Faith for Today — Paris Reidhead

Now, you're going to understand that the resonance I have this morning is not due to a change in the speaking system. I wish it were. It would be a little easier to deal with. But I'm so glad that I'm able to be here, and that you're here, and we have this time together in His Word.

Shall we bow our hearts before Him? Father, speak to us this morning. We're so grateful that Thou art here, that in Thee we, that Thou hast promised that when we meet in the name of the Lord Jesus, that He would be there to reveal Himself to us.

We have eyes of our heart and spend meeting with one another about what we've met with, found us out, and found our need, and Thou hast ministered to us. During the past year, it seemed that we were emphasizing the subject of faith.

Faith as a Biblical Reality, Not a Modern Invention

And as I listened to them, I gathered almost that somehow or other, faith had been invented and was something terribly new, exciting. The fact of the matter is, it is not new, it is exciting. And those who have manifest this degree of excitement ought to be challenging us.

It's so important for us that everything that is in the Word of God, any group that isn't ours, won't stop short of it, and nothing other than the Word. It behooves us, then, for today. And this just may be the beginning of a series of studies in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, because some who are encouraging others to exercise faith have seemed to stop with the sixth verse of the eleventh chapter through six, or to neglect verses seven through forty, and everything else the Word has to say about the subject of faith.

Faith in Habakkuk, Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews

Now, first, let's understand this, that in all of the Old Testament, faith is not used as a noun. It doesn't occur in the form of a noun. Now, in Habakkuk, the second chapter, in the construction, the translators were correct in translating it, but actually, it would probably be closer to the Hebrew, if it were to be translated, the just shall live by steadfastness, continuously translated in faith.

The King James has given it to us in that form. We accept it in that form. And three other times in the New Testament, that same Habakkuk verse is quoted. For instance, in Romans, chapter one, verse seventeen, I think that chapter is in writing, but the just shall live by faith.

The emphasis is on the word just, justified. In Galatians, the third chapter, in the eleventh verse, just living is an ongoing and here in Hebrews 10 and 38, read it this way, the just shall live by faith.

The emphasis is on faith. So, he is speaking, the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews, as faith is the principle of spiritual life, and read from confidence, and I have necessity for the need of patience, that after that you have done the will of God in belief.

He wants us to understand that the experience of the saints in times past, the whole understanding of faith. Believers in all ages exercised faith. It is not an invention of this time. It is that which characterizes.

A Synoptic Overview of Hebrews 11

Now, just for a moment, a general overview of this eleventh chapter. I will give this to you again, but I want you to understand in this eleventh chapter, just from a synoptic view. Verses one and two give us a preliminary view of the characteristics and the work.

Verses three to seven tell us faith, the Old Testament, that is the faith of the patriarchs. Verses twenty-three exercise faith, and in conquest. Verses thirty-two to thirty-eight, the life. Verses thirty-nine and forty are that you are going to have to exercise faith, because the promises that the fathers had seen.

Faith and the Unseen Realities of Life

Not yet. It gives us marks. You can test it. The underwriters' laboratories have indicated that it is designed for. It doesn't require. You can see it. Faith, therefore, has to do with the unseen areas of life and things that you can't.

And it deals with everything in these two things, hope for, those of the future, the things, objects not seen. These are the areas where faith, and it has to do with the whole field of mental, to be said about that in the scripture.

As a man thinketh in his heart every thought into the captivity of coins of your minds, isn't it interesting that the only thing that is given you complete is your mind? You can't control what you see.

Lots of things you may not want to see. What you hear, lots of things that stop you. So just stop the rain when you're out in it without an umbrella. If you feel it, but, or the cold wind, if that's true, and it is, then you're going to understand that faith, as God has invested in you, is of extreme importance.

And it's also going to be related to your spiritual activity and your spiritual experience. You find that faith is the touchstone. Faith is the fulcrum. It's also the lever. It's the tool. It's the lock.

It's the hinge. It's so vitally important in your spiritual life. Relates outside of our lives, outside of us. Indeed, now what is its office? It's presented to us in twofold way in scripture. First, faith is described as a frame of mind that produces particular results.

