In Second Timothy the first
chapter, 2 Timothy chapter one, Paul, the Spirit of God actually
through Paul writing to Timothy, his son in the faith, said,
"When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith," say that out
loud why don't you? The unfeigned faith. "When I called to remembrance
the unfeigned faith that is in you which dwelt first in your
grandmother Lois, and in your mother Eunice I am persuaded
that in you also." He said this was in your
grandmother this was in your mother and it's in you. What's in you? Faith. But he uses a qualifier. He uses a word to describe what
kind of faith. What kind of faith did he say? Unfeigned faith. If there's an unfeigned faith
what else must there be? A feigned faith. If you look up the word feign it
basically means to pretend. To pretend. Is there a pretend faith? Actually also another way of
defining it and describing it would be like an actor,
playacting. Play faith. Acting faith. One translation says -- instead
of unfeigned faith it says unhypocritical faith. Well, it there's an
unhypocritical faith what kind else must there be? Must be a hypocritical faith. The New Living and The Century
and The New King James all said, "I remember your genuine faith." If there is a genuine faith what
else must there be? Counterfeit. Right? Something that some people think
is faith but it's not. It's like counterfeit money. From a distance the unlearned
think it's money but it's not money. And there's some things people
think is faith but it's not faith. The New Century and Basic, and
Easy To Read, they all say, "I remember your true faith." And so that's the title of our
series in these weeks True Faith. If there's true faith what else
must there be? Must be false faith or fake
faith. And this fake faith is what has
brought confusion and what has brought reproach. People have called things that
they did faith and being in faith and sometimes people have
died, and sometimes things have just been destroyed and people
of gone under and financially have been devastated, and they
call themselves doing something in faith. And some people look on and say,
"See there. That faith stuff that's not
right. That doesn't work. That doesn't work for
everybody." Well, faith in God, faith in the
Word of God, can God fail? Can His word fail? Then how could faith in God
fail? And how could faith in the Word
of God fail? Well it wasn't that faith
failed, it was that what they were calling was not real faith,
it was not true faith. Second Corinthians the last
chapter of Second Corinthians, the 13th chapter and the fifth
verse. Second Corinthians 13:5 in the
NIV says, "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the
faith; test yourselves." Say it out loud, "Test
yourselves." Test yourselves. The Good News says, "Put
yourselves to the test and judge yourselves to find out whether
you are living in faith." Do we need to know whether we're
living in faith or some kind of phony religious something or
other? Do we need to know the
difference? Oh, we do. The New Living Translation says,
"Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine." Genuine. We are to examine ourselves. We're to test ourselves. How do you do that? Well, that's what the series is
about. We're going thing after thing
and what we've been going to the Word and giving you are things
that you can use to check up on yourself to see is this really
faith? Am I really in faith? Faith is a precious commodity. I said, faith is precious. Let me read you a couple of
Scriptures about that. Second Peter 1:1 says, "We have
have obtained like precious faith." Precious faith. First Peter 1:7 says, "That the
trial of your faith, faith being much more precious than of gold
that perishes." What's more important, what's
more valuable, with more precious? Faith or money? Faith or gold? Well you know a lot of people
don't really think so, they'd rather have money. They think they would. But if you have faith you can
get money. If you have faith you can get
things money can't buy. Right? Faith is precious. Precious. And faith is rare. Now I know sometimes people
don't like to hear that because they have - - in our circles
we've quoted a lot God has given to every man the measure of
faith. And that's been taught on,
that's been emphasized, and I think sometimes people have got
the impression that means everybody has faith. But that's not true. Listen to this Scripture. Luke 18:8 says, "When the Son of
Man comes shall He find faith on the earth?" Why would he say that if
everybody is just full of faith? Now when He comes is He going to
find faith? And second Thessalonians 3:2
states what we're inferring already in the NIV it says, "For
not everyone has faith." Say that out loud, "Not everyone
has faith." Is that true or not? It's true. Now here's the thing. Everybody has the ability to
believe. Everybody, anybody, everybody
can believe. But not everybody does. And not everybody has faith. And so faith is precious. We don't want to be assuming
when it comes to faith. I think sometimes especially in
so-called word in faith circles people like to assume everybody
that comes in that everybody's full of faith. We wish. But the truth is there is just a
whole lot of unbelief. A whole lot of doubt around. And then there's a lot of stuff
