Address—Don Rule
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John, Chapter 20.
And verse 27.
Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hit her thy finger, and behold my hands, and reach, hit her thy hand, and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless.
But believing.
And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.
Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed.
Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.
Before making comments on this this passage, turn over to Habakkuk.
Chapter 2.
Jonah, Micah. Naam Habitat.
Abacus Chapter 2.
And verse 4.
Behold, his soul, which is lifted up, is not upright in him.
But the just shall live by his faith.
We're going to speak for a little while about the subject of faith.
Really, I don't know that I could say it's on the subject exactly beyond saying we're gonna make some remarks on the subject of faith. Because if we started in Genesis and just read verses, we could read till the end of the hour and not exhaust all the verses in Scripture in which that particular very important word is found.
So it's just very gonna not be very comprehensive. It's not gonna be very complete.
Uh, it's just gonna be remarks on the subject of faith. I believe it complements what we had in the reading meeting this morning.
As to what the reading meeting this morning ended up talking about?
Enjoying and living in the good of the position that we are in, of having been quickened and raised and seated in heavenly places. But to enjoy it.
To live, it requires faith. We're going to talk about that faith.
The verse in John 20.
Speaks about Thomas. We all know about Thomas. And Thomas said unless I see and him and I see those Marks and I put my finger in my hand there, I'm not gonna believe.
So the week later, the Lord Jesus is present.
And Thomas sees and Thomas believes.
What I want to remark on is the next words of the Lord Jesus, when he said, Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.
You and I, as part of the Church of God, are the most blessed creatures that God has ever created or will ever create. We have a blessing that exceeds that of angels.
And we have a blessing, a future to be enjoyed now by faith which exceeds that of God's earthly people in the coming millennial day and in the coming eternal day.
And there's something connected with faith that distinguishes us from God's earthly people.
And that which distinguishes us from God's earthly people is something that God has chosen.
To I don't want to say necessarily reward, but has chosen to give us a more blessed place because of it, and that is with respect to the earthly people.
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It is.
See and believe, and the Lord Jesus will present himself in a coming day, as he has already presented himself to them in a way that they could see him. And he says to them, Believe me.
And upon their belief, they enter into a blessing from God. But God has reserved the richest of blessings to all the creatures.
For those who lay hold of him first without seeing.
And so, God, none of us have seen the Lord Jesus Christ.
Who is the visible expression of God to us in a coming eternity? But we lay hold of what we believe or what we have by faith, without seeing today.
And we might say that's hard, that's difficult. I wish something else I wish I could see, and then it would be easier to believe and so on.
Don't be sorry you don't yet see.
God is using it in his ways and according to his counsels to bring us into the greatest of all blessings. And we will look back when we're home in glory and say, I'm glad God did it that way. So enjoy the fact that you must now live out your life on the ground of faith for that which you do not yet see.
Here in Habakkuk chapter 2 and verse four, we're gonna make some more remarks. It says the just shall live by his faith. This verse appears four times in the Bible.
And each time it emphasizes something a little different about what the text of the verse is. It's introduced to us here and have a caulk. And I I read this particular verse because there's one word in it that's not found in the other three places.
And that word is his.
It is right. That's something we all have to deal with.
Every one of us in this room has to have his own faith. I can't have your faith, you can't have mine. It is extremely important to God.
That faith be found in US individually, and so here we find the just shall live by His.
Faith. We would love at times when we're parents to be able to open up son, daughter and pour some faith in. And it doesn't work that way, but it's our heart's desire. And we look to a God that can open them up and pour some faith in. And we thank God for that. But our faith has to be in the God that can do it, not in what we can do. And God is honored in that.
Let's turn over to the first place in the New Testament, where we have.
Umm. This word repeated in Romans chapter one.
Romans chapter one.
And verse 16.
I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.
To everyone that believeth, to the Jew 1St, and also to the Greek.
Where therein is the righteousness of God revealed, revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith.
Before we comment on this, let's turn over also to John's Gospel Chapter 3.
John's Gospel, chapter 3.
Verse 31.
He that cometh from above is above all.
He that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth. He that cometh from heaven is above all. And what he has seen and heard that he testifieth. And no man receives receiveth his testimony. And he that hath received his testimony has set to his seal that God is true.
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1St we just read is the definition of faith.
And what we see in Romans chapter one and here in John chapter 3.
Is that?
The faith work, the kind of faith we're talking about.
