The Hearing of Faith — Alan Martin

I just want to greet everyone in the name of the Lord Jesus from some, you have some real brothers and sisters, southeast Missouri. We live about 80 miles southeast of St. Louis, south of St. Louis in the pre-rural area of Missouri and we've been aware, Brother Randy and some of the brothers here, for some time and so you've been in our prayers and we have, we had some pretty lovingly envious saints there when we were coming to spend some time with you and I appreciate, Brother Randy, this opportunity.

Let's pray that we can just, our Father will guide us in this time and protect all of us, protect me from me and you from me and from the other elements that would seek to hinder what he would want to do in our midst.

Knowing God Through the Spirit

Father, we acknowledge that your desire is to reveal yourself. It's what everything you have done, you've made a provision for life in godliness, but it's through the knowledge of you. This is the new covenant, your covenant that everyone from the least to the greatest would know you and you provided your spirit to guide us into all truth and we acknowledge it is only your spirit who never speaks from himself and we desire to know how to walk in your spirit and to keep in step with your spirit to that degree.

We might grow up into this fullness of the salvation, into the fullness of the stature of Christ, into the full knowledge of you, both you and your son, so that as we know you in the way you desire to be known, others will have the chance to do the same according to your will.

Grant us your spirit tonight, grant me your spirit, bring to remembrance. I invite you, Father, I ask for your Holy Spirit and I ask it not just for me, I ask it for those here, that your spirit would minister your word and truth and reveal yourself like you long to do for your own glory's sake, in the name of the Lord Jesus, we ask this.

Amen. You know, Proverbs, we learn that the path of the righteous is as the first gleam of dawn shining ever brighter to the full light of day. So we would think that as we walk in the path of righteousness, that light would make things more clear.

If you've been a deer hunter, you know that when you're sitting out there, if you get out there early enough in the dark, you hear lots of things, but in the very faint light, you can mistake them for other things.

And as light comes, clarity comes, and the ability to see, Jesus said, he who follows after me will have the light of life and he will not stumble, because the way of the wicked is like deep darkness.

They do not know what makes them stumble. And I would hope, it's my hope, that just as our Lord Jesus has said, that he that continues in my word, he is my disciple indeed, and that he shall know the truth and the truth shall set him free.

And I do believe, by the grace of God, that for a number of years, I've just been able to continue in the word, and I just feel like I'm becoming a disciple. And I feel like as I'm becoming a disciple, my heart's desire is to be like my master.

It's really not about ministry. It's not about activity. I believe that the latter part of my salvation is becoming far greater than the first. And what do I mean by that? It means I'm being saved to the uttermost.

I was saved, but I am being saved to the uttermost. I'm being saved from things that I did not know were even sin. And as I'm becoming to see who Jesus is far more clearly, I've come to see what God's righteousness is, who our Father is.

And I'm coming to understand what Jesus meant when he said, when you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Because it said, God who said, let there be light, calls the light of the knowledge of God to be shown into our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of God, where?

In the face of Jesus. So by the grace of God, I do believe I'm coming to understand who our Father is to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's just a natural desire, to produce a natural desire in me, to bring others into the fellowship of that life that I'm experiencing with the Father.

Fellowship With the Father and the Son

Just like 1 John says, let's look there, just so you can see, one of the desires of my heart would be 1 John chapter 1. John is just expressing his own joy and purpose pretty early in this book, right from verse one of chapter one, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard and which we've seen with our eyes, which we've looked upon and our hands have handled concerning the word of life.

The life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. And that which we have seen and heard, we declare to you that you also may have fellowship with us.

And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And then he says, these things we write to you that your joy may be full. And that's become my desire, to see other saints strengthened in the joy of the Lord.

To see their souls strengthened in the joy of the Lord, because light is shed upon the righteous and joy upon the upright in heart. And Jesus says, these things have I spoken unto you that my joy may be in you and your joy may be full.

I believe that when we are fully understanding the revelation of God the Father through the Word of Jesus Christ, what it produces in us is the Kingdom of God, which is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

To where the God of all hope is filling us with all joy and peace in believing, so that we are abounding in hope by the power of God. And this is something I'm discovering, that hope is that which we are able to see and anticipate with full expectation, so that we can be honest about where we are, forget what lies behind, and straining forward toward what lies ahead with full confidence that it's going to become a reality.

Christ in us, the hope of glory, is going to finish, Christ the author of our faith is going to become the finisher of our faith, and he's going to bring us into the measure of the stature of his fullness, and he's going to bring us into his liberty, his righteousness, his knowledge of the Father, because the Holy Spirit, whom he sent, his very Spirit, the Spirit whom he received from the Father, is going to take from what is Jesus, and he's going to make that known to us.

