Hebrews 11 - Part 1 — Leonard Ravenhill

Coming Boldly to the Throne of Grace

Flares, that you dwell in light unapproachable. We do not wonder that Wesley said, veiled in flesh the Godhead see. We thank you, you dimmed your glory and couched it all in the flesh of a little infant child.

God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man. But Lord, we thank you that because of that we have boldness, not arrogance, not familiarity, but we have boldness to come to the throne of grace, to find help.

And Lord, we need help. Our need is so great individually. We need a vision, we need a faith, we need of love, we need of courage, we need of compassion for a broken, lost, damned world around us. A world without God and without hope.

The Bankruptcy of Human Systems

Lord, we know every human system is bankrupt. We've tried them over and over and over again. We think of Hitler who is going to change the world, and Stalin is going to change the world, and Mussolini is going to change it, and yet all their empires are in ashes tonight.

But Lord, we bless you for the risen Christ at the right hand of the Father, living to make intercession for us tonight. And we come Lord conscious of all our infirmities, our inferiority, our weakness, but we thank you that you do not make this or that demand on us, except that we come believing in the finished work of Jesus.

We thank you tonight, Father, for all the progress that has been made today in your kingdom. And Lord, as we think of this crowd of heroes in Hebrews 11, think of the different kinds, and think that even today in this world, I believe this very day, people have been martyred for Jesus Christ in Russia, in China, in other countries.

Nobody will ever mark their graves, but Lord, the sparrows don't fall to the ground, but what you'll see then, you'll see that weary woman somewhere up the Amazon tonight, tired, afflicted, tortured maybe with bugs and all kinds of things, bad food, bad environment, everything's bad except the peace that's in her heart.

And for that blessed mystery fellow that again has gone to some people who have never yet heard the message of redeeming love, we thank you again that old hymn says, Dear Dying Lamb, thy precious blood shall never lose its power till all the ransomed church of God be saved to sin no more.

Then in the noblest, sweetest song we'll sing thy power to save when these poor lisping ransomed tongues shout victory o 'er the grave. Lord, we ask you for every ambassador of the cross tonight. We thank you, Lord, as you look from heaven, you can see that whether in Russia or Mesopotamia or Bulgaria or Estonia or some other countries, we bless you.

I thank you for the word that we hear about Romania where young people have been stirred. Thank you for the news from Africa there, from Kenya this week of the Nysa tribe being visited by the Spirit, where people are walking 20, 30, 40 miles a night to hear the wonderful story of redeeming love, that you've opened the heavens upon them.

They don't get bored, they don't go to sleep while the message is there. The atmosphere is electric with the risen Christ of God. Lord, we pray come to the valley of the shadow of death in which we live.

The Church’s Need for Revival and Glory

Come to us with all our religiosity in America, all our programs, all our schemes, all our devices. But Lord, our clouds have no rain. Our sky has no power. Our word is so empty, ritualistic, so formalistic, so neat.

Lord, we pray soon you'll burst the wineskins. Lord, rip them apart. Let us see the glory our fathers saw. Lord, as we read afresh this story, the Zouza Street of your workings and how the roots of that revival went back to the Welsh revival.

Lord, we want to see this again in this needy hour. Lord, we're convinced there are more lost people in the world at this moment than ever in history. Dear God, we pray for our young people. They've never seen the glory of God.

They sit through a service and answer some little questions sometimes, but they've never gone out of the sanctuary staggering under the revelation of God. Staggering under the majesty of God, awed by the splendor of God.

Lord, we pray return prophetic ministry to those who profess your name. Lord, we put signs outside of our churches and they've got nothing to do with what's inside. Where is the power? Where is the Pentecostal glory?

Where is the revelation? Where is the prophetic word? Where are speckers broken just so we could hear them snap? Where are the drunkards coming? Where are women dragging their husbands to the sanctuary to get them not just sobered but saved?

Where are people losing their meanness and their bitterness and their selfishness and their pride and their covetousness and their childishness? Lord, we can't truthfully sing like a mighty army moves the church of God.

It's not true. But our hearts ache to see it. We want to see a people, Lord, who want to die literally to everything. Every creature comfort, every honor the world has, every style, every system, so totally hungry, hungry for God, so captivated with God.

Lord, you've told us in your word in the last days, your son and your daughters shall prophesy. Young men see vision, old men dream dreams. And on my servants and handmaids, you didn't say on the bosses and on the millionaires and on the bishops and archbishops, on my servants.

