As our brother prayed, if we never meet again this side of heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be. If it's great, this good to be with God's people, just think what it's going to be like to be with them all. And surround the throne and praise the Lord Jesus. I want to thank the conveners of the conference for inviting a Canuck to come down here from the cold, frozen wastelands of Ontario. And with the funny language we speak, always saying A. That's because there's three A's in Canada and lots of things like that. If I had time, I'd share with you. To stay at the Millets is a treat. I'd stay much longer if I could. I wouldn't rush off on a plane trip when you can be treated like that. That's just wonderful and I appreciate it so much. And it was so kind that they got to let me stay there with the shows there, and I got to know them a little bit. And what an encourager they are. I just am sloppy about that, but they are careful to encourage and encourage and encourage. And I hope I learn that quicker than I have up till now. Well, I was going to speak to you on the death of Stephen. And when we're looking at the death of Stephen, the Book of Acts, we're standing on holy ground. But I've been circulating with a lot of you and talking to you and you begin to share your past and your situation. A lot of you are carrying burdens. A lot of you are wondering just what the future holds. Some of you have exceedingly tough things now and ahead of you. And we wonder just how we react. We had a couple of discussions with with two families about faith and what that does and how God honors faith and how come that sometimes we have faith and trust and things don't turn out the way we we wish about late June I was speaking to a family conference in a conference center just twenty miles from home and I went into kind of the gift and tuck shop and there was a A young couple and they were buying the, you know, the sweats and t-shirts for their family. And they say they had two children. One was a four-year-old boy. And the mother held up this little shirt and said, do you think that's the size four? And I said, well, you got me. I don't ask me. I don't know. But she said, I think that's the size four. And she told me about little Jonathan and how pleased he would that she'd return with a shirt. Just before I came up here, I got a letter saying that Jonathan was dead. I don't think I could have said a whole lot to her if I knew that he was sick and that it was serious, that it would be in any way comforting to her because we're very glib with things, aren't we? And just when I left, my wife stuck this little picture of my little twin grandsons. This little guy on the left was almost dead when he was born. He's got serious heart troubles and he's scheduled for surgery, but God has been good and he has kept him up till now. The same time as I was rushing down to Toronto to take my daughter to the specialist to sort of support her, my other daughter-in-law phone and said, can you come down quick? They don't realize that I'm seventeen years out of date in medicine and I'm back in the days of, you know, just simple stuff. And would you come and help us because because James, that's my nine-year-old grandson, has been rushed into hospital with kidney failure, and he might have to have a transplant. Of course, they fear the worst, but God has been good, and his health is iffy, but he's alive, and we've all learned a lot of good things. But then you share things that are far more powerful than that, and we wonder, where is God when all this happens? Does he care? Does he really understand and And, you know, Christians have struggled with that. And sometimes we get angry with God. We wouldn't admit it, but he understands because he knows our hearts anyway. And as we think about this, I think back a century, there was a British philosopher and author by the name of David Hume. And maybe he was right, people think. David Hume used to like to antagonize believers who were struggling with great problems. And he said there's only two explanations. Either God is utterly loving and he cares about your situation, but he isn't all-powerful and therefore, although he is loving, he is not powerful. He does not intervene. He said, on the other hand, maybe he is all-powerful and he could intervene in your situation, but he's not all-loving and he doesn't care enough about you to intervene in your situation. Now, the Bible says without faith, it's impossible to please God. And the trouble is that out there in Christendom, and in certain parts of our Christian companies, there are people who have an unbiblical view of faith. And the faith is based in the resources of the Christian. And we face circumstances of only we have enough faith then God is forced to move on our behalf. Well, that's not what the scripture says. And so I'm going to just briefly share a couple of ideas with you and with myself about what faith really does. So where are we going to turn? Of course, we're going to turn to Hebrews chapter eleven. So turn to Hebrews chapter eleven. It was A.W. Tozer, one of my spiritual heroes who... wrote this, True faith rests upon the character of God. Boy, I'm glad about that. I'm glad it's not because of my faithfulness. True faith rests on the character of God and seeks no further proof than the moral perfection of the one who cannot lie. It is enough that God said it. If the statement should contradict every one of the five senses and