Is that faith which receives a report about something?
And accepts it as true.
So when God speaks.
He expects he has the right to expect that what he says will be accepted.
100%.
That's true.
And that's what faith is. It accepts the testimony given to it to be true.
If I say it's gonna rain tomorrow.
You can either accept that or reject it.
I'm not saying it's going to rain tomorrow. I have no basis to know.
But that illustrates something that's pretty important, isn't it?
We aren't characteristically, we have learned to be very unbelieving or skeptical in our lives. And when it comes to God, it's so important that we put that aside because the testimony of man, when man speaks, when man says something, when man demonstrates something, he fails sometimes in two areas.
One, he doesn't know what he's talking about.
Completely. He's got ignorance in him. And the second reason is because man has learned a lie and he can't always be trusted because sometimes he lies.
But in contrast to that, God expects us to absolutely accept everything he says to be true, because he also says I never lie and I know everything.
So accept it, believe it if you will trust it. Those words mean the same to me.
The God who speaks.
Chose to speak through the Lord Jesus Christ and when the Lord Jesus Christ was here on earth, he said if you've seen me, you've seen the Father and everything I'm telling you, the Father has given me to say to you. And so if you won't accept it, you're rejecting the one that gave it, which is God. Same thing is going to happen on this platform. If we're left here tonight, there's going to be someone I don't know who walk up, stand where I'm standing right now.
And.
God is going to speak to us by that person.
They are God's mouthpiece for us and they are going to read the very words of God to us, and God is going to hold us accountable.
For every word that comes from himself.
Through that person, his instrument, and we are to accept it.
We are to believe it as from himself.
So here in Romans chapter one and a quotation of this first the just shall live by faith.
The emphasis actually on that little phrase here is just.
What it is, is man. Romans is about unjust man and how unjust man can be made right with God and right in the beginning. He says I have I'm not ashamed of God's message and God's message says the way to be right with God.
Involves a message that you are to accept concerning God's Son, and when you accept it, God makes you just.
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And so faith is involved. The just shall live.
It could even say the just shall receive life through faith.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. And so it gives emphasis to that here.
The believing that of the message of the gospel and God's gospel includes more than just getting saved from hell. God's full gospel includes what we had this morning in the Reading meeting. That's part of God's good moves, God's message to us to be accepted and enjoyed by faith.
And so it's revealed.
Is it says in that verse, it's revealed from faith to faith. That is, it's made known on the principle of faith to those who receive it that way.
I'm going to interject something that's not perhaps quite the point here, but.
Umm. It illustrates something that I've had to learn over and over and over and over and over again in my life. And I'm still learning it, so maybe some of you are too.
So I'll repeat it.
For its benefit to us. It's a reminder to us when I was a little boy.
I learned that you could ask God for things.
And he'd do it. So one night up in my room, I decided I wanted a bow and arrow set.
So I asked God. Bow and arrow set.
And I had faith that I would get it.
I even told God where to put it.
Here is to put it in the.
Sort of a study we had in the house and there was a toy box there that my grandfather had made and God was to deposit my bow and arrow set behind the.
Toy box and I'd go down early in the morning and pick it up before one of my brothers found it.
And so the next morning I went down with complete confidence. I had faith, really I did, that it was going to be there. And I went down and I looked.
And it wasn't there. I opened up the toy box. It wasn't there. I started to think, who am I going to ask that's taking it? And my brothers beat me to it or something. And.
I was very disappointed.
Now that it took quite a few years to get anywhere on my disappointment.
But I want to say.
In a matter of faith.
What I was doing was.
I believe God will give me what I want.
That was the root of what was going on there. I wanted something and I believed God would give me what I wanted.
I had to learn.
Not only know that we sometimes say sometimes God says yes, sometimes God says no, and sometimes God says, wait, that wasn't in the principle of what I was doing.
I had formed within myself something that I wanted and I was going to use God's power to get it for me, and I was disappointed because God didn't do it.
I just say I've had to go over that lesson countless times in my life, brethren.
God gives the testimony from Himself, and that's what we're to lay hold on, not our wants, not our choices.
Not.
What we would like the outcome of something to be.
And our so-called faith, real as it may be, is going to find itself disappointed if we don't.
Seek God's mind and his choices and God's will in them. Even though we sometimes say, I've said many times, I'm just going to say, Lord, if it's your will. And then on the matter. But when he turned out not to be as well, I was pretty disappointed with him that his will didn't line up with mine.