It has a twofold function. It's to be the proof or the test, the certification of that which is unseen. The unseen is established, proven, tested, certified by faith. It's also faith gives thought into being what he saw.

Faith in Creation and the Word of God

And he did it by faith, by faith, framed by the word of God. So the things which were seen were not made out of things. Understand that by faith and by faith as well. Because elsewhere, the Lord Jesus had faith in God.

Of course, you know, they struggled once in a while. Things got a little hot and they didn't know quite what to do. Case in point, when the King James translators got a little bit, remember the time when the lady that was sick came to the Lord and said, if I can touch the hem of his garment, I'll be healed.

And he reached out and touched it and she was healed. And it says, the Lord Jesus said, I perceive, according to King James translators, that me to understand that he had virtue and we didn't. But that's not what it says.

In the text, it says, I perceive that power has gone out of me. Now, why would the King James translators make that virtue? Because in Acts 1 .8, it says, after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, you shall receive two enemies.

Should the translators say that the same thing is going to come upon us that went out of the Lord Jesus to heal the woman? So, to avoid that, they put in virtue. And then, but the fact is, and it should be translated power both gates.

They have a little bit of problem now and then, do the translators. And that verse where it says, have faith in God, literally is this, have the faith of God. Very strange, isn't it? You'll have the same kind of faith that God had.

And so, what God had was that when he spoke, what he said would have insight into what happened. Younger than I, I'm as young as I'll ever be, but I was younger than I am. And that was a long time ago.

And I remember when my general science teacher checked, I, and it said, one of selection, A, B, C, or D, or none of the above, you know, and it was the atom, a student of matter, and it's indivisible.

And the answer, of course, was, well, I said false, and I got it wrong. It was something that the world still doesn't understand. And I, least of all, E equals MC. And we discovered that matter wasn't made, isn't an atom that's unchangeable, but all atoms are made up of, when I start talking about science, I'm over my head.

I don't know what I'm talking about. I get it from the Reader's Digest, and they're charitable to the ignorant like me, tell us lots of things we should never try to quote. Point being, that though this looks like wood, and it is wood, and it functions as wood, it's actually made up of little particles of electricity that are as far apart from each other as the sun is from the earth.

And I don't know what I said. I just know that's what they say it is. So what the things that you see are made of things that you can't see, and they're held together. He holds them together. And he said one day, me, and he believed what he said.

And so by faith, the things which are seen were made from that which, that's, I think that's wonderful. I hope you understand more about it than I do. But the fact still is that it says, have the faith of God.

So you've got to understand when you're talking about this verse that seems so little, the evidence of things not seen, that the office of faith is to bring to reality the things which aren't visible.

So look at some of the characteristics of faith for a moment. We can put it this way if you want. Faith is a soul. Wish the eye of the human spirit. The conviction of things not seen. Visible. Looking in the eyes.

The eye doesn't see, you know. You know that. I see. I use it. But I don't see with it. I see with it. But it doesn't see. I see. And so faith is that eye of the human spirit. Faith is that by which we see what we can't see, which is unseen.

The day I had having my glasses clean. As if you don't try to use faith without having the word of God and your presentation and everything in the world it could possibly perplex. You see, faith comes by hearing, hearing the word.

And unless you have learned, your faith is by God. That was interesting. One place it says, from the desires of their heart. And he sent leanness to their souls. You know, it's absolutely possible that you can get the things you believe for.

Doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be happy. My brother was out hunting with his friends and they wounded the mountain lion that was up in the top of a tree. And so he says, I'll go up and get him and shake him loose.

And he climbed the tree and he got up there and he said, Tom, come on up here and help me hold it. And then there was a snarling and a hissing and a lot of rackets and ouching. And he said, no, Tom, come on up and help me let go.

And I've had a lot of people that have asked me to help them let go of things they thought they wanted. And they just couldn't wait to get help to let go of them. Because when they got them, it wasn't what they really wanted.

Testing Faith by the Word of God

So there's a danger. You see, you've got to have eyeglasses if you don't have 20 -20 vision. And none of us do, as far as spiritual things are concerned. So we need the Word of God. We need to be able to see everything through the Scripture.

