Faith is more than mere opinion; it is a deep persuasion of the truth of Scripture based on the authority of God, not a superficial intellectual assent. The sermon distinguishes between historical faith, which is an intellectual apprehension of facts without personal engagement, and miraculous faith, which is a belief in the performance of miracles, neither of which are saving. Temporal faith, seen in those who initially receive the word with joy but lack root, endures only for a while and is offended by tribulation. True saving faith, rooted in a regenerate heart, involves continuing in Christ's word and leads to genuine discipleship and freedom.
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I trust each one has a page of notes tonight and we want to turn in our Bible reading to Galatians chapter three and verse twenty three and then we want to turn to second Thessalonians chapter three as well Galatians chapter three verse twenty three but before faith came we were kept under the law shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the Lord is our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, and we might be justified by faith. But after that faith has come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Now from Second Thessalonians chapter three, we begin our reading at verse one. Second Thessalonians three, verse one. Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified, even as it is with you, that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men, for all have not faith. But the Lord is faithful, who shall establish you and keep you from evil.
Now may the Lord bless. the reading of his words. Let's pray it again. Our Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, again as we consider the things and the doctrines that accompany this great redemption which is in Christ Jesus, which our Lord left heaven's glory in order that he might establish it with us. Oh, we thank you for this. And we pray our God that as we learn more, of this great redemption, that is ours in Christ Jesus, that our hearts will bow in thy presence, and that we will determine in our own souls as believers in Christ, to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, and to, above all else, own him as Lord and Savior, at all times, according to your word, In the name we pray of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen. This is a fifth Sunday night that we're dealing with a subject of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, this great subject of redemption. And it took four nights to get over really what we call the external or the general call of God that comes to all men. And the effectual call of God. or the interim call that comes to God's elect. Now we want to study the results of that call. That call results in something, and it results in faith. You will notice from Second Thessalonians chapter three that passage that we read, all have not faith.
And we know from Romans chapter ten that faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God and therefore it is important to proclaim the gospel for this is how faith comes to men and of course the passage we read tonight from Galatians chapter three speaks of a coming of faith now you'll notice in the introduction in the second paragraph that when the Messiah came and the word Messiah simply means the anointed one of God as the word Christ means the same in the Greek.
He came in the fulfillment of prophecy and he brought in that hope for salvation and therefore it became necessary for the vehicles of God's revelation to direct God's people to the person of the Redeemer. And you have a great example of this in Luke chapter two in Anna. who spoke to all, the widow, who was above eighty years of age. She spoke to all who looked for redemption in Israel. And she had that blessed privilege of seeing the Lord Himself. In other words, the vehicle of God's revelation is His holy word.
Now, this was all the more necessary. It was all the more necessary in view of the fact that the fulfillment came in a form which they did not expect and which apparently did not correspond with a promise. We can have a mental block and myth what God is saying in his words. Israel in the Old Testament did. You have a good example of that in the first and second chapters of Matthew. When wise men came from the east, to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? The scribes could tell them what the Scripture said.
He's going to be born in Bethlehem. But only the wise men look for him. No one else did. You don't read of the scribes going to find him. But we do read of the wise men being directed by God to the person of our Lord Jesus. Now, the Messiah is spoken of in a twofold way in the Old Testament. He's spoken of in more than a twofold way. He's spoken of really in a fivefold way. That he would be both God and man. You have that in Micah chapter five.
You have also the truth that he would be the mighty God, but also the humble servant. And this is brought to our attention in the Old Testament. And then finally, it was spoken of as being the Savior of the world, the one to whom the Gentiles would believe and salvation would come to the Gentiles. However, Israel, to whom is committed the oracles of God that we read about in Romans chapter nine, one of the remarkable things that is spoken of concerning Israel as a nation. to them committed the oracles of God.
They looked to the mighty God, the king, who would deliver them from the captivity of Rome, the bondage of Rome, and usher in a glory of kingdom and make them the head of the nation instead of the tail. And we like things that are gaudy and things that are big, and they missed the Savior when he came. For he didn't come the way they expected. And therefore, the vehicles of God's revelation were so important to direct them to the person of the Redeemer. And this is what our Lord did, you know.
