SPEAKER_00: We're going to get into the Word together tonight, so is our custom.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just lift our Bibles up and wave them around.
SPEAKER_00: And make Jesus glad, the devil mad.
SPEAKER_00: Let's say this together.
SPEAKER_00: Say, Heavenly Father, thank God for Wednesday night.
SPEAKER_00: I need to top off my tanks.
SPEAKER_00: Faith cometh by hearing and hearing.
SPEAKER_00: I heard on Sunday, and I'm going to hear again on Wednesday night.
SPEAKER_00: And my faith is growing.
SPEAKER_00: My spirit is developing.
SPEAKER_00: And I have the victory.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at Hebrews chapter 11 tonight.
SPEAKER_00: I was getting ready for this and I was trying to think.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder how many times I've preached out of Hebrews 11.
SPEAKER_00: Lots of times.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 1, Hebrews 11, 1.
SPEAKER_00: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
SPEAKER_00: For by it, by faith, the elders obtained a good report.
SPEAKER_00: Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 6, but without faith it's impossible to please God, for he that cometh to him must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
SPEAKER_00: And then it goes in and starts to name what I call the first part of the Hall of Fame of Faith.
SPEAKER_00: It talks about Abel and Enoch and Noah, Abraham and Sarah.
SPEAKER_00: And later on it goes into some others.
SPEAKER_00: And I, like I say, the Hall of Fame of faith, these were all Old Testament saints that the Holy Ghost wanted to underline as an example of their faith.
SPEAKER_00: And in verse 13, I want to skip at verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: These all died.
SPEAKER_00: Who's he talking about?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the ones that trusted God in faith.
SPEAKER_00: These all died in faith.
SPEAKER_00: And my margin says, they died according to faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And so tonight I wanted to share a simple message entitled Four Characteristics of Faith.
SPEAKER_00: Four Characteristics of Faith.
SPEAKER_00: My job is to keep your faith fed.
SPEAKER_00: It's important that our faith be continually growing.
SPEAKER_00: We generally, you know, if you've heard this message or something like it before, well, then this will be water for what you've heard, and it'll grow more.
SPEAKER_00: And you might get something new out of it that will be seed.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I find that we can all learn about faith and how to operate in faith.
SPEAKER_00: The just shall live by their faith.
SPEAKER_00: And this is how God is pleased.
SPEAKER_00: We know how to operate by faith, and we know how to operate pleasing God.
SPEAKER_00: So here we see in verse 1 that faith is substance and evidence.
SPEAKER_00: See, it's not a theory, it's not some kind of a thought.
SPEAKER_00: It is substance and evidence.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I like to I like to use different ways of describing what faith is, but faith stands in the place of that which we believe until that which we believe comes to pass.
SPEAKER_00: So faith, I like to say it this way: faith is the placeholder.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is the placeholder.
SPEAKER_00: We have the faith until the thing that we're believing for comes to pass.
SPEAKER_00: Once it comes to pass, there's no need for faith anymore because you've got it.
SPEAKER_00: And so Mark 11, 24 says, What things wherever you desire when you pray, believe you receive them, and you shall have them.
SPEAKER_00: Well, when you believe you receive them, that's the faith.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is standing as the placeholder.
SPEAKER_00: It's like having a cardboard cutout of the thing that you want.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's like having the cardboard cutout sitting sitting there, exactly what it is that you're expecting.
SPEAKER_00: It hadn't hadn't gotten there yet, but you've got the placeholder that reminds you you've got faith for it.
SPEAKER_00: It's coming.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in other words, when symptoms are raging in our bodies, uh, you know, faith stands in the place of healing until healing manifests.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not hard to understand, but I mean, for instance, when you're suffering uh lack in your finances, faith stands in the place of abundance until abundance manifests.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a placeholder.
SPEAKER_00: It's sitting there until.
SPEAKER_00: The faith sits there until.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh again, Mark 11, 24, Jesus is the one that said it.
