What Is Faith — Manley Beasley

What Is Faith — Manley Beasley

It's good to see you here tonight. You know, it's just good to even be here, isn't it? Amen. I pray that the Lord has spoken to your heart and you've been blessed, I think, that song. Much more, so much more.

That within itself should have blessed you, nothing else did. And I pray that you'll realize tonight that regardless of where you have come to, there's still much more. And when you get to heaven, there's still going to be more.

Amen. The Lord hasn't even started, or I should say you haven't started on what He's got for you, and He's already given to you. We're delighted tonight for all of you visitors, and I pray that you will just simply let the Lord speak to your heart and just really open up to Him and let Him do for you what He wants to do, because He is doing some things around here.

He is meeting some people's needs, and I haven't given them a chance to testify of the fact of what He's done for them, because I haven't preached yet, but I'm planning on preaching tonight. And I'm glad a few people are here.

I have Brother Bobby over there, and I love to preach to these preachers, but it is a real joy to have you, and I pray that God will speak to your heart tonight. Regardless if you're a member of this church or a visitor, I hope you came for the purpose of letting God speak to you.

I hope you came to get changed and not entertained or enchanted, but changed. That's what the Lord is out to do with you, and that's what He plans for you, changes you. He's out to change you from day to day, from victory to victory.

That's what He wants to do for you tonight. And so I know that He, I know His plans. I'm just really not sure about yours, but I'd encourage you to let Him have His way, and the Lord will bless you. I'm grateful to have a young man here tonight visiting with us.

He was here last night, and I don't know how many more times he's going to be or what his plans are, but we're glad to have a young man up here, David Hill, in front. That's quite a testimony, and I'm afraid if I let him get up here and testify for about 10 minutes, I never would get you down long enough to preach to you 30 minutes.

But the Lord may just open up the way. This young man, God has really done something in his life, and you'd have to know his background to know how much God has done. And it's just amazing how the Lord saves people, and really has a tremendous testimony.

And I praise the Lord for him being here tonight. He's a young evangelist, and the Lord's really using him. I don't think he understands all that's going on, and I'm glad he doesn't. But it's still going on, David, and God's not dead.

And we're real delighted to have him. He's up from San Antonio, and God has a fantastic testimony. I asked the preacher, I said, you think I ought to mention that book that David wrote, because he read some of it today.

He said, Lord, it might, or said something like this. I said, well, it might scare these people to death. He said, it might. But it's fantastic, David, it's a tremendous book. And it's a tremendous message of how God has brought this young man in and out, and a wonderful, wonderful testimony.

I'm taking my time about getting into service tonight, because I'm not probably going to preach over about 25 minutes, 20 minutes. And I've been preaching about an hour, and I'm just waiting on you to settle down, because I've got something to say.

Faith Must Be Demonstrated by Works

And you may not enjoy what I've got to say, because when God said it to me, I certainly didn't enjoy it. And you might say, well, why, preacher? It's because it was so profoundly different, and so simple, and so applicable.

That's what hurt. It was so applicable to me that I didn't want to take it. And I really resisted it. As I said last night, this puts the grease to the squeak, and it's really nothing but a message on what is faith.

I've been preaching along this line almost every night, but this tonight is another approach, something the Lord gave me just a few weeks ago, on what is faith. A lady came to me several months, years back now, I guess, and she said, preacher, said, boy, I knew just exactly what you were talking about tonight.

You ever had any of them tell you that? Oh, brother, I get scared when people tell me that. And I said, she said, boy, said, that message on faith, said, I tell you, said, I know exactly what you're talking about.

She said, I tell you, preacher, I've got all the faith in the world. And I looked at that woman, you know, I backed off. I said, well, Lord, to myself, I said, Lord, if she's got all the faith in the world, then bless God, we'll see the dead raised tonight, and we'll see, we'll see some miracles here tonight.

We'll see something happen. And I looked at her, and she just kept on talking about what faith she had. And I kept listening. And before she got through with her conversation, she turned to me, and she said, brother Beasley, would you please pray with me for my son who's lost and is not saved?

I said, lady, I thought you had all the faith in the world. I said, it'd be stupid for me to pray for your son, if you've got the faith. I said, if you've got all the faith in the world, you don't need me to pray for your son.