that people are calling faith but it's not. Still the doubt is there. And that is the thing that is
holding back and the thing that is hindering from things being
done, miracles transpiring. How many believe faith is
precious? Is it precious? How many believe that you have
faith in you and you can believe right? Are you interested in your faith
growing and not some kind of phony religious something? Real faith. Real faith. True faith. And will this faith please God? Is this faith more precious than
gold? Will this faith overcome the
whole world? Anything that's in it against
you and enable you to receive every blessing. It's absolutely the truth. Go with me if you would to
second Corinthians the fourth chapter. It says, "We having the same
spirit of faith according as it is written, I believed and
therefore have I spoken. We also believed and therefore
speak." Do you think he's talking about
them having real faith, true faith? And how did they operate in this
true faith? We believe and therefore we
speak. As it is written I've believed
therefore. Say it out loud, "I believe
therefore, so," so what? I speak. What we're talking about this
morning is true faith, real faith speaks. Now something you could see
along this, fake faith talks about it, talks around it. Real faith talks to it. Let me go over that again real
slow. Fake faith talks around it,
about it. Real faith speaks to it. We having the same spirit of
faith according is it is written I believed and therefore I have
spoken. We've got that same spirit,
we've got that same spirit of real faith, true faith, so we
have believed and what else? So we speak. We believe and we speak. Go to Romans 10 please. Romans 10 and 8. It says, "But what saith it? The Word is near you, even in
your mouth, and in your heart: that is, the word of faith,
which we preach..." Where's the faith? In your mouth and in your heart. Verse 9, "That if you will
confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your
heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be
saved." Second time he says in your
mouth, in your heart. In your mouth, in your heart. Verse 10, "For with the heart,"
here he says it the third time. With the heart, "Man believeth
unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto
salvation." How does it work? You believe in your heart, you
speak and say with your mouth, he says it three times in these
three verses. Heart and mouth, heart and
mouth, heart and mouth. Real faith speaks. Real faith consists of believing
something in your heart and speaking it out with your mouth. Isn't it how we got born-again? Isn't it how everybody, I don't
care what denomination is over your door isn't it how everybody
gets born-again? You believe in your heart and
you confess with your mouth? Is it okay to not confess? What if people say, "Well, I'm
just embarrassed and I don't care to confess. I don't want to confess the
Lord. I'll just come and be okay." You say, "You refuse to confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord over your life?" "No, I don't want to." Are they okay? No they're not okay. Jesus said more than once He
said, "If you deny Me before men, if you're ashamed of Me in
front of men, I'll deny you before the Father. I'll be ashamed of you. But if you'll confess Me,"
somebody say, "Confess, confess." "If you'll confess Me before
men, I will confess you before the Father." How many think it's going to be
a very important thing to have Him stand up and claim you and
confess you in time to come? Are you going to want Him to
stand up and say I know them? They're Mine. And call you by name. How many are going to want to
hear your name out of Jesus' mouth in front of the Father in
hear Him say, "They are mine." He said, "I'm going to be able
to do that because you stood up on the earth, you stood up in
front of people at the church house, and at the job, and at
home, and at school, and don't care who saw it and knew it and
said, 'Jesus is my Lord! I believe in my heart that God
has raised Him from the dead and He's my Lord.'" Confess it with your mouth. That's how you get born again. That's how you get into the
faith life and some way or another the enemy has confused
people to think that's the end but it was the beginning. And the same way that you got
born again is the way you get healed, is the way you get your
bills paid, is the way you get out of trouble. It's the way you live. We just don't get born again by
faith, the just shall live by faith and walk by faith and if
you got the same spirit of faith that all the patriarchs had,
you're going to operate just like them. They believed so they spoke. We believe so we speak. You believe it in your heart,
you say it with your mouth. How many believe this in here
today? Go with me to Mark 11. Mark the 11th chapter. They were coming from Behtany,
Jesus was hungry. He saw, "A fig tree afar off
having leaves, He came, if haply He might find anything on it..." Somebody said, "Didn't He
already know if anything was on that tree or not?" What I say might startle you. Not necessarily. He wasn't operating in
omniscience. Somebody said, "Yeah, but it
said there were times that He knew their hearts." Yeah, same way you might know
some things by word of knowledge. But how many understand if He
