♪ (Music playing) ♪ Hello, class. Welcome to Faith School. We've got another wonderful day,
opportunity, to get our spirits nourished up in the Words of
faith and to let the Lord bring us up to a higher place of
functioning, like He does. We've got your place saved right
here, right here in the front, and I've got my ruler over here
somewhere if you get a little rowdy or something. We can get you back in line. But, get your Bible, get you
something to take notes on, and don't let anything distract you
for these next few moments, and let the Spirit of God minister
to you. Let's pray, come into agreement,
and release faith about this. "Father, in Jesus' name, we
submit ourselves to You for this time, in this class of Faith
School, and we're asking You to feed our spirits, and give us
exactly what You know that we need. Give us answers, direction, and
help; eyes and ears and a heart that's open, and seeing, and
receiving, and we'll give You the praise. We'll be doers of it as you help
us, in Jesus' name." Amen. Faith is one of the most
wonderful things you'll ever talk about or hear about. It's God's choice for our way of
living and functioning and operating. It's the only way to please Him
in anything. You can pray all day long, but
if you never prayed in faith, that prayer would not please the
Father. You can give huge amounts of
money to help people, but if you didn't do it in faith, none of
it would please Him. No amount of works is acceptable
on its own or on its own merit. God's always looking at the
heart, and a heart of faith pleases Him. And one of the reasons it
pleases Him so much is because He's the Giver. The grace of God has given us
all things that pertain to life and godliness, and what's going
to please Him is us rising up in faith and receiving of all that
He's given to us. So, let's look at Scripture
again, and even though we say some things that you've already
heard, again, if you were with us on previous classes you know
if you hear it in more faith this time, you'll get more out
of it than you did the first time. And if this is your first time
joining us, you can go back in the archives and get the
previous lessons. And if you go through all of
them, you'll be as sharp as these guys right here, and
they're pretty sharp. Let's look in Romans the first
chapter. Romans 1:17 where it tells us
that in the Gospel, "The righteousness of God is revealed
from faith to faith:" progressive. "As it's written, the just shall
live by faith." If you read Habakkuk, if you
read Galatians and read other places, it says exactly the same
thing. "The just shall live by faith." Some translations say, "The
just shall live by His faith." You'll live by your faith. And this faith, Romans reveals,
is a measure of God's Own faith. Mark 11:22, I believe it is,
Jesus said, "Have the faith of God," and
Romans tells us that He's given to every man, "A measure of
faith." This is a measure of His own
faith. Where did the faith of God come
from? It came from God. And so, if you ever hear
somebody say, "I'm sorry, I just can't believe,"
or, "I can't believe like that." They're wrong. They've become deceived about
that not understanding what the nature of faith is. If you're a child of God, faith
is part of your makeup. It's part of the new creation. You've been given a measure of
faith, and by nature of what faith is, you don't have to
understand to believe. It's simply a choice; you just
choose to believe. It's a matter of trusting the source of what you're
hearing. Now, being a Christian, doesn't
mean you should be gullible. It doesn't mean that if you're
kind, and you have love, and you have faith, that you believe
everything that everybody tells you; that's just being foolish. No, we believe everything God
tells us; everybody else we check them out. We may be slow to believe that,
or really, you know, why should you believe somebody that you
don't know anything about them, and especially if somebody's
lied to you repeatedly? You're foolish to believe what
they tell you without checking it out. You can love somebody without
believing everything they say. You can love them without
trusting. Trust is based on something
that's been proven that you can count on. And with God, He has never lied
to us, not once. In fact, it's impossible for Him
to lie, so when He tells you something no matter how crazy it
may sound or how impossible it may sound, if He tells you, just
go ahead and decide okay, it's true. If He said it, I believe it. It's a choice. You don't have to understand it
at all; it's a choice. Brother Kenneth Hagin Sr., who's
in heaven now, he used to say that-he said as a as a young boy
he could not understand how a brown cow could eat green grass
and give white milk, and you churn it and make yellow butter. Because that dates you back to
