The concept of the "School of Faith" as presented in Hebrews 10:38, "The just shall live by faith." It posits that entering this school begins with an act of faith in Jesus Christ, and progression through its lessons is achieved by continually trusting Him. The message uses the story of Rini, a young girl lost in the Canadian wilderness, and her protective Newfoundland dog, Bruce, to illustrate the sacrificial love and protective power of faith. Bruce's death defending Rini from wolves serves as a powerful analogy for Christ's sacrifice on the cross, urging listeners to place their trust in Him for salvation and to live a life of ongoing faith.
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Now I think I'm going to ask you to turn again to Hebrews chapter ten and at the close of chapter ten there's a little key to the studies that God willing we are going to look at morning by morning in these important morning Bible readings. Now I know you can't see, the light has gone, but in Hebrews chapter ten right at the close We get a little phrase which I think is going to be the key or the motto to our talks. Hebrews ten and chapter ten and verse thirty-six.
For ye have need of patience that after ye have done the will of God, you might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. Now the little phrase is found in verse thirty-eight, the just shall live by faith.
During these morning talks I want to bring to you a picture of the school of faith. That wonderful old school of faith where boys and girls have their education and graduated and became the great cloud of witnesses that surround us today. Seeing we are surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses, the writer says, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race which is set before us, looking up to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.
You know, we come into the school of faith by a simple act of faith when we meet the Savior of the cross. But every lesson that we learn is learnt by faith and we move from grade to grade and class to class and we face examination after examination until at last school days are over and with a good report faith gives way to sight. All God's children have gone through the school of faith, and I want, in a homely way, to, day by day, take your minds back to your old school.
I want you to think about the day that you went into the little prep class as a child of four or five. I want you to think about some of those teachers who taught you your first lessons. I want you to meet the headmaster of the school. I want you to come as the mornings pass face to face with the old boys of the School of Faith. The clever boy, the naughty boy, the strong boy, the bully, the rascal, the fat boy, yes, all sorts of boys and girls too for its co-education in this School of Faith.
And you'll be meeting all sorts of characters. You'll see the big strong Samson and the little sneak Jacob and the remarkable, clever, beautiful girl called Sarah and the little rotten girl called Rahab. You'll meet them, Moses and Abel and Enoch, the men and women who pleased God by faith. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. Now, you know, when I went to school and got into my old school life, I was awfully proud of the fact that one day Mother brought me a school blazer, a nice little colored coat, you know, to put on, and on the pocket here was the school crest, and underneath some very difficult Latin words.
At least they were difficult to me as a boy. Nisi Dominus Trostra. It was the school motto. Well, we've got to find out what the school of faith has for its motto, and it's this. The just shall live by faith. Now, the Oster Woodhouse was telling us that scholars have rather squabbled and wondered about the authorship of Hebrews. It never worries most of us because, you know, when you get a good dish of feed and it's so nice, you don't ask for the name of the cook.
You don't say, I won't eat the food until I hear who cooked it. It doesn't matter really who wrote the book. The Spirit of God was the author of this book that displays Christ so wonderfully. And whoever wrote it, wrote it to the Hebrew people who understood the Old Testament scriptures. Personally, I think Paul wrote it. I think the writers of the, or the translators, when they put that it was Paul's epistle, were right. You see, why do you think so? Well, I've just come to the conclusion myself that these are Paul's synagogue talks. They were possibly taken down by Luke the physician or taken down by Apollos or some co-worker like Luke or someone.
And these are manuscripts of those talks that he used to give when he was not preaching the gospel to the Gentile world, but standing up in the synagogue and reasoning that Christ, Messiah Jesus, was better than all that they had in the past. And as he pleaded with them to come to all the ritual and by faith enter into the spiritual kingdom of God, again and again he says, let us go on. Don't turn back. Go on. If you've begun, your first look of faith should become an attitude of faith.
And you should live looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. And so the just shall live by faith. Now you know that little phrase was taken from the book of Habakkuk. And that remarkable old Jewish prophet with his three chapters right in the heart of his book, rings it out. The just shall live by faith. Now if Paul wrote the Hebrews, or if he's responsible for this wonderful book, he wrote two other books, Romans and Galatians.
And in all those three books it seems that little Habakkuk's text, The Just Shall Live by Faith, seems to be the key to those books. Living to the Romans, he's speaking of justification. And if you ever want to preach the gospel, you soak your soul in Romans. Read it again and again till it gets hold of you, and you get hold of it. And then you will say, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It's the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it. For there is, that is, in the Gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written by Habakkuk, the just shall live by faith.
Now I think all the emphasis in Romans is on the first two words, the just shall live by faith. But when he's writing to the Galatians in his tremendous battle against illegalism, anything that would spoil the pure grace of God, he looks into their faces and he says, yes, don't forget it's not of what? He says it's the just shall live by faith. And as he talks of the life which is Christ, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live.
Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life that I now live. I live by faith in the Son of God. He argues that just shall live by faith. And the whole emphasis is on the lust. But when it comes to Hebrews, this book that the Spirit of God seems to have been so strongly bringing to Mr. Woodhouse and my heart as the message for the morning sessions of this conference, the whole emphasis is on the last two words, the just shall live by faith.
Now, God loves to be trusted. And you know you've got to come into the school of faith by an act of faith, trusting Jesus, that is all, coming with empty hands, with childlike faith, trusting him. And I want to ask you on this opening night as I close, telling you a little story. Have you come, trustingly to the Savior, looking into his face, With the words from your heart, Lord Jesus, I will trust thee with my soul.
Guilty, lost, and helpless, thou canst make me whole. There is none in heaven or on earth like thee. Thou hast died for sinners. Therefore, Lord, for me. Now it's an old story, but I'm telling it especially for the younger generation that are here tonight. It's one of those grand old stories. In fact, to me, it's the greatest story I've ever heard in the land to the north called Canada. I've many stories from Canada, but this one stands out.
And as I tell it, I want some boy or girl, some teenager. to look into the face of Jesus and say, now that's what I want to do. I want to come to trust thee for my salvation. I know that that last act of looking into thy face, trusting me, will begin an attitude of trusting me. I shall have to go on from examination to examination and from lesson to lesson in the school of faith. The one who is the author will be the finisher of my faith. The one into whose face I look and he whispers pardon to my heart is the one who will meet my need in everything in my Christian life.
He'll be my counselor, he'll be my strengthener, he'll be my guide, he'll be everything to me until I graduate with a good report. And I hear his well done, and faith gives way to sight. Now here's the story, and I close with it. Many years ago, up on the timber line of Canada, in a little settlement of only about a hundred odd people, there lived a lovely little family. The father was a trader. He used to trade with the Indians in their camps and by his side was a noble Canadian woman to share the frontier life.
And they only had one chick in the home, a little girl called Rini. But in that home they had a dog, a lovely dog, one of those great big Newfoundland dogs called Bruce. And everyone loved Bruce. One day this trader was going off into the Indian camps. He had stayed till dinner time and they had had a lovely dinner and he was packing up his big bundle to sling on his back. When once again his little girl said, Daddy, could I go with you? I want to go up to those camps. And he said to her what he had said many times before.
No, he said, you can't go with me. I'm going to be away for two or three days. I shall be roughing it. There's dangers up in the great forest. No, honey, you can't come with me. You must stay and look after Mother." And so, kissing his wife goodbye, giving his little girl a big daddy hug, he patted the dog on the side and said, Look after them, Bruce, won't you? The old dog looked up with his brown eyes and wagged his tail as much as to say, Sure I will. Putting the big pack on his back, he went out of the door and down the path and through the gate and up the hill toward the timber line.
Mother went back into the kitchen to do the chores. And no one knew it, but a little girl had determined to go with Daddy. She knew it was naughty. She knew it was selfish. She knew it was willful and disobedient. But she was going to do it. And slipping behind him, she followed him up into the trees and away into the forest, deeper and deeper into the great Canadian bush. It was so exciting. It was a wonderful adventure. And as she followed Daddy, he couldn't see her. If she lost sight with him, all she had to do was to run a little, and there he was, bobbing between the trees.
deeper and deeper into that great forest they went and darkness was closing down that early evening and neither knew that they were there going through the forest and they didn't know that behind somewhere was Bruce that big dog stalking behind watching the situation All of a sudden the little girl lost her father and she began to get frightened. It was a bit dark and she raised her voice and she cried out, Daddy! And the echo came through the trees. Daddy! She ran!
She called! She was frightened! She was lost! And fear clutched at her little heart and she knew that she couldn't find a way home. And all of a sudden Away there in the forest, something happened. I'm not going to tell you what it was for a moment. We are going back to see how mother's getting on and mother has got everything straight and she's getting some supper tea on the table. She's busy getting the teapot hot, you know, and making some buttered toast and putting some jam on the table, and she calls her little girl in from the yard, but she didn't come.
She goes next door. They haven't seen her. The men are coming in from their work, and they begin to search through the gardens and look down the wells and search in the sheds. Can't find her. And it was a concerned little settlement with the darkness coming down that began to get out the lanterns and form the search parties that went out to look for that little lost girl. We are going with one of those search parties. They seemed to sense that that little girl might have followed her father into the forest. And as they came through the dark forest, all of a sudden one of the men stopped and shouted out, I say, look, and they came rushing together and found on the ground that beautiful dog lying on his side, dead.
It's a great big wound in his throat. His head was lying in a pool of blood. It took me a moment to tell you that, but lying at the side of that dog was the little girl with her head resting on the dog's body. And immediately they put down their hands and picked her up to see if she was alive or not. And she woke up, she was asleep. And when they examined her, she wasn't even stretched or hurt at all. What could have happened? And one of the men, lifting his lantern in the darkness of the forest, looked up amongst these trees and picture it.
