(Music playing) Hello, class. Welcome to another day of Faith
School where the Lord is our Teacher and the Word is our
text. We've got you a seat saved right
here. Come on in here and sit down,
get your Bible, get you something to take notes with. Faith pleases God; it's the way
we overcome. He wants to teach you and I how
to come up to a higher place. So let's pray, let's release
faith, let's believe the Lord, see things we hadn't seen
before, to be reminded of anything that we've let slip,
and of the things we're seeing, to know how to integrate it into
our lives, to know how to put it into practice, and see changes
immediately. Immediately. You can see results before the
day's out. That's what kind of God we have. So, let's release faith. Let's pray: "Father, in Jesus'
name, all of us joined together, all over the world, coming
together by these media, releasing our faith, asking You
for the exact utterance, and anointing, and direction for
right now. Only You know what every one of
us in every part of the world need on any given day and time
and situation, and it is so amazing that You can minister to
all of us simultaneously, and so effectively, and powerfully, and
wonderfully. We ask for it, just what You
know we need right now, and we purpose to receive it and be
doers of it, and give You the glory for every good thing that
happens in our life as a result, in Jesus' name, amen. Thank You, Lord." Let's go to Roman's the first
chapter and look at Scripture that we have looked at before. Now, if you're just joining us
for the first time, we've already covered previous
lessons, previous classes, and you can see online at the
appropriate link, the previous ones, and go back and get them. And they don't take that long. And one builds on another, and
you'll be able to catch right up with us. And, these guys here are really
sharp and quick, so you don't want to let them get ahead of
you. You have to stay on it, and then
we'll all be growing, and developing together. We learned in previous lessons
from Romans the first chapter seventeenth verse, that in the
Gospel, in the Good News, that's what it means, "Therein,"
therein refers to the Gospel, "is the righteousness," God's
rightness, "revealed from faith to faith:" Everything God does is right. All of His ways are right and
all of His right ways and things are revealed in the Gospel; but
just because it's revealed, that doesn't mean you'll get it, or
you'll understand it. We receive this revelation by
faith, and as our faith grows we see more, we understand more. Some people who think they're
very intelligent have decided, you know, God doesn't exist and
the Bible is just the work of men, just another great literary
work that really has no bearing on our present generation, and
so if they read it, they don't see anything that means anything
to them, and so it's just an old Book. And so, it seems that what they
believe is confirmed by their lack of experience. But the truth is, if you don't
believe in these Words you won't get anything out of them. If you don't show respect to the
Creator Who spoke these Words, show some respect and reverence,
to you it'll be a closed Book no matter how smart you may think
you are. It requires the Spirit of God
illuminating our understanding. He has to open your eyes so you
can see it, and your ears so you can hear it, and your heart so
you can understand it. These things are precious and
people who despise them will never understand them regardless
of how many degrees they have, or how brilliant they imagine
themselves to be. The truth is they'll be
pitifully, woefully, ignorant of the very basics like, "Why are
we here? Where'd I come from? Where am I going?" They'll be clueless their whole
life. But, if you'll just begin, the
Bible said, "The fear of the Lord," or, the reverence and
respect of the Lord, "is the beginning of knowledge,"
understanding, wisdom; that's where it starts. You don't get a lot of knowledge
of God-it doesn't start by you being smart. It doesn't start by you being
studious. It doesn't start by you being
educated. It starts by you having faith,
by you believing. Believing is not-faith is not
knowledge. Believing is not understanding. Faith is a spiritual force. Faith is of the spirit. The Scripture says, "With the
heart, man believes." You don't believe with your
head. You don't believe with your
intellect. Faith is not of the mind. Proverbs three said, "Trust in
the Lord with all of your heart;" and don't lean, "Lean
not to your own understanding." So, the understanding and the
heart are not the same thing. You don't believe with your
head. You believe with your heart. Faith is a force. Faith is a choice. You don't believe when you
finally figure it all out. You choose to believe, and then,