SPEAKER_00: What things soever you desire when you pray, believe you receive them.
SPEAKER_00: And then you shall have them.
SPEAKER_00: See the difference between receiving and having.
SPEAKER_00: You know, really the the word receiving there in Mark 11, 24, it's lombano, it means take by the hand.
SPEAKER_00: So by the hand of faith, I receive that thing I'm believing for, that I'm praying for.
SPEAKER_00: And I and I have it, I have that thing as a placeholder until the actual thing later comes on, and then I have it.
SPEAKER_00: See, so there's a difference between believing you receive and and then having.
SPEAKER_00: And so what's the difference?
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's time, it's it's the seed time.
SPEAKER_00: It's the time between the amen and the there it is.
SPEAKER_00: And we all believe in for the there it is, amen.
SPEAKER_00: But we have faith that it's on the way.
SPEAKER_00: So here in the Hall of Fame of faith, it talked about uh these uh all these people, and it's as I mentioned, you're specifically in that part of the chapter, he'd already talked about Abel offering to God a more excellent sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts.
SPEAKER_00: And so by faith, uh, and over in all these verses in Hebrews 11, it says, by faith, uh Abel, by faith, Enoch, by faith, Noah, by faith, Abraham, by faith, Sarah, by faith, on and on.
SPEAKER_00: Twenty times it says, by faith, by faith, by faith.
SPEAKER_00: One translation says, by an act of faith.
SPEAKER_00: You see, faith is not a concept, it's not a theory, it's an act.
SPEAKER_00: And faith really is acting like the Bible is true.
SPEAKER_00: You have faith has an act, its initial act, of course, is speaking.
SPEAKER_00: But beyond speaking, you've also got to act like the Bible is true.
SPEAKER_00: There's an action that has to be done.
SPEAKER_00: So these uh all of these people, they all possessed, it says there in verse 13, they all died according to faith, not having received the promises.
SPEAKER_00: But there were four things that they did do.
SPEAKER_00: And these are the characteristics.
SPEAKER_00: Uh they all they all possessed the four characteristics of faith.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll see kind of a progression.
SPEAKER_00: You'll see it starts one place and it increases and increases and increases.
SPEAKER_00: So uh so what were they?
SPEAKER_00: What were the four things?
SPEAKER_00: Well, number one, they saw the promise afar off.
SPEAKER_00: They saw the promise afar off.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, they were persuaded by the promise.
SPEAKER_00: Even though it was far away and and and not really within reach, but they were persuaded by it.
SPEAKER_00: So they saw it first and then they became persuaded by it.
SPEAKER_00: And number three, then they embraced it.
SPEAKER_00: So you can see that that promise was starting to be far off, and now suddenly it's close enough for them to put their arms around it and grab it and hug it and draw it to themselves.
SPEAKER_00: So they they they they saw the promise afar off.
SPEAKER_00: They were persuaded by it, they embraced it, and then finally they confessed it.
SPEAKER_00: They confessed the promise.
SPEAKER_00: It's still a promise.
SPEAKER_00: It hadn't showed up yet, but they confessed it.
SPEAKER_00: They spoke in line with it.
SPEAKER_00: Are y'all with me now?
SPEAKER_00: Four characteristics of faith.
SPEAKER_00: And it's so important for us to engage in the things that we're uh about in this process, and because these characteristics must be uh lived out on a daily basis.
SPEAKER_00: So uh let's look at them one by one.
SPEAKER_00: The first one saw the promises far off.
SPEAKER_00: See, they saw with the eyes of faith.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't see with their natural eyes, they saw with the eyes of faith.
SPEAKER_00: They saw, I mean, you know, way back there when Abraham was 70 years old, God promised that he'd be the father of many nations.
SPEAKER_00: He had to see that afar off because his wife is barren.
SPEAKER_00: She can't have kids, and he has no children by her, and so he has to see that.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't doubt God, but I mean he saw it way, way down the road.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he he you know, he saw it way down the road.