We think about you took servants, Lord Jesus, in the days of your flesh, men that smelled of fish, a man making out income taxes and you took them and you taught them and you allowed the Holy Spirit of God to come on them and they went out and turned the world upside down.

Not as I read today, there are supposed to be 36 million people around the world filled with the Holy Ghost and yet only 120 turned the nation upside down. And before very long, people said, these men who have turned the world upside down have come here also.

God, God, heal us of our impotence. Heal us of our blindness. Heal us of our coldness. Lord, put a craving hunger for your presence more than anything we've ever craved for in our lives. Maybe some of these men once craved for honors as sportsmen and that's gone.

Crave for success in business and know it doesn't satisfy. Lord, we ask you to get us from the very soles of our feet to the crowns of our head vibrating with God, with the love of God and the power of God and the grace of God.

Preparing to Hear the Word of God

We thank you again for your holy word, this lamp for our feet and this light for our path. Bless it to us tonight. Make quickness, for the psalmist said, quicken me according to thy word. Do this now, Lord, as we open this book, open our hearts, open our understanding and let this faith we've spoken of kindle within us tonight.

Lord, I think of Wesley's cry 200 years ago and you did it when he cried, give me the faith which can remove and sink the mountain to a plain. Give me that childlike praying love which longs to build thy house again.

Thy love, let it my heart or power and all my simple soul devour. Enlarge in flame and fill my heart with boundless charity divine. So shall I all my strength exert and love them with a zeal like thine and turn them to a pardoning God and quench their brains in Jesus' blood.

Not again, I pray, intensify this desire in my heart. My dear Martha, all you other precious folk here, don't let this section of Texas point a finger of scorn in the last day and say you were so busy running meetings and other things, you never saw the glory of God, you never precipitated that glory on us.

Forbid it, God. Take supreme control. We want to hear not only hear, hearken and obey and do the will of God. Because your word says he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. Give you thanks in Jesus' name.

Hebrews and the Supremacy of Christ

Okay, we're going to look in the epistle of Paul. Well, I think he wrote the epistle, some people don't. Anyhow, the epistle of Paul to the Hebrews. You know, it doesn't matter what page you wrote in the Bible, there's contention about it.

One guy says this, the other says the very opposite. This is called the epistle to the Hebrews, but that's the title somebody put on it. One man shatters that whole thing because he says there's neither Jew nor Greek, bomb nor free, the church is divided into Gentiles and Jews and other people, we're all one in Christ.

There's only one cross, there's only one fountain filled with blood, there's only one purpose for all of us. We come to that a bit later. Hebrews 11. The general idea about this epistle is, of course, it's a commentary on the first five books in the Bible plus the book of Psalms, which again is five books.

There are five books of Psalms in the Hebrew. And, but I don't think it's just an interpretation of the tabernacle and the sacrifices and everything. The supreme work of the Holy Spirit in His chapter is to make Jesus Christ central.

He chose Christ at the beginning and the ending, the Alpha, the Omega, the First and the Last, the Centre, the Circumference, the Light, the Life, He's everything. We've been mentioning that book to you that's, you can get one from Brother, I don't think he's any in his pocket, it's a big book with 700 pages.

It was written in 1591. I wonder how many books that are written today will last 400 years. Most of mine don't last 400 days, I put them in the garbage, except my own, but anyhow. 400 years, 1591, Isaac Ambrose wrote on three words, 700 pages, looking unto Jesus, Hebrews 12.

That's what it's all about. And again, I remind you, you know, 95, 95 of evangelical preaching this coming Sunday from Pentecostals to, to who? Presbyterians, or Mennonites to Methodists. 95 of the preaching will be about a man who lived 2 ,000 years ago.

After the 95, about 3 will be about the Christ who's coming soon. Do you know what we do? We're missing where He is now. He's at the right hand of the Father, waiting to be stood upon us, more than you could ever dream of.

But we're preaching a prophetic Christ, we're preaching a historic Christ, we're not preaching the Christ where He is now, living to make intercession for us. It doesn't matter how imperfect your praying is, or mine tonight, He'll perfect it.

If it depends on our vocabulary, we're sunk. I remember I was preaching once in a church I passed in England, and suddenly it dawned on me, is the destiny, the eternal destiny of these people dependent on how I put words together, illustrations, bits of scripture, does it depend on me?

