Two Kinds of Belief (01/23/2000)

I appreciate the kind of music that helps a preacher preach and helps people listen. And the whole idea is to go into the heavenlies for a few moments this morning, lay aside everything in this world.

And we believe the Holy Spirit will take us there in our hearts and minds this morning.

Let's pray. Father, we ask you to bless the preaching time now and to move in our hearts.

And you brought us here for a purpose and now accomplish that purpose in our lives. Amen. Last time we talked about Deuteronomy 32, 15.

And we're going to talk about a different aspect of it this time. So look at this verse with me.

It starts out, it says, but Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked. Thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness.

Then he forsook God, which made him and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation.

And this passage we studied down through verse 20. So let's just read the last verse in the passage.

We're not really preaching on this passage this morning. But this verse 15 and verse 20, we're going to discuss a part of it.

Look at the verse 20 and focus especially on the end of it, how it ends. And he said,

I will hide my face from them. I will see what their end shall be for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith.

That's a frightening phrase, isn't it? Children in whom there is no faith. There's a verse in the

New Testament where it talks about people hearing the gospel preached. And the verse says it doesn't do them any good because it wasn't mixed with faith.

And so I want to talk about this. Last time we talked about really the first aspect of this. And it had to do with what

God did, how God worked in the lives of his own children when they were affected by the mixed multitude.

Some of you, I think, will remember the sermon last Sunday, if we give you a little reminder. Remember, we talked about the mixed multitude.

How even in the church, Jesus says we have wheat and tares. The wheat being the true children of God, the tares being the children of Satan or the servants of Satan.

And then it talks about good fish and bad fish caught up in a net. And it pictures the net as being the kingdom of God.

And the church includes the good fish and the bad fish. Good fish being the true saved people, the bad fish being false professors, people who say they're

Christians, but they're really not. And in the Old Testament, the children of Israel is called the nation of God's children,

God's people. And yet we know that not everyone, just because they were a Jew, were saved.

We know that we had what we called a mixed multitude in the scriptures, is what the Bible calls it. So you had some of Satan's people mixed in with God's people.

Now, what the whole message was about last Sunday, in case you missed it, was the fact that sometimes

God's people don't realize that. I think sometimes we have a heart where we want to see the good in everyone.

And that's commendable, I suppose. And we want to believe it when a person in our congregation or in our life experience tells us, well,

I'm a Christian. I live here in the Bible Belt and I'm a Christian. We want to believe that. But we have to understand that not everyone who claims to be one is one.

And we also have to understand that they are mixed among us because God says that's the way it will be until the angels come and make that division.

And I remember Dr. Joe Boyd preaching a sermon under the tent, a big tent revival this church had back in the 80s.

He said, he will bind them in bundles and burn them. And he must have carried that freight, that theme through that sermon 100 times.

But that's exactly what will happen. And that's when it will happen. It does not happen before that time.

And so we know that this is a fact. Now, the message last Sunday discussed the effect that the mixed multitude has on God's children.

And then sometimes when God comes on the scene, how does that take place?

And we saw about eight different things that God did to his own children because of the way they had allowed

Satan's children to affect them. And God got in the middle of it all and worked in the lives of his children.

And they learned some very hard lessons. Well, that's what we talked about. So we kind of ended up talking about these kind of children, two kinds of children.

Do you remember that? We discussed several verses about two kinds of children. Some that the

Bible calls cursed children for whom the dark, the mist of darkness is reserved forever.

And then we have God's children. And we kind of summed it up with Hebrews 10 39.

Do you remember that verse? It says, we are not of them who fall back unto perdition, but of them who believe unto the saving of the soul.

So that brought us to today's message, which is there are two kinds of belief. So last

Sunday, we basically talked about two kinds of children and they're mixed together. But today we want to talk about two kinds of belief.

We are not of them who fall back unto perdition. The word perdition means utter destruction and annihilation.

And it is a reference to hell. There are people who from our point of view, from our point of view on this earth, seem to get saved.

And they go for a while. They may even be zealous for the Lord seemingly and the things of God seemingly.

And then all of a sudden something happens and they fall away. How many of you have ever seen an example of that in your life?

