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It's been together with our brothers and sisters in the Church, all over the world. We have churches that have been turned from the Word of God. Thank you. All right. Amen. Hebrews chapter number 11. Real quickly, if you would, just go back to chapter 10. We're just going to read one verse to kind of get some context here of what we're going to be talking about. So 40 verses, kind of a longer chapter, but really it's going to be pretty straightforward to get through the whole thing tonight. And I want to get through this whole thing because I want the idea fresh in our minds when we start chapter 12 next week. So real quickly, you're in Hebrews chapter number 10, look at verse 38. It says this, Now the just shall live by faith. It's not the only time in the Bible you'll see that phrase, but it's very, very clear. The Bible says the just shall live by faith. Then he says, but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. We kind of talked a little bit last week about the last part of that verse, what goes into that. But that beginning part of the verse there, now the just shall live by faith. I mean that speaks volumes. That there will set us up for this entire chapter. Now go back to chapter number 11. So obviously who are the just? Are they the people that woke up one day and said, Oh wow, I'm something special. I'm really great. I've done a great job. I've turned from all my stands. I'm now righteous. And I'm good to go. God has accepted me. I've given my life to Christ. Is that who the just are? No, the just are the people who've realized, Man, I can't, I'm done. I'm a sinner. I need to be saved. And call upon the name of the Lord for salvation, born again. They are the just. We are made just by God, not by ourselves. And the Bible is very clear. You'll find that phrase, I think it's in Habakkuk. You'll find it in Romans. You'll find this here in Hebrews. The just shall live by faith. We walk by faith, not by sight. But what does that mean? What does that look like? We're going to be talking about that tonight. Now, in chapter number 11, if you would real quickly, jump down to verse number 34. I like this statement, and it's the title of the sermon. So, the writer here is obviously going over the victories of the prophets, the victories of those who've gone on before us. In verse 34, he says that they quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Now, I titled the sermon this evening, The Violence of Fire. I like that term there, because when you think about it, Jesus made this statement, and he told Peter, he said the gates of hell are not going to prevail against the church. He's building his kingdom. And so the forces of darkness are not going to be able to beat us. And the reason for that, after reading this chapter, is very clear. It's because we walk by faith, not by sight. I bash these guys all the time, but it's so true. Most people today who claim to be religious, who claim to be Christian, all they care about is what they can see or what they can feel. They are walking by sight, not by faith. They claim to walk by faith, but they're really not. And so we're going to be talking about that this evening. For example, what was it? How were they able to stop or quench the violence of fire? And again, it's because of faith. And you say, well, what does that mean? What's going on here? I've seen these guys on TV that put their hands up to someone's head and they fell over and they were healed of a migraine. They had a little twinge in their knee and it went away. Well, what you're going to see here is that faith is not a force. You've got the faith idea that comes from Hollywood, that comes from the sensational type churches, and then you have the faith that is defined for us in the Bible. And they are two different types of faiths. I'm serious. A lot of people think that faith is like some kind of force, like let the force be with you, right, or like the Schwartz from Spaceballs. I'm serious. People think that. And if you're new to the faith, you're newly saved, or you're not well versed in these things, you may have that idea. I'm not trying to be funny. It's just sometimes we can get into that mind frame. And there are millions of preachers, millions of preachers in the world today, who will – Todd White, for example. If he can't heal somebody from a headache or if he can't heal someone from a little twinge in their ankle, you know what he says? Well, you just don't have enough faith. And when we challenge these guys and say, hey, why don't you go down to the hospital and start healing people? Why don't you go down to the cemetery and start bringing up the dead? They're like, well, they don't have enough faith. That's their cop-out. That's what they say. Why do they say that? Because they don't understand what faith really means. So let's learn what it means. Let's talk about this. Because preachers for years have been clogging this thing up and basically trying to muddy the waters. Why? So that we cannot understand what real faith is, okay? It is not some kind of a magical power. People will be like, the reason why you can't move a mountain is because you don't have any faith. Okay, yeah. How many people have moved mountains in the Bible? It was God. How many people have? You know what I mean? But people will say that. They'll be like, oh, the reason why you can't do this, the reason why you didn't get that raise, the reason why you didn't get this, the reason why you can't overcome this or whatever is because you