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And so it caused some.
If I can be human about it, some strain between us.
Between my God and I, may we learn in the matter of faith that it is when what God says.
Not simply what's in our hearts that we want, we desire.
OK.
Wanna turn over Continue the remarks.
To the Old Testament.
To Isaiah, chapter 40.
We're gonna spend some time in this chapter.
It's I don't know that the word faith even appears in it. I'm not sure. I never stop to actually look at the verses with that thought in mind, but in my own heart it has a lot to do with the matter of faith.
In an important, extremely important way. It's very foundational to me. On the subject of faith, there are three.
Different, I'm going to say persons in this chapter.
That are taken up.
Man, idols and God.
And they're compared to each other.
And I believe that there's what I want, that I believe God wants out of it this afternoon is we're going to look at man, we're going to look briefly at idols, we're going to look at God, and God is pleading with us.
He was pleading with Israel here, but in principle he's pleading with us.
Trust me.
Trust me, believe me.
Aren't I worthy of your complete trust?
Notice first slide. We won't read the whole chapter, but I will say verse one. So I'll just make a comment on verse one. Comfort Qi. Comfort Qi, my people say it.
Your God, God is here restoring the relationship between himself and his earthly people. And, uh, it was given to them in the time of Isaiah and it had application then and it's gonna have application again during what we call the tribulation. And if your heart and mind lay hold of the, what's the principles in this chapter, we will find it is a comfort to our souls.
In the present circumstances of our lives that require faith.
So he says comfort she, comfort she my people and he then presents these thoughts to them as a means that will result in their comfort.
Verse five. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
Just to comment, everything God does ultimately is to be done for his glory.
Of him, through him, to him are all things, everything God does, everything God has ever will do, has at the bottom of it. It's to his glory, it's for his glory, it's for himself, it's for the display and our seeing of it is his own excellence of his being. So he says the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and, and what he's going to say, he reveals himself in glory.
Not in the glory that the New Testament brings before us in the personal Lord Jesus. He's dealing with earthly people, but the principle of it is here. He says all flesh shall see it, so let's see it together. Let's look at it together this afternoon and see something of the glory of God as expressed here in this chapter.
Now, a kind of rhetorical question is asking verse six, and he first starts with man. Look at yourself here.
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Gonna get a little chance to see yourself at least as God sees you.
So the question is.
The voice said cry, and he said, What shall I cry? What are we gonna say about ourselves? What's somebody going to say about us as creatures? Well, here's what it says. All flesh is grass, and all the goodness thereof, as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the spirit of the Lord blows upon it.
Surely the people is grass, the grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever.
Not very big, is it?
Not a whole lot of glory there.
This little grass.
It fades, it comes, it goes, it's gone.
That what mankind thinks of himself.
Not very significant, just it doesn't talk even about sin here, does it? It's just just man in comparison to God because things are being compared here. So we're going to see God in a moment. But if we're gonna compare man to God and what man is compared to what God is.
He says, well what should I cry? All flesh? This is grass.
The goodness thereof is the flower of the field.
Pretty for a little bit.
There's a certain beauty. It's so temporary, it's so passing. It doesn't last.
Such as man.
Now look at God first, skip down to verse 12. Now we're going to compare. God is going to compare himself to us and he says.
Who have measured God verse 12 Who have measured?
The waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out to heaven, and the span, and comprehended the death of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance. Who had directed the spirit of the Lord, or been his counselor, and taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment? Who taught him knowledge?
And showed him the way of understanding.
It's gone.
You know.
Suppose they put a balance here and I wanted to weigh 1 speck of dust.
Uh, I don't know if there any balances. I can say strongly they're none in a Allendale that could weigh it. It's too insignificant. Probably the surface of any balance in Allendale would have whole hundreds, maybe thousands of little dust specks on it.
And even if you could clear it off, you couldn't put one on there with any instrument that's sufficiently precise. I don't know if man has one, but anyways, it's pretty insignificant.
But God can take the earth and say it's like a little bit of dust. It's just a tiny little thing to me.
Who? Who instructed him? Who helped him design the universe? Did he have to take counsel of anyone? Did he have to say, hmm, I need a little help on this? This is a pretty big project. Somebody's gonna have to help me.
Notice verse 15.
I will read it.
Umm, behold, the nations are a drop of a bucket.