You've seen that happen. It does happen, doesn't it? The Church of Christ folks would say, see there, that proves you can lose your salvation, wouldn't they?

The Baptists would say they never had it. Well, the author of Hebrews says, well,

I don't not try to answer that in this particular verse, but I'll tell you one thing. We are not of them that fall away.

We being the true Christians, we are not of them that fall away into perdition, but we are the group who believes with a certain kind of belief.

The kind of belief that is unto the saving of the soul. That implies that there is another kind of belief.

There's a kind of belief that just worked up from inside. A human, fleshly, pep rally kind of belief.

I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe. So it'll happen. And that's today's predominant view of prayer.

Jesus said, whatsoever I ask, if I ask believing, it'll happen. I believe it's going to happen. I really, really do.

Yes, I believe. Okay. All right. I believe it's going to happen now.

Because he promised if I believed it, it'll happen. He never promised that that kind of belief would make anything happen because that is an earthly, fleshly, carnal belief.

And then the second kind of belief is a true heavenly belief. And that's the kind I want to talk to you about for a few moments this morning.

So let's kind of launch out into this with the last part of Deuteronomy 32 20, where it says they are children in whom there is no faith.

Now, obviously, these children had belief because they were following Moses.

And they were called the people of God. They were part of the nation of God.

So they did believe in something. And I believe they probably even believed in God. Wouldn't you say they believed in God?

Wouldn't you say the demons believe in God? But did they have this heavenly faith that saves people?

That is the question. Well, it's kind of interesting. When you look at this word faith in Deuteronomy 32 20, where it says they have no faith.

This particular Hebrew word literally means to be established.

They don't have. Well, to put it in English, you'd have to say it this way.

They are children who are not established. Isn't that amazing?

Now, you know, the word established is passive. It's something that someone has to do to you.

Someone that's stronger than you has to establish you. And it says these children are not established.

And that Hebrew word comes from another Hebrew root meaning, which means to build up or to support, which is also passive because someone has to do that to you.

You can't just have these things in and of yourself. It carries the meaning in the

Hebrew language to foster as a parent or a nurse would foster someone. Who do you think it is that is the one that fosters this kind of faith?

Who is the one who treats us as a nursing mother would treat us even better than that?

God said, can the nursing mother forget the child who is nursing?

He says, yeah, she might, but I cannot. This is the one who brings this kind of faith.

And in the language, it's passive, whereas the other kind of belief is active. And we'll see that a few times in here, that human kind of belief that you can work up in your mind.

Yeah, you can do that. But it doesn't bring salvation. This kind of faith is a faith that comes to you from heaven, from God, the father as a gift.

And it is a faith that establishes you where he himself establishes you and where he brings this support as a parent or a nurse would bring for a child.

And the very word itself means that. So there's a little word study that will kind of launch us off into this. Now, let me have you turn to Romans chapter four and verse 19.

I want to talk about three aspects of this kind of faith. Romans chapter four, verse 19 will give us the first aspect of true saving faith.

Now, everything I'm going to preach this morning will be diametrically opposed to what the world preaches.

And I say the world, I mean, the world of religion today, what you normally there's some good stuff on the radio.

But the predominant message that you get from the radio and TV preaching and even most preaching in most pulpits since the year 1925 in this country has predominantly been different than what

I'm going to tell you this morning. Most of the preaching since the 1950s, certainly, even from Baptist has been that you need to believe, you need to believe.

And it talks about human belief and how important it is. And I'm going to tell you, human belief is important if you have it in its place.

But you have to understand that no kind of pep rally, human thinking and emotional working up of belief will save anyone.

Why do you think it is that the predominant theme in churches and Baptist churches, even since the 1950s, has been to bring in evangelists who are flashy and who have wonderful personalities and beautiful sales skills?

Salesmanship skills. I was taught to witness by a pastor. And now that I've gone back and learned and studied selling and business, the concept of selling, you study business texts about how to sell in those disciplines.

That's how he told me to witness. Isn't that interesting? Why would someone teach me to witness by using sales techniques?

What are sales techniques? Nothing more than human psychology. How to convince the other person to believe your way.

Do you think that ever saved anybody? No. All that does is it makes the soul winner feel like he accomplished something.