when people were using churns. But he said all the while he's
trying to figure that out, he's enjoying the milk. He's enjoying the butter, and
even ice cream that they made with the milk. What does that mean? You don't have to understand a
thing to enjoy the benefits of it. A lot of folks drive cars around
and they got no clue what happens when they put it in D
for drive. They just know now I can push
the accelerator and it'll move forward. They have no idea about
the gears and the fluid and the valves and the electronics;
don't have to know it all about it. But if you didn't believe it'd
work, you wouldn't get in the car. You wouldn't start it. You wouldn't put it in D. Faith is not based on knowledge
and understanding, and when people say, "I'm sorry, I just
cannot believe that," they're wrong. To say it correctly you should
say, "I choose not to believe that," because it is a choice. When it comes to God, let's not
be unbelievers. Let's not be slow to believe. Let's not be stubborn. Let's be quick to believe; if He
says it in His Word, just immediately accept it and say,
"Well, that's true no matter what I feel or see." If He says it to you by His
Spirit, that's always going to be in line with the
Bible too. Accept it, believe it. He said, "The just shall live by
faith." Now, go with me again to 1
Timothy. We looked at this. First Timothy and the sixth
chapter. "The just live by faith. The just walk by faith," and
there is also the good fight of faith. First Timothy 6:12, it says,
"Fight the good fight of faith." It's a good fight, not a bad
fight . "Lay hold on eternal life." Lay hold-we mentioned before
that sometimes people say, "We just need to 'let go and let
God.'" Well, there's a lot of
difference between letting go and laying hold. If you're talking about letting
go of your anxieties, your worries, and your fears, and
your doubts, oh yeah, let them let go of that. But, if you're saying it's all
up to God and I just need to quit trying to do anything and
just let God do it, no, no, no, no, no. You're trying to get Him to do
what He told you to do and that's not going to turn out
well. He told us to, "Fight the good
fight of faith and lay hold." When you lay hold, you come to
Jesus for the first time, you give Him your life to get born
again, you lay hold of eternal life, you lay hold of His love,
you lay hold of the forgiveness and cleansing that He's given
you, the acceptance as His child and His family; that won't be
the end of that. There's a devil in this world. There are evil spirits. There are evil influences. And the enemy will come and
bring thoughts and feelings to you that are very, very real and
these thoughts and feelings will be to the effect that you can't
live this kind of life. You are not - you
won't be able to do this. Or to be consistent with this,
or you won't be able to resist this temptation, or you won't be
able to stay out of this bad habit, or-and if you just go, "I
guess, you know, I'm just an old sinner... I guess I just can't..." you
didn't fight. You didn't fight, you just gave
up before the thing ever got underway. You got to fight. Everybody say it out loud:
"Fight<i> (Class repeats)</i> the good fight of faith." It's not a fight of feelings,
it's not a fight of reasoning, it's a fight of faith. Faith. You just keep believing what God
said about you no matter how you look, no matter how you feel. You say, "I am the righteousness
of God in Christ," no matter how bad you feel about mistakes that
you've made. You say, "I am an overcomer in
Christ," no matter how many times last week and last month
that you failed and messed up and came short. You say, "I can do it. I can do all things through
Christ Who strengthens me," no matter how impossible it
seems, and how much it feels like you can't. You don't just give in to
despair and hopelessness. You fight the feelings of
despair, you fight the feelings of hopelessness, you fight
depression, you fight temptation. You don't fight God. God's not the enemy. He's not the problem. You're fighting anything and
everything that tries to tell you that you are not, or can't
be, you can't do what God says you are, and can do. Go to 2nd Corinthians, if you
would, the tenth chapter. Second Corinthians ten and
notice this. There's some details and
instruction on how to fight this good fight. Second Corinthians 10:3. Second Corinthians 10:3 says,
"For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the
flesh." If you were with us a couple of
classes days ago, then you know we saw in Galatians where He
said, "Christ lives in me:" now, "and the life I live which I now
live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God." Well, we walk not in, not in the
flesh, after the flesh, or war after the flesh, but, while