knew there was nothing on there, why go there and check it out? Why bother with it? He came if haply, haply means
perhaps you might find something. "And He found nothing but
leaves; for the time of figs was not yet." And He's still hungry and no
figs. Somebody say, "Lying fig tree." Lying fig tree. And Jesus said, "No man eat
fruit of you..." In other words you're not going
to fool anybody else again after today. "No man eat fruit of you
hereafter forever." And He said it out loud because
His disciples heard Him say it. Now this confession, this faith
release, is it supposed to be audible, out loud, that you
speak with your mouth? That's what Jesus did. And so He went in and dealt with
the money changers and that situation. And verse 20, "And in the
morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from
the roots." Now apparently when Jesus spoke
to this, if you would have been standing right there beside Him,
you would have seen no change in the fig tree. There was no shaking of the
tree, there was no thunder, there was no lightening, there
was nothing that you could see. He spoke to it and they all
walked away. But you see some 24 hours later,
they're coming back through there, back by the tree, verse
20, "In the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree
dried up..." And the Bible tells us it
happened how? "From the roots." If you were standing there
looking at that tree when He spoke to it, you would have seen
no change. As far as you could tell,
nothing happened. And yet it did. I said, and yet it did. Something happened under the
ground where you can't see and in a matter of time it showed up
above the ground where you could see. Anybody excited about this
besides me? Jesus spoke to it and something
immediately began happening underground where you couldn't
see and then it was just a matter of time until it showed
up where you could see. Do you suppose this will work
for us? Why is it in the Bible? Why is He talking to us about
it? And so Jesus said, "Peter
calling to remembrance saith unto Him, Master, behold, the
fig tree which You cursed is withered away. And Jesus answering said to
them, Have faith in God." What's the understood subject
here? You. Is He telling them you have
faith in God? Is He telling them I did this by
faith? And is He telling them you have
faith, too? Hold your place here go to
Matthew. Matthew says it specifically. Matthew 21. Because a whole lot of folks
they read this and they say, "Well, now Preacher, that's
Jesus. You got to remember that's
Jesus. And He can do those kinds of
things because He's the Son of God." And of course the implication
is, "And you ain't and never will be. So why would you imagine you
could speak to something and it would change?" Well, it's because of things
that Jesus said about it like here in Matthew 21. Matthew 21:20. "And when the disciples saw it,"
how the tree had withered away, "they marveled, saying, How soon
is the fig tree withered away!" It was obvious it wasn't
something just natural, something supernatural had
happened here. "And Jesus answered and said to
them," now I want you to mark everywhere in this verse now
that it says you. You. Verse 21, "Jesus answered and
said to them, Verily I say unto you, If you have faith, and
doubt not, you shall not only do this which is done to the fig
tree, but also if you shall say to this mountain, Be thou
removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done." We might say, for you. It's going to be done for you. If you would say to the tree. Come on it's up on the screen
now. If you would have faith and
doubt not, you would not only do this which is done to the fig
tree - - is He telling them they could have done that? Hmm? If as some theologians try to
leave the impression or just teach and come right out and say
it, this would have been the perfect place for Him to set
them straight. When they said, "Wow! You spoke to that thing and it
just did what You said!" If it were the way some people
teach it and preach it, He should have taken that
opportunity to caution them and said now boys, I'm the Son of
God and I can do that. But don't you try this at home
because you're not. And if you need something spoken
to you're going to need to talk to Me about it and come get Me
to see if I'll do it for you. That's not what He said. I said, it's not what He said. What did He say? He said, "If you have faith, you
could not only do what I just did, I spoke to this tree but
you could speak to this mountain," - - well, that's
bigger than a tree. Is He telling them they can do
something even bigger than what He did? Is He telling them that? See, most folks don't dare
believe what Jesus said. How about people in here today? Will you dare believe what Jesus
said? That you could do what He did
here and even something bigger? Would you dare believe it? He said, "If you'd say it and
not doubt but believe that what you said would come to pass, you
would have what you said." Go back to verse 23, Mark 11:23,
let's read it. Let's make sure we understand
it. Don't assume you already know
this. There are things in here we've
not seen yet. Mark 11:23. This is the New Living. Jesus said, "I tell you the
truth, you can say to this mountain, 'May you be lifted up
and thrown into the sea,' and it will happen. But you must really believe it