SPEAKER_00: You know, faith people see what other people don't see.
SPEAKER_00: You know.
SPEAKER_00: Natural sight.
SPEAKER_00: That we walk by faith and not by seems like, not by what it feels like.
SPEAKER_00: So most people walk by what it feels like.
SPEAKER_00: Most people walk according to emotion.
SPEAKER_00: If they feel, you know, if they feel goosebumps, well, they've got faith in the goosebumps.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's not about goosebumps or not goosebumps.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about feeling.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about it's about faith is just believing God's word for what it says.
SPEAKER_00: So uh in 2 Corinthians 4.18, it says we look not at the things which are seen in the natural, but at the unseen, which is the promise.
SPEAKER_00: See, we look at the promise.
SPEAKER_00: We we give great credence to the promise.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you know, if you're if you're ill and you're experiencing pain, you know, you can just sit there and meditate on the pain and you can hang around the doctor's office, and the doctor can reinforce your pain and sympathize, people can sympathize with your pain.
SPEAKER_00: But what when you start looking at Matthew 8, 17, himself bare our sicknesses and took our infirmities.
SPEAKER_00: See yet, that's got to get more real to you than the physical feeling of what you're facing.
SPEAKER_00: Does it mean that you're not facing?
SPEAKER_00: No, it doesn't mean that.
SPEAKER_00: It just means that you've that you've that you've seen the promise.
SPEAKER_00: This is the promise, and you're seeing it might seem far off, but you you see it.
SPEAKER_00: And you're not gonna deny that you see it.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna see it with the eyes of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Faith sees it far off.
SPEAKER_00: Now it might seem like your happy marriage is a long way away.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't look like it's possible.
SPEAKER_00: It might seem that you're being debt-free is just almost impossible.
SPEAKER_00: I don't see how that.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, faith can see it even when it's far off.
SPEAKER_00: You have to see it.
SPEAKER_00: You have to see it with the eyes of faith.
SPEAKER_00: And faith, the revelation of the word is when your time are your faith senses, your your faith sight is turned on and your eyes open, the eyes of your faith open, and you can see.
SPEAKER_00: It might be a long way off, but you can see it.
SPEAKER_00: You can see it.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I think about 1 Kings 18.
SPEAKER_00: Let's turn over there.
SPEAKER_00: Great example of that, of acting that way and speaking that way.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Kings 18, of course, is the uh Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah had pronounced uh a famine over Israel.
SPEAKER_00: He went to Ahab, and God said, you know, go tell Ahab, you know, there's a famine because of the sin in the land.
SPEAKER_00: And so the prophet stood for God.
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, the anointing upon, which we're going to teach on Sunday morning, talks about the anointing within Sunday, this past Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: But in the Old Testament, the anointing upon was only upon three different groups of people: the priests, the prophets, and the kings.
SPEAKER_00: They had the anointing upon them.
SPEAKER_00: And so the anointing of the prophet stood for God.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, God was not on the scene, God was not down here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the devil ruled the world after the fall of Adam.
SPEAKER_00: Adam sold out to the devil, and the devil became the God of this age.
SPEAKER_00: And so his representative, the prophet, stood for God.
SPEAKER_00: When the prophet spoke, God spoke.
SPEAKER_00: And so when he stood before the king Ahab, he said, It's not going to rain till I say so.
SPEAKER_00: Then he had to flee because he pronounced judgment.
SPEAKER_00: You know, no rain means crop failure, it means famine.
SPEAKER_00: It means there's no water, there's no food.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's bad.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the whole society's agriculture.
SPEAKER_00: So when you cut off the water, man, you're cutting off not only money, you're taught cutting off life.
SPEAKER_00: And so then uh we know the story.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah had to flee, and he found the woman Zarephath, and they uh had a miracle of supply there.
SPEAKER_00: He lived with her, he lived with her a year, and they never wanted for food.