only then, you'll begin to see, you'll begin to understand, and
the stronger your faith gets, the Bible just keeps opening up
to you. If your faith is much stronger
tomorrow than it is today, then you can read the same Scriptures
you got blessed with yesterday; but, you'll see all kind of
things the following day with greater faith that you didn't
see before. It was there, why didn't you see
it? "It's revealed," how? Class, say it out loud with me:
"From faith to faith," that's how the things of God are
revealed to us. So, this answers a lot of
questions of people. They say, "I didn't get anything
out of that message. I didn't-I've read that, I
didn't get anything out of it." Well, you're just telling off on
yourself that you had no faith, no respect for it. You weren't expecting to get
anything. We, the Faith Life Churches in
Branson, in Sarasota, and everybody that joins with us, we
read a chapter every day, Monday through Friday, and we read the
same chapter, and we talk about this. Why do we do it? We don't do it as a side thing. We want to do it when we're
fresh, not when we're worn out at the end of the day, and we
don't want to have anything else going on. You need to silence your phones
and turn off the TV, and you need to focus on it, show it
respect, and even before you ever start reading that chapter,
you're expecting to see something good. You're expecting to hear
something that's going bless you, and get answers, and open
up things that had been closed to you. What is that? That's faith. That's faith. And the more faith you do it in,
the more you get out of it; and it's a cycle, because how does
faith come? Comes by hearing, hearing by the
Word. So, you read it in more faith
and then you're hearing it, you're getting more revelation
and more faith. Then you read it in more faith
than you did the other time. Then more light comes. Can you see what we're talking
about? There's no end to it. You'll get more life, more
light, more excitement, more answers. But the moment you get lax and,
"Whatever... I'm too busy." No. It's not too busy, it's too
little respect for the Word. It just didn't have the place in
your life. "I don't have time for it." It's not a matter of time, it's
a matter of lack of respect, lack of importance, which is
lack of faith. And so if you go, "Alright,
alright, I'll do it." Well, you're not going to get
much out of it because you're not expecting much out of it. Little faith. Little faith, little revelation. Strong faith, a lot of
revelation. Can you see this friends? What did He say? Look at it again. Romans 1:17, in the glorious
Gospel, the best news we've ever heard, and ever will hear, all
the things that are in the Gospel, all of God's rightness,
all of His right ways and right things are, "Revealed from faith
to faith." So, every day we ought to be-and
every time we go to church, every time we read our chapter,
every time we pray, we should be endeavoring to do with it more
faith this time, than we did the last time. Listen, I've gotten some great
things-I'm saying you think this way in your mind, I've gotten
some great things when I've gone to church before, but I'm going
to get more today than I've gotten in the past. Man, I've gotten a lot of good
things when I read my chapter, but I'm going to get more today
than I have last week, and last year. I'm going get more. Why? "From faith to faith: as it is
written, the just shall live by faith." We saw in previous lessons, this
phrase is found multiple times; it's found in the Old Testament,
it's found in Hebrews, it's found in Galatians, it's found
here, exact same phrase: "The just shall live by faith." And you can begin to see, in
talking about, going to church, hearing messages, reading our
chapter, praying, faith is not a set of beliefs, a set of tenets. These are the points I believe
in. Faith is not a theological
position. Faith is not a movement or a
group. We all are of that faith bunch. There's no such thing as a born
again believer who's not a faith person. What is a believer? How'd you get born again? By faith. And, the just are to walk by
faith and live by faith. We said faith is how God
functions, it's how He's done everything, all creation and
everything that He's done, it's how He deals with us. Did you know you can make
mistakes, same mistake in the same area for a hundred times,
and God hasn't given up on you? He's a faith God. He's expecting you to get it
together. He's expecting me to overcome. He's expecting us to rise up. He's got big plans for you and
me past this life. This is Faith School, but really
all of life is Faith School. We're down here for brief
moments; because, with God a thousand years is like a day. We're down here for just a
couple hours God time, learning how to live by faith, walk by