all a conclusion of logic as well, still the believer continues to believe. Heaven approves such faith because it rises above mere proof. and rests in the bosom of the Father. So I can't profess to understand all that God does in this world. As Deuteronomy twenty-nine, twenty-nine says as I opened, I think it was Saturday morning, the secret things belong to the Lord our God. I don't know why he's doing what he's doing in the world, but I know that heaven approves faith in the character of God because it rises above mere proof and rests in the bosom of God himself. So let's read a few verses in chapter eleven. Actually, when we're talking about faith in the book of Hebrews, we should begin in chapter ten and continue into chapter twelve. So we ought not to just break into the middle of it as we're going to do today for sake of time. Chapter ten tells us what faith is related to. You might just want to tuck it in the back of your head if you want to be encouraged by the epistle of Hebrews, treatment of faith. Chapter ten talks about what faith is related to. It says it's related to your view of the sovereignty of God. It's related to your view of confidence in the character of God. It's related to your view of endurance for God and your view of obedience to God and your view of the promises of God. That's all in chapter ten. That's crucial to understanding the biblical doctrine of faith. Now chapter twelve says what faith requires. Not now what faith is related to, but what it requires. It requires that we run with endurance. We don't leave it all to God. It means that we fix our eyes on Jesus. It means we learn from the discipline of the Lord and we have a right relationship to the body of Christ. And these are all things that faith are related to. But chapter eleven talks about what faith does and does not do. So we'll break into this chapter, but you know that it's talking about faith as the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. And it talks about Abel, and it talks about Enoch. And it says in verse six, 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 then it talks about Noah and Abraham and Peter. people like Sarah and Isaac and Esau, Jacob, Joseph. And it talks about the bones of Joseph and how faith was involved there. And these are wonderful lessons to learn. We could have a conference that would go on for years just examining these patriarchs of faith. We'll break in in verse twenty-nine. The first thing I want you to know is that faith sometimes changes circumstances. Point number one, faith sometimes changes circumstances. We find that verse twenty nine as we read together. By faith they pass through the Red Sea as by dry land, which the Egyptians are saying to do were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were compassed about seven days. By faith the harlot Rahab, imagine the harlot Rahab perish not with them that believe not, when she had received the spies with peace. For what shall I more say, for time would fail me to talk about Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah and of David also and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, Turn to flight the armies of the aliens. And look at this, verse thirty-five. Women receive their dead, raised to life again. It can't get better than that. Faith sometimes changes circumstances. Do you believe that? Do you come to God in faith? But knowing that the secret things belong to the Lord our God, He is sovereign in the world. He's sovereign in the church. He's sovereign in the home. He's sovereign in our individual lives. But do you believe that faith in God whose character is unassailable and that it can change your circumstances? Some of you have had experiences of faith changing circumstances. We need to rejoice in every one of these victories and it gets more powerful so that it ends with women received their dead raised to life again. The fact is that sometimes God intervenes in a very powerful way and we are not thankful. But we like to sing, God, any rivers you think are uncrossable, God, any mountains you can't tumble through. God specializes in things thought impossible. He will do things for you that the world cannot do. Is that true? And yet we doubt and yet we waver and we question the character of God. I'm glad that the book of Revelation teaches us that when we come to walls, like the walls of Jericho, it's God who holds the key. No man opens doors except God opens them and no man goes through a door that God can close. We have a sovereign God in heaven who's in control of our lives and our circumstances, even in an evil world. He controls the key. Sometimes when we're struggling with some of the circumstances we find ourselves in, it is difficult to understand why things happen the way they do. But the point I want to make is sometimes the sovereign God, when we come in faith, will change our circumstances. I think if we open the meeting now for examples of how God has blessed us in spite of some of the things that happen, it would be a heartwarming and Christ-honoring thing to do. I remember very well in my practice a dear lady and her husband who were not believers, but this lady worked in a bank and the teller in the next till to her was a faithful believer and she prayed for her and passed gospel literature to her and spoke to her kindly about the Lord and eventually she got saved and she came charging into my office Just sort of without opening the door. She almost came right through