SPEAKER_00: And then after that, uh he goes and in verse 18, chapter 18, he went to uh uh back to Ahab, and uh he said, I I'm uh I'm here, uh, you know, to judge the prophets of Baal.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and so here's here's King Ahab out there, and all the 400 prophets of Baal show up, which basically they were connected to uh Ahab's wife, Jezebel.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, long story, but he basically slew the 400 prophets of Baal.
SPEAKER_00: He killed all of them.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh, and he said, Don't let one of them escape.
SPEAKER_00: And then Elijah, verse 41 of chapter 18, 1 Kings, Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of the abundance of rain.
SPEAKER_00: So now, after three years, he had pronounced a judgment on Israel by a famine, and now he just executed judgment over the sin in Egypt, and the source of the sin was those 400 prophets that did wickedly and that were working for Jezebel.
SPEAKER_00: He killed them, and now he said, Okay, King, get up and eat and drink, because I hear the sound of an abundance of rain.
SPEAKER_00: Well, he how did he hear it?
SPEAKER_00: He heard it by the ear of faith.
SPEAKER_00: See, he heard it by the ear of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Keep that in mind.
SPEAKER_00: There's no clouds yet, there's no thunder yet.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I hear the sound of an abundance of rain.
SPEAKER_00: That's him releasing uh Israel from judgment.
SPEAKER_00: So uh Ahab went up to eat and to drink, verse 42, and Elijah went up to the top of Carmel, and he cast himself down upon the earth, and he put his face between his knees, and said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea.
SPEAKER_00: And he went up and looked and said, There's nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Go again seven times.
SPEAKER_00: And it came to pass on the seventh time that the servant said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand.
SPEAKER_00: See, a little cloud.
SPEAKER_00: He saw it far away, just a little cloud.
SPEAKER_00: It's a cloudless sky, and way out there over the Mediterranean, here's this little bitty, little bitty cloud out there.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, All I see, prophet, is just a little cloud.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and Elijah said, Go up, say unto Ahab, prepare your chariot and get thee down that the rain stop you not.
SPEAKER_00: And it came to pass in the meanwhile that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain, a mega rain.
SPEAKER_00: I've been at that place.
SPEAKER_00: It's nothing but just desert.
SPEAKER_00: But the topography is such that if it ever rains, it has flash floods.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it'll wash you away and just like that, just like the hill country.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, just a little bit of rain in the right spot, and those rivers, it's the same way there in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: When the rain comes, that water runs.
SPEAKER_00: And so Ahab got on his horse and his chariot, and he rode and he went to Jezreel, and the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he girded up his loins and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.
SPEAKER_00: That's about 20 miles.
SPEAKER_00: The hand of the Lord came upon the prophet, and he outran the chariot all the way for 20 miles to Jezreel.
SPEAKER_00: The rain came and flooded, flooded the whole place, and the curse was broken over the rain because the man of God could see the promise afar off.
SPEAKER_00: He knew, he knew that it was time for the uh for the curse to be lifted.
SPEAKER_00: It was all under his authority.
SPEAKER_00: God had given him that authority, it was all under his authority.
SPEAKER_00: Are y'all with me now?
SPEAKER_00: So number two, a characteristic, these were persuaded of the promise.
SPEAKER_00: You know, persuaded.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Romans 4.21, let's turn over there.
SPEAKER_00: It's one thing to see, but then sometimes, you know, it after you see the promise, it's far off, and you've got to spend some time getting persuaded.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and so Abraham in verse uh 18, who against hope believed in hope that he might become the father of many nations according to that which was spoken, so shall your seed be.
SPEAKER_00: And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, which he was about a hundred years old, neither the deadness of Sarah's womb.
SPEAKER_00: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God and being fully persuaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform.
SPEAKER_00: He was fully persuaded.
SPEAKER_00: Now, his life was spent, God gave him that promise when he left, you know, his family and went on out.
SPEAKER_00: He said, you know, leave your family and everybody behind.
SPEAKER_00: I'll show you where to go.
SPEAKER_00: And so he was believing.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm gonna make your name great.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be, you're, you know, you're you're gonna be all in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: Later, he said, look at the stars.
