not the way. You have access to him yourself through the Lord Jesus Christ.
[4:16] You don't need me to get to him. You don't need anybody to get to him but the Lord Jesus Christ. So you have faith and you're saved by grace through faith. You're justified by faith and reconciled by the death of his son.
[4:30] You can go straight to the father. And you're to learn that and to cultivate that and begin walking by that. Your own walk of faith. And so we want to study their faith and let it be an example to us this morning.
[4:43] Let's pray together before we go any further. Father, please bless this reading and this time in studying the scriptures. And guard my mind and mouth. Help me, God, just to deliver the truth. And please take these words and let your spirit bear witness to them.
[4:58] And drive this deep into each heart. God, help us to respond in obedience and respond in faith. And to, Lord, examine this faith in this scripture. And to want to be that.
[5:09] And to exemplify that. And, Lord, I pray that you'd rebuke us for where we're lacking faith. And where we're living in fear and doubt. And help us to walk with you according to these words that you've given for us.
[5:21] We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, we'll just get right into it. Verse 13. The first thing I want you to see about their faith is that their faith has endurance. The endurance of their faith.
[5:32] You'll see it right away. It says in verse 13, These all died in faith, not having received the promises. You know why they died in faith? Because they lived in faith.
[5:44] They lived their whole life all the way up to the end in faith. And then died in faith. Still believing. They never ceased believing what God had promised that he would make good on.
[5:56] Look back at chapter number 10 of Hebrews in verse 23. This is something they had and held on to. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering. Why?
[6:06] For he is faithful that promised. That's something Abraham and Sarah both knew and grasped and believed and lived all the way to the end of their life. God is faithful.
[6:18] God made a promise to us. He's faithful. He won't break his word. The Bible says the scriptures cannot be broken. The Bible says God cannot lie. And if he made a promise to them, they believed he was going to make good on it.
[6:30] And their faith then has endurance. They didn't just obey, like from verse 8, and move to a place that they didn't even know.
[6:41] They didn't just obey and move. And in verse 9, as we study, they sojourned that step of patience. They didn't just sojourn and stay in that land. They never received the promise.
[6:52] They never got it. They never stopped believing, though. They never stopped through their entire lives, even in their oldest of years, believing that God would make good his word.
[7:05] And so faith is such a substance that it can carry you, like them, through life. It can carry you through things that you don't understand.
[7:19] It can carry you through things that aren't comfortable. Like for them, dwelling in tabernacles, instead of just building themselves a house and getting established and comfortable and saying, this is where God wants us.
[7:30] They didn't even have that option. They just believed God and obeyed God. And faith is enough. Faith has substance. It has endurance. It can carry you through hard times.
[7:41] It can carry you through trials in life. You're going to have them. And faith can take you through it. It has stamina. Faith offers strength. Faith offers perseverance.
[7:53] Those are the kind of elements that are built into faith. If you'll exercise faith, you'll gain the stamina. You'll gain the endurance to go through.
[8:04] Their faith had endurance. Faith doesn't eliminate the hardships of life. It doesn't just, that's these morons on television that just name it and claim it. Just have faith and poof, it all goes away.
[8:15] That's a lie. Faith doesn't eliminate hardships in life. It carries you through them though. It gives you endurance to get through it. I told you last week that faith is the vehicle that carries us forward in our Christian life.
[8:29] Faith can carry you through those times. It can allow you to overcome them. It's carried some people through a lot of hard things. Look back later in the chapter, chapter 11, and look at Moses in verse 24.
[8:42] Moses in verse 24 says, By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
[8:55] That's some choice, Moses. And why would you ever make that? By faith. Because he believed what God told him. And he decided, I'm going to suffer affliction. What a choice. Faith didn't get rid of the affliction, did it?
[9:07] No. But it carried him through it. Look, it gets worse. Look later in verse 35. Here's some other through the years.
[9:18] It says, Women received their dead, raised to life again. And in the middle of the verse it says, And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Because they believed.
[9:29] They died in faith. Just like Abraham and Sarah. Lived in faith and died in faith. And never wavered. Believing that God would make good on what he said.