I said, I need for you to pray for me, but not, not me pray for your son, if you've got all the faith in the world, because the Bible says, very plainly, that according to your faith, God is working. And if you've got all the faith in the world, well, you're not worried about your son getting saved, as far as you're concerned, it's settled.

And you know what that lady did? She said she had faith, but her actions did not correspond with what she said. Which brings me to a scripture in the Bible that says, what does it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works, can faith save him?

Now the Weymouth translation says it like this, and I'll tell you, it's tremendous. And I'm reading from James, the second chapter, the 14th verse. What, and I'll wait if you're going to turn to it, till you get over there, I shouldn't have to tell you what verse it was.

You get your attention on that, and won't listen. In the Weymouth translation, it says, what good is it, my brethren, if a man professes to have faith, and yet his actions do not correspond? Well, there's something in it.

And here this woman was confessing she had faith, but before she left, her actions did not correspond with her confession. And Weymouth translation says, and the King James really says it, what good is it, my brethren, if you say you have faith, and your actions do not correspond?

In other words, you do not have actions that correspond with your confession. What good is it? Now, a lot of folk get confused, and some great people can be blinded. And I'm sure that I have blind spots in my own life.

But Martin Luther looked into the book of Romans and saw that justification was by grace through faith, not of works at all. And he was saved by grace through faith, and he saw this great of justification by simply trusting Jesus for salvation.

And then he read the book of James, and he said it was not supposed to be in the Bible. You know that? Martin Luther. He said, brother, that's not supposed to be in the Bible. Because James says, faith without works is dead.

And boy, this blinded Catholic man that was a priest saw that you didn't have to work and take the sacraments to be saved, that you were saved simply by grace without works. And he was so excited about it that he was blinded to what James was saying.

And my dear friends, James is talking about justification before man, where Romans is talking, and Paul was talking about justification before God. And sure enough, you are justified before God by simple faith.

And James is saying, if that faith is real, genuine, as the old country fellow says, genuine faith, there will be works that will prove it. And you not only will be justified before God, but you will be justified before man.

So Paul is saying that when you're really justified by faith, the same thing as James is, only one's talking about justification before God, and the other is talking about justification before man, and they're absolutely inseparable.

Because if you really have genuine faith, it's real, there will be genuine, corresponding action that proves that your faith is real before God. You see, if you are righteous, or if you're holy before God, you're righteous before man.

If you believe with your heart, you will confess with your mouth. It's inevitable results. They're inseparable. So here, James saying, what good is it? If you say that you have faith, and yet your actions do not correspond with your confession, then your faith is not real.

Faith Renders Hope Present Through Obedience

Now there's another verse that, along that line, that really gets to the heart of things. I'll get to it in a moment. But as I want to, I want to go back now to that French Bible that I quoted the other night, where it says, Romans, Hebrews 11 1, where it says, faith is the substance of things, hope part of the evidence of things not seen.

And this French Bible says that faith is rendering present that which you hope for. Let's just turn it around for simplicity's sake. That which you are hoping for, faith renders it by action as present.

Oh, that's beautiful, isn't it? That thing for which you are hoping. That thing for which you are hoping. Now you realize this message is in the context of three other messages. Now you remember that.

And hope is not faith, folk. It's just a part of it. But that thing for which you are hoping is, if it's of God, then your actions are supposed to render it present. Now this is all through the Bible.

For instance, at the Red Sea, Moses stood up and said, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. And then all at once he began to doubt. And he said, oh God, do something. God said, why callest thou me?

He said, I'm committed, brother. He said, no, you don't need to be begging me to do something. He said, when I called you and commissioned you, I committed myself to you to see you through. Some of you didn't know that, but he's committed to you.

Amen. I'm not as concerned, half as concerned about my commitment to God as I am God's commitment to me. Amen. Because I'll tell you, folks, as long as I know he's committed to me, I'm not too worried about my commitment to him.

You said you're not. Aren't you trying to get us committed to God? I'm really trying to get you, or trusting God to get you to the place where you get in such relationship that he'll commit himself to you.