don't have enough faith. Now, in some situations, you'll see as we go through this, that is true. But again, people get this idea, well, if I had enough faith, I'd be able to set this pulpit on that piano. When you learn the true definition, you'll see why that's not the case, why actually that is actually tempting God by even saying stuff like that, okay? So verse one gives us the definition, right? So we were told back in chapter 10 that the just shall live by faith. We're told that in other places in the Bible, but what does that mean? Well, verse one says, now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. So again, what is faith? Is it some power? Is it the Schwartz? Is it the force? What is it? It's the evidence of things hoped for. That's what it is. So faith is the substance. In other words, it's the assurance, okay? So in other words, this is very simple. God tells us that these things are going to happen in the world, right? We decide in our hearts to believe those things. That gives us hope, okay? You'll see that here in a second. Go to Ephesians chapter one, and then we're going to go to Romans chapter number eight. But before we do that, I just wanna give you some groundwork here about faith. Faith is the substance, or it's the assurance, it's the confidence that we have from a promise, okay? Why was Abraham able to offer up Isaac his son? What gave him that assurance? What gave him that substance or that strength? And you say, what was his faith? Absolutely. Faith in what, okay? You have to understand that faith has to have an object, and I'll show you that here. So just a very simple statement from Paul to Ephesians. Ephesians chapter one, verse 15. It says this. Wherefore, I also, after I heard of your faith, now don't miss this, in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints. You see that there? A lot of people just gloss over that, but don't gloss over that, okay? Understand something about faith. Your faith has to have an object. God has given every man a measure of faith. That's what the Bible says. So at some point in time, every human being has a measure of faith and is able to place that on something. Unfortunately today, a lot of people place it on themselves, they place it on their college professor, a false god, a false ideology, or something other than the truth, okay? That's the problem. Paul acknowledges here, hey, he says, I rejoiced when I heard your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, okay? So that's what I'm talking about. Your faith must have an object. You must be able to place your faith on something, right? What's the great question in the Bible about salvation? What must I do to be saved? Well, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved in thy house. Very simple. You take that measure of faith that God has given you and you hear the promise, you hear the word of God, and you believe it. You trust it, okay? Now does that mean you can see it with the physical eye? Has anybody in here seen the Messiah face to face? Absolutely not. Why do we believe on him? Because of the Bible, because of the promises, okay? I'm gonna keep bringing this up over and over again tonight. The reason why we believe these things is because we are told about these things. Now go to Romans chapter number eight. Romans chapter number eight. If this is kind of muddy, it'll get clear here in a second, kind of doing this on purpose. Romans chapter number eight. Let's take a look at something, okay? Because the writer of Hebrews said, now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, okay? Romans chapter eight, real quickly, look at what Paul tells the Romans in verse 24. So he says this, for we are saved by hope. Well, that's interesting, man. Well, what does that mean? Thought we were saved by faith, saved by what? He says you're saved by hope. Well, what does that mean? Well, that means that faith and hope are connected, okay? We are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? Just a quick little silly example here, okay? Let's say after the service here, they give you a church invite and say, hey, we're gonna be back here on Wednesday at 7 p.m., okay? Well, that hasn't happened yet. You look at the invite, you have hope. Well, hey, that's great. There's a church service on Wednesday at 7 p.m. You hope that that's true, right? But why do you hope that? Because we told you that. You decided to believe that. You decided to have faith in that. Now, when you show up on Wednesday, what happened? That faith and that hope get fulfilled. Look at verse 25. He says, but if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. So again, I'm bringing these up to show you that faith is not some kind of Schwartz. It's not some kind of super force or power, okay? Because honestly, I've been in several churches where people are like, the reason why you can't do this and you can't do that is because you don't have enough faith. The reason why you guys can't make a million dollars a year is because you don't have enough faith. Well, hold on for a second here. Is there a promise anywhere in the Bible that says that you're guaranteed to make a million dollars a year or to make, you know, tons of money? Absolutely not. We're not promised anything like that. And you can search the Bible till you're blue in the face. There's no promise in the Bible that you would be healed from a physical infirmity. Now obviously that's the desire. That's the end goal. We desire to be in good health. We desire to be healed from these things. We desire to