Everything that Jesus has, the Father gave him. Jesus says, all the Father has is mine, and when he, the Spirit of truth comes, he will take that which is mine and make it known to you. So the righteousness of the Father, the wisdom of the Father, the love of the Father, the peace of the Father, all the power of the Father, the very nature of God himself is going to be made known to us as the Holy Spirit brings us into the full awareness of who Jesus Christ is.

And John described him this way in 1 John, he said, the life appeared, and we proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father, and was made manifest to us. You remember what it says in the Gospel of John, where it says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Christ as the Light of Life

It goes on to say, just turn here, I don't want to misquote it, or leave a part out that's important. My memory is still being perfected. God manifests His power through our weakness, so let's just, I'm grateful that He's left us the record of the Scripture.

Verse 2 says, He was in the beginning with God, and all things were made through Him, and without Him was nothing made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shined in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John, this man came a witness, to bear witness of the light, that through him all might believe. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of the light, that was the true light which gives light to every man coming into the world.

The one that gives light to every man is Jesus Christ. In Him was life, and the light was the light of men. Have you ever noticed that? The light was the light of men. And where does that light shine?

In the darkness. What does he mean? What does it mean, in Him was life? What did Jesus Christ say eternal life was? Actually, He didn't say, He prayed it. We have a record of His prayer. What is eternal life?

The eternal life is this, to know the Father, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. This is eternal life, to know the Father. Why does it say that in Jesus Christ, in Him was life, then? Because the only person on the earth who knew the Father was Jesus Christ.

No one else had ever seen the Father. Jesus looked at those who had memorized Genesis through Deuteronomy, and could quote the scriptures probably better than any of us here, and said, I know you, that you have not the life of God in you.

So you can know the scripture, and not have life. Life is knowing the Father. That's what the new covenant is. They shall all know me, from the least to the greatest. That's what the new covenant is. And the reason men are going to be cast away eternally, and separated from the life of God, and some that even are now separated from the life of God.

If you're separated from the life of God now, that's death one. Separated from the life of God permanently is the second death, forever. The life of God is endless, is to know Him, and the reason that that group will be separated eternally is because He's going to say to them what?

I never knew you. You never experienced eternal life. You never came into the relationship with the Father. That's what Jesus Christ came. No one else on the earth knew the Father. And Jesus Christ came, in Him was that life, that life was the light of men, and the light shone in the darkness.

What darkness is he talking about? The darkness of what the Bible calls the rulers of this age. You know it says in Ephesians chapter 6 that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, and against the rulers of the dark forces of this age.

The darkness that Jesus Christ, the light of Jesus Christ shines into is the darkness that had completely engulfed the world, the ignorance of God. Like Paul mentions that we're not to live as the rest of the Gentiles do in the vanity of their mind because they are being darkened where?

In their understanding. They're separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their heart. So what Jesus Christ came to do is to bring the true light of the knowledge of the glory of God into the earth, and the darkness could not stop it.

Every other man may have produced, had their ideas of ignorance of who God was, but Jesus Christ knew His Father, and no one will know the Father except through Jesus Christ. And what you and I have to make sure is happening in our life is that we are being brought to through faith in Jesus Christ into this knowledge of the Father.

Maturity in the Body of Christ

Because this is what He came to do. In Ephesians it says that it was God who gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ, so that we would no longer be what?

Infants. He wanted to bring every one of us into a mature, a perfect, a finished man. Not infants. What is the characteristic of the infants that Paul describes there? They're blown to and fro. And what blows them to and fro?

Every wind of doctrine. This emphasis here, this emphasis here, we're not to be that way. We are to grow up into all things into Christ. Into the knowledge of Christ. And this will, you can see this if you will just continue to devote yourself to know Jesus Christ and to know His Father through the knowledge of Him.

This was Paul's greatest burden for other believers. He mentions it in the book of Colossians where he says, My purpose is that their hearts would be knit together in love unto all the riches of a complete understanding.

Because if your understanding of who God is incomplete, then you are as a child. And the thing about being a child and incomplete in your knowledge of Jesus Christ is what Paul is, the effect that that has is what Paul explains in Galatians that as long as the heir is a child, he's no different than a slave.

But he's subject to guardians and tutors until the time set for by the Father. In the Roman world, fathers were very busy. Often times they were merchants and might be gone from their families for a season.

Or they were soldiers serving on a campaign. May not have seen their sons for long periods of time. So the father, in order to protect the son, subjected them to tutors and guardians. For the development of their son.