And I'm not worried about the rest. If God ever starts committing himself to you folks, the rest is the rest, but take care of itself. Amen. You know, people tell me, said, man said, I'm coming to get saved.

Well, that's wonderful folks. And it's wonderful when you come to Jesus to get saved, but I'll tell you what, what salvation really is. It's not when you come to Jesus to get saved, it's when you come so adequately in faith and repentance that God commits himself to you.

Jesus did not commit himself unto them because he knew their hearts. Well, salvation is not you committing to Christ. Salvation is Christ committing himself to you. And folks, when you get him committed to you, you're saved.

Amen. And when you get in such fellowship and relationship to Jesus, that he commits himself to you. And he committed himself to this man, Moses. And you know what Moses had to do? Moses had to stand up and tell over a million people to walk into the red sea as if there was a hole there when there wasn't a hole there.

So there would be a hole there. Amen. He didn't walk out there and hit that water and open it up and said, okay, folks, you can see the hole let's go through. Did he? No, he told them to march over a million people, they believed.

He told them to render present that which they hoped for. Of course, they had a good bit of pressure on them. They could see the dust in the background, a bunch of Egyptians coming. And that was the red sea in front of them.

That wasn't nothing but a desert to run in. And, and the cloud was there and the fire burned, you know, night in the cloud. And they, boy, I tell you, God just shut them up to faith. And he'll do that for you if you want to trust him.

Some of you hadn't realized that God's answered your prayers by giving you a problem. That's what he did for that bunch. He brought them down to a problem so he could show them how he could work. And so he brought them to the red sea, but I'll tell you what Moses had to render present that which he hoped for.

Boy, he had to act like his soul when he wasn't so in order for it to be so. You say, I can't understand it. You never do. The Bible says faith comes before understanding. You look in the book of Hebrews and if you, you start reading it and he said, by faith we what?

Understand that the world. Hey, which one says, which one comes first? Faith or understanding? You face it and then you understand. Amen. Brother Bobby, you could try and understand it and start facing it here.

Amen. I know Bobby real well. He tries to understand everything before he faith and I can pick on him if I want to, but I know that's all of our problems. Amen. Now, my dear friends, this man had to render present that which you hope for.

Now you can't, you see this beautiful story and I'm just showing you a definition of what is faith. God walked out one day and said, Abraham, I'm going to make you a father of a nation. Man said, your children.

I said, there's going to be so many. He said, you won't be able to count. Well, Abraham said, just told Sarah, Sarah about it. And they went out and tried to help God out. They got a little program up and God said, I'm sorry.

I don't accept your program for 20 years. He begged God to accept his program. He said, no. Well, finally he was about a hundred and his wife was almost a hundred. And the original says his body was as dead as hers.

Boy, that promise. We'll make you a father. And that ate on him. That ate him up. He couldn't stand it. You know what? That promise was the living Christ. Did you know that? And he, the question was, what am I going to do with Jesus?

Really? Cause that's a living word. And so he counted his body as though it was dead. And you know what this fellow did? Of course, you'd send him to peril for this. Amen. And how some of us have stayed out, acted like this, I don't know, but he went around and said, praise God.

And a hundred years old. I'm a daddy. He said, he did get Romans four beginning at 17th verse a hundred years old. He said, praise God. I'm a father. I'm a father. Glory to God. I'm a father. You go check it out.

He may have even gone and got vaccinated. I don't know what all he did, but the Bible said he gave glory to God. And I'll tell you what, Sarah hadn't been to the doctor and there was no signs or evidence that she was expecting.

And he rendered it present as though it was so. Yes, that's faith. Faith renders present that which you hope for. You go all the way through the Bible, just like that. You can go on and on and on. And I could just give you one illustration right after another on it.

Being a Doer of the Word

But now watch this. James also says, and this is where it gets down to earth. Oh brother, this is what stings. Be ye doers of the word and not hearers. Now you know what faith is? It's being a doer of the word of God.

When God, you know what you're supposed to do in spite of what you see, smell, taste, feel and hear, the sense world, you're supposed to act on the word of God. Peter said, Lord, if that be you, bid me to come to thee.