we're living in this body we're walking by faith. And notice verse four how you
fight the good fight, how you war spiritually. The, "Weapons of our warfare are
not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of
strongholds;" and then he specifies these strongholds. He says next verse, "Casting
down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself
against the knowledge of God, bringing into captivity every
thought to the obedience of Christ." How do you fight the good fight
of faith? What am I fighting against? You're fighting against
unbiblical, unbelieving, ungodly thoughts, and images, and the
feelings that accompany these thoughts. This is where the warfare is;
this is where the fight goes on. And no matter how long you've
walked with the Lord, no matter how much of the Bible you know
or how much you pray, you're still going to have to deal with
these. And every day is a new day, and
as surely as you get excited about something God's done for
you, something that God's given you, something that Jesus bought
and paid for in redemption, as surely as you say, "I'm
having that," and, "I believe I receive that," and, "I lay hold
of that," as soon as you do that, you're going to encounter
resistance. I know that's not nice to hear,
but it's the way this life is. The enemy will come immediately
to steal that Word out of you. How does he do it? He can't make us - the enemy
can't make us do anything. He's got to get us to agree with
him. How does he do that? He brings thoughts, he brings
imaginations. I know I was at a church a
couple years ago and I was talking about this and the Lord
gave me a message entitled <u> Slap It Down.</u> Slap it down. Well, it said cast-casting down. And that's a strong word. It's knock it down, slap it
down, throw it down. Throw what down? These thoughts, these feelings. And I didn't know it, but there
was a young lady there, I got this testimony months and months
later, she wrote to the ministry, she was there on the
front row in that meeting and she said she enjoyed it and
thought it was good. But she's doing pretty good. She was, I don't know, a few
weeks pregnant, she told me in the testimony later. And come to find out after the
meeting, after we were gone, the doctors told her there were
problems with the pregnancy and there were problems
with the child. And she said that was still
ringing in her ears: slap it down, slap it down. We're not talking about fighting
the doctors; they're trying to help you. Let them help you. We're not talking about
fighting - our weapons are not natural, but they're mighty. They're spiritual and they're
mighty. Fight what down? "Your baby's not going to be
alright... Your baby's not going to be
alright..." What do you need to do with
that? She said she saw it in her mind,
you slap that thought down and go, "No, no! The baby will be fine in Jesus'
name. I speak life over my baby. I speak health and strength over
my baby," and so week after week and month after month went by,
and she said every day she had to slap those thoughts down
because they would come to her. And if something didn't feel
right and if a test or something wasn't quite right, you got
these feelings, oh no, no, this is not going to be okay. Well, came time for the child to
come and she gave birth. Child's perfect. Child's healthy. Somebody say" "Praise God." But do you see where her fight
came in? And of course, the Lord knew
that, and that's one of the reasons why He had me preach on
that right before she found out this bad report; that she was
going to have to fight, and lay hold of health, and healing, and
normal perfect development, complete development for her
child. Not enough to just say, "Lord,
You know. Touch the child and make the
child's right." You got to lay hold of that, and
believe you receive it, and then that's going to happen, it's not
the end, it's the beginning. Every morning, noon, and night,
you got to be ready for thoughts to come and feelings. "No, you're not going to get
it... No, it's not going to work... Oh, it's going to be terrible... It's going to be awful..." The enemy is so persistent. These things can come to your
mind. These feelings and these
thoughts, hundreds of times in an afternoon, it can get tiring. You can get weary. What do you have to do? You have to fight the good fight
of faith. You've got to lay hold of that
life from God, and you've got to cast down every imagination that
doesn't line up with what He told you, how He told you it is,
and how He said it'll be. You've got to grab every thought
that's contrary to that and you got to slap it down and throw it
down and say, "No, no, no." So, the blessings of God, even
though they're bought and paid for and grace has so freely
given them to us, they don't just fall on you. And even though you say, "I