will happen and have no doubt in your heart." Now that's the part where even
so called faith people miss it. He didn't just say if you said
it, it would happen. I got to go over that slow now. He didn't say if you say it, it
will happen. Did He? He used very specific qualifying
statements. Let me read it again. The Douay Translation says,
"Whosoever shall say to this mountain, Be thou removed and be
cast into the sea, and shall not stagger in his heart," the
reason that word stagger is there is because the word
translated doubt here is the same word translated waver in
places like James or Romans. Waver. So what's He telling you you
can't do? You can't doubt, you can't
stagger, you can't waver. What is wavering? Back and forth, between. What does that mean? You say, "Mountain, get out of
here." That's not enough for it to
happen. You got to believe in your heart
that what you said, happens. What would wavering be? "Is it going to happen? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I don't know, y'all check. Look. What do you think?" That doesn't work. That doesn't work. Let's keep reading. Amplified. "Truly I tell you, whoever says
to this mountain, Be lifted up and thrown into the sea! and does not doubt at all in his
heart but believes that what he says will take place, it will be
done for him." Can you take Jesus at His word? He said it would be done if
you'd do this, if we'd do what? Two things? Hmm? Say it with our mouth, but not
just say it with our mouth, believe - - don't doubt. He was very specific wasn't He? Don't doubt, don't waver about
it, don't stagger about it, but believe that what you said
happens. If you'll do that, you will have
what you say. Now, this is an area where
people have gotten off and gotten into this fake faith. Just because you say it, doesn't
mean it's going to happen. Brother Hagin, my father in the
faith, was teaching along these lines many years ago; he'd tell
the story about it. He was in west Texas and the oil
fields were booming in those days, and he said a fellow came
up after him teaching on these things kind of sarcastically and
said, "Well now... you said we could have anything
we said. What if I say I'm going to have
ten million oil wells." Brother Hagin said, "Well, Jesus
said, 'If you said it and didn't doubt but believe it, you'd have
what you said.'" He said, "But you don't believe that so go sit
down." And a lot of people have just
said a bunch of stuff and just implied that we're teaching and
Jesus said if you say it would happen, He never said that. He said saying was a part of it. But it's not just empty and vain
words, you say it and you believe that what you say
happens and you don't doubt. You don't doubt it, you don't
waver on it, you don't stagger on it. But now you don't become fully
persuaded and unwavering just by wishing you were that way. When you speak to something,
whether you're going to be strong and believe it is
happening or whether you're vacillating is depending on what
you've been hearing. And not just what you heard for
the last half a day. Your faith in your heart is the
result of what you have heard all this year already and what
you have heard prior to this and that's why Jesus said, "Take
heed what you hear." Why? Because it's going to determine
whether you really believe what you say or whether you're
wavering and vacillating. How many understand if you're
trying to speak against a situation in your body, it's not
going to work if you're hearing about the problem night and day
and you're hearing about how it's getting worse and how it
can't be fixed, and how it's incurable, and how this, and how
that. You cannot hear that night and
day and speak to it to change and really expect it to change. You can talk and say a bunch of
stuff but you're not believing it. You're wavering, you're
vacillating. That's why we're having Healing
School, right? So you can get in there every
day and somebody is not telling you- - they're not doctors,
they're not pharmacists, they don't know about medicine and
doctors but they do know about the Word and they're going to
tell you about healing, and healing, and healing, and
healing, and how does faith come? It comes by hearing, and hearing
by the word of God and you hear that enough you'll get to where
when you speak to it you actually expect it to happen. Oh, can you see it? So not all confession is a
confession of faith. Let me mention three to you. There is that which is a
confession of convenience. "What do you mean?" Well, especially coming to this
church, everybody is saying it, we're all standing up saying it
so you just stand up and say it. And you don't believe it at all,
and you don't expect it to come to pass, but you don't want to
be odd man out. So you say it. Will you have it just because
you say it? No. Jesus never said that. He said, "If you won't doubt in
your heart. If you'll believe that what you
say comes to pass, you'll have what you say." And so sometimes I've had people
around me before and they knew I expected them to say certain
things, I'm saying certain things and so to avoid me
preaching at them, they just say it. It's convenient, let's get it
over with, let's get out, let's just keep going down the road. Just say it. Well, confessions of convenience