Commenting this morning at breakfast about this verse and saying I thought that was a pretty new expression. So sometimes we're surprised, aren't we? Determines little expressions like that. A drop in the buckets been around for a while. So he says here, behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket and the counted as the small dust of the balance. Behold, he taketh up the aisles. There's a very little thing.
Lebanon is not sufficient to burn. It's all the trees of the grandeur of man that were found in Lebanon and Solomon's time. He says they're not enough of them to be bothered to burn from God's perspective, nor the beast thereof. Sufficient for a burnt offering. All the nations before him are as nothing. They are counted to him as less than nothing and vanity. I'm going to read that last verse again in the new translation.
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All the nations are as nothing before him. They are esteemed by him as less than a cipher.
In Vanity.
Interesting because sometimes we talk about man and we say he's a zero and you put a bunch of zeros after and then you put a one in front of it and it gives it all its value.
God doesn't quite give man the zero. It's that man individually here. Actually, God doesn't treat man individually as a zero. He treats man as so precious to him that he will give his son to die for him. That's what man God esteems a man.
In a site and its desires for him. But and when you look at the nations when you look at mankind in general and God looks at all that man's grandeur has done and produced and so on. He says he doesn't measure up to the cipher. That's a zero. He he doesn't even count. He's less than one of those.
What is man? What is man that God would be mindful of him?
OK, let's look at the third contrast here, verse 18, The idol.
Verse 18 To whom then will you liken God?
What he's saying and, and, and what he's going to say here to us is.
If you don't give me the supreme place in your heart and in your faith, what are you giving it to?
It's a practical question. If God is not your God, something else is. What is it? And are you going to? How are you going to measure what you have instead of God?
Compared to God.
And God is here saying to Israel and says to our hearts, what are you replacing me with?
That you're gonna put your and this is interesting, I think are important too. If something else is your God in a practice, that's where your faith is.
The unjust shall live by his faith too.
The just shall live by faith, but the unjust is going to live by some kind of faith.
And his faith is going to be in his God, his idol.
Some people's faith is in their money. That's their God and that's their faith.
If they run out of money, they're worried because that's their trust.
Some people's faith is in themselves to accomplish some great thing and they try and sometimes successfully get it, and that's what they've got for their faith. God here says this is idols. He says in verse 18. To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness will you compare to Him?
The workmen melted the graven image. The Goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold and cast a silver chains. He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation, chooses the tree that will not rot, does the best he can with the idol he's going to make. He tries to get one that won't rot. He seeketh unto him a cunning Workman to help him build it, prepare it, make it a graven image that shall not be moved.
That's what God says people do instead of himself, instead of faith in God, they they find something that replaces him.
And they say, this is my God.
God, please, she says. Have you not known?
Presents himself again one more time here he says, have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told? You haven't? Hasn't there been a report of myself for you to accept is true?
That is, believe. Have you heard? Hasn't there been a report from me? Verse 2221 Have you not known? Have you not heard? Have you not told you? Have you not understood? From the foundations of the earth, It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth and the inhabitants thereof, or is grasshoppers.
Yes, ma'am, that stretches out the heavens with a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in, and so on, and we won't take more time. Verse 25. To whom then will you liken me, or shall I be equal, sayeth the Holy One?
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May we?
Heed the Apostle John's last words to us, the Spirit's last words to us through the Apostle John.
Keep yourselves from idols.
If idols take hold of your life.
It's a pitiful substitute for faith in the true God. It's a sad, it's a pitiful thing really, that any one of us would turn to idols, that is, to not physical things that can be seen, but something that takes control of our lives and substitutes the Lord Jesus for it. And it becomes that which is really.
Satan is behind it, but he's the God of this world and he becomes man's God. The things that he puts before man become man's God. So sad.
Before we leave Isaiah, I want to turn over to read another little bit in chapter 49.
Hopefully before we're done, we'll be able to connect what we read here up a little better with the New Testament, but we'll read it while we're here in Isaiah.
Isaiah chapter 49 and verse 13 saying, O heavens, and be joyful, O earth, and break forth with singing, O mountains, for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy.
Upon is afflicted. Now here's the Lord speaking. He says sing, I'm going to have I want to comfort you. I I want you to sing you sing when you're happy and faith can lay hold of God in a way that gives comfort to the soul.
He said. I'm going to have mercy on you.