And I've been there and been through that, and it does feel pretty good. The beautiful thing about it is that every once in a while,

God worked in spite of it, and some people got saved. There's one of them sitting right there. Not that I had anything to do with that, but my wife did.

The Lord worked in her. And I don't even know if she was doing it right, Debra. She's probably trying to sell you, wasn't she? She sold you.

Look at this passage, Romans 4, 19. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead when he was about a hundred years old, neither yet.

Now, listen, it doesn't mean he didn't consider his body to be dead. It means the opposite.

He considered his body dead. It means he didn't think about it. He didn't even consider it.

It wasn't when God told him, you're going to have a son. All of a sudden, he just stopped considering the fact that his eyes would tell him, no,

I'm not. This man was living by faith, not by sight. So he didn't consider what sight would tell him.

Now, there's a good lesson, isn't it? We could, that could be the message. We could go have chicken, I guess, but it's not here yet.

So let's keep going. He didn't consider the seeming physical facts that he shouldn't be able to have a baby.

He just didn't, he put it out of his mind. He wouldn't consider it because he had faith that what God said was true.

Now, that's what it means he considered. He didn't consider the fact that his body was dead. And he didn't consider his dead body is even a better way to say it.

He didn't think about it. And when he was about 100 years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb.

He didn't consider that. He didn't think about that. He didn't gaze upon that and think about it and let it affect anything that God was teaching him.

He put that out of his mind. But look what happened in verse 20. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was also able to perform.

That means he was persuaded that what God promised, God could bring to pass. There is no better definition of faith in the

Bible. What is faith? Being fully persuaded that what

God says is true is true. Can you work that up?

Fully persuaded is a passive verb. Someone persuaded this man.

He didn't just believe it. If he had believed it, he would have considered his body and that of his wife and said, no way.

So the definition for faith is being fully persuaded that what God promises he will carry out and is able to carry out.

And therefore, because of that, it was imputed unto him for righteousness.

Now this was not written just for this man. It was for more than Abraham.

And this is one reason he's called the father of faith. It was written for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our

Lord from the dead. Now let's take this little passage and this is just Roman numeral one is all in this.

And it's got, you know, a few little points here. Charlotte's smiling at me. She said, well, we're going to hear this next week too.

Yeah, that's right. We can't just leave this.

We got to look at some of these words. Look at verse 20. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith.

Boy, this is one of these things when you're studying and you find this, you go, man, I've never seen this before.

This is great. I want to share this with everybody. And you share it.

Everybody sits there and a few says, okay, come on, go on. And you're thinking, wait, you didn't get that like I got that in the study.

Look at this word strong in the faith. First of all, it's passive, which means that Abraham was acted upon by a higher and stronger force.

All right. Now, strong in the faith, the word strong in the

Greek language is indunamohu, indunamohu.

I don't care if you can say it or not, but I would like for you to try to think of what the first part of that word sounds like in English, indue.

Have you heard a word like that? Do you know what it means? It means to indue with strength.

Abraham was indued with strength. We all know from that English word that that's a passive word.

You can't indue yourself. Someone has to indue you with whatever this is.

It's saying that God indued him with strength of faith.

It no longer leaves any doubt about the definition of saving faith if we stopped right there.

This is not something Abraham could have had in and of himself. It's something that God indued him with.

Then it goes on and says, but with strong in faith, giving glory to God. The word giving is active.

That's something Abraham could do, but he couldn't have done it if he hadn't been indued with strong faith.

So God gives the faith. It is a gift from heaven. All of a sudden you find yourself with it and then you can give

God glory. There's something you can do then, but you're using the equipment God gave you to do it with.

Isn't it interesting that God, every time he commands us to do something, he makes it possible for us to do it by giving us of himself.

The only thing that can glorify God is something that came from God, and that is an indument from on high.

Whoa, that was good, wasn't it? All right, what else you got? Okay, I'll give you something else.

Look at verse 21. And being fully persuaded. Man, it just gets stronger.

Be fully persuaded that what God had promised he was able to perform. You know, most people read that because they've heard all the

TV preaching and all that. They're saying, well, you know, it just means he's a believer. But fully persuaded, let's look at the tense of this in the

Greek language. It's in the aorist tense, which means there's no regard for past, present, or future.