So they would have physical protection and they would have the things necessary to grow and mature. And the things that they needed help in doing. But that was only to the time set by the father. When the Roman father saw that his son had reached a certain stage of development, he set him free from the tutors and the guardians.

And he declared him to be a son of adoption. We don't use the word like they use it at all. The son of adoption there was a natural born son. So it reached a certain stage of maturity. That the father declared him.

In the Greek it's a son stated. A stated son. The father declared the son to now be mature and a full heir of the estate. And Paul said this is how God did it. This is how God did it for us. When in the fullness of time, God sent forth His son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the spirit of adoption.

When God says, now, I don't want you under the tutors anymore. I don't want you under the principles of the law. I want you to receive the very spirit of the father. The spirit that cries out, Abba. I want to know my father.

And it brings us from a place where we are just trying to do what's right, even by the law. Into a place where we are brought into the fullness of the love of God. Where we begin to live in love. Like 1 John says, he who abides in love, abides in God, and God in him.

By this is love perfected among us. That's how, the only way love is going to be perfected among us is that we abide in God. God abides in us. And this is how love is perfected among us. And what happens then?

This produces confidence on the day of judgment. How can love being perfected among us produce confidence on the day of judgment? Do you know how? Because that's how Christ lived. Christ did not come doing sacrifice.

Christ delighted to do His Father's will. In this world we are as He is. You know what it says of Him? It says in Psalm 46, it says, Sacrifice and offering you did not desire. With burnt offerings and fat offerings, you were not pleased even though the law required them to be made.

But it says of me, for lo, it is written of me in the volume of the book, what? I delight to do thy will. You see, I, for many years, I have made the mistake of creating obligation rather than bringing them into the love of Christ.

Because love is more powerful than death. Its jealousy is more unyielding than the grave. It is a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love. And were one to offer all the goods of this house for love, they would be utterly...

And when we begin to be perfected, matured, made complete into full understanding of the love of God, you will begin to see in the relationship formed as you begin to know your Father through the love of Jesus Christ working in you, you will suddenly begin to see a man walking in all that God desired.

Because what the law could not do in that it was weak to the flesh, God did. In sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and He condemned sin in the flesh. What happened when God condemned Sodom and Gomorrah?

He rained down brimstone and ashes. What grows what God has condemned? Thought about that? Does anything grow there? Nothing grows there. When God has condemned something, nothing will prosper. When God condemns sin in the flesh, you know what?

It begins to cease. It begins to die. It begins to wither away. He condemns sin in order that the righteousness of God might be fulfilled in us who no longer walk after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

And this is just the thing that He's beginning to help me understand how He's done this. How He has taken us from a life of under the law, brought us into the knowledge of Jesus Christ, so that the love of God could be shed and brought in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, and we begin to live a life of love.

And here's what a life of love will look like. John said it. Do you see a man who obeys God's commandments? In him, verily, is the love of God perfected. Do you catch how he put that? Do you see a man obeying the Scripture?

Do you see a man walking in obedience? What's it evidence of? This man has matured in love. This man is living in the love of the Father. This man has the heart that the Father longed for in the people of Israel that He never got.

The New Covenant and Obedience

Why did God want to do away with the first covenant in the first place? He found fault with the covenant, right? What fault did He find? You can answer. You guys can answer. What fault did He find? Sure, they went astray with their heart.

Here's how He described it. Right. Here's what He said. If you'll read it in Jeremiah chapter 31. He says He found fault with the people. He says, The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and it will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers, when I took them out of the hand and led them forth out of Egypt, it says, because they were unfaithful to Me, although I was a husband to them.

Now, what does a husband consider a wife unfaithful for? What does a husband long for from his wife? They long for love. They want a relationship. I can go to Arby's and get a meal. I can go to a laundromat and get clean clothes.

But what I long for most from my wife is I long to be loved. And what Israel never came to do is they never came to love God. I don't want a relationship of obligation. I'm going to make a way where you're going to relate to me, and understand me, and know me, and love me.

And in this relationship, you know what this relationship is called? Eternal life, where you enter into life, where you know me from the least of the greatest. It begins, you're born into it, and you grow up into the fullness of it.

This is what God's wanting to do in our hearts, and this is what I've seen in my own life. I started in simplicity of devotion to Jesus Christ. And like many of you, maybe some of you, I shouldn't say many because I don't know you, but like many others that I have met, after having begun by the Spirit, simply hearing that Christ loved me, by faith receiving this and receiving the Holy Spirit, I suddenly began to strive to perfect in the natural man, in my own flesh, what I had begun simply by the hearing of faith.