faith, think by faith, talk by faith, respond by faith, which
is another way of saying do it like God does it, because He's
grooming us, He's preparing us for much bigger things. We are foreordained,
predestined, to rule and reign with Him in His eternal kingdom. Now we can say that, and it
sounds wonderful, but we really have very little idea what-how
wonderful that is. So, you just have to take it by
faith, that it's wonderful, and get excited by faith. But, no need to focus so much on
that because we got to make it from here to there. How do we get from one place to
the other? You walk, you take steps. How do we do it? We walk by faith. We've got to live today and
we've got to live tomorrow. How are we going do it? The only way to do it
successfully is to live by faith. Go with me, please, to
Galatians. We looked at this previously; we
want to look at it again. Galatians the second chapter. Well, I tell you what, I tell
you what-for time's sake, because we don't have a lot of
time on each broadcast, go to 1 Timothy six again; we'll just
fast- forward, and again you can go back to the previous classes
and watch them. Just click on, watch them, get
caught up. But in 1 Timothy the sixth
chapter and the twelfth verse we are told that we must, "Fight
the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life." I was ministering to a lady one
time who had a serious physical problem, and the doctors had
told her that she-there was no cure, there was no treatment. And so, I was talking to her
about, you know, resisting the symptoms and fighting the good
fight of faith. She started to cry. She said, "I don't want to
fight. I'm not a fighter." I said, "Well, I'm sorry, dear." The only option to not fighting
is being destroyed, being defeated. We live in a harsh environment,
this place called Earth. We have enemies, the devil and
his cohorts always coming to steal, kill, and destroy, and if
we don't fight the good fight of faith we'll be consumed, we'll
be destroyed. The enemy is just-he's cruel, I
mean he is totally cruel. But we're not helpless, hapless
victims. The Greater One is not the one
who's against us. The bigger One, the stronger
One, the wiser One, the Greater One, the Bible said, is in us. "Greater is He that's in me,
than he that's in the world," the Scripture says. But it's still our decision
whether we fight or we don't. We talked about this on a
previous class. You know, people say, "Well
just, let go and let God," and that can sound good when you're
tired and you thought, well that's right, you know, I can't
do it, and that's true you can't do it, you can't heal yourself
or meet your needs. So why do I even try? I mean it's just all up to God
whether it happens or not anyway, right? Wrong. No, we have our part. Faith must lay hold of what
grace has provided. I've seen, in the past almost
forty years of ministry, some amazing healings and amazing
deliverances. I'm thinking of two ladies right
now, different cases, different parts of the country that had
considered terminal cancer. They said their bodies had been
so ravaged and their organs so destroyed, all they could do is
give them something to help with the pain. And this one lady-that was, in
this one case, that was fifty years ago. She's still alive and healed
today. The other one had been about the
same length of time, forty years or so, she's still alive today. But, both of these ladies that
I'm thinking about, they had something in common, and
something in common with every person I've seen that's received
great miracles like this, they were fighters. Come on read it out loud with me
again. Do what? "Fight the good fight of faith,"
and do what? "Lay hold." Religion, man's religion, man's
traditional religion, will teach you to be a beggar, not a
fighter. Will teach you to plead with
God, "Please, please heal me. Please heal me. Please God, meet my needs. Please God, heal my baby. Please God. Please God. Please God," but the Lord never
told us to beg, and we've already talked about, there are
prayers God just simply cannot answer. Like what? He can't do what He's already
done. If you're asking Him to do
something that He's already done, how can He answer that
prayer. And, He won't do, He can't do
what He's told you to do. If you're trying to get Him to
do your part and He said, "You do this." For instance, He said, "Resist
the devil and he will flee from you," the Scripture says. Resist, but the understood
subject is you. You, "Resist the devil and he
will flee from you," but you still got millions of good
church-going people begging God to make the devil leave them
alone, "Please God, make the devil quit. Please God, stop the devil." It's wasted prayer. You're asking Him to do