are not going to change anything. And there are also confessions
of convincing. You're saying it but you're not
persuaded. You're saying it, saying it,
saying it, saying it, saying it, and then you go, "Did it change? Is it going to? I don't know. You think so? Let's say it again, say it
again." That's not a confession of
faith. You're trying to convince
yourself. Now, that's not entirely wrong
because faith comes by hearing and when you're saying it,
you're hearing it and there may be times in this church that
we've stood up and said things, we said it every service, every
service, every service, and for six months you might not have
believed it. But you kept saying it until you
got to where you expected it to come to pass. Actually began to believe it in
your heart. But prior to that for the first
half year, or the first year and a half, it was not a confession
of faith, it was a confession of convenience, and then it was a
confession of convincing, but it could become a confession of
confidence. You can get to the place where
you're not just talking, you really expect it to come to
pass, you really believe it, you're persuaded of it in your
heart. How many know around this church
here for years now we've had projects that the Lord has led
us in and we stood up and we said things, and we said things,
we called every seat Paid-n-Full. Did it happen? Did the Lord bring it to pass? Project after project after
project, has it all come to pass? Yes. What about what we're doing
right now? You can see it coming to pass. What about in your life? Does the principal work exactly
the same whether it's for a person, or a marriage, or a
family, or finances, or with your body, or with a church? Is it true what Jesus said? "If you'll say it and you'll not
doubt in your heart but believe that what you said comes to
pass," Jesus said, "you will have what you say." Glory to God. This is so powerful. This is how God created the
universe. Hebrews 11 tells us we
understand that the worlds were framed by the words of God. He spoke it and it came into
being. Glory to God. And we're His children made in
His likeness and image. We're told be imitators of God
as dear children. Now, we're not creating planets
this afternoon but we need to be creating something. Right? We need to be speaking to
something. Maybe it's a little small level
compared to where He's operating, of course He's been
at this a lot longer than us too. But I can see how this is not
going to stop with this life. This is going to continue on,
it's going to go on, and on, and on, and who knows. In the eons to come, we might
get to operate in some of those levels. It's very exciting. But for right now, how about
speaking some money to come in to pay your bills? How about speaking to that body
of yours and getting it straightened up? How about speaking to some
things and not just talking but actually believe? Actually believe. Somebody say, "Glory to God." Go to first Samuel 17. This has always been this way,
the spirit of faith, the same spirit of faith that the
patriarchs had, that the prophets had, that Jesus
operated in, that people in the Book of Acts had, but there was
a young man years ago that did this and he's famous today
because of it. His name is David. And at the time he's just a
young teenager. He's out keeping his daddy's
sheep. And his brothers are all very
important, they're in the military, they were all off on a
campaign, he had to stay back with the smelly sheep. But his daddy knew he wanted to
get out of there and see what was going on so he sent him with
a package, care package, to his brothers. And he got there and something
had been going on. Great big guy called Goliath. Massive, giant, mass of a man
who was a warrior from his earliest memory, from his youth
and was just a killing machine was daring the Israeli soldiers,
"Anybody man enough to fight me? Do you mean y'all don't have a
man in the whole army man enough to fight me?" And he blasphemed God and he
called their mother names. And he made fun of their
prophets, and their king, and he spit on and cussed and dared
them. And he did it for 40 days twice
a day. Morning and night he'd come out
there and rail and say, "You bunch of lily- livered
chickens." And a lot worse. Philistine cussing. He said, "There ain't a man in
the bunch..." Somebody say, "Eighty times." Eighty times. And they said nothing. They said nothing. Nobody moved because he's big. And David little ole teenage boy
comes out there and he happens to get there just in time for
the second show of Goliath cussing God and hollering about,
"Can't nobody take me. There ain't a man among you." And David said, "What? What? Why hasn't somebody already shut
this uncircumcised Philistine up?" And they began to say, "You
know, whoever kills him, he is tax-free him, and his whole
family from now on. And he gets to marry the King's
daughter." And he said, "Say what? No more taxes? Marry he the King's daughter? She's pretty." He said, "Tell me again what
happens?" And they tell him and his
brothers overheard it. Made them mad. Now faith makes unbelief mad
because it shows it up. Because they'd been there are 40
days. They've been dared eighty times
and none of them had enough faith to said boo. Nothing. And he shows up and even know