it. And she didn't have an appointment. But when I heard her problem and her joy, she didn't need an appointment. Because she was sharing with me that Christ had come into her life. And she was born again by the power and grace of God. Now I'd like to say that I was praying fervently for her. And that she was on my prayer list and without fail. But although I knew that she was not a Christian, most of my patients weren't. I had not prayed for her. But there was a faithful servant of Christ. A simple young lady who was the next teller. And she loved Christ enough and she loved this lady enough that she would not stop until she came to Christ. I thank God for every one of those tellers and and road diggers and whatever they are who are faithful and see people as lost. But she came in a couple of months later and said, my husband isn't well. And I said to her, well, bring him in. And as soon as I saw him and spent five minutes with just a simple stethoscope, I knew what was wrong with him. He was dying of cancer. And so now we had a challenge of a new believer who believed that God would do anything. Not only could, but would. And she began to get very concerned about her husband and time in eternity. And she'd come and say, Paul, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? She said, will it help to put out some gospel literature in the house because he was confined to the home? I said, yes, that'd be a good thing to do. He assured her every day, woman, don't put that stuff out because I never look at it. And she'd come back to the office and say, oh, the fact is he's telling the truth. I even put a little bit of salt near it. And it's never disturbed. And I'm crying to God that he would intervene in my husband and he'd at least read the literature that the Spirit of God will honor the Word of God and he'll be saved. But one day, one day she came back and said, you know, I know he moved one of those papers. I know he moved one. And her faith was increased that God could work in his life. Well, the fact was that he read a lot of those papers, but he never told her what the result of that reading was. I will never forget the day when I got a call from the hospital during the night to come because the husband was in a coma and would probably not last the night. And so I phoned her house and said, I'll come around, I'll get you, I don't want you driving, I'll go with you and we'll go to your husband's bedside. We walked into that little room, pulled the curtains around and one of the nurses came with us and we stood there and watched this man's life ebbing away. There was no way that he would survive the night. And what she needed to know, what she didn't know was that God had been real to this man, and the Word of God was powerful, and the Spirit had convicted, and he had accepted the Lord Jesus. But here he was. He could not tell us. I didn't know what to do. I don't have answers for all of those things. So I just said, the first thing that came into my head, give me your hand. We're going to pray. And I said to the nurse, give me your hand. We're going to pray. She didn't know what to do. She thought she should have danger pay for this particular shift. And there we're standing around the bed where this man is just doing kusmal breathing. And we cried to God that somehow, by his grace, he would be able to communicate to his dear wife that she'd see him in heaven. And I've never seen it again. Out of a deep terminal coma, he just woke up, sat up, told his wife in loving terms with tears. that he belonged to Jesus. And Jesus belonged to him. He sank down into the bed and passed from time into eternity. And I think of it every time I read Hebrews chapter eleven. Sometimes faith changes circumstances. Then there's another part of verse thirty-five that I have marked in my Bible. And it's not the women received their dead raised to life again, but and others. Others. others. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourging. Ye moor were bonds and imprisonments. They were stoned. They were sawn asunder. They were tempted. They were slain with a sword. They wandered about in sheepskins. and goat skins being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth." Point number two, sometimes faith does not change circumstances. There are others. Tradition tells us that from verse thirty-seven on they were stoned, They were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with a sword, they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, and what follows, refers to the time of the Maccabees. And in about one eighty BC, that's in the intertestamental period, the Maccabees feature largely in Israeli history. And there was a man by the name of Antiochus Epiphanes from Greece. who called himself Antiochus Theos, that he is God. And he was on a military campaign to conquer Egypt when Alexander the Great called him back. And he was so angry, he detoured back to Greece through Israel and he attacked Jerusalem. And the Maccabees were resisting the Romans and then later now the Greeks who were conquerors of the world. And tradition tells us that this refers to that. And he besieged Jerusalem. And the high priest at the time was Eleazar. Now, the name Eleazar, the high priest, occurs recurringly over the Old Testament and into the new. Because it was one of the common names for the high priest in the economy of Israel. And he had seven sons. And when this... army breached the walls of Jerusalem, he slew Eleazar the