And it led me down many distracted ways. I began to seek to be almost like the Jew, zealous after righteousness. I was zealous, and I sought to establish righteousness. But without knowledge. And I began to seek to establish the righteousness of the law.

Because after all, the law is holy, righteous, and good. And I erred greatly. What happened to me is Christ became to me of none effect. I was not receiving the love of Christ. I was not receiving the righteousness of Christ.

And I withered. I chose to live in the country. I left the city. I kicked out my television. With that kind of attitude, we piped the sewer out. Not into our home. And my wife began to dress modestly, and gone went the makeup, and long went the hair, and on went the covering.

And I began to identify with those like-minded saints. Not like Christ. No. Like what I just described. And of course, this is the way I began to walk, and this is the gospel I began to preach, and this is what I began to glory in.

And I didn't understand it to be pride at the time. And so, in this new gospel I was preaching, it produced much contention. What is the source of all contention, the Scripture says? What causes it? Pride.

And I was glorying in these things, and not in Jesus Christ. Now, for those of you who don't know me, look at my wife, you'll see there's a lot of things I still believe the same way, but it's so different when I just do these things by faith.

And I still live in the country. I still don't have a television. Don't think that I'm saying I've made these great changes. What I stopped doing is I took my eyes off those things. Because what happened to me in that life, when the enemy came to me, when Satan deceived me and led me away from the simplicity of devotion to Jesus Christ, I began to wither spiritually.

And though my tomato plants grew big, my spirit grew weaker and weaker. And what happened to me is how it began to manifest in my life by the grace of God, is even though I was zealous about all these things, I was having no power.

I was receiving no power. I was not gentle with my wife. I was not gentle with my children. I was not long-suffering with brothers. It was not manifesting peace. It was not producing gentleness or lowliness.

And by the mercy of God, I was bound over to disobedience. Because you know what the strength of the law is? I mean, you know what the strength of sin is? The law. Why was the law added, the Bible says, that trespass might increase.

Exactly what happened in my whole life. I became conscious by the grace of God, even with this life I was living, and His mercy revealed to me that I was not sharing in the nature of Christ and God. And so, this was about ten years ago, nine to ten years ago, on a trip near Minot, North Dakota, on a road trip I had driven from Missouri there, and just by the grace of God, I was granted a repentance and a godly sorrow.

Non-emotional. I love emotions, and my eyes will flow with tears at times, but this particular time was not emotional. It was light. It was revelation. And I suddenly saw myself, and I saw the Lord Jesus Christ, and I was given a glimpse of who I was made to be in Jesus Christ.

And reborn in my heart was a resolve, a zeal to see all justice done, what longing to see Christ formed in my life. And when I began once again to put my faith in Christ, Christ the person, the Son of God, I began to receive power.

Power. My whole life began to be transformed. And this is where my journey really began as a disciple again. I was renewed. Kind of like, didn't Paul say this even about the Jews? It says in Romans 11, they were broken off because of unbelief.

And you, you stand by faith, therefore do not boast, you know, because if God did not spare the natural ranches, He will not spare you either. But he went on to say about them, and they are able to be grafted in again.

It's just like suddenly from this day, I was just grafted into Christ again, and Christ became my life. And this is where I began once again to be a disciple, and humble myself, and started learning Christ.

And just began to see what I was missing. And from that place, as I just began to learn, I just began to share with others the testimony of the things I was learning, and suddenly doors of ministry opened.

And my ashes became beauty. As I began to share all the things that I had received mercy from. And just young men, some of them your age, some a little older, were brought into my life, led by the Lord, just so that I could share with them the things that I was now learning in Christ.

And so, it's been a journey for me. I'm still on a journey. And I'm going from glory to glory. It is becoming clear to me what Paul meant when he said, for the righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel.

The righteousness that is from faith. Beginning with faith that Jesus Christ has forgiven me of all my sins, that the blood of Jesus Christ was set forth as a propitiation or as atonement for our sins.

I believe that and receive forgiveness of sins. But then there's more. There's more faith than that. And I've come to understand that for it is by grace you've been saved through faith. It's not of yourselves.

It is a gift of God so that no man would boast that by the grace of God, Jesus Christ tasted death for every man. And what death did He taste? What death did Jesus Christ die? The death He died, He died to?

Sin. Singular. Please note that. In the book of Romans, if you'll read the book of Romans carefully, the word sins is only used in the plural. Every other time it's sin talking about the inner corrupt nature that makes everyone prisoners and slaves.

And that's what He died to. Yes, His blood forgives us for our many acts of sins, but we needed more than forgiveness because the first covenant offered forgiveness, didn't it? Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me.