He shouted out three times, Look! Look! Look! And there lying on the floor of the forest were three big, brown, savage, timber wolves, covered with bites and scratches and tears and wounds dead. And instinctively they knew what had happened. A little girl lost in the forest. Three savage wolves had seen her, and you can just imagine them talking together, something like this. My word, boys, a good supper tonight, a little girl. Come on, tear her to pieces. Now, I don't care how brave a little girl is, and some of the little girls are tremendously plucky.
She might have been taught a straight left by her brother at school to put out a straight left and tuck your chin down and cover it up and say, you shan't, I'll fight you. But the wolves would have laughed at us, whipped to the pieces, if someone hadn't come between. And Bruce, the brave newfoundland dog, came between, and bearing his teeth, if he could have spoken, he would have said, You shan't touch her. And the fight began, tearing, biting, clawing. until the wolf rolled over dead and the fight went on.
Until at last a second wolf lay down to die and the fight went on and on and on until at last the third wolf rolled over to die. And there stood Bruce, the victor of the fight, covered with these bites and tears with his awful wound in his throat, the victor of the fight. And tired and exhausted, he lay down on the ground to die. And a little girl who had watched this tremendous happening with fear, clutching at her heart and strange emotions, crept to Rufus' side, and she knew that all was well.
She was with her savior. And she lay her little head on his warm body, and tired and frightened, but safe with Rufus. She trustingly went to sleep. And they found her there. Today, if you go, you'll find that Timberline has been pushed right back. You'll find that the town has grown to quite a big city. But where they found that dead dog, there's a stone. And on the stone are some simple words that deep with meaning In memory of Bruce, the brave Newfoundland dog, who died fighting Greek in the wolves to save his little mistress.
And as that Canadian girl grew up to womanhood, you could never mention the name of Bruce without strange emotions stirring her heart. And she would say, Oh, Bruce came between me and the wolves and gave his life to save me from them. And I know enough about you to know that you've heard the story of the cross where Jesus, coming to reveal the great heart of God, God manifesting flesh, died that you might be forgiven. He died to make you good, that you might go at last to heaven saved by His precious blood.
I say, Have you trusted him? Have you lent the whole weight of your guilty soul upon him? Have you come to him and thanked him for what he did upon the cross and looked into his face and whispered, The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me? That's where the new life begins, because Jesus whispers pardon from that cross and then He comes as a living Savior to bring the new life, and you begin to live, looking unto Jesus, who is the author. That's where it starts, and finisher of your faith.
I can't bear to think that Yosemite Week begins, and there's a boy back there, a teenager, and a loved girl down here, and a precious child here, and someone there, and they haven't entered God's tomb of faith yet. They haven't got saving faith and living faith that has brought the great salvation that's in Christ to their hearts. They know about Christ. They can answer the Bible questions. They were brought up in Christian circles. They may even attend the Gospel Chapel every Sunday. But they've never started the life of faith. They've never come into the school of faith.
Do you know you could start the greatest Cusinity week you've ever had if you would look into his face and say, Lord, Jesus, I will trust thee. I'm going to come with a great big thank you in my heart for all you did upon that cross of shame. And I'm going to start my education in the school of faith. I'm going to come in as a newborn child into that school, having trusted a Savior, to begin this great life of looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
Would you like to trust him? Wouldn't it be wonderful if in your cabin or your tent or where you sleep tonight, under the great trees over the riverside, you could put your head upon your pillow and whisper, Jesus, Lord Jesus, I do trust thee. And trusting Jesus, you're in the school of faith, and the just shall live by faith, and your life will be a life of living, looking unto Jesus. You say, could I do it, Mr. Ravish? Yes, just where you sit in this moment.
Yes, just before you go out to see the fire fall in ten minutes' time, just where you sit. You could trust the Savior, and pardon and cleansing could come from one who on that cross fought your foes and destroyed their power. The great wheat of sin that can lift souls to pieces and destroy them. The glint wheat of death with all its power can be destroyed tonight. The wolf of judgment, that cruel wolf that always flinks after the others. For the wages of sin is death, and after death the judgment, and you never find them separated.
They follow each other into battle. Jesus beat them on the cross. He was made sin for you and put it away. He tasted death for you that you might live. He bore the judgment and tried its finished. And the conquering Savior says, Give me thy heart. And as you look into his face, you say, Lord Jesus, I will trust thee. Or you say, No, thank you. And you turn away in your sin and selfishness and shame tonight to put your head upon your pillow unforgiven, unsaved, without Christ, not in the school of faith.
Without faith it's impossible to please God. Will you come with empty hands? Will you look into the face of that Saviour and say, Just as I am, and waiting not to rid my soul of one dark blot, To be whose blood can cleanse each spot? O Lamb of God, I come. You will never regret it if you do. And I am going to ask you to enter the school of faith tonight by looking into the Savior's face with a great big thank you from your heart. And I am going to ask you to rest your soul in His finished work and precious blood as you take that Savior into your life to be your very own.
Will you do that? Your loved ones will be praying. Perhaps mom and dad and others have prayed for years about you that you will do what I'm asking you to do tonight. Will you do it? Well, forget me now and look into his face and make your answer as we pray. Let us pray.