he's young and even though he's little and even though he's not
developed and he doesn't have the experience, he'd been out
there with God. I said, he's been out there with
God. Faith comes by hearing. He's been singing to God and
talking to God and God's been talking to him and he's already
had some experience in this. He needed to have faith to face
a bear and he had it. He needed to have faith to face
a lion and he had it. But look how it worked. The word got around, his
brothers made fun of him, tried to belittle him, but Saul was so
impressed he had him come to his tent. Nobody's had the courage to say
anything yet. And here this young man is
talking. Somebody say, "Talking." Talking. Talking. He's talking. Verse 29, "And David said,"
somebody say, "He said." Remember what kind of spirit of
faith did they all have? They believed therefore they
spoke. We believe so we speak. Did David believe? How do we know? He said, "What have I done? Is there not a cause?" Verse 32. And David said, read it out
loud, and David said, he said to Saul, "Let no man's heart fail
because of him; I will go and fight with this Philistine. He said, You are not able to go
against this him: you're just a young thing, and he a man of
war." And verse 34, "And David
said...," He said, "Yeah, I was keeping the sheep, and there
came a lion, and a bear, and he took a lamb out of the flock:
And I went out after him, I smote that rascal, and delivered
that lamb out of his mouth: and when he arose against me, I
caught him by the beard..." Come on, you got to see this. He was grabbing this lion by the
face hair. This is one to one with a lion. And he's just a boy. How many understand in the
natural this is not a fair match? In the natural, lions kill and
eat little boys like him. But there is something stronger
than a lion. There's something stronger than
a bear. There's something stronger than
the biggest, meanest man on the planet. It is the faith of God. And if you'll believe it, it
will come up in you and it will make you talk. If it's in you strong enough,
how many know out of the abundance of the heart, out of
the abundance of the heart it comes out of your mouth. How many understand this is no
confession of convenience? It would have been convenient to
shut up and not cause a rift. Everybody else is shutting up. This is no confession of
convincing. He's not trying to talk himself
into this. He's just convinced. He's already seen what God will
do with a bear, with a lion. He thinks this thing isn't any
different. And that's how you get after you
get some faith victories under your belt. After you get one and two and
three and four and five. You get to where nothing looks
very big to you. You just think, "Hey! Hey! God brought that in, He'll being
this in. Hey, God healed me of this,
He'll heal me of that." And if you believe it strong
enough, it comes out your mouth. And David said in verse 29,
verse 32 and David said, verse 34 and David said. Verse 36 he said, "Your servant
slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised
Philistine is going to be just like one of them..." Has he got faith? How can you tell? He's saying it. He's saying it. Now we could zip forward to Mark
11 and according to Jesus what do we know David is going to
get? He is going to get what he is
saying. Why? Because he believes it. He's convinced of this. He's not hoping it's true, he's
not wavering about this, verse 37 read it out loud. "David said moreover..." I mean he's stirred up now. He said, "The LORD that
delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of
the bear..." "Y'all pray for me because he is
a big boy! And if I die, I'll just die in
the service of the Lord. And I am just going to put
myself in the Lord's hands. And if I die, I die." Then he would've died. See, what a lot of people think
is humility is just unbelief. "Well if I die, I die, and if I
don't -- it's just up to the Lord..." No. No. I'm sorry but no. That is not what the Bible says. You don't see any "if it be Thy
wills" because if you don't know what His will is, you don't have
any business being out there. You better go back home to the
sheep. You're about to get massacred
with an "if it be Thy will." That's some of that fake faith. Some of that false humility. Some of that religious junk. No if it be Thy wills, no
whatever the Lord decides. Uh uh. He said, come on read it with
me, verse 37. What did he say? "He will deliver me out of the
hand of this Philistine." What if it isn't the Lord's
will? He's not even considering that. If you're thinking that way
you're wavering. Faith begins where the will of
God is known. How are you going to find out
the will of God? It comes by hearing. When you hear from God you get
the will of God. You get it straight, you get it
settled, and then you quit asking is that the will of God
because you got it. He had already found out it was
the will of God to deliver you from big hairy stuff that was
trying to hurt you and your people. And whether it was a big hairy
lion or big hairy bear or a big hairy Goliath same thing, no
difference, it was the will of God to kill it and get it out of
your way. He's not talking about any if it
be thy will, whatever the Lord wants... no, no. He said, "He did it before in He