And anything in the Scripture that anything that we would want that is contrary to the Scripture, we just better not. And anything in the Scripture that doesn't have God's quickening to your heart, you better leave it alone.

Walk around the bear trap four times before you step in it. Just because you've got the key of faith and you can unlock the... I don't think you can, but just if you couldn't, it would pay you to be awful careful.

Because it's through the Word that your heart receives that liberty and that freedom and that delight and that joy and that expectancy. And faith comes by hearing the Word. Now, faith is not only the eye of the soul, but faith is the hands of the soul.

It's the hands of the soul. It's the means by which we reach out to take all the things good and promised and future. And it's by faith, therefore, that we promise, we expect, we do so on unfailing promise, promised in His Word that He'll supply all things that are promised for the future, everything necessary for us to be all that He wants us to be.

Oh, there are so many things that our hands can reach out to take. Implications of what it is. It's important. Faith is not intellect. By the time you come to the Word of God, you need not try. Try and go up this side of the left hand, as you face it, the mental aspect.

And down this side, the emotion of the bottom, the volitional aspect. You don't have faith because with your mind, you can't have faith. Only an intellectual state is involuntary. It's passive. And there is no virtue in association with involuntary states of the mind.

Faith is a condition of salvation, something we are commanded to do on the pain of death if we don't believe. Now, it's a virtue. And therefore, faith cannot be an intellectual state of mind. Faith is a duty, a responsibility.

And that makes it far more than a state of mind. That doesn't mean there isn't an intellectual aspect to it. That's why I said the Bible is the magnifying glass of faith. There's an intellectual aspect.

It's not a state of mind. It's not an intellectual state. The implications include this, that faith is not eminence of the emotions and are passive states of mind and have no moral character. The fact that you feel happy means nothing.

Or that you feel sad means nothing. It would be caused by indigestion, atmospheric pressure. I have found sometimes in years gone by in preaching that the congregation would either be exhilarated or quiet depending on whether the barometer stood at 29 .2 or 30 .7, you know, depending on the barometer made a difference in the response.

Involuntary state. My feelings, therefore, are not to be graded with faith in God as a cardinal virtue. And it's the means and it's the mainspring of a holy life. So it's not, cannot consist in any involuntary state or exercise.

It's an exercise of it is that purpose, fixed, formed and executed. To believe God as an intellectual aspect, as an emotional aspect, but it becomes faith with the exercise of the will. And how many times people just don't have, I just don't trust, I'll make it up right now.

Faith as Volitional Trust: George Mueller's Example

But George Mueller in Canada and he set a meeting for him in Montreal and he came by ship back in the days when the ships were a combination of sails and side wheelers. And they got to the mouth of the St. Louis.

It was a fog and settled in. And the captain said, Brother Mueller, I'm sorry that I have to tell you this, but I'm sorry, brother, but we can't do that. You see, I'm scheduled to speak in Montreal and I prayed about speaking there.

I believe God wants me there. Well, I'm sorry, we just have to wait for the fog to lift. Well, don't you believe that God controls all things? Well, yes, yes, I do. Well, Captain, let us go to your cabin and have prayer and ask God to lift us.

George Mueller went down. And George Mueller said just a simple childlike prayer based on the word of God, based on his confidence in God, based on the experience he'd had with God. And he not only asked God to lift the fog, he thanked him for lifting the fog and getting him to Montreal on time.

Four Kinds of Faith

And when he finished, the captain hemmed and hawed and got himself primed up to get underway. Faith is not a feeling. And faith is not just an intellectual idea. But faith is an exercise of God teach me and you together.

As we go into the word, as we read, study Hebrews 11. I told you in the past, there are four kinds of faith. There's a head faith and intellectual faith. There's a dead faith and appropriation. There's a devil's faith and emotional response.

And then there's heart faith with the heart, with the will. His father, now has given to us this marvelous opportunity to teach us together what it is. We've sung at faith, mighty faith, the promise of impossibilities and pride.

It shall be really glad you're here. You feel the same when you see all my fear and how I ought to walk in shifting sand. I miss the rock and find I've nowhere left to stand and start to cry until I find.