[9:41] These died in faith. And by the way, that's the best way to die. The best way to die is in faith. Not second guessing, but trusting God. Not worrying, just waiting for the Lord to do what he said he would do.
[9:55] That's believing the word of God. That's walking in faith. Faith has endurance. It offers you something. If you don't exercise faith and walk according to these words, you're struggling.
[10:09] It's not as easy as it could be. You're trying to figure it out yourself. You're trying to make sense of things. And it's not going to make sense. And faith doesn't even have to make it make sense.
[10:20] Faith just trusts God and takes you through it. It carries you through it. There's something else we see. Go back to verse 13. Something else when we analyze their faith. Something else of substance is evidenced here.
[10:33] It says in verse 13, These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off. What did they see? The promises afar off.
[10:45] I want you to see that faith has eyes. There's the eyes of their faith. They saw something, as we say, through the eyes of faith. Why? They saw something that couldn't be seen with human eyes.
[10:58] They perceived something existed that could be felt or touched with human senses. But faith could see it clearly. They saw in verse 10, Abraham says that he looked for a city.
[11:15] Abraham's eyes weren't searching for a city. He wasn't wandering through this land of Canaan that God moved him to. He wasn't going over the next hill, over the next hill.
[11:25] No, his eyes were looking somewhere else. The eyes of faith were looking for a city, anticipating God to be good with his word. Abraham was looking to the future.
[11:39] Living every day on earth in faith. Every single day that what God had promised him, he would fulfill. God has something better for me. Abraham said every day.
[11:51] He looked for a city. He didn't build. He didn't seek. He didn't dig. He waited on God. The eyes of faith. This is one that I feel. I feel myself.
[12:03] And just because in my life, and I've told you this before in some degree, I've lived on a church property in a double-wide trailer as a young man with one child and a wife, and it seemed like a great fit.
[12:18] And then four kids later and 12 years later of it, or whatever it was, it just got to be stressful. And we tried and we tried to get out of that.
[12:30] And I felt inside like I want to be just prudent. I want to be wise with our finances and what we have. I want to, it just felt right to try to buy a house and try to start building equity and then be, you know, in a better position for the future to move, have a down payment.
[12:45] Just all those things I understood and saw and sought after. And every time it just got cut out from underneath us. I mean, we had ourselves on top of two properties that were in our price range.
[12:58] And then when we said, all right, let's go sign the papers, whack, they're gone. And every single time I had just to turn with my eyes of faith and say, I guess God doesn't want that for me now.
[13:08] And I guess, and my wife took it hard because she, you know, she got her wrapped up into it. And I had to by faith say, Lord, you're obviously not allowing this. So there's another reason. There's something else.
[13:19] There's something in the future that I don't see yet. And I had to, with the eyes of faith, say this world's not my home. I guess maybe I'll never own a home. So be it, I've gotten halfway through or better through my life.
[13:33] 44 years old and who knows if I'll see 80. And God's gotten me this far. Maybe I don't need to have it and own it and claim it and pass it on.
[13:44] So be it. Abraham lived like that. He's an example that he lived in tabernacles in verse 9 with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs of the same promise.
[13:56] But their eyes of faith saw something else. Faith has the ability to see beyond what's in front of you. Look later in the chapter again back at Moses at verse 27.
[14:08] Verse 27 says, By faith, this is Moses, he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king. For he endured as seeing him who is invisible.
[14:21] Isn't that something? Moses' eyes were on somebody who's invisible. And that's what allowed him to endure. I told you faith has endurance. There's another example of it.
[14:31] He endured those things with his eyes set on something that he couldn't see physically. There's another example. You know, later on in Moses' ministry, if you want to call it that, the people didn't exercise faith.
[14:47] And so they chided against Moses. They rebelled against him and his leadership. They determined that they were done with him because they wouldn't believe what God had told them and followed the leader.
[15:00] But Moses had his eyes, spiritually speaking, and exercise faith. He knew what God was leading them to. When you don't exercise faith, you start to complain. You know, it doesn't make sense.