That's how it sounds like the eternal now, doesn't it? And it's also passive, which means he is acted upon by a higher irresistible force.

And it is participle, which means that it corresponds to the English ING. So it means being persuaded.

By someone else. You see that? He is being fully persuaded by a higher force.

Abraham was no better than anybody. Abraham, when God found him, was not even a

Jew. He was a heathen. He had nothing within him which could believe anything.

The Bible says that he was dead in his trespasses and sins. The Bible says he was blind to the things of God.

He never even seen God do anything, never saw God's hand in the world or in his life.

The Bible says he was deaf. He was totally unable to hear anything God would say. Jesus looked at the

Pharisees and says, if you were of God, you would hear my words. For he that is God, heareth

God's words. That implies that those who are not of God can't hear his words. Abraham was like that.

Abraham probably was involved in idol worship. He couldn't believe anything.

But you know what? God fully persuaded him. God met with him.

God found him just like he found Paul, just like he found you if you're saved. There may be some folks in this room this morning that prayed a nice little prayer because someone asked you to and you said, dear

Jesus, come to my heart and save me, amen. And you're sitting here this morning thinking you're saved and yet you know you're living just like all the devil's children live.

You're doing everything they do. You're thinking the same thoughts. They think the same dirty thoughts. And you know

God's never met with you. Because we've been preached to so much about, well, if you just come and just pray and say, dear

Jesus, come to my heart and save me, amen. And you meet with him that you're saved. What did Jesus do when he talked to the ones that were doing all these wonderful things in his name?

He didn't say, hey, you never knew me. What he said was, I never knew you. I never met with you.

The only way a person can be saved is like Abraham got saved, like Paul got saved, like those of you in the room that are born again this morning got saved.

God came and he met with you and he fully persuaded a mind that was not persuaded before he met with you.

He changed your mind. Do you know what the definition of repentance is? To change the mind.

Did you know it's impossible to repent on your own? Because only

God can change your mind. So he comes to Abraham and he fully persuades him.

Be honest this morning. We're not here to play church, to play religion. There are lots of churches you can go to in the whole world where you can do that.

There are probably some good churches in this country where you can go and not do that. And hopefully this is one of them.

Just be honest this morning. Are you really fully persuaded that God's way is the best way?

Are you really fully persuaded that if the world says this kind of stuff out here is what's fun and I'm going to get involved in this because everybody else does this.

And God comes and he says, no, that's not what will give you joy in your life. It may be fun, but you'll have no happiness or joy whatsoever in your heart and your face will show it and your life will show it.

And bad will come to you if you do those things. And God says that to you. Let me ask you, are you persuaded that he's right when he says it?

Is God right or is the world right? Is God right or are the rock groups right?

Is God right or are these music videos they put on there with the essential movements and they say, oh, this is what it's like to be a teenager.

Is the world right when it says, oh, this is what it's all about? I mean, is the world right when the world says sex is for fun?

It's just a play thing? Or is God right when he says it's only for married people and it's to show agape love, a way to show that love for a person?

Who's right? Is the world right when it says dress this way? Have this look.

You need to look a little bit sensual. That's the best way to look because it'll make you feel better about yourself. Or is

God right when he says dress modestly? Who is right? Did you know you can't decide that on your own?

Because you'll always go with the world. The only way you can decide it is if you are fully persuaded of it by a higher power than yourself.

Ask yourself, has that ever happened to me? Because if it hasn't, you're not saved. You're American saved, but you're not heaven saved.

21. And being fully persuaded. The heiress tense implies that this is something from heaven because it's not in time.

It is passive. So it's not something you can work up on your own. It's something God does to you and he persuades you as if it requires work to persuade us.

The work of Christ. And look at this word persuade.

He was fully persuaded. It means to bear constantly.

It comes from a word that means to bear constantly or to wear. Like you're wearing clothes. It can even be translated into clothing or garments.

Is your faith something that is so much a part of you? It's just like you wear it all the time. You have it now.

It's not something you go into and out of. One minute you believe God might be right, because your conscience wants to, but the next minute you believe the world's right, so you go with that.

Then the next minute, well, I've heard that stuff. Yeah, religion's good. And the next minute, well, I really want to do that.