In Matthew chapter eleven, when John the Baptist was even puzzled, when he was in prison, and the Lord seemingly did nothing about it. And John the Baptist had announced him as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And here's John in prison and here's the Messiah, the mighty God, the everlasting Father. And he doesn't seem to deliver John. And John is puzzled. And he sends two disciples and they say to the Lord, are you really he that should come or should we look for another? Our Lord said, you go back and tell John what I'm doing.
And he directed John to the Old Testament scriptures and the nothing else. He said, the blind received their sight. The poor had the gospel preached unto him. The dumb ear or the dumb speak and the deaf ear. He directed him to that which is written concerning when the Messiah comes. In Isaiah chapter thirty-five. and in other places in the Old Testament. You see, the people looked for a Messiah who would rid them of the bondage of Rome and just bring in a kingdom of glory. But their ideas were of a kingdom that was entirely national, without an inner change, without being spiritually changed on the inside.
And our Lord does not give national deliverance to his people apart from a spiritual change that is wrought by the new birth. And the next paragraph, the third there, is faith is more than mere opinion. As we talk about faith, faith is more than mere opinion, friends. You see, that word faith is used in a rather loose way and a rather popular way today. to denote a persuasion of the truth which is stronger than mere opinion and yet weaker than knowledge. In popular language we often say of that, of which we are not absolutely sure, but which at the same time we feel constrained to recognize as true.
And therefore we say, I believe that, but I'm really not sure of. That's not faith. That's just mere opinion. Faith rests on a solid foundation, and faith gives us an assurance that we can say, I know. And you go through the first epistle of John, and you underline in your Bible the times that the apostle says, we know. And you'll be surprised that when you come to the end, he says, these things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have. Now, we need to think tonight, first of all, about faith as presented in the Gospel account.
And we're going to come back to this when we get down to two in parenthesis and three in parenthesis at the bottom of the page. But let us say a few things now because it is important. For the Messiah is the fulfillment of Old Testament Scripture. And when the apostles and Christians went forth proclaiming the gospel, all they had was the Old Testament scriptures. They didn't have the New Testament. Now the demand for faith in Jesus as a redeemer, promised and hoped for, appeared as something characteristic of the New Age and ushered in by the New Covenant.
When our Lord came on the scene, he began his public ministry, you'll remember, with that great manifesto, the Sermon on the Mount. And he could say to them, he had heard it said of old time. But I say unto you, our Lord came bringing in the new covenant, cutting the covenant in his blood at the cross on Calvary's Hill, and making us partakers of it. and members of it. Now, to believe in the gospel account in the genuine way is to become a Christian. John three sixteen, Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but shall have eternal life.
Now this demand seemed to create a great gap between the old dispensation and the new. The old dispensation emphasized the keeping of the law, the keeping of the law.Dispensation emphasizes faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. The problem in the old, no one could keep it. And that's what made the promise shine so brightly to those who look for the Redeemer, like Old Simeon of Luke chapter two and Anna, the widow of Luke. chapter two. Now, the fourth thing, this is seen in the text of Galatians three, verses twenty-three through twenty-five.
The law was our schoolmaster unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we have in the gospel account the solid foundation for faith. For notice five, in parenthesis, in the gospel, Jesus is constantly offering himself as the object of faith. After that faith is come, and the object of faith is here, and that's the message of the gospel account. The object of faith is here, and the object is the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That's why he could say to his own, in John fourteen, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. That's why he could say to his own, ye believe in God, believe also in me. And Philip, you remember, said, Lord, if you'll show us the Father, it will be satisfactory. Our Lord said, He that has seen me has seen the Father. I am the object of faith. And that puts everything else aside.
That puts everything else aside. All the lodges, including the masons. Oh, they boast that they believe in God, but not the God of the Bible, friends. For they reject the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Their object of faith is G-A-O-P, something, or G-A-O-U, the grand architect of the universe, whatever they mean by that. You see, if they made Christ the object of their faith, a Jew would not join us.