SPEAKER_00: That's how big your descendants are gonna be.
SPEAKER_00: So he's been been living with this promise.
SPEAKER_00: This promise most of his life, his promise was way out there.
SPEAKER_00: It was way afar off.
SPEAKER_00: And now, at this point in time, he's become what?
SPEAKER_00: Fully persuaded.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the there's a there's a progression.
SPEAKER_00: So you see it first, and then as you meditate on it, as you as you think about it more and more, it gets bigger and bigger, and you become fully persuaded that it's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: And so, before you can do anything by faith, you've got to take the time to become fully persuaded.
SPEAKER_00: That is, to be convinced of, to rely on, and to believe.
SPEAKER_00: And that's just not overnight.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just instant.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times we just pray so fast.
SPEAKER_00: I heard Karen Copeland say this years ago.
SPEAKER_00: He said, most Christians just pray too fast.
SPEAKER_00: They don't spend any time, you know, meditating on the word.
SPEAKER_00: They don't get prepared for their faith to operate on the prayer that they're making or what they're believing for.
SPEAKER_00: They just say, God, I need this.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you know, and why don't you spend some time finding out what is the will of God?
SPEAKER_00: Because the will of God is where the faith, faith begins, is where the will of God is known.
SPEAKER_00: And so before you can do anything by faith, you've got to be persuaded, convinced of what you're trusting on.
SPEAKER_00: So that way when the doctor's report comes, you're already fully persuaded that you were healed 2,000 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the doctor's report says this.
SPEAKER_00: There's no question in the natural, the doctor sees something.
SPEAKER_00: There's something there.
SPEAKER_00: You're not healed by what you deny, you're healed by what you believe.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I know the I know that it shows that I've got gallstones, but in the name of Jesus, I believe I've been healed of gallstones.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, I'm not giving gallstones permission to be in my body.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I've had to give people Jeremiah 23, 27, is my word, does not my word burn like a fire?
SPEAKER_00: Is it not like a rock, a hammer that breaketh a rock in pieces?
SPEAKER_00: God's word will shatter those gallstones.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen him do it.
SPEAKER_00: So uh you have to be persuaded and convinced beyond the other reports, the doctor's report, the financial report, somebody else's opinion, you know, somebody that's trying to discourage you.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, when you're fighting a battle, you've got to be careful who you hang out with.
SPEAKER_00: Some people just want to discourage you.
SPEAKER_00: They want you to come down to their level and be as miserable as they are.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you just gotta know, you know, who to hang with and who not to.
SPEAKER_00: So everything has to be subject to the report, which is the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: This is the this trumps, this is superior to any and all reports that man can give you, no matter how sophisticated the diagnostic is, no matter how good the CPA is, no matter how great the lawyer is, no matter how great the doctor is, it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: All they're dealing with is in the natural, and this is the supernatural.
SPEAKER_00: Faith deals in the unseen, it deals in the supernatural.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
SPEAKER_00: It helps you sometimes because you're your flesh.
SPEAKER_00: You're you you have flesh that you live in, and your flesh is affected in all these things.
SPEAKER_00: It's easy, you know, sometimes to get pulled out of your faith and start believing what your eyes tell you, your ears hear, and your how you feel about something.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so you need to be persuaded.
SPEAKER_00: All these people in the Hall of Fame of faith, they they saw it a great distance off, then they were persuaded by it.
SPEAKER_00: And then number three, it says they embraced the promise to become one with.
SPEAKER_00: See, you become one with a promise.
SPEAKER_00: How can that happen?
SPEAKER_00: See, it's a continuation of what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: It starts out here, and then you start getting fully persuaded, and it's kind of magnet.
SPEAKER_00: It's pulling it closer, it's pulling it closer, it's pulling it closer until finally one day you go, Oh, it's mine.
SPEAKER_00: And nothing can make you doubt.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've heard from God.
SPEAKER_00: You become one with the promise.