Everybody else is doing that. Listen, true faith from heaven. This persuasion that Abraham got that God gave him when

God fully persuaded him carries the connotation of something you wear all the time because it's part of you.

You can't really take it off. It has even been translated in the New Testament into the word armor.

Isn't that interesting? He was fully persuaded. Hebrews 11, one says, now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

God gives you the evidence. God gives you the hope.

Now let me go to second point. The first point is that true faith is something that God gives and God is in the act of persuading your heart, life, and mind, and self, and soul, and body, and all of you.

He's persuading you as a person that he is right. And you have that. You have that as part of you.

And it is always passive, which means it's something that God does to you. And then you react by being persuaded.

Now, the second thing I want to point out is this. Turn to Philippians chapter two.

I guess you could sum point one up this way. It's a persuasion that comes from God.

And when you have it, you have it. You can't get rid of it. You're wearing it like armor.

You're wearing it like skin. And you can't get rid of it because it was given to you by God.

And that's why it's called strong in faith. He was endued strongly with faith.

He was fully persuaded. You can't be more or less full, can you?

You're either full or you're empty. And you know what? Everyone in this room this morning, every person in this room is either full or empty.

You're either full of faith or you have none if we're talking about this gift from God. Now, your belief can be on a scale.

Human belief, you can believe a little bit. Oh, I believe more. Well, he believes more than I do. He's got strong belief.

He's got weak belief. But that gift that comes from God is either you got it or you don't. Does that make sense? Now, let's go to point two.

Philippians 2, 29. For unto you, it is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on him but also to suffer for his sake.

And I'm going to come back and discuss that in a minute. But I want to read Ephesians 2, 8 to you. For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves that faith is a gift.

It is a gift of God. Salvation is not of works. It's by a gift of faith that God gives you.

Now, Philippians 2, 29 says for unto you it is given on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him but to suffer.

So faith is a gift. Now, let me show you another one. Turn to 1 John 5 in verse 19.

So faith is a persuasion that comes from the father. But faith is also a gift that he gives us.

Not something you can buy. Not something you can purchase. Not something your mama can give you or your grandmother can give you.

It's not hers to give. Only the father can give this. Look at 1

John 5, 19. And we know that we are of God and the whole world lieth in wickedness. You see, that creates a separation, doesn't it?

That creates a division. That makes at least two groups among humanity. A group that's part of the we.

We are of God and the group that's part of the wicked one because it literally says the whole world lieth in the lap of Satan, the wicked one.

But look at verse 20. And we know that the son of God is come and hath, what's the next word?

Given, and hath given us an understanding. Did you work up that understanding or was it a gift?

It was a gift. He has given us an understanding. Who gave us this gift?

The son of God is come. Now, why does one place say the gift comes from the father and another place say it comes from the son?

Because Jesus is the express image of the father and he is the word, which means he came to this world in a physical way to communicate to us

God's mind. We could have never understood any of it. We can't communicate with the father.

We can only communicate through Jesus or in Christ. And he takes us to the throne and he is the word or the communication of God to us.

So one of the great ministries of Jesus Christ is that he communicates and gives us understanding.

He brings us this faith as the father gives it to us that we may know him that is true.

Isn't that faith? Another good definition of faith.

We know God. Let me ask you this. Did you know God before you got saved? You couldn't, could you?

But Jesus gives you the understanding. It is a gift from him. He gives you the understanding that you may know him that is true and we are in him that is true, even his son,

Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Pretty good definition of eternal life too, by the way.

Eternal life is being in Christ and being given these things.

So second point this morning then is that salvation is a gift. First point is it's a persuasion.

God persuaded us that he is right and that we can have peace in our hearts because he's going to take care of it.

What's point number three? You can't be a Baptist if you don't have a three -point sermon. Point number three, turn with me if you would to Galatians 2 .16.

Galatians 2 .16, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ.

Now, I want you to hang on to that phrase for a moment because that's an odd phrase if you're used to listening to modern preaching because modern preaching would say that you're justified by your own belief.

But the Bible says you're justified by the faith of Jesus. Whose faith is it?

It's Jesus's faith. I'd like to take a whole sermon on this one. By the faith of Jesus, even we have believed.