Of course not. There is a human responsibility, God has ordained preaching. But we're not going to manipulate people. If I can manipulate you one way, this guy will manipulate that way. It's the guidance of the Spirit of the Living God.

Faith as the Substance of Things Hoped For

I'll say, let's look at here Hebrews 11 and verse 1. You know, right, right through the whole of the New Testament, I haven't counted them, there are over 300 references to faith in the New Testament.

Only twice in the Old Testament is faith mentioned. Look, look that up. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Some say that's a definition, some say it isn't.

Faith is substance. What is substance? It's sub. What's sub mean? Under. A submarine goes under the marine, under the water. A subway goes under the road. Sub, stance. What's stance mean? Stand. So substance means under, stand.

You say then it means to understand. No, it means to stand under. It means that whatever we believe God for, faith can take hold of these precious promises and put them underneath if we can't. We've no claim.

We claim on the merits of Jesus Christ. We claim because of His Holy Word. Over and over again you'll find this wonderful chapter, faith by faith, by faith, by faith. We're going to take a character hopefully every Friday night now.

But you know it's not only what faith does that's visible, some of the most amazing things are not even mentioned in this chapter. I remember, you'll think I'm getting old, okay, 60 years ago I remember reading a book by Dr. J. H. Jowett in England and he called, he calls Hebrews 11 the Westminster Abbey of the Scriptures.

Remember they're all Old Testament characters in Hebrews 11, no New Testament. Hebrews 11, why did he say that? It's like Westminster Abbey, because Westminster Abbey we bury all the famous people. There's a disc on the wall with two profiles, one lit behind the other.

Somebody called them the two most famous brothers that ever lived, John Wesley and Charles Wesley. You go to another place, there's a place that marks the place of, well right up by the high altar there, of all the people in the world who's buried there.

Who's buried there? David Livingstone. When they brought his body from Africa they cut his heart out by his request. Take my body into England if you like, my heart is here and it's going to stay here.

But there's a perpetual memorial there and all through the Abbey, Westminster Abbey, there are marvelous records of heroes, outstanding people. Some are statesmen, some are lawyers, some are poets, some are preachers.

I remember about 20 odd years ago I mentioned Hebrews 11 and Westminster Abbey linked it as I've done just now. A lady came to me afterwards, she said, Mr. Remy, we've got the most famous visitors in America arrived yesterday from England.

I said, well who in the world were they? She said, the Beatles. I said, the what? She said, the Beatles. She said, don't you think they should be buried in Westminster Abbey? I said, yes, today. Why bury those guys in Westminster Abbey?

Hmm. You know this, this, this chapter could boil us over except when you realize all these people like us, flesh and blood, they'd nerves, they'd fears, they'd doubts, they'd emotions and yet somehow God Almighty got control of them.

These guys are somewhere up there. You know God's never behind anybody. We talk about football stars and movie stars and all the rest. Dear Lord, the Apostle wrote about that 2 ,000 years ago. Not about movie stars, he said one star differs from another star in glory.

Do you think that John Wesley is going to be the same as a dying thief? The dying thief got that on the last beat of his heart. John Wesley was saved at 35. Turn that round, it's 53. Add them together, it makes 88.

That's when he died. We were reading it yesterday, my dear Martha Knight. He left what? Six, six silver spoons. Of course he's a good preacher, he had a good collection of books. A faded Geneva gown, six silver spoons, six one pound notes, all worth five dollars each.

Don't give me a great funeral, find six poor men, let them be pallbearers and give them a pound each for carrying me to my grave. So he has six silver spoons, six pound notes, a small collection of books, a Geneva gown he preached in and something else.

What was that? Oh I remember, I knew it was something else, the Methodist church. Would you believe that's all he left? Do you know he rode over a quarter of a million miles over the roads in England when they were infested with highway men?

He rode in the night, he sat on his horse and if it was moonlight like it is tonight, he'd be reading a Greek primer or a Greek New Testament, jogging along on the horse. You know one night some guys jumped out of the hedge with white coats on and screamed at the top of it and the horse reared up so John got all of it, stood in the stirrups and looked over him and said, who are you?

And one guy had practiced this, he said in a deep voice, we're the devil brothers. Oh well he said, stand on one side and let me ride on, I married his sister. Wasn't that rough going? How in the world did he do all his writing and everything he did?

