♪ (Music playing) ♪ Good morning, Class. Class: Good morning, Brother
Keith. Hi, I'm Keith Moore, and welcome
to Faith School. Faith School is the place where
our spirit gets fed and nourished, our faith begins to
grow and develop stronger, and we learn how to please God and
be overcomers. We've saved you a seat right in
the front here. And so we want you to get your
Bible, get you something to take notes, and come on into the
class, and get ready to receive. No matter what is going on in
your day, and no matter what kind of difficulty or challenge,
the answer to it is a faith response. Through faith we hear from God,
we receive from Him, we please Him. Through faith we are able to
successfully resist the attacks of the enemy and overcome
anything that might come against us. I know it sounds all inclusive,
but it's just true. No matter what is happening, the
correct response is faith. So let's release our faith to
the Lord about direction and answers for right now. Let's pray and ask Him. "Father, in Jesus' name, we are
so grateful, we are so thankful that we can know You today. And we seek to please You. We seek to know Your will, to
know Your ways, to know and understand Your Word. We ask for direction for today
and throughout these days and this week. We ask for your guidance. We ask for answers, not from
mens thinking, but from You, from the Divine, from heaven. And we purpose not to be
forgetful of it, but with Your help to put it into practice,
and to be doers of it. And as surely as we cat on what
You say, miracles will transpire because you are so faithful to
watch over Your Word and perform it. We ask it, and we thank You for
it. By faith we thank you in advance
for answers. In Jesus' name, and everybody
said, Amen. Well, let's get the Textbook
out. We've just got the one Textbook
here in Faith School, but the great thing about this Book - it
has all the answers, and it will be open Book test. So you can just go straight to
the answers, and find them. Never a problem opening this
book and looking for the answer. Go with me, please, today to 2
Corinthians the fourth chapter. Second Corinthians the fourth
chapter. Now, we've been going for weeks
in Faith School, and you can go back to the archives, and use
the information on your screen, and get all the previous
lessons. And we are building on what
we've already taught and studied. And so it would help you - in
fact, if you want to do that right now you can. Go back and get caught up and
get the same foundation that we have had from the beginning. We talked about the importance
of faith, why we should have faith. We have talked about What Faith
Is. We began to talk about how it is
expressed. When you're in faith you seek
the Lord, and you expect a response and an answer. And we began on our last week
talking about the expression of faith through Words That Work. And in 2 Corinthians the fourth
chapter and the thirteenth verse, 2 Corinthians 4:13 says,
"We having the same Spirit of faith, according as it is
written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also
believe, and therefore speak." So he talks about the Spirit of
faith. And involved in that he mentions
believing and speaking. And faith involves not just one
thing, not just believing. According to James two, faith,
if it has no doing, if it has no actions, it is inactive. It is inoperative. It is dead. So faith, in order to be living,
and functional, and effective, there must be an expression of
your faith. Not just something that you hold
in your heart, it must be expressed, released. And when you read in James two,
and he talks about faith without action is dead, the very next
chapter, and of course this wasn't written in chapter and
verse, but the very next chapter, chapter three in those
verses, talks about the tongue. So he talks about faith without
action is dead, and the very first action he talks about,
then, is saying. That our words are like a rudder
on a ship. Our words are like a bit and
bridle in a horse's mouth. We might say today our words are
the steering wheel because the rudder you use to steer the
ship, the bit and bridle you use to steer the horse. Well our words steer our life. Many have not know this or not
believed it, but it is the truth. Our words steer our course. Notice again, he said in verse
thirteen, he said, "We having the same Spirit of faith." The faith that we have as
believers is a measure of God's own faith. It's the same kind of faith God
Himself has that He created the heavens and the earth with. Romans says, "God has given to
every man a measure of faith," and this faith is His own, from
Him. Well, the way He functions and
operates in it from Genesis, He said, "Let there be, and there
was." He has released His faith
through His Words. He believed, and He spoke. He believed, and He commanded,
and it was done. It became. Creative power was released
through faith filled Words. This is not just a religious
phrase, this is how the universe was created. This is how the planet we are on
was created. Faith filled Words released
creative power. And like Hebrews eleven talks
about, the things that are now seen, they are made up of things
that you can't see. In fact, in verse thirteen, he's
talking about the Spirit of faith, but if you look down just
a few verses below here in verse eighteen, it says, "While we
look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which
are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal," or
temporary, "but the things which are not seen are eternal." Faith deals with the unseen, and
if you speak faith words, you speak to things that are not
seen. Now this seems strange to people
who don't understand spiritual things, or the Word, or
fellowship with God. But we know Jesus spoke to the
wind and waves. He spoke to trees. He spoke to fevers. Do you remember reading the
Scripture that - the Bible said that Peter's mother-in-law was
sick with a great fever? One translation brings out that
she was delirious, she was in really bad shape. And they besought Jesus that He
would come and minister to her. And the Scripture said that He
came, and stood over Peter's mother-in-law, and the Scripture
said He rebuked the fever. I know in reading that for some
time I didn't notice that he was speaking to the fever. And on the particular time I did
notice it I thought, now hold on. Jesus is not praying for Peter's
