Open our Bibles, please, to Hebrews chapter eleven. Hebrews chapter eleven. Perhaps just reading the last two verses of chapter ten. 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 faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. Verse six: But without faith, it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. And God will bless to us the reading of these few verses together. Before the Lord Jesus went to the cross, he said to the disciples, Satan has desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat. And turning to Peter, he said, but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not. Satan's attack upon God's people today comes through many avenues, but his aim, of course, is to reach the citadel of the believer's life, and that is the realm of his faith. If the faith can be shaken, if the underpinnings can be loosened, if the structure can be weakened, he doesn't have to worry about the rest. All Christians are saved by grace, but not all are saved from disgrace. Not every believer finishes well. Satan is after the faith of God's people today as never before. I received two letters over the course of a ten-day period a while ago. One was from a teenager, not long saved, and the other was from a mature believer saved many years. In the young Christian's letter, she said, I am not sure if I believed the right way. The older Christian wrote in her letter, I don't know if I have enough faith. Now, here were some deep problems in the realm of faith. One having to do with the quality of faith, was it the right kind of faith? Another having to do with the quantity of faith, was there enough faith? Satan is after us. We are at war, and let us never forget it. He may pull on the velvet glove now and again, but he never takes off the steel gauntlet underneath. And he is out to get every child of God down if he can do it. Ultimately, he is not after you. He is after your God. He was not fighting Job. He didn't care what happened to Job. He was after Job's God. He said, you remember, to God, you take your protection away from Job, and he will curse thee to thy face. It was God he was after. Oh, how important it are, it is then that for our God and for his Christ, our faith may stand the test. These two letters gave me somewhat seriously to think in this realm of faith because in recent years, particularly in the recent past, I have run a- run across a number of God's people who have come under severe attacks in the realm of faith. I want to look at this matter with you from the scriptures under three simple headings, as the time will permit us. Faith is, or the definition of faith. Faith as, or the applicate, the description of faith. Faith does, or the application of faith. Faith is. What is faith? If only we could take an X-ray picture of it, if we could measure it, if we could make a model of it, if we could see how it works, if the surgeon could expose it and correct its failures, but we can't. Faith is a kind of intangible something. We know it when it's there, we know it when it isn't. What is faith? If there was one word that has troubled me in the English language, and most of my adult life has been having to do with words. I have a computer system at home we use in the production of Council Magazine. It has a word processing program in it with a 160,000 word dictionary that, with a double keystroke, the computer will proofread a manuscript in two seconds. That's a nice way to handle words. Unfortunately, there are some words that give us trouble, and one word has always troubled me. It did certainly did as a young person. It was that word believe. I wish that word had never been in the English language when I was young, because I was raised in a home where the Bible was read and God was revered and Christ was known and served. My grandparents, my grandfathers were preachers, and all my relatives, at least to my mother's side, w- were believers in Christ and assembly fellowship. There was never a time in my life when I didn't believe the Bible was true. I never remember a time in my life when I did not know John three sixteen, and I knew about the Lord Jesus Christ. I believed, always believed. I wasn't always saved. Oh, how those, that word troubled me, believe. And then I would hear some of the old preachers get up and make some very fine distinctions that troubled me. And they would say something like this: It's not enough to believe in, you must believe on. It is not simply by faith, it is through faith. And I never knew whether I was in or on or by or through. And many a troubled night I spent wondering if I really had the root of the matter in me. And you can be sure the devil loves to have it so. He likes when God's people are ill at ease as to their faith. And I think it's time that we clarified a few things. If you have never been troubled in your faith, then thank God for it, but your day isn't over yet. I sat, sat by the bedside of a dear old saint in her eighties, had lived a godly, blameless life, an aunt of my wife, and she was one of the most angelic souls you ever could wish to meet. She had lived a life of flawless testimony, and near to her death. I went to visit her one day. I said, how are you today, Aunt Helen? Not very good, she said. What's wrong? She says, I wonder if I'm really saved. Why, I said, Aunt Helen, what makes you think a thing like this? Oh, she said, I'm such a terrible sinner. I wonder if I really can be saved. And there, in her weakness and old age, the enemy was bringing in the big guns. If only somehow he could bring her down, even at the end. Of course, he could never rob her soul's salvation. That is secure, as we've been reminded, but he can rob us of this sense, the joy of that security and assurance. What is faith? Well, we have a definition of it in the first verse of chapter eleven, don't we? Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Another translation says, now faith gives substance to things hoped for and evidence to things not seen. We can't define faith in a verse any more than we can define love in a verse, but I think this does help us because it tells us the realm in which faith operates, and that's so important that we understand it. And I jump in my car to go to the airport, I slip it in reverse gear and back out of the driveway, change gears, step on the gas, and off I go to the airport. Then I get on the plane, and looking out the window, I find, to my great alarm, they're bringing a big tractor over and hooking it onto the front of the plane. I think to myself, can't this plane do what my car can do? My little car? Here's a multi-million dollar machine I'm going to trust my life to, and it can't even back up. But they take this thing and they push it backwards out into the tarmac, and then they unhook it, and it rum- it lumbers along with its wings drooping, and with somewhat alarm I look out and wonder what's going to happen. This machine seems very unsteady and very unstable until at the end of the runway, the pilot opens those big throttles, and the engines take over, and the wings lift up, and it leaves the earth and soars into the sky like a bird, and I understand, of course, the plane was not built for the realm of the earth. The plane was designed for the realm of the sky and for a different law altogether than the law of gravity alone. So it's important we understand the realm in which faith operates, and we learn from this verse that faith operates in three distinct realms. It operates in the realm of things inaccessible, of things invisible, and things internal. It operates in the realm of things not seen. Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. First of all, let's take the first one. The things we hope for, that is the things that are inaccessible at the moment to us by experience, we hope for them, and in that realm of hope is where faith works. Abraham understood this in Romans chapter four we read that Abraham had been given a great promise by God, and there Abraham, against hope, believed in hope that he might become the father of many generations. And he understood that faith and hope are inseparable for peace and entering into the promises of God. Faith and hope come together, and it is essential that we understand this. It makes the things that are inaccessible to us yet in our experience, it makes them real to us in the realm of our faith. Why are things inaccessible to us? Oh, we haven't reached them yet. The rapture is inaccessible to our experience. We haven't entered into that moment. We might before the conference is over, but as yet it is still in the realm of the blessed hope. What makes it real to the people of God? Faith does. It's faith that makes that hope a reality in our hearts and in our lives. And as we exercise faith in the hope, it becomes a real experience, and we enter into the joy of that anticipation. The reunion with loved ones that have gone from us is still in the realm of hope. Yet we believe the word of God, and if we exercise faith, that hope becomes a real joy, an anticipation to us here and now. Faith operates in the realm of things inaccessible to us, and this is why we pray. There are things we do not have, we hope for them, and therefore we pray in faith that we shall have them, and God answers the prayer according to his will, and we enter into it. Faith operates in the realm of things hoped for and gives them substance to us now, so that we may rejoice in the coming of the Lord, though it is not yet ours in experience. It is ours in the blessed hope. Faith operates in the realm of things invisible, the things that we cannot see at the moment, and it is the evidence, or it gives evidence of things not seen. Now, we know from another scripture that the things that are not seen are eternal things. These are the invisible things. What makes things invisible? Time carries things beyond our vision into the past, and we can no more see them in reality. But faith spans time and can sing, see from his head, his hands, his feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down. As we sit around the Lord's Supper and we take the bread and wine, we're mingling our faith with our hope as we look forward to his return, but we are also