Because one day he became totally committed to Jesus Christ. The message of justification by faith had been lost in the dark ages. How did it come to light? Martin Luther. God reached down into the middle of the Roman church and found the man who defied the devilish system and they still hate him.

After that John Wesley came and he revived the teaching of sanctification by faith. He didn't invent it, he taught it. In other words we're to be holy. As it says in the 12th chapter of this epistle, as he which is called to is holy, it says in 1st Peter, but it says in this chapter here that God has called us to holiness.

We're frightened of that word. In one of his hymns Charles Wesley says, to perfect health restore my soul, to perfect holiness and love. And that's what holiness is, it's not some fantastic thing, it's perfect spiritual health, spiritual clarity of vision, spiritual strength, spiritual understanding.

Yet this chapter would shock me. These guys are so far up there, one star different, there's Abraham, there's Isaac, there's somebody else. You know sometimes you have to turn a thing around to find out the value of it.

When I was in England I used to think sometimes, well I remember, I did think sometimes, but I remember mother calling me one day. She said, this is the third time I've called you, get curled up in that chair.

I hadn't been in that chair for two hours. I was up in Minnesota with, what do you call him, Minnie, along the shores of Minnie Tonka with Hiawatha and his girlfriend Minnie. Haha. I wasn't in that chair man, I was miles away.

I used to get lost like that. But again, when I think of all these different people, the investments, you know, nobody ever had a bigger Bible than you have, forget it. The staggering thing about Hebrews 11, it knocks me out every day I read it, and I mean that, God's my witness.

I read through Hebrews 11, these staggering men and women, through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained the promises, stopped the miles of land, women received their dead, raised to life again.

All the devilish things, and not one of them ever had a Bible. Well in God's name, what are you and I going to do when we stand before Him? If the world lasts another thousand years, it won't last another thousand weeks I think.

But when I get there, I have to face up to having the whole revelation of God. Phinney didn't have a bigger Bible than I have, Wesley didn't have a bigger Bible than I have, Spurgeon didn't have one. But somehow they got nearer to the heart of God, they got a revelation from God, they got convictions by the Spirit, and they laid their lives on the line.

The Flawed Heroes of Faith

Yes, I can read these heroes of faith. But when I come to this charter, what's it saying? Time would fail me to tell of Gideon, of Barak, and so forth. And it says they subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, and obtained promises.

They had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings. And some did what? When the gate was open, they said no. They refused to be delivered, that they might obtain a greater resurrection. What do you make of that bunch?

There's no name. Ten thousand tribulations they went through. I persuade myself that every day I live now, somebody dies for Jesus Christ in Russia or China or somewhere. We go about our business, of course we have our hardships, sometimes you get a, you know, you go to McDonald's and you don't get a very good hamburger and that's a grief of course.

And sometimes you get a flat tire, that's terrible beyond bearing almost. And yet others are in prison, tormented, suffering beyond anything we can understand, even in this hour. Well going back, let me say this.

When I was in England, I determined if ever I came to America, I was going up the most wonderful place to see something. That was up the, what do you call it, in London, I mean in New York, the Empire State Building.

Good night, I went up and down those streets for over three years, never got up there. People go and they say nobody knows how many millions of photographs have been taken. You know when you get up there, anyhow if you stand here, it sways like that, you know, it has to sway, otherwise it would snap off.

People are there with cameras, they take a north view, a south view, east view, west view. Well there's, there's what, Stratton Island, there's the Statue of Liberty, get all the pictures. Everybody's there with cameras.

One day a guy got an idea there might be something better than that, do you know what he did? He got a camera and laid on his back at the door and he took a picture from the ground upward. I saw a picture of that, it's very fascinating.

It looks as though the top of it stops in heaven, you know, when you see the size of the thing. What is it, a hundred stories high, 110 or something? From the top to the, looking down, is one thing. Laying back and looking up is something entirely different.

Well if you look at this chapter one way, you'll be staggered and maybe you'll be knocked back a bit, you'll say well that's out of my reach. Well I remind you again, there were mortals like us. But supposing instead of getting heroes of faith, supposing you turn it round, oh well you'll throw us what Mr. Jowett said.

Well let me tell you what Leonard Radner says in case you ever hear him. He's a bit crazy but he'll tell you. Didn't I say this? I say Hebrews 11 is a rogues gallery, a dirty bunch. I wouldn't have put them in if I'd written it.