mother-in-law. He's not praying to the Father. He's not asking the Father to do
something for Peter's mother-in- law. He's not speaking to Peter's
mother-in-law. It said, "He rebuked the fever." And so then I thought, can a
fever hear? He's talking to a fever. See most people don't, they
don't think like that in our generation. Speaking to a fever? And so I read the next part, it
said, "And it left her." I thought, all right. Fevers can hear. "He spoke to the fever, He
rebuked the fever, and it left her." And then I got stirred up. I thought, if fevers can hear,
inflammation can hear, heart problems can hear, infections
can hear. And you begin to see how Jesus
operated, and He is calling us to function and operate like He
did. He said, "If you believe on Me,
the works I do, you will do also. Greater works than these shall
you do because I go to the Father." So if we walk by faith we will
be continually speaking to things that are not seen. We will be releasing faith,
affecting things that are not seen, which in turn affects
things that are seen. God didn't wait until there was
light, and then said, "There it is." It was Him saying, "Light be,"
that changed something in the realm you couldn't see, and then
light was in the realm you could see. This is how faith works. You remember Hebrews 11:1? Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is
the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things,"
what? "Not seen. Not seen." We were there in 2 Corinthians
4:18, "We look not at the things that are seen, but the things
that are not seen." Just a few verses over, chapter
five and verse seven repeats the idea. It says, "For we walk by faith,
not by sight." If you only walk by sight, then
you're only talking about things that you see. And everything you see has
already happened. It has already come into being. And so if you only talk and
refer to things that you see, you are always late. You are always - you're not
changing anything, you are just reacting and responding to what
has already happened. But God has created us in His
own likeness and image. He has created us speaking
spirits like Himself with the ability to choose what we
believe, and choose our own words, and speak faith-filled
words - not based on anything we see. It hasn't happened yet in the
natural, but we don't wait until something has already happened
and go, "There it is." We learn to begin to operate
like our father and speak it into being. Romans says that, you know,
Abraham acted like the Father, and he, "Called those things
that be not as though they were." No again, I know this sounds
strange to folks that have not heard it, but I'm not making
this up. I've been quoting Scripture the
whole time. This is how God our Father has
always operated. He doesn't wait until He sees it
and goes, "Oh, there it is." Not just reactive. He creates by speaking things
you can't see that transform things you can see. Let's read it again, verse
eighteen, "While we look not at the things that are seen," again
if all we look at, all we focus on, all we think about, all we
talk about is what we can see, and hear, and feel, we are
always late. That has already happened. We are not changing anything,
we're just reacting which does nothing to change the situation. If you are feeling something
that is bad, if you're experiencing something that is
uncomfortable, just being upset about it, and crying about it,
and complaining about it is not going to change it. You want to do something that
will change it, and in order to do that you have to forget what
you're seeing, forget what you're feeling, and speak what
you want it to be. Speak what the Lord tells us it
can be and is supposed to be, not what I'm seeing, but,
"Calling those things that be not as though they were," just
like God does. Just like God does. "Light be." If your kidneys are not working
right, if your lungs are congested and not working right,
if your eyes or your head - you have a terrible headache, you
can go around going, "Oh man, I've got the worst headache. Oh man, my head is pounding. Oh man, oh man, oh man." Well, that already is. You are not changing a thing. You are just reacting and
responding, and actually confirming, you are confirming
with your words what already is. Your head is pounding, so what
are you saying? "I confirm it. My head is pounding. My head is pounding. My head is pounding." But if you really believed in
the power of you words nobody could twist your arm and make
you say, "My head is pounding." You would want to say something
that would change it. You would want to say something
that would change it. So you are going to speak to
something that you can't see, and you can't feel, and is not
yet in the natural. "Faith is the substance of
things hoped for." "Hoped for," is expectation. It is future. It is the evidence of things not
seen. So faith is speaking that which
is not yet in the natural and that which is not seen, but it
is calling it as though it already was. You're not saying that you feel
that way, you're not saying that you look that way, but you're
speaking to it to change it. So if your head is pounding, the
thing to do would be to say, "Head, I call you healed. Brain I speak to you, be normal. Be perfect." Now that sounds strange to
people that have never done it, but it is how God always
operates. And if you study the Scriptures
you'll see that people who learned how to follow Him, they
operated the same way. In fact, in the Old Testament,
we have an account of a man, one day, in the middle of a battle,
he looked up and said, "Son, stand still," and it did for
hours, and hours, and hours. Now there are people who would
scoff and say, "How could that happen?" Because the one who created all
of the orbits and the stars can control them, adjust them,
change them. We are not limited to what we
see and feel. We are spirits. God is Spirit. There is a whole realm of the
unseen, and all the seen came out of the unseen realm. So it shouldn't be surprising
that if it came out of the unseen realm, it can be changed
by speaking things in the unseen realm. Notice in verse thirteen, 2
Corinthians 4:13 says, "We having the same spirit of
faith," same spirit as whom? Well, the same Spirit of faith
as the patriarchs. Faith is not something new. Faith has been around since God,
Who has been around forever. Faith is how He functions and