something He told you to do. But the moment you and I will
rise up, quit begging, quit crying, quit feeling sorry for
ourselves, quit being weak and defeated," the moment we'll say,
"I'm not going to live like that. Christ lives in me now and the
life I live now, I live by faith. I am the justified. I am those made righteous and I
live by faith." Well, living by faith entails
fighting. I'm thinking of both of these
women; I know their testimonies well. Both of them were minister's
wives; still alive today after all these years. And told that there was no hope,
no help, but they didn't just accept that. They thanked the medical people
for what they had done for them, but men only know so much. But they got in their spirit,
I'm not done. My husband needs me. My family needs me. Our church needs me. God did not send this on me. He's not cutting my life short. He took my infirmities. He bore my sicknesses. He carried my pains. I'm not accepting this. I'm not just going to lay down
and quit and die. They fought. They resisted the temptation to
quit. They resisted. Because you can get tired. You can get so tired dealing
with things, especially if it goes on year after year. The temptation to just give up,
to just quit, just make it stop. No, you've got to be so
persuaded of the will of God, that it's God's will for you to
be healed, that He's already bought and paid for it and given
it to you, you've got to be so persuaded that it's His will to
satisfy you with long life, that you made up your mind, I'm not
accepting anything else. I am not. I will fight to live. I will wake up tomorrow by faith
and I will have another day, and I won't die tomorrow, and I
won't die next week. You know, if you just stop
getting worse it gives you lots of time. Right? A lot of times the presumption
is, well, I've gotten worse every day so I'll have to get
worse. No, you don't. The power of God can begin to
work in you on a measure that maybe you're not symptom free,
but you're not getting worse. Well then, that means you got a
lots of time, then not only are you not getting worse, you're
getting better, but you got to be a fighter. You've got to be somebody who's
not a quitter. You've got to be somebody that
doesn't blame God for everything and blame other people for
everything. You've got to be somebody who
takes responsibility for your own life, for your own faith,
and no matter how you feel you get up again. You get dressed again. Maybe you're hurt. Maybe you feel bad, but you get
up again and you say, "Okay here I go," and you put one foot in
front of the other and you take another step of faith. And one turns into ten, turns
into a thousand, and you're walking by faith. You're living, living, living,
not dying, living by faith, and its pleasing God and your faith
is growing and getting stronger because you're getting it fed in
Faith School every day, and you're feeding on your chapter,
and in your church, and your spirit is waxing stronger, and
the Spirit of faith is influencing everything that you
do; all of your thoughts and all your words. And you're getting those verses
that blessed you so much. You're getting more out of them
every time you read them because you're reading them in more
faith. That's how these two ladies who
were supposed to have been dead and gone decades ago, are still
running and completing their race in their eighties now. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Well, the Lord is no respecter
of persons. If it's His will for them, it's
His will for you. He doesn't play favorites with
His children. He's the same. He never changes. His will is always walk by
faith, live by faith, "Fight the good fight of faith," lay hold
on it, resist the enemy, having done everything you know to do,
keep on standing, keep on fighting. You, you're not fighting to try
to get the blessing, you're fighting the despondency. You're fighting the weariness. You're fighting the temptation
to give up and quit. You're fighting the temptation
to turn loose what you've laid hold of. "Fight the good fight of faith,
lay hold of eternal life." Go with me also, you're right
here in Timothy close by. Go to 2 Timothy 4:7. Second Timothy the fourth
chapter and the seventh verse. The Spirit of God said that
other thing, you know, through Paul in 1 Timothy, well this is
later and this is actually near the end of Paul's life. After years now, decades of
living by faith, walking by faith, ministering by faith, and
you know, if you read the Book of Acts and other writings, he
had a lot of challenges. Yet, as he neared the completion
he was able to say, "I have fought a good fight, I have
finished my course, I have kept," what? I kept "The faith," I kept the
faith lifestyle and walk, and if he did it, you can do it, child
of God.