priest in front of all the people, and he killed the seven sons. One he spiked through with a spear, and one he killed by cutting his eyes and his tongue out, and letting him bleed and choke to death, and one he killed by cutting his arms and legs off, and one he burned at the stake, and one he fried in oil while he was alive. And two, he chained to the chariot wheels and rode up and down the cobblestone streets of Jerusalem till they were ground to mince meat. Where was the God of Israel then? Where was the God of Israel when Isaiah was sawn in two? Where was the God of Israel when ten of the twelve apostles were martyred? Where was the God of Israel when Peter was crucified upside down and he knew about his death long before it happened? Tradition tells us that Peter asked the Lord that he may be crucified hanging upside down because he was not worthy to be dying like his Savior. And we could go on and on and we can put your situation in there and we could put my situation in there. And why is it that four of our friends are from New Tribe's mission, are prisoners of the Colombian rebels, and several of their friends have been murdered, and they are sequestered somewhere in the jungle. We believe they're alive, but we don't know for sure. But there are four mums at home with little children, and by faith, they're trusting God that they'll be released. But sometimes faith does not change circumstances. That is very real. What it means is if you base your theology on circumstances, you'll never know at any moment of time whether God really loves you. And if you base your faith and theology on your experience, you'll never know from day to day if God cares for you. Whenever I'm having a pity party for myself and wondering if God cares, I swing my study chair right around and look at the bookcase right behind me, and I take down the journal and the diary of David Brainerd. Now, you Americans ought to know about David Brainerd. David Brainerd was the intended son-in-law of Jonathan Edwards, that man who was so powerful of God in New England in the Great Awakening. He was engaged to David Brainerd's daughter, but God had called him to... to preach the gospel to the Indians from the Susquehanna River to the Atlantic Ocean in New England. He was saved at nineteen. He was dead at twenty-nine. He never married Jonathan Edwards' daughter. And he writes in his journal, he said, as he was even beginning to die from pulmonary tuberculosis at nineteen, and he would have fevers and comas and delirium. And he writes, the Indians tell me that that I arrived into their campsite strapped across my horse because the previous band had thrown me over the saddle, given the horse a slap, and it went through the bush until it came to another clearing. On that trip, he said, I remember nothing except in my delirium. I was crying to God, Oh, God, save Indians for Jesus' sake. And that's how he went. He was dead ten years after he was converted. And in all of that time, although he had a great passion for the Lord that shows so powerfully in his writings, and as he writes the last things that he thought about his heavenly Father, it exalts the Lord Jesus and the sovereignty of God in a powerful way that makes me ashamed that I'm having a bad day. But he had no converts in ten years, but he believed God was righteous. And he only had one to Christ, as we loosely use that term, his interpreter and his interpreter's wife, but in the last six months of his life, at his very weakest, when he was unconscious more than he was conscious, God used the message of the gospel through David Brainerd to sweep hundreds of Indians into the kingdom of heaven. And so when I read these things, I know God is faithful. I know we cannot judge God by our circumstances and by our experiences. I know that is true. And we have to find an answer that we can put our feet on solid ground. We must believe the Word of God. We've got to decide, is God's Word true? Not just is it powerful and impressive, but is it true? And every day when you come to the Word of God and you flip open the pages of Scripture, you've got to say, is this Word true? Is it based on what I feel about it or is it based on the character of God? If you come to the conclusion it's the basis of the character of God, then we can read it and know that God is sovereign in all his ways, but the secret things belong to the Lord our God. We need to be able to pray like the Old Testament saints did. You remember that, you remember the three men who went into the fiery furnace? What did they say? We know that if we go in that furnace, God will either deliver us. Faith sometimes changes circumstances. But if He doesn't, He'll still be God. Our children need to read our lives, not our lips. They need to see that in the little things of life that we trust God and that He's in charge of our home. They need to see that God is able and His character is impeccable and He doesn't change, we just wander away from Him. Do you know that your children by the time they're age five will have learned all of the big ideas that form their character for life? Fifty percent of them, of those ideas, and the next thirty percent will come by the time they're age nine. And that's why it's important to build trust in the living God and the character of God into the lives of little people. That's why we need our best teachers in the primary Sunday school classes. And we need to see God working in the lives of our children very early. And