-Transcript-
00:35 Amen. Thank you for joining me. Good to be here today.
00:37 Welcome to the cafe. Hey, it’s just a great day. Amen.
00:43 It’s a wonderful day. We’re in God’s Word. We’re studying the principle of faith, the importance of faith, not just for you, but the importance of faith to God.
00:52 You know, that’s the only thing we can do in our lives, really, to find favor with God, to be justified, is to have faith. That’s it. That’s all we can do.
01:03 And specifically, we have to have faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and that He really did walk this earth. God really did have Him born of a virgin. Amen.
01:16 And He really did walk this earth 33 and a half years. And He really was God in the flesh. And He really was perfect and sinless as He is now.
01:22 And He really did obediently submit Himself to the cross, willingly dying for our sins, shedding His precious blood so that we could be saved. Because we have a sin problem that we cannot remedy on our own. We individually cannot remedy on our own, not the neighbor, not the guy down the street, not that mean boss you have, but ourselves.
01:42 Amen. Not that everybody has a mean boss. I said that.
01:45 How could I say that? Okay, not everyone has a mean boss. But some of you may have a boss that can be mean. And Jesus didn’t just die for that person, though He did die for them, but He also died for you.
01:55 Amen. All right. So here we are diving in to faith, what it means, why it’s important.
02:02 We’re in Hebrews 11:6, But without faith it is impossible to please Him. For he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. And I always link this verse up with Abraham.
02:13 Abraham was justified by faith. Abraham pleased God by faith. Abraham was called a friend of God by faith.
02:22 And so we see that faith is so important, yet it is so difficult sometimes to wrap our heads around. And it kind of shows our sin nature, if you think about it. We’re so apt to have faith in the Uber driver or the bus driver.
02:37 We’re so apt to have faith in the doctor or nurse, not knowing who on earth they are. I was in the hospital, goodness, not long ago, maybe six months ago, and a doctor came in, a young lady, probably younger than me, I imagine, and walked me through a series of tests. And she was very capable and very thorough.
02:58 And I just, whatever her diagnosis was, and it was a good diagnosis, there wasn’t really anything wrong. I guess I had just, I don’t know, I just had thought something was wrong when there wasn’t. I believed her.
03:08 Like I didn’t go research who she was. And when she came in, she didn’t explain who she was. I didn’t see her medical degrees or credentials, nothing.
03:17 I just said, okay, I believe what this person’s saying is true. And I had no problem with that. I didn’t lose any sleep over that.
03:24 Again, I thought it was very good care. Now, you know, hey, after the bill came, that was not, not pretty sight, Amen. But you know how that is.
03:32 Either way, the lady doctor and wonderful, nice lady, young lady did a wonderful job. Amen. I did not think much about it.
03:41 Now we get into God’s word. And you say, well, God, you say that you’re always with me. How can I believe that? Well, God, you say that Noah was Noah and his family, the only one to survive the flood.
03:56 How can I believe that? Well, God, you said you created earth in six days. Now, how can I believe that? You see how funny it is how the flesh and how the devil will attack to what’s what’s of God. Amen.
04:01 What did Satan do to tempt even the gardens said, oh, is this really, you know, does God really say you can’t eat this fruit or will you really die? You surely won’t die. You’ll be like God. See, Satan is perverting God’s word then as he is now.
04:15 Amen. And it’s so funny. We can place our faith in anything, but God, and we start placing our faith in God.
04:21 We’re challenged by Satan and his armies here in the world and even by the flesh. Amen. And as I mentioned, Noah here in verse 7 of Hebrews 11, by faith, Noah being warned of God, things not seen as yet moved with fear, prepared an arc to the saving of his house by the witch.
04:42 He condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness, which is by faith, man. Can you imagine that? As I understand that they had never seen rain at that time and God was close to Noah and gave Noah this understanding that it was going to rain and it was going to rain hard and it was going to flood the entire world. Can you imagine that conversation with God? God saying, Noah, the world is wicked and I’m wiping it clean, but you have been found righteous in my eyes and I’ll save you and your family.
05:12 And that’s it. Build a huge arc, build a massive boat. And, uh, by those wonderful folks there at answers in Genesis, they built the arc and I’m excited.
05:23 I want to take our church there Lord willing one day and see it, but you can see pictures and videos and you can realize the scale. They built that to specs of the cubits that were listed in the Bible. I love my King James Bible.
05:34 It’s very clear of the dimensions of many things, not just of, uh, the arc, but actually of the heavenly city and so much more. We get full dimensions so we can understand the size and scope. And so you can see that arc and you see what Noah built by faith.
05:51 It’s incredible. It was like God could have had him build a smaller boat or God could have had him build a fortress or something, but God had him build this huge boat. I know he had to encapsulate all the animals and so forth in there along with his family and food and supplies.
06:06 But still the idea is that’s how big that faith was in God, as he was mocked and ridiculed. Surely, uh, he was mocked in all those years it took to build that arc. He was, uh, he was mocked and ridiculed.
06:19 Surely there were, um, people that worked for him or with him. You think of people helping to build that massive arc or people supplying, uh, things for that arc that were witnessed to that were testified to of what God was going to do. And that door stayed open and yet no one listened until it was too late.
06:38 Amen. And Noah was justified by what? By his strength? No. By his, uh, education? No.
06:48 By his, um, society, you know, where he was in society, you know, his, his, uh, socioeconomic status, I guess, is the college word for it. No, he was justified by believing God. And then what did Noah do? He took action, right? Faith is, is, is not just believing and then sitting there, it’s taking action, right? When Paul, uh, Saul, when he was turned, uh, uh, blind there, when he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, uh, what did Paul say to Christ? He said, uh, what will that have me to do, Lord? Right? What do you want me to do? Uh, and, and let’s take action.