SPEAKER_00: It belongs to you.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing can rip it out of your hand.
SPEAKER_00: Are you with me now?
SPEAKER_00: Well, how does that happen?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it doesn't happen overnight.
SPEAKER_00: It happens when you submit yourself to the word.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Joshua, let's look at Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: You all getting anything out of this tonight?
SPEAKER_00: I'm getting excited preaching it to you.
SPEAKER_00: Man, I tell you what, God's awesome.
SPEAKER_00: He's given us a way of victory, showed us how to operate in this world.
SPEAKER_00: Joshua chapter 1, he told Joshua, you know, you can imagine him.
SPEAKER_00: He was the second in command all those years, 40 years behind Moses.
SPEAKER_00: He watched Moses, the greatest prophet in the Bible, operate.
SPEAKER_00: He saw how he was with God and all of that.
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden Moses is dead, and now it's him.
SPEAKER_00: He's on the hot spot now.
SPEAKER_00: He's the buck stops here, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh and so God visited him after the death of Moses.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: Now, after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke unto Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, Moses, my servant, is dead.
SPEAKER_00: As if he didn't know.
SPEAKER_00: Moses, my servant, is dead.
SPEAKER_00: Now therefore, arise.
SPEAKER_00: Go over this Jordan, you and all this people under the land which I do give them, even to the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: See if there was ever a doubt that he was gonna cross the Jordan, that erased it.
SPEAKER_00: You are gonna take this people.
SPEAKER_00: Your predecessor couldn't get it done, but you are gonna get the job done.
SPEAKER_00: You are gonna bring these people across the Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon.
SPEAKER_00: That have I given you, as I said unto Moses.
SPEAKER_00: See, he said the same thing to Moses.
SPEAKER_00: Now he's saying the same thing to Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: From the wilderness and Zebanon, even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, unto the great sea, toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast.
SPEAKER_00: There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life.
SPEAKER_00: As I was with Moses, so shall I also be with thee.
SPEAKER_00: I will not forsake thee, I will not fail thee.
SPEAKER_00: Be strong and of a good courage, for unto this people shall you divide for an inheritance the land which I swear unto their fathers to give them.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, only be thou strong and very courageous.
SPEAKER_00: See, second time, be strong, be very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in the law, which Moses, my servant, commanded thee.
SPEAKER_00: Turn not from the right hand to the left, that you may prosper whithersoever thou goest.
SPEAKER_00: Now, verse 8, here's the key.
SPEAKER_00: This book of the law, what book of the law?
SPEAKER_00: What is he talking about, the first five books of the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: We have the whole Bible.
SPEAKER_00: He just had the first five books, and he was able to have victory.
SPEAKER_00: The first five books did more in his ministry than forty years of messing with Moses.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm telling you, when you meditate in the Word of God, things change on the inside.
SPEAKER_00: This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate therein day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written then.
SPEAKER_00: Then you shall make your way prosperous.
SPEAKER_00: Then you shall have good success.
SPEAKER_00: Have not I commanded thee?
SPEAKER_00: Number three, be strong and of a good courage.
SPEAKER_00: Third time, three times.
SPEAKER_00: Be strong.
SPEAKER_00: There's only one way to be strong and of a good courage, and that's meditating on the word.
SPEAKER_00: You can forget about anything else.
SPEAKER_00: There's no way you're going to be strong and courageous enough to overlook what comes in the natural against you through your five senses.
SPEAKER_00: Your five senses are just an assault all the time against what God said you could have.
SPEAKER_00: And the only way to overcome that is to meditate in day and night in the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Meditate, meditate, meditate until that word becomes part of you.
SPEAKER_00: That's what part of the embrace is.
SPEAKER_00: When you meditate, you're embracing the promise, and there's no devil, there's no person can ever separate you from it until it comes to pass.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, lift your hands right now.
SPEAKER_00: Glory to God.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at Psalm 1.
SPEAKER_00: People of the East knew something about meditation.