Bless His holy name and forget not one of His benefits. Benefit number one, who forgives all my sins. That's in the first covenant. The blood of Jesus Christ and the death of Jesus Christ goes beyond forgiveness for sins.

It brings us into freedom from sin. Freedom from that old corrupt human nature that entered the world. Sin, not sins. Sin entered the world through one man. And death through sin. And death came to all men because all sin.

Why did all sin? Why is every one of us sin? Because sin was passed to us. And you and I found at some point in our life that the good we would do, we did not do. And that which we did not want to do was the very thing we ended up doing.

And how did we discover this? We discovered this through law. The only purpose law was given was that this condition would be manifest. The law was not given that we would know what a particular act was wrong.

The law was given that this condition would be manifested. That's what Paul discovered in Romans 7. That this sin. This is the sin that Christ became. He who knew no sin became sin. You don't become something you do.

You become a thing. You become an entity. He became this. The death He died. He died to sin. And this is the new faith. My first faith. My first step of faith was I believe in the forgiveness of my sins.

Just like John said to the little children. I write to you little children because your sins are forgiven. And you've known the Father. That's how it begins. I rejoiced in Christ for the forgiveness of my sins.

But in this process of really coming to know Jesus Christ and growing up in Him, I came by the help of the law to understand what sin in me was producing the other sins. Sin singular. That law of corrupt nature in a person is what produces the other.

That's when I saw. For we were crucified with Him. Romans 6. So that the body of sin might be rendered so that we may no longer be slaves to sin. Now I'm trusting Jesus Christ for freedom. And I've been set free from the law of sin as I'm brought into the life of grace by faith.

By faith we have gained access into this grace where we stand. And so now I'm looking to Jesus and by faith I become united with Him in the likeness of His death. The death He died. He died to sin. The life He lives.

He lives to God. And now, now I receive by faith the ministry of the Spirit. I hear I can be free from sin. Sin no longer has to be my master anymore because now I'm not under law, but I'm under grace.

And Jesus Christ is the grace of God. The grace of God is Jesus Christ. In Him this grace was given. There is no grace of God outside of Jesus Christ. He is the grace of God to us. So as I receive Jesus Christ, this grace of God, now I'm under grace and now I'm given freedom.

I'm tempted every day like you are. And you know what happens when I'm tempted? I suffer being tempted. And now I have a chance to be just like Jesus. It was fitting for God through whom all things were made and for whom all things were made to make the author of their salvation perfect.

And how did God make the author of our salvation perfect? Through suffering. And what caused Jesus Christ to suffer? Was it talking about only suffering on the cross? No, the Scripture says He suffered being tempted.

So now, even the process of temptation, no longer a slave, but still subject to weakness as we are in this world. No longer a slave, but vulnerable still. I have the chance, just exactly like Jesus, to learn obedience to the things we suffer.

That's why the writer James was able to say, Paul was able to say, Paul said it this way, for we know that tribulation works with what? Endurance. Endurance, experience, experience, hope. And hope, make it not a shame, because God shed abroad the love of God in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

James puts it this way, consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of various kinds, knowing this, that the trying of your faith produces endurance. And endurance must have her perfect work that we would be perfect and entire.

One and nothing. So now I'm in a win-win situation. I am in a win-win situation. Do you realize you are too? If you're in Christ, you're in a win-win situation. Here's how. Not only are the sufferings of your present life and the groanings you're experiencing right now, even as your freed state is God's Son, this state of groaning, it's light and momentary.

It's not eternal. It's not going to be forever. Not only is it light and momentary and not even worth comparing to the far-surpassing weight of glory, not only is it light and momentary, it's more than that.

It's even perfecting you and I right now. Giving us the opportunity to learn obedience to the things we suffer. And so it's even helping me learn to learn what Jesus Christ learned. If you want to see what He learned, return to Hebrews 5.

It's one of the very rudimentary principles that men are in such need of receiving again. Hebrews 5 speaks of this. And the writer of Hebrews was groaning over the condition of the believers he was writing to, trying to help them understand this.

In Hebrews 5, starting in verse 7, "...who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplication with behemoth cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, was heard because of His godly fear.".

This is talking about Jesus. And it talks about in the days of His flesh. Not the day of His flesh. What does that mean? What's the significance? This is not simply the cross. The cross was six hours.

The days of His flesh were far longer than six hours. What were the days of His flesh? He suffered in the days of His flesh. And during the days of His flesh, He cried out with loud cries and tears to the One who could save Him from death.

What's He talking about? What death? The death of separation from His Father. What would have caused separation from His Father? One sin. The soul that sins shall die. To the One who could save Him from death.