[15:10] So you start to fuss about it. You start to say, well, we need to figure this. We're going back to Egypt because this isn't for us. But the eyes of faith stay locked. They stay pressing toward the future. Look at chapter 12 of Hebrews.
[15:24] The eyes of their faith being examined here. Verse 1 says, Your eyes of faith need to be on the Lord Jesus Christ.
[15:53] That's present tense. Looking unto Jesus. That's how you run your race. And that's how you endure. By looking unto Jesus. Your eyes of faith sometimes need to go right back to the cross of Calvary.
[16:10] In verse number 3, it talks about considering him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself. Lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Your eyes of faith can go back to Calvary and recall the sufferings of Christ and remember why and who it was for.
[16:28] And give you strength when you're wearied and are fainting in your minds and thinking of quitting. Your eyes of faith can go forward to what God has promised for you in the future. Where eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
[16:44] But your eyes of faith can see that it's there. I can't touch it. I can't grasp it. But it's there. And my eyes can see it by faith. So their faith had eyes.
[16:55] Come back to chapter 11 and verse 13 again. Where we stop, there's more. And I want us just to see that their faith, this substance also has an expectation.
[17:08] And there's an expectation of their faith. In verse 13 where it says in the middle, it says that having seen them afar off and were persuaded of them. They were persuaded.
[17:20] Do you know what that means to be persuaded? See, Dr. Uckman used to say, you couldn't talk me out of it with a talking machine. That's persuasion. I know it.
[17:30] I'm confident of it. I'm not changing. I'm not bending. When you know something and you stand on it, this man and woman were persuaded. That what God promised them was going to take place.
[17:42] That's why they died in faith. Come back to Romans. Keep your place. Go to Romans chapter 4. This is the passage we were in last week at the beginning. As it describes Abraham and Sarah, his wife.
[18:02] And here the same word is used to describe their faith. Verse number 20 and 21. Romans 4 verse 20.
[18:14] Speaking of Abraham. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief. But was strong in faith, giving glory to God. And being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform.
[18:31] Wow. You better believe that man's strong in faith. He was fully persuaded that this is a reality to me. This is happening. The heathen in that land said, you old man, you fool.
[18:44] What are you doing? You've got all this substance and all this wealth and you're living in tents. And what are you doing? You've lost it. You're losing your mind. Loco.
[18:56] And Abraham's, no. I've got my eyes on something else. He was so persuaded they couldn't talk him out of it. They couldn't mock him and get him to change. Abraham expected God to complete it.
[19:08] He just didn't believe it and hope it would happen. No, he and his wife were convinced and they were confident. Come back to Hebrews and look at this phrase in verse number 22 of chapter 10.
[19:24] Look at this phrase, Hebrews chapter 10, verse 22. The Bible says, Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.
[19:36] You know, there's some passages, I don't want to take the time this morning, but Paul uses terminology like in Romans 8, that for I am persuaded. And he goes on to say that nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.
[19:51] He says in that same chapter in chapter 8, verse 28, And we know. And he goes on to describe how all things work together for good. There's things we know. He said in Philippians, being confident of this very thing.
[20:05] That scripture pushes us to faith with confidence, assurity, with persuasion, fully persuaded. There's another phrase there, full assurance of understanding in Colossians.
[20:22] All of these drawing us to the expectation that faith has if you exercise it. When faith is permitted to grow in you, it carries you to a place of confidence and a place of expectation.
[20:39] You believe God will accomplish His word, and you're just content. That's good enough for me. My faith is in the person of God and His ability, and I'm just, I let it all go.
[20:49] I rest in Him. You begin to rely on His word. You begin to trust Him with everything. You trust Him with your health. You trust Him with your money. You trust Him with your family.
[21:01] You trust Him with your job. You just begin to trust Him. Because that faith has that expectation built into it. I have a friend, a close friend of mine, who just very recently has had some health issues go down.
[21:15] And it had led him to the ER, and he didn't immediately have some answers. And then he got some answers, and some tests had to be run. And then it became a schedule for a biopsy of something and a drilling in his bones just recently.