spanning the ages, and we look back to the cross, and we see with the eye of faith the things that have gone from us because of time. Space carries things beyond our vision, and we cannot see them because they are too far from us, too distant. But faith enables us to reach across the vast reaches of space and enter into the very presence of God. We do this by faith every time we pray. When our brother opened the meeting in prayer today, he did a more wonderful thing than the astronauts that went to the moon. Now, the astronauts get more publicity and much more investment of funds is made, but nevertheless, our brother, when he stood to pray, he actually by faith entered into the very throne room of the universe, and he drew near to God and entered within the veil. The Lord Jesus opened that way into the holiest of all by his precious blood, so that we by faith, sitting in this room here, down in Westbrook, Maine, may lift our voice and lift our hearts, and by faith we enter into the very presence of God. Things are invisible because of distance, but faith leaps across the distance and speaks with Almighty God. And isn't it a wonderful thing that he never gives us the sense of having to line up behind all the Chinese Christians that are praying at that moment, and the African Christians, and the Japanese Christians, and the Canadians. We don't get the sense of belonging to a great multitude of people clamoring for the ear of God, but he gives us that sense of a personal audience because by faith we enter into his presence. Things are invisible, not only by reason of time and space, but also because of lack of the sensory equipment. We cannot see in this room electronic pulsations, but they're here. And if we had a certain piece of equipment, we could plug into the power and turn to some certain channel, we could watch the news if we so desire. Now, we did not make those electronic pulsations, we simply made them visible, but they're here. But we do not have the sensory equipment to see those things without that equipment. But faith enables us to see what is invisible. Moses seeing him who is invisible. That sounds like a paradox, and it is. Invisibility means we cannot see it. But Moses saw him who was invisible. How is that possible? Paul reminds us in r- r- in Ephesians chapter one that the moment we are saved, we are given a sixth sense. It's called the eyes of the heart, and it is with the eye of the heart that we discern that which is invisible and eternal. It is so important we keep the eye clear, the eye of faith, we call it. It is so important that our vision is not dim, for if there is no vision, the people go backwards, they become naked, and they recant their faith. It is vital that the eye of faith is clear. Faith operates in the realm of things inaccessible to us yet, by hope, we enjoy it. By things invisible to us, it operates in the realm of invisibility, but it also operates in distinct realms internally, and this is where the writers of those two letters ran into problems, because they didn't understand this. When we look into the scripture, we find that there is an intellectual element of faith and an emotional element to faith and a volitional element to faith. We read about the intellectual element to faith, or faith as it relates to the mind, in verse three of chapter eleven. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the words of God, by the word of God. Now this has to do with the mind. How do we know that God made the world? We can't prove it scientifically anymore, and Darwin, the Darwinists or the evolutionists, uh, claim their theories are true. We cannot prove that God created the world scientifically. How do we know it? We know it because he said it, and that's good enough for us. If God says so, and he has written it in his eternal word in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, I choose to believe. These others choose to believe Darwin. They choose to believe the philosophies of men. I choose to believe God. See, believing is a choice. That's the first approach of the gospel. We choose to believe. That can be very simply demonstrated. Let me give you an illustration that will demonstrate that we choose to believe. We have a wonderful thing here called the mind, and it works far more efficiently than any computers ever could. Let me illustrate it now. In World War II, at the end of World War II, I was stationed in a little landing strip in the heart of Burma called Mechila. Did you believe that? Did you believe that statement? You did believe it. Now, why not would you believe that? You don't have a, an atom of proof that I was ever there. But you did believe it, and you were waiting for the rest of the story. The mind was adding up a lot of things, bringing together, bringing together facts, and the green light was on, and it was saying, yes, that's true, go ahead, tell us the rest of the story. However, if I had said rather, well, you Christians don't know this, but I was a member of the first team of astronauts that went to the moon. Why do you laugh? Instantly, you have dismissed that as