did it again and He will deliver me out of the hands of this guy. He'll do it." He believed it so we said it. He was so persuaded he convinced
everybody, he convinced Saul, he convinced everybody there, they
said, "That boys got something. Let him go. He's got something none of us
have." He's not a soldier, he's a
little shepherd boy, they have all these great big soldiers and
all this armor and all these captains and of his artillery
guys and all these cavalry guys and none of them has done a
thing, none of them said anything and 40 days. And he got up there and what
came out of his mouth shook them so. They said, "Give that boy a
sword." Saul said, "He can have mine. He can have all my stuff." How many understand they must
have heard something in his tone, they heard something why? It's coming out of faith in his
heart. He believes this. And it inspired the whole bunch. This isn't just empty talk. You know the story, they put all
that stuff on him and he said, "I can't go with the this stuff. Take this back give me my
slingshot back. I don't know about all this. I haven't proved it. I know this. I put the hurt on that bear with
this. I put that lion on the move with
this. I know about this." So they put him out there. He was this giant with this huge
spear, with this huge sword, and here he is with this little
slingshot. Little boy, how many would have
liked to have seen that? If you were standing on the
side. I mean it has become a phrase,
David and Goliath describes every incident where it's a
can't win and they had to win and they didn't. Little bitty and great big,
little bitty whooped great big. David and Goliath. When the Philistine saw him
verse 42 he said, "You got to be kidding me." He distained him. He said, "You sent a kid with
stick? You got to be joking. Am I a dog? You sent a kid out here with a
stick like you'd drive a dog away?" And he cursed him. Oh, he was good at cussing. He'd been practicing for 40
days. Man, he could cuss you. He was a cussing, big, ugly mean
machine. He said, "Alright, I'd just as
soon kill you as someone else. Come on. I will give your flesh to the
fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field." Now he's saying something too. I said, he's saying something
too. You reckon he believes what he
says? Yeah, he believes he can kill
him. But it's based on faith in what? Faith in his 400 pounds. Faith in his previous killing
experience. Faith in him. When people are trying to
release faith in themselves, that only goes so far. But there's a faith that
supersedes everything. Is David's faith in himself to
whoop this giant of a man? No, no. When he said that, "Come on,
I'll kill you." Then verse 45 read it out loud. Then what? "Then said David..." Verse 29 David said. Verse 32 David said. Verse 34 David said. Verse 37 David said moreover. And then verse 45, "Then said
David..." Does real faith speak? Does it say? He said, "To the Philistine, You
come to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a
shield..." That's what your faith is in. "But I come to you in the name
of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you
have defied. This day," if it's the Lord's
will? "Y'all pray. Did you see? Man, he's bigger out here than
when I got here. You get up close. Phew! Man! Pray! Oh, God did I do the right
thing?" That's how you die. It's not just saying. What did Jesus say? Don't doubt in your heart but
believe that what you say comes to pass. He said, "This day will the LORD
deliver you into my hand..." He will do it. When you're really in faith, you
can say what God will do. Religious people think this is
blasphemous, they think it's terrible. They think, "Who do you think
you are saying what God will do?" We're not telling God what to
do. He told us what He would do. And we're just bold enough to
believe it and say this is what He's going to do. What? Faith comes by hearing. We heard from Him. Right? And now that we've heard from
Him and know His will, we're going to believe that no matter
what it looks like or feels like, we say it. This is what He is doing. He said, "He will deliver you
into my hand, and I will smite you, and I will take your head
off from you..." Come on, is he talking? Can you hear it? According to Jesus what's going
to happen? He's going to have what he said. He said, "I'm going to take your
head off and then I will give the carcasses of the whole host
of the Philistines. I'm not stopping with you." He said, "I'm taking you out
now. Then I'm taking out all your
brothers, and your sisters, and your uncles, and your cousins. And all this assembly is going
to know there is a God in Israel. They're all going to know that
the LORD saves not with sword and spear: for the battle is the
LORD's, and He will give you into our hands." And he grabbed that sling, and
he swung it up and he zipped it out and I think the angel
probably reached out and pushed it a little bit. Swoosh! And it hit him like a bullet. And down he went. And he stood on him and pulled
that blade. It probably looked comical. He probably couldn't hold on to
the thing; it was bigger than he was. And he killed that thing. And the rest of the guys saw
that and they started screaming and shouting and the army
attacked. And they defeated that whole
army that day and everything he said came to pass.