Now, isn't that interesting? Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by the faith of Jesus, even we have believed in Jesus that we might be justified by the faith of Christ.

So there is a human belief involved, isn't it? But it's more of a response to the faith that God just gave you.

That's why when we looked at Abraham, God persuaded him and all of a sudden he could actively glorify God. So we can believe once God gives us the equipment but the faith that he gives us and I want you to learn this, point three this morning, is

Jesus's faith. Now, I'm going to tell you there's nothing more humbling than that. If you really think about that thought, take it home with you and it'll bug you a little bit.

Is it not only do you not have anything, you know how the Bible talks, as you know, the heart is deceitful, desperately wicked.

The Bible teaches you're a worm. You know, the Bible teaches that before God, you're like a grasshopper.

The Bible teaches all of the, I don't know where I'd find that one but it sounds good. It seemed like I read that somewhere.

Nobody questioned it so let's move right along here. You know, at least we could hang on to this, couldn't we?

But I have faith. But I have faith so God saved me. I'm going to take that away from you this morning and it's a real interesting feeling when you take that away.

You didn't even have your own faith. You had Jesus's on loan for a season and it's true.

I'm going to show it to you. It's amazing. I guess neatest light that I've been given in the past year at least is this light that, you know,

I like to at least believe I believed. You know, I've got something good in me. I believed in God so God saved me.

No, I didn't. I was given a gift and made steward of it for a season and I'm going to put forth this proposition this morning.

I don't believe there's ever been one human, including Adam, who ever believed in God.

I don't believe there was one single human being who ever believed that what

God said was the best. Not one except for the

Lord Jesus Christ. And he as a man born of a woman did believe

God. That's the miracle. There was one believer in the whole world.

Now, what is belief? Well, Hebrews says, now faith is the substance things hope for the evidence of things not seen.

So you don't have faith. If you're in the presence of God, you don't have to have faith in him. I mean, in the physical, like you're looking at, if I'm looking at Jesus Christ, when he comes again and we're with him, will we have faith anymore in heaven?

That's right. Corinthians says that faith is one of the things that will pass away.

You won't need it. So it's a temporary thing. It's on loan to us for a temporary season while we need it.

When we're with him, we won't need it anymore. So that helps a little bit. You say, well, man, I don't even have my own faith that Jesus is.

It's all of God. When you get to heaven, you won't need that little loan anymore because you will have made the trip safely.

And isn't it amazing that Galatians 2, 16 says, knowing that a man cannot be and is not justified by the works of the law, but he's just, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, it's the faith of Jesus that justifies us.

And Philippians 3, 9 says, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Jesus, the faith of Christ, the righteousness, which is of God by faith.

So the third point, this first point this morning is that true saving faith is a persuasion that God puts on you, a strong persuasion that he puts on you and he persuades you that he is right.

Lost people don't have that. Lost people have a belief that comes and goes.

And it's a religious feeling where I think maybe some of that stuff, you know, it's there someday I'll do that.

And I believe in God, I believe God's there. But right now I don't believe God is right when he says that the ways of the world will kill me because I love them and I'm going with them.

That's not true heaven sent faith. That's a human worked up belief. And so true faith is where God persuades you that he is right on every issue of life, which is every issue of life is spoken.

Every issue of life is spoken to in this book and everywhere where God speaks to it, do you believe he is right?

Then if you do, that came from heaven because you couldn't have on your own. So it's a persuasion. Secondly, it is a gift that he gives you, a free gift that God in his grace gives us his children.

And now thirdly, this gift is the faith of Jesus. The gift that he gave you is the faith of Jesus.

Jesus being the only one who ever exhibited faith in this earth. Well, you know, I said, well, Abraham did.

I mean, Adam did. But in Genesis chapter three, verse eight, it says, and they heard the voice of the

Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the

Lord. You have to understand that before the fall, excuse us a moment, wanting to hear the gospel by the train loads, okay, before the fall,

Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden. They didn't need faith. Just like you won't when you get to heaven.

But when Jesus was on this earth, he as a man believed

God and he was a man that was sent by God. And look at some of the things

Jesus said. Think about his life. Think about him as a little boy in that temple. What do you think that must've been like to walk into the presence of the scholars and the doctors of his day as a little boy?