07:27 That’s what faith is. It’s, it’s saying, I believe, and now I’m going to do something about it. It’s not saying, I believe, and I’m going to sit still.
07:35 Imagine if a doctor were to tell you, okay, you need to get fit, you know, you gotta drop some LBs, you gotta drop some pounds, get that blood pressure down, not that I have any experience with this, get that blood pressure down, you know, and all, get it under control, low sodium diet. And you say, okay, doctor, I believe everything you’ve told me, and I don’t want to go on this medicine. I believe everything.
07:56 So let me go home and sit still for a year and I’ll come back next year and see how I’m doing. Well, you would come back and you would be in worse shape. If, if not the same, you’d be in worse.
08:06 I have to imagine you’d be in worse shape. And that doctor would be pretty upset saying you said you believed, but you did nothing about it. And so we see with God and this example, because he gives us a person in Noah and he gives us a principle in faith.
08:17 We see this faith activated. We see this faith put into action. And we realize that Noah is a real person.
08:26 You know, you read after the ship crashed, was he celebrated by his family with a parade? Was he, was everything perfect? And it rained from heaven, just gold and riches and all this population, everything was great. No, he was a drunk. He was abused by his kids.
08:42 There was all kinds of problems that shows me that he was a real person, right? Like you or I a real person that exhibited extraordinary faith. And as we see Hebrews 11 being called the Hebrews hall of fame, the idea of these great folks, true real life individuals that exhibited great faith, Amen. And Noah being one of them believed God.
09:06 Oh goodness. I think of Moses, that scripture in Moses in the Bible about how Moses valued, he reckoned or calculated that to follow God was greater than the riches of Egypt. And so in his mind, he had faith because he couldn’t physically see those riches in heaven, but he had faith that, hey, that is more, that’s more than anything they could give me here in Egypt, which was probably the premier city of the time with great wealth.
09:35 And he was very high in command under Pharaoh. And yet he reckoned or calculated that no, it was better to be with God on God’s side because those riches would be better. And in the previous episode of KJV Cafe, I spoke about the idea of man kind of needing that reward or that idea of what’s in it for them.
09:53 And Noah, certainly the reward was not dying in the flood, Amen, and being obedient to God. But then we see, as Hebrews mentions here, in Hebrews, I believe it is 11: 4, by faith, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and by it, he being dead yet speaketh. And here we see, and I preached a previous message on this, on Abel and faith, but here we see Noah being dead, right? Noah can’t come tell us about the ark, and yet he speaks of his great faith through this testimony in Hebrews 11:7 Amen.
10:36 He speaks of his great faith, and what a great faith it was. And as we are able to measure the ark and understand the ark and understand what it would have been like at that time, we realize that this is true, that this word is true, and that it is a great testimony to Noah. And I mentioned Abraham earlier.
10:56 By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out, not knowing whither he went. Abraham didn’t know where he was going. And in that time, as in today, families were very, very close, in that time even more so, I believe.
11:18 And so it was very odd for him to leave his family, leave his comfort, and go off to a land that he had never seen, that he didn’t know about, leave his culture, by the way, which as I understand it was more pagan worship and so forth, to leave all of that and to go to a place that God told him will be an inheritance. That takes a ton of faith. Verse 9 of Hebrews 11, by faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.
11:48 And then verse 10, very familiar verse, for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. See, he looked for a city. Does that make sense? I believe he literally looked for a city that God had made.
12:02 Amen. Did Abraham see that city at that time? No, he didn’t. In fact, he saw famine, right? But he looked for that city, right? He had faith.
12:13 He said, okay, God, you’re gonna give me this as an inheritance. This is the promised land. This is a wonderful place.
12:16 And I’m looking for it. I’m looking for it. You know, the Bible tells us to watch, to watch for the return of Christ.
12:22 Like it’s imminent. Amen. I believe it’s very imminent.
12:28 Do we have faith? If there was some very strange things happening, maybe the weather was crazy and all this stuff happening, would you instinctively say Christ is coming back, Maranatha, Jesus is returning. Amen. Glory to God.
12:38 This is the time. Or would you say, oh, it couldn’t be, oh, it never would be. And I don’t believe that.
12:44 Think about it. Is your belief spurned into action? And that’s a very important point. Amen.
12:52 God knows our hearts and he knows that we oftentimes will say one thing, but, you know, deeper down have much other things going on. The idea of someone saying, how are you today? And you say, I’m good. And then truly, you’re not good, right? Have you ever done that? I think we all have.
13:08 Amen. And so God knows that many Christians can say they believe, but that they struggle with their faith. And as our Bible tells us, faith cometh by hearing and hearing the word of God.
13:21 And so our faith can be improved by prayer, of course, asking God to give us more measure of faith and give us faith like Noah and like Enoch and all the other people mentioned in Hebrews 11. But our faith also is increased, I believe primarily by spending time in his word, just like we’re doing here today, studying his word. That’s spiritual nourishment, that’s feeding on the word, and that is building up and nourishing our faith.
13:42 And as we feed our faith, as we nourish the Holy Spirit living within us, as we nourish ourselves and learn of God’s word as he wants us to do, as we diligently seek him as he wants us to do, we experience the reward. And part of that reward, I believe, as the Bible communicates to us, is an increased faith, a bold faith. And oh, do we need that in these last days? Hold fast to the word and stay strong in God’s word and he will reward you for it.
14:08 Thank you so much for listening. Take care. God bless and Amen.