[21:29] And I talked to him on the phone just before he was going to go in for it. And he said this. He's like, he used this word. He used the word peace. He said, I have complete peace about the whole thing.
[21:40] Now, in his family, his brother has major heart conditions. Surgery is just tons of them. And nobody I've ever met or heard of has more than this man.
[21:53] And that's in his family. And so once this stuff started, it really got the red flags going up. And the same teams of doctors and network are kind of starting to look at him now. And he said, I'm at peace with this thing.
[22:06] I've already seen God's hand in this. I've already seen Him work. I mean, the timing of what happened, when it happened, where I was, that was the Lord. Even the resident doctor was going to say, you have to wait four days before we can do this.
[22:18] And a different doctor came in and said, no, boom, got him on this other thing right away, right away. And he's like, God brought the right people in, got me at the right place. God's all over this thing. I am at peace.
[22:30] But he didn't have answers. But you know what that is? That's faith. He trusts the Lord. And he has an expectation that what God says, he'll do. And if things don't go well here, he knows how it's going to go.
[22:44] What a blessing to have that faith. And to allow that to persuade us of some things in this life. To be able to trust the word of God. Verse 13, there's more.
[22:55] Their faith has something else. It has an embrace. There's the embracing of their faith. We see the very word in verse 13. It says, they were persuaded of them and embraced them.
[23:08] How did they embrace them? They didn't receive the promises. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, were persuaded of them and embraced them. Isn't that something?
[23:20] Their faith was embracing something that they themselves never could receive. That's wild. I think their faith here has some hands and arms to be able to reach out and take hold.
[23:34] Not just accepting, oh, this is my lot. This is the way it's to be. But no, receiving it from God and grasping and holding on to it. Abraham and Sarah, being strong in faith, influenced them, not just to expect some things from God, but to embrace this as their life from the Lord.
[23:57] It's a step that follows being persuaded is then to embrace it and say, no, I don't want anything else. This is what God has for me and I trust him.
[24:07] We'll take it. Thank you very much. Being convinced and then acting upon it. And I believe embracing God's will, embracing God's plan for your life or God's words to you, it leaves no room for doubt.
[24:23] It kicks out the alternate plans and the backup plans and just takes what God puts in front of you and gives you. They never received the promise. So they embraced something they never experienced and never touched and never apprehended in this life, and they held on to it to the end of their life.
[24:42] What a remarkable property of faith to embrace. It has an embrace, and it's willing to let go of everything else and embrace by faith what God has.
[24:54] This is, I think, this is like a plateau. This is something that's up there that many, most maybe Christians never experience. They never achieve and realize.
[25:06] They embrace success. Americans surely do. They embrace money and comfort. They embrace family. They rarely are willing to let go of something and take up their cross and embrace it.
[25:24] Because when it gets tough, they just drop it. They just quit. That's like the go-to. When it gets like affliction with Moses, they just want to turn back.
[25:35] Abraham left his father's house and never went back. Abraham had no permanent home, and he was fine with it. He was asked to offer his only son Isaac on an altar, and he was willing to do it because he was embracing a promise that God made to him the whole time.
[25:54] What a thing of this faith. He embraced it. There's some things that we need to embrace. If I could just take a second, I'm going to turn my attention to my children.
[26:06] There's three of them. Where's the fourth? I don't know where he's at. Might be out there breaking the basketball rim again or something. But my three girls are here, and they need to know something here. They need to believe this.
[26:17] They need to embrace what God has given them in this life because they left some things behind, and it's hurting them, and it hurts.
[26:29] But they have a choice to get bitter and say, why God? Or they could embrace it and say, God knows. It's not just dad's chasing a dream of being a pastor.
[26:42] That's not it at all. Never will be. It's God saying, this is what I want for you. Your wife's part of the picture. And guess who else is? My four children. He knew that.
[26:54] He chose that for you. And you have a responsibility to choose to embrace what God has chosen for you, not to resist it and not to grow bitter.
[27:06] You know, there's other people in here that have experienced some things in this life, some stuff in this life that's hard. Relationship-wise, family-wise, there's many of you in here that has tasted some bitter things.