He said, come on. He got out of the boat. What was he? He was a doer of the word. And when he was a doer of the word, he so put God on the spot that God had to perform a miracle to keep his word. Now you know what faith is?

It's being a doer of the word. That's simple isn't it? But brother, that gets close to home. F .B. Meyer, the great man of God that lived, died I suppose, what about 60, 70 years ago? But you've probably read after him, at least you preachers have.

Was awakened one early morning and he looked out his window and he saw a light on in another room in the same hotel. And he recognized that it was the room that was occupied by a young man by the name of C .T. Studd.

Now when C .T. Studd got saved and surrendered his all to Jesus, he gave away what would be equal to over a million dollars today. Just gave it away. You know why? Because he wanted to trust and learn to trust him.

His last $20 ,000 he gave to the girl that he was going to marry. And they were married in China as missionaries. And when they got married, she still had that $20 ,000 and she came in one day and she said, well, said, here's that $20 ,000.

He said, oh, I gave that to you. Said, I gave everything I had. And said, I gave you the last $20 ,000. She said, well, since we're married, we're one. So what God told you, I have to obey. So here's the $20, give it to somebody else.

And man, they had nothing left but Jesus. And he was a fantastic fellow. A marvelous man of God. And F .B. Meyer saw him up. And so up in the day, F .B. Meyer ran into C .T. Studd. Now listen to this.

And said, Brother Studd said, I noticed that you were up this morning around 435. And I noticed you were reading. Said, if I'm not being too inquisitive, what were you doing? He said, doctor, he said, I was up looking through the pages of the Bible to find a scripture that commanded me to do something that I wasn't doing.

Because the Bible says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. And he said, I was looking through the word to just find the scripture that I could obey to let Jesus know that I love him. Oh, brother, what about that?

Be a doer of the word and not a hearer only. You know what's wrong, folks? For if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is likened to a man beholding his natural face in a glass and he beholdeth himself and go his way and straightway forget it what manner of man he was.

That's exactly what's happening in our churches. We hold the word of God up and people sit there and contemplate it, rationalize it, then come humanize it. And then, folks, they go out and they forget about what kind of person they were.

Not a doer of the word. They appreciate it. They love it. They are sent to it. They say it's great, but brother, they do not obey it. I don't know about you, but this convicts me as much as anything I've ever got a hold on in my life.

But whosoever looketh into the perfect law of liberty or the word of God and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the word, of the word, a doer, this man shall be blessed in his deeds.

Isn't that beautiful? You know what this is? It's obeying the word. I'll tell you what we need to do tonight is quit loving the devil. Why, brother Manley, I don't love the devil. No, you don't. You don't love the devil?

I mean, now I know you wouldn't agree with me that you love the devil, but I don't think you'd even agree with yourself. Well, let's think if you love the devil. Now, how does the Bible teach us to love Jesus?

By saying, Jesus, I love you. By singing Jesus, I love you. Is that the way? No. He said, if you love me, you'll do whatsoever I command you to do. Right? So how do you love Jesus tonight? By doing what his word says do.

Well, then, if that's the way you love Jesus, if you do what the devil says do, then do you love? You say, well, now, brother Manley, oh, excuse me, folks, I forgot that you're human. You let God's word do God's word, folks, and you need to face the issue that when you do what the devil wants you to do, you love him.

On the same principle that that is the same way you love God. We need to quit loving the devil. I know in the human sense you don't love him, but in a living reality, in the sense of doing, the sense of obedience, who do you really love?

I wish I could get you out of this emotional stuff and intellectual stuff and get you in with God. I say, have you ever looked at this portion of scripture, Matthew, the seventh chapter? Now, this really got a hold of me.

Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, I'll give them to you, Matthew, seventh chapter, 24th verse, listen to it. Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I've used that all my life.

Haven't you? Haven't you used that as a little song? Built this house upon a rock and all built this house upon the sand by the man, haven't you? Well, listen to it. Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken them to him, I'll liken them to a wise man who built his house upon a rock.

He's a man who hears the sayings of God and what? Faith is only mentioned twice in the Old Testament. It's obeyed back there. Same thing. Faith in the Old Testament is obeyed. Same as the New Testament, faith and believing in the New Testament is obeyed.