But the Masons boast that they can receive all. Christ said, you can't do that. I'm the only way to God. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. And this idea that we have today that sounds so open-minded and inclusive that every faith has some good in us. You see, it's a lot of nonsense. It is really a lie of the devil. And when I talk about the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, I believe that out of every kindred tongue and people and nation, regardless of what name is over the door where they go into worship, there are those who have been born of God and who embrace our Lord Jesus Christ and they belong to the family of God, be they Lutheran Reformed or Baptist or Presbyterian or Methodist, regardless of the name that's over the door.
If they believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, in genuine faith they belong to him. So Christ is constantly offered as the object of faith, and this, friend, is the highest concern of the soul. For the time came in the public ministry of our Lord that he said, What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? So in the final analysis, the object of our faith comes down to the person of God's dear son, as we read in Hebrews one, God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us in his sons.
And that, friends, is the object of the Gospels. They tell us about the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now in the Gospel of John, this is stressed even more than in the Synoptics. And by the Synoptics we mean Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John stresses it more for the word believe appears more in John's Gospel than in all the others together. Now, this definition of faith, I've gotten from Berkov's systematic theology. And his definition is Christian faith, in the most comprehensive sense, is man's persuasion of the truth of Scripture on the basis of the authority of God.
In other words, for the Scriptures to speak authoritatively, and the soul cries out, I want to obey it. You see, this is why the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures is so important. For if they're not inspired, they're not authoritative. But if they are inspired, then they are authoritative, and we bow to the authority of Scripture because we are persuaded they are true. Now, there are four kinds of faith that we can speak of, and I only got the three, because I figured that by the time I get over three, our time will be gone.
And, of course, these three, neither one of these three, is the faith that saves. Now, it's an amazing thing in our study in the book of Acts, Sunday morning. We're at chapter eight. And we have in the eighth chapter of Acts two kinds of faith. We have, first of all, a faith that does not save. And it's illustrated in a person. Simon the Sorcerer. The scripture says he believed and he was baptized, but he wasn't saved. It is possible to believe and not be saved.
It is not genuine faith. And we're going to go over what genuine faith is. And therefore we want to examine these three kinds of faith that I have here. These three of which none of them really say. When we talk about historic faith, this is a purely intellectual apprehension of the truth. It is devoid of any moral or spiritual purpose. In other words, it may make reference to facts or events. Remember what Nicodemus said to the Lord? John chapter three, verse two.
We know that thou art a teacher come from God. For no man can do the miracles that you do, except God be with him. He had intellectual historical knowledge about Christ. but Nicodemus wasn't saved. The multitudes of people have a historic knowledge about Christ. The whole world does in this area, especially at this time of the year. For they sing the Christmas carols. They sing about him coming to earth. They have an intellectual historical knowledge. Now, this knowledge may accept the facts of Scripture, as one accepts the facts of a history.
in which one is not personally interested. In other words, you may read about the Punic Wars. I don't know if you've ever read about the Punic Wars of Hannibal crossing the Alps in order to defeat Rome from Carthage, and you might not be even interested in it, but you accept the fact, yes, there was a guy by the name of Hannibal, and he crossed the Alps and he lost elephants and all these other things as... because he extended his lines too far, the lines of communication. Historical, the facts are true, but not even personally interested. There are multitudes of people at this time of the year know about the coming of Christ, but they're not interested.
They're more interested in the cash register than they are in the person of God's dear Son. For every night, if you read the paper, They'll tell you how sales are doing in the store. Historical faith, they have it, but it's not saving faith. It is not the faith that delivers from a pit of destruction and delivers a person into the kingdom of God's dear son. Now, you see, this faith may be the result of tradition. It could be the result of education. It could be the result of public opinions. but it doesn't say it.
Now the second kind is what is termed miraculous faith. This so-called miraculous faith is a persuasion, and this persuasion is wrought in the mind of a person that a miracle will be performed by him or in his behalf. And you find this continuously, at least I do, among many. They believe they have a miraculous faith. And this faith is either active or passive, that they're going to perform a miracle. I believe Oral Roberts has deluded himself to the fact that he believes he does.