[27:24] And like Job, he lost his children and all of his possessions, and he made this statement to his wife, shall we receive good from the hand of the Lord and shall we not receive evil?
[27:36] And what Job said was, this is from the Lord. This is from the hand of the Lord. He allowed this to take place in my life. And the Bible says he didn't sin with his lips.
[27:48] He didn't charge God foolishly. He received it, the evil, from the hand of the Lord and said, I trust him. He knows what he's doing. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.
[28:02] That's Job's response. And there's some of you in here that need to respond that way and embrace what God has allowed in your life and trust him today.
[28:14] And then trust him tomorrow. And then the next day, you're just going to keep trusting him. That's embracing it. They embraced it. You need that faith too.
[28:26] God knows. And God can use whatever situation you hate, he can use it for good. He can use it to grow you. Don't limit what he can do with it.
[28:38] Just be faithful and be obedient. One more thing, a little personal as well, but collectively to a few of you, probably not the majority of you in here anymore, but to some of you, this Bible Baptist Church needs to embrace that there's a change in this church.
[28:58] For the last, it's been almost three years now, when it started, and it's never going to be the same. Ever. It's not. And if this is God's church, if this church belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ, no matter who's in the pulpit, if it belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ, he knows what he's doing, and you need to trust him.
[29:20] And you know what you need to do? Embrace it. You need to embrace what God is doing. Maybe your eyes aren't in faith and aren't looking at what God's doing.
[29:31] Maybe you're still looking somewhere else, and shame on you if you are. The Bible says, forgetting those things which are behind. Are you doing that? I'm not trying to be irreverent here, or even stomp on anything.
[29:44] I don't mean that at all. God knows my heart. I want us collectively to embrace where we are, and acknowledge God's alive, and he's at work right here in this building, with us, and embrace it.
[29:57] And say, this is my church. This is where we're going. I'm going to be on board. I'm hopping in the vehicle, and I'm going with them. Don't get bitter. Don't bark about the way it used to be.
[30:09] I'm sorry. But understand what God's doing, and be part of it, and embrace it. There's an embrace. Their faith, when they exercise their faith, there's an embrace.
[30:19] It grabs on to something, and holds on. There's two more things. I've got to hurry. Back in verse 13, after it says that they embraced them, it says they confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
[30:33] In verse 14, for they that say such things, declare plainly that they seek a country. I want you to see that their faith has an exclamation.
[30:43] It's speaking. It has a voice. They're confessing that they're strangers and pilgrims. They're saying, and declaring plainly, something.
[30:56] Their faith here has grown, and it's commanding now their speech. It's compelling them to unashamedly testify to what they've embraced. Abraham and Sarah were fully committed, declaring their followers of the Lord.
[31:13] They're not identifying as, oh, we're members here. We're citizens of another country that God called us out of. They left that go and embraced here, and then that declared, that exclaimed that we're just strangers and pilgrims here.
[31:32] That's the way it is. No permanent home. We're just waiting on God to fulfill His word. The heathen, like I said there, you're crazy. You're crazy. They said, no, we're seeking a country.
[31:44] Verse 15, or verse 16, it's a better country. A better country. What they're doing, and what is, what's doing the exclaiming and the declaring, it's their faith.
[31:59] Because their faith not only sees something, but their faith also has a voice to declare plainly who they are and what they're doing here. I wonder, this morning, what does your faith declare plainly about you?
[32:13] What do your actions confess about yourself? These exercising faith, it has a voice. Faith has a voice. And one more thing, come to verse number 15 now.
[32:25] It says, and truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. If they're thinking about the place back home, if they're thinking about Sodom and Gomorrah like Lot's wife or any part of it, they might have had opportunity to make a mistake and to step away.
[32:46] But no, lastly, I want to see the effect of their faith. Their faith changed their thinking. If they had been mindful of that country, apparently they weren't mindful of that country anymore.
[32:58] Apparently they had embraced what God had called them to and said, this is it, we're planting here for whatever God has for us. They changed their thinking. It shaped their mind from the natural tendency that when it gets tough, we quit, we go back, we give up, or we take the easy road if it doesn't work.