And they're going to ask him, tell us what you think about God's word. Do you think

Jesus had faith? Do you think Jesus, even as a little boy, was fully persuaded that anything that the father said was exactly my whole life?

Was there any other that's ever been that persuaded in and of themselves?

What about when he turned the water into wine, when his mother asked him to do her a favor?

What about when he was healing the blind and the deaf and the dumb and the raising of the dead? Have you ever thought of him as a man approaching these things?

Have you ever thought of him just as a man walking up to that tomb and the sister crying and saying,

Lazarus is dead because you waited so long. You got here late and he died. And now he stinketh.

And as a man, you're walking up to that tomb and something in you tells you you're supposed to command that he come out of that tomb.

Would you have the faith to make that command? You look kind of silly if he didn't come out, wouldn't you? I know a few faith healers in the country that have been made to be looking quite silly when they said things were going to happen that didn't happen.

But you know what Jesus did? He prays a prayer. And he says, lifts his eyes up and he said,

Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard my prayer. And he said, and I knew that you heard me always.

What's that? I'm persuaded that you heard me always. That's faith. I knew that you heard me always, but because of the people which stand around here,

I said it. Why did he say that? Because they can't have faith. They don't have that kind of faith. So he said that for their benefit.

Now, what is Jesus doing with some of those people? He's beginning to persuade them that what

God says will happen. And then what happens when he thus spoke, he cried with a loud voice,

Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound head and foot with grave clothes.

And his face was bound about with a napkin. And Jesus said to them, loose him and let him go. What kind of faith did this man had?

Jesus in John 6, 62. What if I, you shall see the son of man ascend up where he was before.

Jesus as a man knew that he had been with God before he came into this world.

John 14, 10. Believest thou not that I am in the father and the father in me, the words that I speak unto you,

I speak not of myself, but the father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.

Believe me that I am in the father and the father in me. And John 17, 8 says, for I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me.

And they have received them and have known surely that I came out from thee. And they have believed that thou didst send me.

Everything Jesus did was exactly what God gave him to do. Everything he said was exactly the words that the father gave him to say.

And so Jesus Christ was the man of faith. And isn't it beautiful that the Bible teaches that we are justified by his faith, not by our human fleshly belief.

And that this faith is a gift that comes down to us from heaven. I'm going to close this morning by having you turn to Hebrews 11, 13.

I believe this sums it up and shows the whole mechanism. And it gets it in the right order.

That's the most important thing. It gets the whole thing in the right order. Hebrews 11, 13, these all died in faith, not having received the promises.

They didn't get to, God promised them some things and they didn't get to see that before they died in some cases.

It was all for further in the future. But they believed it anyway. So faith does not have to be proven.

You don't have to see the proof. You don't have to get a sign from anything if it's true faith.

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off.

That's the faith. Seeing them afar off, seeing them as through a glass darkly.

Now look at the definition of faith. What's the first thing it says in this amazing?

They were persuaded, passive. God did this to them. This is the gift of faith that they received.

This was the faith of Jesus Christ that they received. They were persuaded of them.

And then look what happens. Then they embrace them. That's the belief. That's the human belief that follows.

The human belief didn't save them. It's a result of salvation. Just like works don't save you.

The works are a result of salvation. So when God gave this gift of faith, which was in fact the faith that Jesus had to these people,

God persuaded them, which is passive. It's active on the part of God, passive on the part of the one who received it.

They then received this faith as a gift. And then they embraced the things that God said as if they were true.

Isn't that what you've done if you're saved this morning? All of a sudden you find yourself in agreement with God, whereas you remember a time in your life when you weren't.

And then the third thing it says, and they confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

Three stages then. They were persuaded. This is the gift of faith that comes from heaven.

They then embraced, drew their selves to this. This is the response.

That a newborn child of God has, and that we continue to have in our life with the Lord on this earth. And then they confessed to say the same thing as another.

We find ourselves saying God is right. What God says about this issue of life is right.

Can a lost person agree? No. In his life, we'll show he doesn't agree.

But a saved person has this agreement. He will confess. He will say the same thing as another.

He will agree with and give a scent that God is right. He will embrace the very concepts and truths and principles that God gives in his word.

All because he has been persuaded. Let's stand and have prayer together.