It's an active thing, or it could be passive that a miracle is going to be performed in their behalf. You see. And this faith may not be accompanied with saving faith at all. Now we want to look at an illustration of this. And I invite you to turn to John chapter six. John is the apostle of belief of faith. And in John chapter six, we're not going to read the whole of this chapter. Because it is a lengthy chapter. But I challenge you to read it. I challenge you to study John chapter six. And in studying this, it begins with the feeding of the five thousand.
Five thousand men, apart from women and children, are fed by the Lord with a little boy's lunch. And of course, our Lord that night, after the feeding of the five thousand, he sends his disciples away. Then he performs another miracle. As he meets them, walking on the water, you remember, if you study the parallel passage in Matthew. Now why did our Lord send his disciples away? His disciples couldn't take what was coming apart from him, and he got them out of there. For you see, they came to make Christ the king.
They had a free lunch. They saw the miracle, you see. And they enjoyed the miracle. And they were going to come and make him a king. And you remember how interested the disciples were in a kingdom. The mother of James and John went to the Lord and said, I want one son on the right hand and I want the other one on the left hand in the kingdom. You see, they were looking at glory. And their mother was one who stood in Mary, the mother of Jesus at the cross. I often wonder what went through her mind when she saw the Lord on the cross.
She must have scratched her head and said, I never thought it would come to this. You see, there's no crown without a cross. The way to the crown, the way to glory, is the way of the cross. It is the way of the cross that leads home. Now, when we look at verse twenty-four, when the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, neither his disciples, they also took shipping and came to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus. And when they had found him on the other side of the sea, they said unto him, Rabbi, when did you come here?
Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, you seek me not because he saw the miracles, but because he did eat of the loaves and were filled. And then he goes on to speak of personal faith in himself as a bread which came down from heaven, as the one who came to do the will of the Father. And all these people could do when you go to John six, In spite of all that our Lord said, all they could do is think naturally. They could not think of God, the Father. They could only think of the earthly husband of Mary, who was not the Father of our Lord Jesus, just the foster father.
Well, now we want to deal with just a couple verses here in order to stir our mind. I want you to begin at verse thirty-seven. Our Lord says to them in verse thirty-five, and Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you that ye also have seen me and believe not. A mighty miracle had been done for them. They believed to the extent they wanted to make him a king. But he said to them, You believe not.
Now, in verse thirty-seven he says, All that the Father giveth to me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which has sent me. that of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
The Jews then murmured at him because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know, how is it that he saith, I came down from heaven? Do you see their unbelief? All they can do is think naturally. They didn't believe that he was who he said he was, the son of God. Notice verse forty-three. Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, murmur not among yourselves. No man can come.
Now that word can is a word that speaks of man's inability. No man can come unto me, except the Father which has sent me, draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. That verse has caused many to stumble. And they don't like that word, can. And they don't like the thought of God drawing. And no one can come except the drawing of the Father. But oh, don't miss the next verse. To me the next verse is of greatest incentive for teaching children that I know. For he says, it is written in the prophets, and they shall be all taught of God.
Every man therefore that hath heard. and us learned of the Father. Come with unto me. Let us teach children of the Father. For when they learn who the Father is and who Christ is, they are drawn. They come half to the learning, to the persuasion of the word of God. And when you go through this whole thing all the way down, we go down now, to verse sixty-four and sixty-five. In verse sixty-four he says, But there are some of you that believe not, for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.
And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given him of my Father from that time. notice the statement, from that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. And John six has been called by a number of Bible teachers the sifting chapter of the Bible. It sifts those who are real from those who are mere professors. From that time when our Lord taught what we know of as a doctrine of election.
They wouldn't walk with him anymore. That's too tough for me. I can't take that. Well, our Lord turns to his own. Verse sixty-seven. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God. Friends, there is such a thing as historical faith.