[33:15] But no, their minds were renewed by faith, walking by faith, living by faith, and not mindful from when they came out. They are now honed in and locked in on looking forward to what God had promised.
[33:29] And I believe living by faith can have this effect on you as well. On you as well. Exercising faith in the words of God, learning and believing that book, start making preparations for your future, start setting your affections on things above, start laying up for yourselves treasures in heaven.
[33:47] That's walking by faith. Doing things here that are going to affect out there, that's walking by faith. Believing that the lost are on their way to hell and opening your mouth or extending a hand and finding a way till you can influence them for Jesus Christ.
[34:01] That's an operation of faith coming out of you. It has an effect. It ought to have an effect on you. We're told to forget those things which are behind.
[34:12] We're told to reach forth. We're told to press forward. And every day that we live is a day closer to what God has prepared for them that love Him.
[34:27] Years ago, there was a revival in Wales and it spurred a missionary movement that spread as far as India. And in, I think it was northeastern India, some missionaries showed up and a man was converted and saved and believed on Jesus Christ.
[34:45] And left his, if it was Hindu or Buddhist, whatever he was into and turned to Jesus Christ. His wife and children, his family, converted to Christianity as the story goes.
[34:58] And as the witness spread and the missionaries spread, more families came to Jesus Christ. And a stir started amongst a specific tribe so much that the chief said, enough.
[35:10] I'm putting an end to this right now. He didn't want any of this white man stuff coming in and changing his people. And he was in control and he felt loose. So he called the original convert before him and his family.
[35:22] And he said to this man, I will give you an opportunity to renounce your belief in this Jesus. And if you don't do it, your two sons and the archers stood by, your two sons will be slain.
[35:34] And the man responded like, I've already made a decision. I'm going to follow Jesus. And he made the command and the air was flew and his two sons were slain right there before his eyes.
[35:46] His wife crying, his boys twitching on the ground, dying. The chief turned back to that man and he said, I'll give you one more chance. If not, it's your wife. And he said in his own language in so many words, if I'm all alone, I'm still going to follow Jesus.
[36:07] Killed the woman. And he looked at the man and he said, that's it. This is your life now. You're alone like you white-crested. What do you want to do?
[36:18] You can renounce Jesus or you can die. And he said the words that ultimately these three phrases were penned to lyrics of a hymn and he said, the cross before me, the world behind me, no turning back.
[36:35] And so they wrote the song that I'll follow Jesus and I'll, though no one join me, still I will follow. And the cross before me, the world behind me, no turning back.
[36:49] That's Abraham and Sarah. No turning back. Their faith had such an effect that they might have returned, but no, they died in faith.
[37:02] They died in faith. And I believe, not just Abraham and Sarah, that we read in this chapter, many, many a person living by faith has been faced with a hard decision, faced with torture, faced even with death, and they wouldn't turn back.
[37:17] Why? The chief wanted to know why. Why would a man not just give this up and why would he die for some religion from another, from the Jewish people, from over there?
[37:32] Why? These white men come. Why would he die for that? It bothered him. It tore him up. He had to know. And the story goes that he found out. And as he turned his heart and life over to the Lord Jesus Christ, so did the rest of the tribe.
[37:48] And the men and the women and the children didn't die in vain as the story tells you. And you can look that up. That's, that's, I have decided to follow Jesus, the hymn. It was birthed in India by a martyr.
[38:04] Abraham and Sarah wouldn't turn back. Their faith possessed such a substance that empowered them and so many others to endure and to look beyond the present and to expect something better.
[38:17] And I believe when we examine their faith as we have this morning that we discover it's not abstract. It's not a conceptual thing at all. It's real. It's substance.
[38:28] It's evidence. It's literal. It's living in them. It's guiding them and strengthening them and transforming their lives into living examples of the children of God.
[38:40] I showed you it has eyes. It has a voice. It has arms and hands. It's starting to sound like a person. Who could that be?