And what's the response of the ones that are being addressed Verse 14?
But Zion saith, the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.
That sometimes happen with us in the life of faith.
We our hearts say at least. Maybe our mouths don't. But the Lord's forsaken me.
The Lord's forgotten me.
How does the Lord answer that here?
You know, at the moment in those circumstances, it was black. It is gonna be black. There's nothing to the natural eye when these verses are gonna have their future application to these people. At that moment in time it is.
I dare say blacker than any of us will face in outward circumstances. I don't know. I wouldn't say that in the inward things like sickness that comes in our life, but as far as our outward circumstances, nobody is going to face what these people will face in that day. So what does the Lord respond to that He says in verse 15? Can a woman forget her sucking child?
This is God speaking to the heart.
Can I forget you?
Can a mother?
Forsake her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the center of her womb.
He said yes.
They may forget, in fact, a, a mother can forget her sucking child. She can go to that extent, but it's, it's the great expression of, of compassion of a mother. And he said, yeah, mother can even go that far that she'll forget her sucking child. But the Lord says.
I will not forget thee.
My eye is on that circumstance. I see it perfectly. I understand it. Will you trust me? And he gives not only.
His expression of power as we had in the 40th chapter. But there's the 2nd tremendously important thing that we need in our relationship of faith with God. We need to not only know His power.
We need to know his heart, and that's a little bit of what we have here, the heart of God.
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Umm, God can do it.
But Willie? Willie, is he willing?
I believe that's why the often repeated statement all failure, whether in Saint or center, springs from unbelief in the goodness that's in the heart of God.
Unbelief not only doesn't always come from the matter of God's power or limitations to it to be able to solve a problem just because we can't figure out how to solve it.
We sometimes tend to limit God and say, how can he do it? What really is saying is I don't know how he can do it because I can't figure out how he could do it. And so we limit him that way. But often our faith will go beyond that, Say, well, God can figure out a way that I can't, but the tests, the greater tests really is.
Willie and Willie comes the goodness that's in the heart of God. That's where the unbelief sometimes comes, the goodness that is in his heart. And so it says here I will not forgive. And he says, verse 16, Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands. Thy walls are continually before me. And so the one we might question the goodness of his heart, he says.
You're written right on the palms of my hands.
I don't say it's exact, but it's an application. He can look at the nail prints in his hands.
You're graven and those nail prints in my heart.
And what I the extent of my love for you?
I won't forget you. I have not forgotten you.
OK, let's turn over to Hebrews chapter 10.
We're not gonna go there. The second place in the New Testament where the just shall live by faith is found is in Galatians chapter 3. It's used there in contrast to law, the just.
Shall live on the principle or be saved on the principle of faith, not on the principle of law. And in that place it's called that verse is used to contrast to what man can do for himself under law to be made just with God. Uh, we won't further comment on that here in Hebrews chapter 10.
And verse.
35 Cast not away, therefore your confidence, which have great recompense of report.
For ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, you may 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 to perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. And then we have Chapter 11 as a cloud of witnesses to us of people who endured by faith.
Through the whole path of life to the end. And in chapter 12 and verse one, it says, Wherefore, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, the people of Chapter 11, let us lay aside every weight and sin that so easily beset us, and let us run with patience or endurance.
The race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher or completer of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Or consider him. So here we won't go over the details of this, but just a reminder to us this what's at stake here is giving up.
Giving up the just shall live. That's not the hear the salvation of their souls. That's in view. It's the fact that faith is that that has to be kept in place through the whole of life to get all the way to the end. And wonderful isn't it that there's not too many places that talk about the Lord Jesus as a man of faith, but in chapter 12.
We're, we're reminded, we might think he didn't need faith, did he? He was the Son of God and so on and so forth. But as a man, he lived by the same principle that you and I have to live by. He did it perfectly.
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He was the beginner and completer of a path, a life of faith.
Did anyone face more tribulation? Did anyone you know there in Isaiah, he says. In the some of the chapters where we just were in chapter 49, I think it is, he says. I spent my strength for not.
I spent my whole life and I spent it as it were, as a man it would appear for not. It ended up with a life with nothing to show for it. And Daniel, he's cut off and has nothing.
So from a human perspective, he had to endure all the way to the end and not give up his faith, and he didn't. He's perfect and He's a perfect example to us. So let's remember the Lord Jesus. He went ahead of us. He went through all that we might ever go through in life, and he didn't give up. He looked beyond it to that which was the other side of this life.