Old Testament, faith is word obeys belief. As you just reverse it. But beloved, listen, he says, listen, and the rains descend and the floods came and the winds blew and the beat upon the house and it fell not and it was, for it was founded upon the rock.

Why isn't that beautiful? Sayings of God and obeys them. What is faith? It's obeying the word of God. I couldn't make it any simpler than that. Let's see the unwise man. Everyone that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be likened to a foolish man which built his house upon the sand and the rains descended and floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell and great was the fall of it.

Trials Reveal Whether Faith Is Genuine

You have men and women in churches that grow up. You don't say, by the way, did you know the length of time that the average professed Christian today that's baptized in a church will attend actively that is on fire, what people consider a on fire involved Christian.

You know how long they'll last? Five years. Did you know that? Five years is average. And you know what happens today? And we get all upset about these storms, don't we, in our life. But folks, let me tell you something.

If you're a doer of the word and when the storms come and you watch out, it's obvious that you'll. I'll tell you what, I'm not for divorces and I'm not for a lot of things that's going on, but these men and women have these storms that hit their homes and blow them up.

And I've been in the ministry long enough to find out that 15 to 20 years on down the road or 10 years, that's got those people to come back and repent and get saved and get straightened out. And it would have never happened to them if the storms had not exposed the fact that their faith was not real and almost had to thank God for it.

And that's hard to say, but it's still true. You know that? I got so tickled at the different people's opinions about why I got sick. Some said you stand against God. Some said this and some said that.

It doesn't make any difference what they think. I don't. It just doesn't make any difference. And the thing that's so fascinating about it is this. I've gone all over this world, all over this country preaching, boy, that your faith in Christ will stand the test.

And the greatest thing I know, folks, is that up to this point it stood the test. See, up to this point it stood the test. I don't know, that may not make you feel good, but it sure helps me to see that.

I never saw that before, that faith is being a doer of the Word of God. Now, isn't that a simple definition of faith? Is you hear the Word, and like C .T. Studd, you hear it, and it's not operating in your life.

And so immediately you say, well, Lord, that spoke to me tonight. Then right there on that spot, you act on the person of Jesus, the living Word of God, and say, now, Lord, I'm so trusting you, stepping out on the water like Peter, that you've got to convert the truth of this book into reality in my life.

And, folks, that is faith. In fact, I wrote a statement down here. Faith is action that converts doctrine or truth into reality. Amen. That's why folks don't believe us too much. It's because we say God's real, and they can't see the reality.

They just hear our words. We confess one thing, but there's no corresponding action. Now, let's get a little closer to home. This is a testimony. I went through North Carolina one time to a camp meeting with a friend.

And I was in this camp meeting, and oh, I think 1 ,000, 1 ,200 people there. And if you've never been to one of those Baptist camp meetings in South Carolina, you missed one of the nine wonders of the world, no doubt, about it.

It's unusual. It's quite different from anything you normally will see. And they're quite expressive. And what I mean is, they believe in shouting. And I mean, they don't only believe in it, they practice it.

And of course, I wouldn't say it was all of the Lord, but they still do it, brother. I mean, they shout. I've seen 1 ,000 people shouting at one time. And I mean, they were Baptists too. They didn't have to go get Pentecostals to shout for them.

They'd do their own shouting. And so they, boy, it was something. So I was in this meeting, and I was just a visitor, and I wasn't known there. And I was in this meeting, and they decided to take an offering.

Giving as an Act of Faith

And the preacher got up and said, Now folks, who will give $20 here tonight? And boy, as he started begging for the offering, I got sick. Now, I had $8 in my pocket, and I was 700 miles away from home.

And that day, I'd left my shaving equipment, and I knew I had to replace that before I could preach in the revival starting the next day. So I asked the Lord what part of that $8 he'd have me to give.

A $5 bill, $3, so I asked the Lord about the $3 and the $5, and he wouldn't say a word. So the man just kept begging for the money, got down to $10, and then he said, Who will give $5? Well, I went with the preacher that was to be there the next week.

And everyone knew him. He was born and reared in that area, and all of those people knew him, and they knew he didn't have any money, and he was just a poor preacher. And so he got up and said, I'll give $5.