SPEAKER_00: That was something that they practiced.
SPEAKER_00: Nowadays, in the 21st century, the people that meditate are all meditating on demon powers.
SPEAKER_00: That's the Eastern religion and all that.
SPEAKER_00: They perverted Old Testament meditation and stole it and took it into Eastern religion and Eastern mysticism.
SPEAKER_00: And you see these, I get so mad, they show these lots of different.
SPEAKER_00: There's a mattress, some mattress.
SPEAKER_00: Every time they show the mattress, they show somebody sitting on the mattress like this and doing their transcendental meditation.
SPEAKER_00: I say, well, I'll never buy your stupid mattress.
SPEAKER_00: You know, this is a Christian nation.
SPEAKER_00: Christians built this country, not those goofballs.
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, I'll get off my soapbox.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so he met, you know, Psalm 1, blessed is a man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're talking about, walking in the counsel of the ungodly, standing in the way of sinners, sitting in the seat of the scornful.
SPEAKER_00: That's what you do when the world has got access to you.
SPEAKER_00: That's all that they can give you, is drivel.
SPEAKER_00: But your delight is in the law or the word of the Lord, and in his law does he meditate day and night.
SPEAKER_00: Now, see, again, here he's talking about the first five books of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: But see, we went beyond that.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Holy Ghost kept inspiring men of God to write the whole word down.
SPEAKER_00: We've got the entire Bible to meditate in, especially the epistles.
SPEAKER_00: I tell people all the time, don't spend so much time meditating in Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: Meditate in Ephesians and Colossians and Philippians, and those are the letters to the church.
SPEAKER_00: So uh, but his delight is in the law or the word of the Lord, and in his word doth he meditate there again, day and night.
SPEAKER_00: And that word, that person that meditates day and night and gives himself to the word, he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, who bringeth forth its fruit in his season, and his leaf also shall not wither.
SPEAKER_00: See, in other words, you can live through a hundred-degree day like today, and your leaf is just green as it can be.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because you're tapped down into the living water of the Word of God and the Holy Ghost.
SPEAKER_00: And uh whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that great?
SPEAKER_00: So uh, you know, you just shut yourself up in the word until uh not only are you persuaded, but you begin to embrace that promise and it becomes part of you.
SPEAKER_00: And the degree of success is directly proportional to your commitment to read and multiply, meditate, and pray, and obey the word.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to obey the word too.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can't just know it and not obey it.
SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy 4.4 says, cleave unto the word.
SPEAKER_00: Moses was uh teaching the children of Israel, cleave unto the word.
SPEAKER_00: You know, hold it.
SPEAKER_00: Hold it tight.
SPEAKER_00: John 15, 7, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it'll be done unto you.
SPEAKER_00: So uh, so we let's go through them again there.
SPEAKER_00: Number one is you saw the promise far off, you didn't stop there, but you became persuaded of the promise, fully persuaded, and finally you embraced the promise, and it became one with you.
SPEAKER_00: But now there's one more step that they took, and that's confessing the promise.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you've got to speak in line with the promise, or speak in line with the word.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not what you say once, it's not what you say twice, but it's having a systematic discourse.
SPEAKER_00: It's what you say continually.
SPEAKER_00: And again, when you meditate in the word, it's getting down so deep inside of you, it's inhabiting your mind and your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So it's much easier then to always speak right.
SPEAKER_00: You're speaking in quite more in line with God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Pastor, I know sometimes what happens is I just I'll say something, I'm so sorry I said it.
SPEAKER_00: Well, just keep meditating in the word.
SPEAKER_00: You just need to keep going.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's something that takes time for you to reprogram not only your brain, but you've got to get your spirit filled with the promise.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why some people, you know, in our Western society, we just want to drive through Whataburger and get just like we like it right now.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not Whataburger, you know, it's not a drive-thru.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to spend our time meditating and reading and praying and all of those things, spending the time it takes for it to for us to embrace it.
SPEAKER_00: And then it's easier then to confess.