absolute nonsense because we are choosing to believe something. The mind has come up with a red light that says that's absolute nonsense. That is not true. The gospel comes to us first to the mind with certain facts. There was one who died outside Jerusalem, the place called Calvary, of his head his name written, this is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Now, we have received those facts in the mind, and I make a decision, will I believe that or will I not? There are millions believe that Jesus lived and died, and they're not saved. They have believed the facts of the gospel. Then there is an emotional aspect of faith described for us in Romans ten. And there we read that if we will confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in our heart that God has raised him from the dead, we shall be saved. Now, this is the emotional part of us, the heart part of us, the inner man. And we read further down in that text, for with the heart man believeth. What is this? When I believe the facts of the gospel, then I am called to recognize that I am emotionally involved in that one who died upon the cross because he was dying for my sin. And I'm called to accept this fact in the realm of my heart. Do I acknowledge a personal responsibility to the death of Christ, my sin, upon that Savior? Yes, I believe that. The devils believe that. He died for sinners. They know who he is, the Holy One of God. There's no devils in heaven. What is lacking in the faith of the devils? The devils believe, says the Bible, and tremble. What is the difference in their believing and my believing? What is this believing that we read about in Hebrews ten? Them that believe to the saving of the soul. What is the difference? The difference is in the realm of the will. That is why the gospel is always couched in terms that call upon the will to respond. Open the door. Enter the door. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. Whether we come, whether we open, whether we enter, whatever the action of the will is, it's not important. So long as the will responds in obedience to the gospel, at that instant, eternal life is ours. We're living in a day when there's a great deal of preaching going on that calls upon a, what has been called an easy believism. And I think it's time that we include it in our gospel preaching the demand for obedience to the gospel. It is not simply believing the facts. A man, young man in California said, well, I won't tell you what he said because it was very distressing to me. He recounted the sins in which he was engaged at that time. He was living a life of abomination and sin, and it was just terrible to listen to the life he was living. And then he said, but of course, I'm saved, you know. I was born again. I said, young man, what are you saved from? He says, what do you mean? I said, the word saved means that you're saved from something. What were you saved from? He says, I don't know. I says, neither do I. It doesn't mean that the Christian doesn't sin and doesn't fail. That day will one, will one day come. But the life of the Christian should not be marked by a life of sin. How can this be? Faith involves receiving the facts and believing them. Faith involves the heart, where we acknowledge our responsibility to the one who died upon the cross. He died for my sins. Faith involves the will, when I respond to the gospel and I'm obedient to the gospel call. When the Lord Jesus comes, we read in Second Thessalonians, and he will come in flaming fire to take vengeance on his enemies, and who are his enemies? Those that know not God and those that obey not the gospel. So the faith that we read out here at the end of chapter ten, them that believe to the saving of the soul, involve the mind, the heart, and the will. Now, as many a person doesn't know that when they get saved. Many a child, many a sinner doesn't understand that. Many a believer doesn't really understand it. But the scriptures make it clear that we understand certain things by faith, that we believe in the heart certain things, and that we respond in faith by the will to the gospel, and thereby we are saved by faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. What does faith do? Subjectively, there are the joys of faith. If we had taken time to read through this chapter, we would find that faith receives from God. Verse thirty five: women received their dead by faith. Faith receives from God, and faith responds to God. Faith rests in God. Faith pleases God, and faith calls men and women to obey God. The just shall live by faith. This is the fundamental principle of the Christian life. Of course, was given to Habakkuk. First of all, when everything around him caused him great distress in the realm of his faith, his faith came under attack when he saw the nation disintegrating morally, when evil was on the throne and innocence was on the scaffold. His own people were turning from God, and heaven was silent. He looked out beyond the borders of his nation, and he saw the Assyrian army preparing for attack, and heaven was silent. He cried to God, why? Why was