You think I'd have put Moses in? He murdered somebody. You think I would have put Rahab? She was a harlot. You think I'd put Noah in? He got drunk. Look at the bunch. Oh it's like having a bunch of deacons.

All the problems you have with them. And yet God got each one of them in his own place, in his own way. And they all had one common denominator. Let me tell you I value this thing called F-A-I-T-H.

As children in England we used to say F-A-I-T-H. Forsaking all I take him. Very good. Good definition. Forsaking all I take him. How precious it is. Jesus is going down the round the corner and he bumps into Peter and Peter backs off.

Faith That Endures Testing

He says well Lord how are you today? Fine. He said I've got a word for you. So people come up to you. I've got people come up to me. I tremble sometimes to get such weird words about me. I don't want to hear them.

If they're nice I do but not the other things they say. So he says what? Satan I've desired thee. What else? That I may what? Sift thee. Go on say the rest. As wheat that I have that your health won't fail.

No I prayed for you to prosper. Huh? I prayed for you to be successful. Jesus fastened on to one thing. Peter from here to eternity. You're going to go through hell sometimes. I prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.

Never mind your money. Never mind your circumstances. My faith looks up to thee. What do you find the apostles saying? Look in the epistle. First epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians. Let's see what he says there.

First epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians. Okay chapter one. Now let me switch that over and go to the second epistle for a moment. Because I'll be working back a drape I don't. Second Thessalonians chapter three and verse two.

That we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men. Now notice all men have not faith. I've heard the greatest preachers in America in the last 10 years say come on now you've got faith. Use it.

The scripture says all men have not faith. Well who's right? Your preacher or what the Lord says? No you. There's a natural faith of course in natural things. You get in a plane and you don't check the seat you just sit on it.

How do you know he won't let you down? A pilot. Oh they don't do it now. They used to come in in the old days and walk through and say good morning sir, good morning madam. They don't do that. They go in the front now so you won't see them.

Then if there's any trouble you can't identify them. But they used to walk through and I see this man say excuse me a minute are you the pilot? Oh yes look at my oh I don't care about those wings you can buy those.

I want to see your pilot's license. Oh it's in my release. Well I'm not flying till you show me the pilot's license. Shows me the license. I say has this plane been checked? Yes. Well I want to see the certificate.

Have you got gas in it? Yes. How do you know? I saw a man on the wing there putting gas in it. He used to do that. I remember he used to walk through the window and they'd gas the thing up. I'm sure he didn't put enough.

We're going to New York. How long are we flying? Five hours. He didn't put enough to get us halfway there. What do you do? Stop and walk out? Oh it's okay. And then of all things we're going north and the plane goes south for about 10 minutes.

Then you pull the bell and say hey this guy's going wrong. Turn left and let's go up that way. You trust him? You don't know there's a pilot? He looks like your garbage collector. But you trust him even if he is a pilot.

You don't know him. You don't look at his license. You don't look at the license of the plane. You trust, you trust, you trust. Natural man in natural things. We're not talking about that. We're talking about something entirely different.

Look in Paul's letter to the Romans a minute. Take the chapter we all like so much. Romans 12. I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God you present your bodies a living sacrifice. Holy, acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service.

Let's go down to verse three. For I say through the grace of God given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than you are, but to think soberly according as God hath dealt to every man a what?

A measure of faith. I don't believe every man has the same measure of faith. That faith is a gift of God. There's natural faith in natural things. But natural faith doesn't operate in supernatural things.

Faith is a gift of God according to the measure of faith. Look at verse six. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given unto us by the prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith.

So you see, this is very clearly set forth. You know, some people set off, God has told me to do this, and six months after the whole shebang has closed down. I can give you a whole list of ministries across the nation that start, God has told us to do this, God has told us to do that.

You go up to a certain city, there's a, well, Aldo Roberts built a tower. So this other guy has to have one. It's half built, it's been there the last 20 years, and they call it his folly. But they had a revelation from God to build a prayer tower.

Well, it's good to build a prayer tower, but not if you get people's money by the millions of dollars and then leave it abandoned. There are so many of these things like that. We talk about seed faith, I don't find it in the Word of God.

It's ligament to a grain of mustard, the smallest, and it can become the greatest. Well, let's go back now to Thessalonians. First Thessalonians chapter 3. But now when Timotheus came from you unto us, and brought us good tidings of what?