they need to know about the character of God. Out of it comes a couple of principles. Faith is not receiving from God the things we want, but faith is the ability to accept from God the things that he gives us. for our good and for his glory. So principle number two is faith sometimes does not change circumstances. Principle number three is here in verse thirty nine and it's this that faith does not impune the character of God. And all these, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise. The Old Testament is full of people who did not receive the promise. They didn't even live to see the promise of the Messiah. They didn't see the Messianic Kingdom. They didn't receive all that the Old Testament is chocked full of which says God is faithful and faithful is he who promised who will do it. But they didn't impugn the character of God. We are loath to do that, but we do it. We sometimes doubt if God cares for us and he loves us. Maybe David Hume was right, he does love us, but he's not willing to be powerful in our lives. Or maybe he wants to be powerful, but he really doesn't love us. And when we get feelings like that, friends, we just need to turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face, and these things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. What we need most is not handy-dandy explanations from preachers about why bad things happen to good people. We need to look straight into the eyes of God and know that He is sovereign and good. They did not impugn the character of God. The fourth and simple thing I'd like you to see is in the last verse, God having provided something better. Some better things for us that they without us should not be made perfect. And the simple statement Number four is this, that faith always ends in ultimate victory. It always does. That God, having provided something better for us, that they, the Old Testament saints, without the New Testament saints, should not be made complete in Jesus Christ. Something better. Fellow believers in the Lord Jesus, I don't know what your circumstances are. You don't know what mine are. I don't know whether this little tyke who struggled for four months even to take a breath is going to survive his surgery coming up in November, God willing. But if he doesn't survive, he's with the Lord Jesus. Something better. And you may have all sorts of financial difficulties, but you won't be poor there. You're going to be a co-heir with Jesus Christ. I don't know whether you've got some health issues that have been with you for a long time and you struggle with, but I know there's a time soon coming we're going to have bodies like the body of the Lord Jesus. I don't know whether you struggle to really appreciate the Savior like we really want to do. And I sat here this morning and I sensed that a lot of us just wanted to love him more. and worship Him more and tell Him more about what's in our hearts. And the Spirit of God helps us with that infirmity. But someday we're going to see Him face to face. Oh, to behold Him and know that we're in the likeness of Jesus Christ. It will be worth it all when we see Jesus. It will be worth it all. One glimpse of His dear face will all life cares erase. Gladly run the race till we see Christ. Faith always ends in ultimate victory. I was at a boys and girls camp and they were kind of senior kids and we had struggled all week. I know that Dave will tell you the same thing. Sometimes you're with young people and you're just pouring your heart out that they would do business with Christ. And the first couple of days it's every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before, but after that it's downhill. And there was one girl there who I recognized right away was suffering from cerebral palsy. And you remember with cerebral palsy they speak with a very great difficulty. And the kids had a little bit trouble understanding her. At first day or two they made the noble effort, but after that they paid no attention. She walked in a very difficult way with a draggy leg. And the first few hung back, but after that they just barreled off to what they wanted to do and nobody waited for her. And it came to the final day, the final day of the camp. We had our last campfire and it was burning. And the director of the camp introduced the whole situation. I don't know whether he had her in mind or not, but he said, here's what I want you to do. I want you to If God has been real in your life, I really want you to just take a little twig and step forward and drop it into the fire and just say a few words about what God means to you and not a soul moved. Then finally, this dear girl stepped up and dragged her feet towards the center of the fire with her little twig and she took the three hundred and sixty degrees and looked into the eyes of every one of those young people. And she said, Oh, God, I don't know why these young people are treating me like this. I really don't know. Dear Lord, I don't know why you made me like this with the way I look and the way I act and the way I talk. I do not know. But I do know this, that everything I have and everything I am and ever will be, I dedicate to you. She dropped her little twig. into the fire. Taught me a powerful lesson. Sometimes faith changes circumstances. Sometimes faith does not change circumstances. And we never let our circumstances impune the character or righteousness of God. And blessed be His name. Faith always ends in ultimate victory. Amen.