the Lord not doing something? When he got an answer, he had a worse problem than what he had before. The Lord said to Habakkuk, in effect, I am doing something. What is it? I'm arming the Syrian to attack my people. Well, if they had one problem to begin with, it was more complicated now. Did a very wise thing. He went up to the watchtower, and he put his hand upon his mouth to keep silent, to see what God would say to him further, and then God gave him that great principle to live by. He says, the just shall live by his faithfulness, or the just shall live by his faith. And when he grasped that great principle, it enabled Habakkuk to write one of the loveliest psalms in all the Bible. Only a few verses long, but it gave expression to the victorious heart that in spite of all the circumstances that were befalling him and that might befall him, he was able to rise up and sing praise to God because the just shall live by. Paul picks it up and he gives it to the Romans, and he places the emphasis on the just, and he says, the just shall live by faith. He picks it up again, and he writes it to the Galatians, and he places the emphasis on the life, and he says, the just shall live by faith. And the Spirit of God picks it up and writes it to the Hebrews and places the emphasis on the faith and says the just shall live by faith. And this is why Satan is attacking the faith of God's people today. It is, it is vital, it is the great foundation, as it were, the, that which holds the life of the Christian in stability in times of distress. Faith as. What is faith like? So we said we can't measure it, we can't weigh it, we can't look at it with the eyes of faith, and because of that, Satan so often attacks us and openly fo- mocks our faith. The Lord Jesus has given us a very beautiful picture, and he says in Matthew seventeen twenty, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, remove him to your place, and it shall remove. And in Matthew thirteen he says that the mustard seed, the grain of mustard seed, when it is grown, becomes the greatest. Now, every preacher likes alliteration, and there are three words nicely alliterated for us in that verse that tells us something very important about faith. The grain of faith. That's the nature of faith. It's not the size of faith he's talking about. I've seen those little pendants some of the sisters wear, and they have a little plastic bauble with a single grain of mustard seed in them. And I suppose what it means to say is that if I have see- if I have faith just this size, I can do wonders. I can even move mountains. That is not really what the Lord is saying at all. It is not the size of faith he's talking about. If he had been talking about the size of faith, he could have used an atom. Speaks of an atom in Isaiah forty. He could have used a grain of sand, but a grain of sand will always be a grain of sand, diminishing even by the centuries. The grain of faith has something in it, something in it the grain of sand doesn't have. It has potential, and that's what the Lord Jesus is talking about, not size. How big is your faith? I think most of us would hesitate to say, I have great faith. Maybe the untaught might, but most of us don't feel like boasting about the size of our faith. But you may have great faith. You remember the Lord measured faith on three occasions. The Syrophoenician woman said to the Lord Jesus, the little dogs eat the little crumbs that fall from the master's table. Great is thy faith. Now, as I read that narrative, it doesn't sound like great faith to me. Does it sound like great faith to you? The little dogs eat of the little crumbs that fall from the master's table, but it must have been great faith because the Lord measured it. He says, great is thy faith. You remember... when Peter and the disciples were in that ship that night when the Lord appeared walking on the water, and they, supposing it to be a spirit, cried out in fear, and the Lord Jesus said, you see, it is what we're afraid of. We know what it is, we're not so much afraid, but it's it, the it's of life that we cannot understand, that fill us with fear, supposing it was a spirit. And the Lord Jesus said, don't be afraid, it, the thing you fear, is I. And Peter called out across the water, if it be thou, bid me come to thee on the water. And the Lord said, come. Now remember, it was night, there was a storm, and Peter stepped out of the boat onto the water. He did not know, when he went over the side, whether it was a knit or whether it was the Christ until he hit, hit the surface of the water. If it was only a knit, an apparition, he was going down. If it was true to the Lord, he was going to stay on the top. Now, in my book, that's great faith. He began to sink, seeing the waves and the winds boisterous, the Lord took hold of him, at his cry, led him back into the ship, and he said to Peter and the others, O ye of little faith. Now, it's not little faith to me, but you see, we measure faith differently, don't we? It must have been little faith because it was the Lord who measured it. He knows. You remember when he slept