There is such a thing as miraculous faith. But it doesn't say. That brings us to the third, which we call temporal faith. This is a persuasion of the truths of salvation, which is accompanied with some promptings of the conscience and a stirring of the affection, but it is not rooted in a regenerate heart." I want you to turn to the thirteenth chapter of Matthew. Matthew chapter thirteen, the parable of the Stoic, and we want to read verses twenty and twenty-one. Matthew thirteen verses twenty and twenty one where we read and our Lord is explaining the parable of the store to his disciples but he that received the seed into the stony places the same is he that heareth a word and a none with joy receiveth it and how many times we know of people who seem to accept the word and they go on for a while and all of a sudden you
can't find them anymore they're living like the world there's no difference between them and the world where they really say now while we're not allowed to judge here is a passage that should be studied by the child of God for it says in the next verse yet hath he not root in himself. There's no root. There is no genuine work in the heart. There is no root, you see. Where am I here?
He endures for a while, but when tribulation or persecution arises, because of the word, by and by, he is offended. Everything looked so good until a little problem arose, and he's offended. Temporal faith. It was good for as long as it lasted. Now, I want you to turn to the Gospel of John, chapter eight. John eight, a passage we just studied in our Wednesday morning Bible class, I think of prophets.
John chapter eight and verse thirty and I only have four minutes I wish I had an hour a good hour to go over this passage but I want you to notice verse thirty as he spake these words now notice many believe on him this is a temporal phase and you can prove it by what follows now notice what our Lord does they believed on him And our Lord here in John eight had been proclaiming the truth that he is the right of the world. All right. Notice verse thirty one. Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, if ye continue.
That word continue is so important. That word continue is so important. If you continue in my word, Then are you my disciples indeed. And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Then they answered him, We be Abraham's seed. Excuse me. We be Abraham's seed. And have never been in bondage to any man. How do you, what do you mean? How sayest thou, ye shall be free? Now they arrived when they said that. Israel began as a nation of slaves in Egypt.
We've never been in bondage. We're Abraham's seed. They had a natural idea that because they were the natural descendants of Abraham, everything is all right. Just as a lot of people have the idea that because their parents are Christians, everything is going to be hunky-dory. Everything's going to be all right. But it doesn't work that way. We've never been in bondage to any man. When you go to the book of Judges, how many times were they in bondage during the book of Judges? And then when you think of the Babylonian captivity, when they were seventy years in bondage in Babylon, and while they were talking to the Lord and saying, we've never been in bondage to any man, they were servants of Rome.
You talk about the deception of the natural heart. The natural heart. is continuously deceived. And when you read through this whole chapter, they argue from this point on with the Lord, and our Lord himself tells them who he is. He said, Abraham rejoiced to see my dad, and he saw it in his glass, and he speaks of Genesis chapter twenty-two, when Abraham offered Isaac on the altar, and he beheld a A ram, a ram crowned with thorns. The whole picture of Calvary was there. And Hebrews eleven said he received him from the dead in a figure.
Abraham rejoiced to see my day. Abraham named that place. He said, this is Jehovah Jireh. In the month of the Lord it shall be seen. And all they could do was think naturally. Well, you're not even fifty years old yet. And you talk about seeing Abraham? He was continuously telling them he was the son of God. God was his father, but they didn't believe. So when you come to the last two verses, verses fifty-eight and fifty-nine, Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I stand to you before Abraham was, I am.
He said to them earlier in this chapter, you say you're Abraham's children. If you were Abraham's children, you'd act like Abraham did. That's what he told them. How did they act? Do they act like Abraham's children here in the last verse? Or do they act like children of Satan? He says to them then took they up stones to cast at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. going through the midst of them and so that's why. Temporal faith. Now there's one more. It is genuine faith.
And that's what we're going to take up in our next study here on the doctrine of faith. It is so important, friends, that we see what is not faith. And it gives us an insight into that which is all about us. And an earnest desire to see genuine faith that leads to a genuine walk with our Lord and to a genuine acknowledgement of who Jesus Christ is and bowing to His Lordship.
Now let's pray together. Our Father, we ask you now to take this word and with a search our hearts that we may grasp that word and that it may grasp us that we may live to the praise of thy glory if we continue then are we your disciples indeed not just a temporary belief but a belief that endures And we pray that each one may be a partaker of it because the new birth for Jesus' sake.