SPEAKER_00: It's easier then to speak positively in line with the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: I find that when people don't have good ways of speaking, it's just that they're not spending much time in prayer in the Word.
SPEAKER_00: They're relapsing back to the world.
SPEAKER_00: The world's always talking trash and talking death and talking broke and talking victimhood and everything else.
SPEAKER_00: And, oh, give me a reparation.
SPEAKER_00: I need to be, you know, have reparation for what happened 200 years ago, and it didn't have anything to do with you.
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you get off your rear end and work?
SPEAKER_00: Get a job.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you don't need anybody to pay you.
SPEAKER_00: You just need to do, I mean, they'll pay you if you work.
SPEAKER_00: See, this whole this whole thing is ungodly.
SPEAKER_00: It goes against God's word.
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, when you do things God's way, you're blessed.
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, we're blessed beyond measure.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: So uh Mark 11, 23, I like what Jesus said there.
SPEAKER_00: It said, Whosoever can have whatsoever.
SPEAKER_00: See, he said, Who you who you can have whatsoever you say, whosoever shall say into this mountain, be thou removed, be thou cast into the sea.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say pray, he said say.
SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of times, my my prayer life, I pray all right, but I do a lot of declaring, I do a lot of saying, I do a lot of commanding.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just how how I I use my authority.
SPEAKER_00: I have authority, I use it every day.
SPEAKER_00: And uh it's it's instead of asking God to heal you, that's baby, that's a baby prayer.
SPEAKER_00: He already did.
SPEAKER_00: So what you do is you thank God that you're healed, and then you demand your body.
SPEAKER_00: Line up with this healing.
SPEAKER_00: See?
SPEAKER_00: Use your authority.
SPEAKER_00: So uh in Mark 11, 23, he said, You will have whatsoever you say it.
SPEAKER_00: I like it this way, I like to say it this way: confession brings possession.
SPEAKER_00: Confession brings possession.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you haven't possessed it yet, you probably haven't said it enough in faith.
SPEAKER_00: And again, it's a process.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times we want things to happen right now, right now.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, when you're when you're young in the Lord, God will give you victories really quick.
SPEAKER_00: But you start to grow up, God expects you to trust him.
SPEAKER_00: He expects you to trust what he said.
SPEAKER_00: See, I mean, it's just like you treat your children.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when children, when they're little, you want to give them everything they want, but then at some point in time, you know, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to, you know, throttle back, you know, a little bit and not give them every little thing that they want because they'll get spoiled just like that.
SPEAKER_00: Leave that to grandpa.
SPEAKER_00: Grandpa knows how to spoil a grandkid, which I did very successfully.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: So uh confession brings everybody say confession brings possession.
SPEAKER_00: See, call what you desire.
SPEAKER_00: Don't don't quit speaking negatively, quit speaking death and and and poverty and lack and victimhood.
SPEAKER_00: Speak health, prosperity, peace, joy, speak protection.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't even pray for protection.
SPEAKER_00: I speak it.
SPEAKER_00: I get in the car and say, Father, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: The angels attend our way.
SPEAKER_00: We're delivered from harm, accident, injury, tickets, traffic, mechanical breakdown, road rage.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Carjacking.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I say it all.
SPEAKER_00: I don't pray.
SPEAKER_00: I say, I just say it.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the Bible says that angels attend my way.
SPEAKER_00: They bear me up in my hand in their hands, lest I dash my foot against a carjacker.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
SPEAKER_00: So uh, anyway, uh, four characteristics of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Did anybody get anything out of this tonight?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you are going to employ these characteristics and start working on them?
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, let's praise him.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Glory to God.
SPEAKER_00: We've been to every man who's been given the measure of faith.
SPEAKER_00: All of us have been given Bible faith.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's a way that we can grow in that Bible faith.
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's it's incrementally, and sometimes it's not as fast as it would like, but I mean, if we'll put ourselves, uh be faithful to it, our faith can grow and our results can be more victorious every day.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God.