Your faith and charity. Now they got both, they had faith and they had love. Now go down to verse 10 in the same chapter. Now this is the amount, this man has such extreme language, hasn't he? Wasn't it in the ninth of Romans where he uses one of the most awesome things I'd ever read in the Word of God.

He says to his brethren, linking it to that verse where he sang a few minutes ago, my zeal inspire. What did he say in Romans there? He said, I could wish myself accursed. Literally it means I'll be damned if need be.

I'll be destroyed. If destroying what I have will bring others into the kingdom, destroy me. This one has no half measures. Spinoza talked about a God intoxicated man. You know what? The church never does anything when it's sober, only when it's drunk.

A drunk man doesn't care a hill of beans what you think about him. I told you, the first day of war, 1939, I was at the head church of the Nazarene in Scotland. We came out to the meeting, the whole city was in darkness, streetcars had no light, automobiles had no light.

The brother I was with said, Brother Ramiel, I'm going in a building here, but you have to carry a gas mask. It was given in a box with a tape, you put it around your neck, carry it on your shoulder. Compulsory to carry a gas mask, instead there was a raid.

He went in that room and I stood by a lamp post and he said, Stand by that lamp post so when I come out I'll be able to find you in the back. So I stood there, a streetcar came up, a Scotsman got off, his rubber legs wouldn't hold him up and he pitched forward and put his arms around the lamp post and me as well.

I was thinner than I am now, not too heavy now. And he said, I said, Hey, hey, hey, what's your name? I told him, Ah, you're English, I have no time for you, he said. And he said, I'm Sandy MacTavish, can you sing?

I said, No, I can't. And he sang Maxwell Town Braeser, Bonnie, started singing. Rolled his feet, can you fight? I said, Oh, no, no, I can't fight for sure. You can't sing, you can't fight? Put his hand in his pocket and brought a handful of silver.

Now when a Scotsman hands you a handful of silver, you know he's drunk. He'd never do that if he was sober. Ah, he said, I want to talk with you. I said, I can't stand talk. You can't talk, you can't fight, you can't sing?

Ah, you're no good, he said. If I'd met that man at nine o 'clock in the morning instead of nine o 'clock at night, he wouldn't have even given me the morning, he wouldn't have said top of the morning to me.

But he's intoxicated. And it's only when men and women are really intoxicated with the love of God and the will of God that they're reckless to do anything. I don't believe faith is believing something you can't prove.

Faith is having the grace to do the thing God has told you and it looks as black as hell. It's a reckless abandonment to the known will of God. And right through the scriptures you'll find how that goes.

Faith Grows Through Prayer and Testing

Well let's go back again then as we said to Thessalonians. I'm praying night and day, that is 1st Thessalonians chapter 3, praying night and day. He isn't satisfied to say, you know, every morning after breakfast I kneel down and say a little prayer, oh bless those dear people at Thessalonica.

He says, I pray by night and pray by day. And I pray earnestly, I pray with a sweat, I pray with an anxiety for you. For what? It's already said previously in verse 4 that, verse 6, they have faith and charity.

What does it say here in verse 10? Night and day praying exceedingly that you may see your face and supply, might make, sorry, might make perfect that which is lacking in your faith. Now go to the 2nd epistle for a moment, 2nd epistle of Thessalonians, this chapter 1.

What is he praying for in that verse we just left? Praying night and day that I may see your face and supply that which is lacking in your faith. Now look what it says in verse 3 of the 2nd epistle chapter 1.

We are bound to thank God always for you brethren as it is meat, because your faith groweth exceedingly. Notice, not your faith groweth, your faith is growing by leaps and bounds. Faith that is going to be trusted is going to be tested.

I used to say often to young people, you know, I say look at my muscles, my muscles are hard to find. I never chopped trees down, I'm never athletic, I haven't used my muscles, so they're not developed.

I was in Miami airport one day, rushing downstairs, I think the children arrived and I was rushing, and here's the what is called escalator thing coming up, and just as I went I saw this big black head coming, and I stood back, hi, it was Muhammad Ali.

I wasn't going to get in his way for sure. Boy what muscles he had, boy did he strut his stuff, boy everybody in the airport, I went past, they all went, you know, very opposite, that worm of a guy. Faith that's going to be trusted is going to be tested.

Can you think of the excitement of a man who spent so much time in prison? Discouragement, God help you. He had a band of spiritual men, what did they do? They abandoned him. Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world.