on the kinder part of the ship, he had said to them, let us go over to the other side. They had forgotten that in the storm. They woke him up with the rebuke, carest thou not that we perish? He stood and rebuked the wind, and he said to the sea, peace be still. There was a great calm, and he turned to them and said, why is it ye have no faith? No faith, little faith, great faith. But the beautiful thing about it is this, he met their need anyway, and it didn't depend on the size of their faith at all. Isn't that a good job? There were times when he said, according to your faith be unto you, but the greatest blessings of the scriptures are not measured according to our faith, but according to the riches of his grace and glory. So don't worry about the size of your faith. Don't be preoccupied with your faith. He says, invest that faith like the seed in the Trinity for which it was designed, the Father and the Son through the eternal Spirit, and watch it grow, because that's the next word he speaks of, grown. When the, when this grain is grown, faith grows. Faith grows. The disciples said, increase our faith. What they meant was add to our faith. But the Lord Jesus was going to teach them the lesson that he doesn't add to faith. We add to our faith, but he doesn't add, he multiplies our faith. And that's the picture of the mustard seed, isn't it? You, if you plant one mustard seed, up comes a bush that becomes the greatest of the herbs. And in one generation, think of the multitudes of mustard seeds that will result from that one that was planted. That's multiplication. They wanted their faith to grow. How does faith grow? Faith grows as a fruit of the Spirit-led life. We read that in Galatians five twenty two. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control. And as we bring our lives under the control of the Spirit of God, faith grows as the fruit of a spirit-led life. Faith grows as the result of a spirit-fed life. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. It's one of the reasons why we're to read the Bible and study it. We see what our great God has done with ordinary me- Who was Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees? Who was Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees? He was a nobody. God called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees, and Abraham discovered what a great God he had. And he mingled his faith with hope, and he is renowned in the scriptures as glorifying the God of heaven with his faith. Yeah, when you read about it in Romans four, doesn't sound like so great faith to us, does it? Against hope he believed and hoped that he might become the father of many generations. What had God said to him? I have made thee the father of many nations. It was an accomplished fact, and it must have been great faith because of God measure. What we're needing today, I do believe it, and what the world needs to see is men and women not doing the miraculous. The devil can fake that. What the world needs to see is men and women living by faith every day. I believe that that was the strongest testimony that influenced my life as a young person to trust the Lord Jesus. I knew there was a God in heaven who answered prayer. I saw it happen in our home. I knew that there was a God who cared about the individuals because my parents, my mother in particular, lived by faith. And that was a testimony to me every day of my life. I saw a life of faith lived before my eyes. And we have an obligation to our children to do the same. And may I say to you young parents who have little children coming along, remember, the children will not assess the Christian life by the sermons they hear in the assembly of the saints. They will assess the Christian life by the lives they see at home sweet home lived in the kitchen. And that's where the Christian life begins. There are many make the Christian life a very nebulous affair. But the Christian life is the most practical thing on the face of the earth, and it is to be lived out in the day-to-day experiences of those who live by faith. For the just shall live by faith. That's the principle of their life. Faith grows as a value. In the spirit purged life. Spirit of God is always working on us to cleanse and purge our lives, and as our lives are purged by testing and by trials and even by suffering, our faith is purified that it might be to the praise and honor and glory of Christ at his appearing. And that trial of faith, Peter reminds us, is of more value, more precious than gold itself. And this is what brings glory to God. It's not the eloquence of our sermons. It's not the harmony of our singing. It's not the activity of our life. It's the faithfulness of life, lived in obedience to God, men and women living by faith. Closing. The grain of seed, when it is grown, becomes the greatest of the herbs, the Lord Jesus said, reminding us of the tremendous power of faith. And Hebrews eleven follows that statement to show what ordinary men and women accomplish by faith in an infinite God. We need some miracles today. We need to see the power of God in the assembly.