believe I receive it," it's not the end; it's the beginning. And the enemy will fight you all
the way. I know some years ago I was
believing for a natural thing, a material thing, and I had sown
seed for it and I'd asked the Lord for one. And thanked Him for it. Well, months went by, a year
went by, year and a half went by, and we're further from it, looks like, than we had been in
the beginning. And these thoughts kept coming
to me, it's not working... It's not working... Look... Look... What should I do with that
thought, you reckon? These thoughts? But it kept coming. And the Spirit of God quickened
to me and said, "Well, if it's not working, why would he be
bothering you telling you that it's not working?" See, this is how the enemy
works. And I saw it. I thought, it must be working or
else wise he wouldn't be-what's he trying to do? If he can't get me to stop
believing and expecting this thing is going to break through
and show up, and it'll be a good testimony. And he didn't want that. And so the Lord gave me a song. I started singing it to myself. Hold on, hold on, keep
believing, be strong. In a little while it'll be
alright. Hold on, hold on, it won't be
long, your faith will turn to sight. And sure enough, it wasn't just
a month or so that thing came to pass. But, can you see that the enemy
was trying to turn up the pressure as things got closer? It's a fight. It's a struggle. Not fighting trying to get God
to do it, He's already done it, but my faith receiving it. The enemy will resist your faith
and he will try to wear you down. He'll try to talk you out of it. But if you won't quit, if you'll
hold fast your confidence and let faith and patience, faith
and persistence have it's perfect work, you wind up, the
Bible says, "Perfect, complete wanting nothing." Can you say, "Amen?" Praise God. Well, go to 1 John and see this
great, great truth. First John the fifth chapter. We've talked about in this the
first week of Faith School, why faith? Why is faith such a big deal? Why has God chosen it? Faith is not a theological
position, it's not a group, it's not a movement; faith is how God
Himself functions and how He has ordained that we should live day
in, day out. Faith is how you live. We've also seen faith is the
only way to please God. There is no other way. There's no substitute that's
acceptable to Him. And thirdly we see this in 1
John five, 1 John 5:4. I says, "For whatsoever is born
of God over comes the world: and this is the victory that
overcomes the world, even our faith." There's a lot of problems in the
world, there's a lot of difficulties, there's a lot of
things that'll attack and try to hurt you and try to steal from
you and kill and destroy, but when you're born again, you took
on the nature of your Father. He didn't know how to lose. He never loses. And this faith is how He
overcomes everything, every time. And that's in us now. We are faith children of a
faith God and that makes us overcoming children, hallelujah,
of an overcoming God. The agency by which we do it is
the faith that He's put in us, the faith that comes from His
Word. The stronger you get in faith,
you just don't have down days. No matter what's going on, you
believe you'll come over it, you believe you'll come
through it. No matter how awful it is, you
believe it's just temporary until you see God glorified in
this thing some way. And the will of God accomplished
and done. You just become one of those
incurably positive people, a faith person, hallelujah, and
God's work in us, working this in us. Well, that's our faith class for
the day. Stay right where you are; I'm
going to come back in just a minute to talk to you about
partnership. Hello, friends. Glad that you've joined us for
Faith School and our classes this week. The Scripture says in Romans
ten, "How will they call in Him Whom they have not believed? How would they believe in Him of
Whom they have not heard? How will they hear without a
preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? As it's written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things!" God has ordained that we be
saved, and that includes every sense, by the preaching and
teaching of the Gospel, the Good News. And it says, "How shall they
preach except they be sent?" God has also ordained that He
sends by His call but also through partners. These classes this week were
brought to you by our Word Sender partners and they're
brought to you, free of charge. If you'd like to help send these
to other people, if they're a blessing to you, you can become
a Word Sender partner also. There's information at the
bottom of your screen to contact, and we would welcome
you and thank you for your partnership. God bless you. We love you. Jesus is so good.