And saw the joy of it and went through and persevered to the end.
Just a couple of remarks here as time is passing on as we certainly don't have time to take up this whole chapter, but I just like to notice a couple of things that I've enjoyed. Verse three, through faith, we understand. We're just going to look at maybe three or four little things here that faith gives to us. Through faith we understand, man wants to understand and then decide if you believe.
That's no honor to God very often in Scripture.
Faith comes first. It's it's the horse if you will, and the cart is apprehension or understanding that comes after.
Uh, eyesight in Scripture is very often connected with faith, and to have sight is connected with faith and unbelief produces blindness. And so sometimes people say, I don't understand, so I don't believe.
May we not go down that road. Let's by faith we understand or apprehend. Let us accept what God says first, and then depend on Him and His time and way to give us the understanding of that which we have accepted as true.
Umm verse 6. Without faith it is impossible to please him.
We all know that.
Know if there's anybody in this room that's without faith toward God?
Your life's one continuous.
Expression of sin and rebellion. Without faith, it's impossible to do anything that honors God. And if you can't honor God by what you do, your motives aren't right. The end result and the eternity won't be right.
Accept him that's true. Believe him.
Umm, chapter verse 8.
By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should have to receive for an inheritance, obeyed. Wonderful faith, promotes, leads to obedience.
Unbelief leads to disobedience.
Adam and Eve allowed unbelief to come into their heart of the goodness that was in God's heart toward them, and that led to the act of first act of disobedience, the first sin. So faith is important because Abraham believed and what came from it was obedience. If we believe God, we're promoting, we're going down the path that will also result in obedience.
To him in our lives.
Just one other comment along that line though, and that is that.
There are things.
That we know, that we believe are true.
That we still disobey God about.
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Because there is rebellion in flesh. Flesh does not want the will of God, so there's unbelief there. But a companion of unbelief is self will or rebellion against God.
Just one more here, verse 11. Through faith, Sarah received strength. Brethren, trust in God.
Produces strength to go on. If there's unbelief, there's gonna be weakness in the circumstances of life. OK, click Go to John 5 for a moment.
John chapter 5 and verse 4.
Whoever is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?
Oh, sorry, let's read it again. I should have said First John chapter 5, not the Gospel of John. Thank you. First John chapter 5.
Verse four. First John 54.
Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God. And now over to Galatians chapter 2.
Galatians chapter 2 and verse 20. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live yet not I, but Christ liveth in me in the life which I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. What we have in these verses is this in first John chapter 5.
God is speaking about giving us a nature, a life which is perfect. It's the life of Christ, it's eternal life, it's the life that comes from God to us and.
Sin can't touch it.
Nothing of this world that's wrong is attracted attractive to that life. It loves good, it's holy life, it loves good, it hates evil. And he says, you're born of God, you have it and you get the victory over the world. And then he says, what is it? Your faith? And the very next verse he presents the Lord Jesus Christ as what that faith is in.
And it's the same principle here in Galatians 2. I live by that faith which has as its object the Son of God. I know, Paul says, whom I have believed. I know in whom I have believed.
And so the Lord Jesus is presented to us as the supreme object of our faith, and it overcomes.
If it's in place in our heart and in our life, according to the new nature, idolatry and sin have no claim. It overcomes them.
And uh, it's when the eye gets off the Lord, it's other things that come in and communion is broken. And then the victory isn't there in practice, but it overcomes the world. And I want to conclude with this.
Comment about it or these thoughts about it.
We spent a whole hour on faith.
But it's not.
The greatest thing?
It is not the greatest thing.
These shall abide in First Corinthians 13.
Faith, hope and peace.
But the greatest of these is love.
The greatest thing is love.
And God presents to our hearts the greatest thing as that which will motivate our faith.
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To lay hold of himself.
As my wife's grandfather used to say, if God hasn't won your heart and mind, what more could he do to win it? Some of you might remember that statement. God comes out and he says I'm great in power and you're little. Don't take up with an idol. But then when it's all said and done to motivate that in us to direct us.
He presents something that is the greatest of all, himself in love in the person of the sun, and he says be occupied with him.
You'll overcome everything. It's the greatest thing.
And your faith will take care of itself.
You don't have to worry about faith.
It'll be faith if that love is in place where it should be in heart spray.
Our God and Father, we acknowledge that there's really absolutely.