Well, Lord, when he did that, then those women got to squalling and bawling because their little darling preacher had given $5, and they took up a $250 sympathy offering. God didn't have a thing to do with it.

And so when that got through, of all things, they asked me to come up and pray. Well, sometimes I'm pretty mean. And I said, when I got up there, I said, folk, I could no more pray over that offering than I could get to the moon tonight because God didn't take it.

He said, well, you're going to offend those people. I'd rather offend them and please God than not do it, I'll tell you. So I just told them I wouldn't pray. But the Holy Spirit showed me what to do. And I said, Lord, I said, when he showed me, I said, Lord, I can't do that.

He said, oh, yes, you can. And I said, now, folk, listen, do you believe this Bible? And as I said, they were quite expressive. And I said, do you believe the word of God and that God will, God watches over his word to perform it?

And boy, now, when you get something going like that, that bunch of kids, they just throw up their hands and say hallelujah, praise God, amen. Well, I'm not a psychologist, but I knew where I was headed and what I was going to do.

And I knew this, that the Lord told me to do it. And boy, I just let them just praise God over that statement, that God will keep his word and he watches over it to perform it. Boy, they shouted, I mean, they really went at it, just glorious.

Well, the next step was this. I said, well, if you believe God keeps his word, I said, I'd like to share a couple of testimonies with you. And one of the testimonies I gave, and I gave a couple, but one of them was about how, when George Mueller came down for breakfast one morning with a thousand kids and didn't have any food, he told the kids to sit down, turn their plates over and bow their head and thank God for food that wasn't there.

And I said, as they prayed and thank God for food that wasn't there, the doorbell rang and there was a man at the door and he had delivered some hot food somewhere and something went wrong and they couldn't take it.

So he just brought it by there and it was hot and they just brought it right off the wagon, right in there and said, don't take it. And I said, how would you like to see God do that again? Don't you believe he can do it?

Hallelujah, they went up again. And then I just let them really get involved. So then, uh, I said something like this. I said, now, folks, you know, God watches over his word to perform it. He'll keep it.

And, uh, I said, not only that, but, uh, you'd like to see God do that for you, something like that for you, wouldn't you? Boy, here they went again. And folks, that is right. They wanted God to do something for them.

And they were honest about it, don't you? Aren't you tired of people just standing up and telling you what Jesus has done for them? Oh, I love to see people get so sick in meetings that they just get so mad and sick.

They just said, preacher, I'm tired of you telling about what God's done for you. I'll tell you, he's got to do something for me. Oh, I love to see people get like that. And boy, they got excited. I said, all right, if you want God to do something for you, I said, the thing you have to do is get out there where he knew it.

And I said, he watches over his word to perform. Lord, yes. Amen. Praise God. I really let them express themselves and I'm cutting the short story short. I just really let them all. And, and I got them out there and I said, now turn with me, please, to the word of God.

And I returned to a little verse, and I'm not going to give you the chapter and verse at this point, but I will if you want it, if you don't know where it is. I said, the Bible says, I gave it to them and I had them to read it.

It says, give and it shall be given unto you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and lying over shall men give unto your bosom. For with the same measure that ye meet with them, it shall be measured to you again.

I said, how many of you believe that's the word of God? And before they thought, they shouted again. And I said, now what does God say? I said, God says, if you give, he'll take it. He'll press it down, shake it together, and then turn around and call men to give back to you.

I said, now, folks, that is the word of God. And I said, you want God to do something for you. Don't do what you can afford to do, but take that grocery check. Don't give it to this camp meeting. This camp meeting doesn't need it.

But I said, give it to the Lord and step out on that promise, be a doer of that word. Just take that one verse, write tonight. Don't worry about doing any of the rest of it. Just do that one verse. One verse at a time.

Come on, folks, you're getting quiet and I don't blame you. But folks, listen now. All I'm telling you is what it is. One verse at a time. Come on, folks, you're getting quiet and I don't blame you. But folks, listen now.

All I'm telling you is what it is. I said, now, faith is so acting on God's word that he's acting for all of us. And I said, you want to be able to have a living spirit where God converts truth into reality.