[38:52] In the Bible in Galatians chapter 4 Paul says to these Galatians he says something till Christ be formed in you. Christ growing on the inside of the inner man.
[39:04] The Lord Jesus Christ is the evidence of that faith. The Bible says for ye are all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. If you're not saved this morning you can become a child of God by exercising faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
[39:23] You can be saved by the grace of God through exercising faith in what he did on Calvary. And I don't know why anybody would wait and not do that.
[39:33] I don't know why anybody would wait till tomorrow or wait till another week or maybe some other year. Why would you not take the Lord Jesus Christ by faith and receive the gift of eternal life forgiveness of all of your sins and eternity in heaven.
[39:48] It's like wiping the slate clean not with other people but with God the one whom you've been sinning against all your life. The blood of Jesus Christ will cleanse you and he'll create you a new creature in Christ Jesus.
[40:02] So saith the scriptures. You can receive Christ by faith today. If you're not saved Christian then what kind of faith lives in you? Is it this kind?
[40:14] These were strong in faith remember? The kind of faith that can carry you through life to higher ground and it needs to be evidenced in your life.
[40:26] Abraham and Sarah maybe not your likely couple as old as they were as far as they went but what examples they are and here again in this hall of faith it's speaking to us today.
[40:40] Let's bow our heads together and have a word of prayer and we'll be dismissed in just a moment. Before I pray I want to ask do you know for sure that you're going to go to heaven when you die?
[40:53] Are you trusting by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for your salvation? or are you hoping it works out by some other means? Are you hoping you haven't been that bad?
[41:04] Or I have gone to church and been baptized? Or I've done a few of those things I should be okay. If you're hoping in something other than Christ you're not going to make it. You're going to drop straight into hell and you're going to pay for your sins and realize how foolish you were to reject the Lord Jesus Christ.
[41:24] And he's offering you the gift of eternal life. He paid for it. He paid for your sins. You can receive him by faith this morning.
[41:35] Is anybody in here that says I need to do that? I'm not sure I'm saved and I want to be saved like you're talking about. I don't know how to do it but if you'd show me I'm willing to do it.
[41:47] Would you just slip your hand up with nobody looking? Just slip it up so I can see it. Anybody in here at all? If everybody says I know I'm saved and I'm okay then Christian are you walking by faith?
[42:03] Because if you are faith is substance and it's evidence. It should be able we should be able to examine your faith and see that it's living.
[42:15] That you're not the same. That it's changing you. That it's growing you. That it's moving you. Now is your faith evident this morning?
[42:29] Maybe you need to talk some things over with the Lord. I invite you to come forward and just get on your face here up front and talk to God about some things. If you're not sure that you're saved don't leave this church service today.
[42:41] See me afterwards. I'll take some time and just sit down with you privately and show you from the Bible what God says about it. About your soul and your eternity and it's not something you want to risk.
[42:53] Let's pray. Father please bless now this time and I ask that you'll move in our hearts that you'll deal with us about our faith. I said at the beginning you operate in faith.
[43:04] Without faith it's impossible to please you. You're not going to show up in the clouds. You're not going to walk into here in a body. You are making us expecting us to exercise faith.
[43:18] And that's your way and that's your choice and that's fine with me. So Lord give us strength. Give us strength to overcome our fears and doubts and to trust you and your words.
[43:32] To walk with you and believe you through everything in this life. That faith has the endurance to get us through so give us that endurance as we seek to please you. God if there's some here that are struggling and if they need this God just drive it into them and help them to respond.
[43:47] Help them to take advantage of what you offer them through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's in Jesus name I pray. Amen. We're going to sing that song. Let's outro. Let's Analysis Amen.
[43:58] Let's listening to this song. Let's listen to this song. Let's hold of this song. Let's listen to this song. Let's listen to this song. Let's see. Amen. First of all, let's see. Let's listen to this song. Well, basically, this song is a song that's far me and hanging out with love and forth. Let's see. Okay, let's listen to this one.
[44:08] Let's see. Let's sit. Let's see. Let's see. So let's just stand my support or this song for you and listen to this song. They're are let's tips in, so we're a little weird and sitting out let's see.