operates, so it is the same Spirit of faith as we see
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph - if you go through Hebrews eleven
and read all of those great exploits and miracles that
happened in people's lives. We have got, not a different
kind of faith, the same Spirit of faith as all these great
patriarchs - men and women in the Bible we read about,
including Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, Jesus
Himself. We have a measure of the same
kind of faith that the Master Himself functions and operates
in. And in that same kind of faith -
notice this said, "Spirit of faith." Faith is not mental. It didn't just say the knowledge
of faith. Faith is beyond intellect. Faith is bigger than mind. Faith is not knowledge. You can know technically about
faith, and actually have very little faith. By contrast, you can know very
little about how to explain faith, and yet have strong faith
in your heart concerning a situation. Everybody say it out loud:
"Spirit of faith. Spirit of faith." And where the Spirit of faith is
concerned, it is good to be around people of faith because
just like if you are around depressed people that have a
spirit of heaviness, spirit of depression and heaviness, well,
if you don't influence them, they can influence you. That spirit of depression - you
can wind up yielding to it, and next thing you know you are
depressed. Negative. Spirit of fear, the Bible talks
about, "God didn't give us a spirit of fear, but of power,
love, and a sound mind." But you're around somebody that
is always full of fear, always talking fear, "I'm afraid this
is going to happen, I'm afraid that is going to happen. I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm
afraid." If you are around that, you
could wind up yielding to it. That spirit of fear can
influence you. Well likewise, the Spirit of
faith can influence you. That's why you need faith
buddies. You need to go to a good church
that preaches faith real strong, and you need to soak in that
environment. And maybe if a day that your
faith is a little low and a little weak, you can come in and
rub shoulders with people whose faith is real strong, and their
faith - their Spirit of faith - can influence you and affect
you. And then that's not the end, you
get built up in faith, and you influence people. You come to work, and people are
griping and complaining, and you don't. And when they finally want to
know what you think, you can say a handful of words, and if they
are full of faith, it can just quicken them, it can just bring
a spark to them, it can encourage them. The Spirit of faith is not just
knowledge. You sense it. The Scripture said that, "The
victory that overcomes the world is even our faith." And so you could say it like
this, "The Spirit of faith is the Spirit of victory. It's the Spirit of the
overcomer. It's the Spirit of being more
than a conqueror." Well, the spirit of fear is a
spirit of cowardice, and a spirit of pulling back and
quitting and laying down. The Spirit of God that is in us,
the greater One that is in us is not the spirit of cowardice. He's not the weak one. He's not the scared one. He is the greater One, and if we
allow Him to influence us, it will fill us with the Spirit of
Faith. Friends, it's a choice. Every day when we wake up there
are things you can think about and talk about that are
negative. You can talk about what you
don't know. You can talk about what you
don't understand. You can talk about all the bad
things you feel. And you can talk about all the
bad things anybody has done to you. You can talk about what you
don't have, what you want, what you need that you don't have. You can talk about where you
can't go, what you can't do, and you won't have a Spirit of
faith, you'll have a spirit of defeat. And if other people are doing
the same thing it just compounds and gets worse. But if you're a child of God,
and your name is written in the Lambs Book of Life, there are
many benefits that you have and should be enjoying. And if anything is not right,
you know the one that can help you get it right. But you've got to give Him
something to work with. You have to not yield to the
spirit of fear, and the spirit of depression, and the spirit of
defeat. We must yield to the Spirit of
faith which is the Spirit of victory. And even though you feel - like
one old, country guy said, he said, "I felt like forty miles
of muddy road. I felt lower than a snake's
belly in a wagon rut." Well, that's pretty low. But just because you feel bad
doesn't mean you have to talk bad. This is the secret to having an
overcoming life. You can feel sick and talk
healing. You can feel and experience
broke, you know, lack, but you can speak abundance. You can experience feelings of
depression and fear, but you can speak strength and victory. And if we will speak
faith-filled words from the heart, our great High Priest,
Jesus, who is in the heavens at the right-hand of Majesty, He
works with our words. Hebrews says He is the, "High
Priest of our confession." The moment we begin to decree
and say what He says, no matter how it looks or how it feels,
heaven gets involved with earth. And the High Priest of our
confession backs up what we say. Remember He said, "Whatever you
bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you lose on earth will
be loosed in heaven." There is that earth/heaven
connection. If we'll give the Lord something
to work with on the earth, agreeing with His Words,
speaking faith-filled words, He will back it and empower it from
heaven. This is how heaven gets involved
with earth. Now the enemy wants to keep us
down all the time, but the great thing about it, you don't have
to feel wonderful to speak wonderful. You don't have to feel, you
know, rich to speak rich. You don't have to feel healed to
speak healed. Come on, everybody, say it out
loud: "I call my body healed. I call my financed blessed. I call my mind sound. I call my life victorious." Hallelujah! Praise be to God! Well, we are finished with
another class. That seemed to go by pretty
quick today, didn't it? Friends, don't let this be the
end of what we're talking about. Watch your mouth all day long,
all night long. Only speak faith-filled words
that agree with what He has said. Hallelujah. Until next time, we live by
faith, we walk by faith, we overcome this world by faith,
we're strong in faith giving glory to God.