experience miracles and all sorts of things like that. But guess what? Guess what? It doesn't always happen. And here's the thing. People are told, oh, you're not getting these things because you don't have faith. And so what happens? People get discouraged. They walk out of church. They never come back. And they develop all these issues and this animosity and anger towards God all because they were told to place their faith in something that was not specifically written down in the Bible. See what I'm saying? This, I mean, this is a huge error today in Christianity. People are like, you know, we talk to people all the time. I threw her. Oh, yeah, you know, my mom died, you know, or my dad died, or somebody died in her family, and they're mad at God. Right? And you know what they often will say? Well, the preacher told me if I would just keep praying and had enough faith that she would be healed. That didn't happen. Somebody ought to go back and slap that preacher because where in the Bible is it written down that you're guaranteed your loved one's lives for as long as you live? Where are you guaranteed in the Bible that you will not experience hardship? It's not in there. Right? So we have faith, which is the substance of things hoped for that we learn from by reading the Word of God. Now, we can all have faith that things are going to get worse on this planet. Why? Because it's written down in the Bible. But we can also have the faith that we will get to victory and that we will overcome because we are in Christ. Those things are written down in the Bible. Why do we believe on Jesus Christ? Why does a person decide to believe and be saved? Yeah, because of the Word of God. Because it's clear in the Bible what he did. Right? Not to mention all the other facts. Go to Matthew chapter 8. Not to mention that there is evidence out there. Right? And we talk about this all the time. There's evidence that somebody built this building. There's evidence that somebody ran electricity in the walls to power these lights. That someone plumbed this building. There's evidence for creation. We get that. We understand that. But you know what? We can't see the people who did that work, but yet we know that it happened. Right? It's the same thing in creation. You can't look at a tree. You can't look at the clouds. You can't look at the sky and be like, oh no, this is just some kind of a coincidence. This all just happened by random chance. That's absurd. People who say that deep down in their heart, in their conscience, records this, they do not believe that. They are saying that because they are mad at God or they want to get something out of you that is not good, like some kind of a reaction or something like that. Okay? So, with that being said, let's take a look at another illustration here or an example. Actually, you know, before we read Matthew 8, let me just give you this one here. How about this one here? There's a lot of things that we all hope for. Okay? Like, for example, maybe you work a job and you're hopeful of getting a raise or you're hopeful of getting some kind of a bonus or something and your boss has laid out the criteria. Hey, if you meet X, Y, and Z, if you do these things, you're in line. You're up for a promotion. Let's say you fulfill those things. You read that standard. You commit it. You do it. Right? You have hope inside of you. Hey, well, I got the certification. I completed these steps. My boss said, our company said, once you do that, a raise is in order. Right? You have that hope. Right? Now, when he comes up to you and says, hey, guess what? You completed X, Y, and Z. You're going to get your raise coming up here, a next paycheck or two, whatever it is. I mean, now that's faith. You believe that. Right? Because he told that to you. Now, after it happens, do you have faith in it? Well, no. It's been completed because you've received it. Okay? So just something to understand. It's not a force. Okay? It's not a power. Like, oh, I just got this faith. Right? People all the time out there, oh, I know I'm saved because I've just got this faith. You know? I saw this situation going on here, and I thought about it really intently. I thought about it really hard, and then the whole circumstance has changed. No, you need to go back to Hollywood. Okay? That's not Bible doctrine. That's a coincidence at best. So, let's take a look at another example of faith, what it is, what it is not. Matthew chapter 8. Look at verse number 5. It says that when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion beseeching him. And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home, sick of the palsy, grievous. Verse 7. And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. Okay? Now, stop right there. What do you have? What is going on right here? What did Jesus just tell the centurion, who's not a Jew by birth, by the way, gave him a promise, said, hey, where's he at? I'll come and heal him. Right? Do you think that this centurion believes him? Does he believe that? Right. So, what does he have right now? Faith. Right? He heard the promise. He heard the fact that Jesus was willing to heal his servant. And he has faith. He believes it. He has made Christ. He has made that promise, the object of his faith here. And I'm not saying this is when he got saved. I'm not saying that at all. But look at verse 8. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof, but, now don't miss this, but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. You say, I want to be a Christian of great faith. That's awesome. Do you know what faith is? Do you really understand what faith is? It's believing the promises, okay? And here's the thing. You can't just be making these promises up. You can't just be letting other people tell you what these promises are. Because preachers promise people things all the time that are not written in the Bible. You've got the victory over your day. You've got the victory over this. You've got the victory over that. Really? Where's that in the Bible? Is it written down? Because if it isn't written down, you might not want to place your faith on that, okay? I'm not saying you shouldn't pray for it, but hey, this was something that this centurion could actually place his faith or his trust on because Christ told him, I will heal him. So he makes a statement here in verse 8, but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. Verse 9, for I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me, and I say to this man, go, and he goeth, and to another, come, and he cometh. And to my servant, do this, and he doeth it. So this guy's obviously just a great person all around. I mean, he's a good dude. He understands how authority works, right? And he knows the type of person that Christ is. He's heard about him, obviously. He knows he's a leader. He knows he's sent from God. Verse 10, when Jesus heard it, don't miss this, he marveled. What does that mean? He wondered. He's like, wow, this is something out of the ordinary. Look at the rest of the verse. And said to them that followed, verily, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith. No, not in Israel. Okay? Go back to Hebrews chapter number 11. So there's a great example of faith. Okay? Now, again, what gave the centurion that faith? Well, first of all, Jesus has been going all over the place, healing people. So this guy's hearing about this, and he's like, wait a second, I'm not an enemy here. You know, maybe he'll be gracious enough to heal my servants. So he goes and he asks. Christ says, I'll do it. He believes it. Okay? But here's the thing. Here's another area where we get wrong, where we start to mess up our lives, is when the Bible tells us, hey, if you do this, if you pray, if you do all these things, you know, these blessings or these increases will come onto you, and we're like, yeah, but I don't know. Right? We start doubting the things that are actually written here. Like, oh, I think God might be mad at me because of what I did earlier or something like that. You know, guess what? That develops you into a person that's, I guess would be described as double-minded. Right? And what are we told in the Bible about double-minded people? Yeah, they're unstable. Are they gonna receive anything from the Lord? Absolutely not. That's what James told us. Right? So we don't wanna be like that. If it's written down in this book, we can believe it and we can have faith on it. We get in trouble when we listen to people that aren't well-versed in the Bible, and they start telling us, hey, you can just name it and claim it. Okay? You can just name it and claim it. You can just will it. I heard a preacher say one time, he's like, you know what? I willed the fact that I will never be broke another day in my life. I just willed it. Yeah, I wonder how that's working out for him today. Probably not too well. Because, again, you didn't get that promise from the Bible. You didn't get that from the Lord. Okay? Not in the Bible. So hopefully we're clear. Faith is believing what is written that we cannot see. Okay? That's what it is. And faith has to have an object. We see this all the time out solely. We go up to somebody. They're interested. We tell them what they need to do to be saved. It's very simple. Tell them it's forever. It's a free gift. They say, you know what? I believe it. And then we watch them literally place their faith on Christ and call upon him for salvation because that's how this works. Right. Faith doesn't just stop there. Faith doesn't just stop there. It's the same thing as you go throughout your Christian life. Okay? You want to place your faith on the things that are written, that are promised to us in the Bible. That's the whole point of this chapter. Look, these characters that we're about to read about here, they weren't just going around town like, will this army to be destroyed? You know? No. Because that points back to man. God said, hey, you're gonna go do this and this is what's gonna happen and they believed it. But the whole point, the whole reason they believed it is because they were told that. Okay? So let's move on here. So again, let's see. Look at verse one. It says this. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Now verse two says this. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Okay? Very, very simple to understand that. By faith. By real faith. Not by some kind of mystical power. Not by the force. Not by anything crazy like that. No, by faith. By hearing the promises and deciding, you know what? I'm gonna place my trust on that. I'm going to believe that promise. Look at verse three. It says through faith we understand that the world were framed by the word of God. So that the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. Look, God is the one who has done that. And you have science brigades in this world that are spending millions and millions of dollars trying to figure out how things are made. We get it free right here at a King James Bible. You can go down to the dollar store and buy a King James Bible for a dollar and get that truth. Or you can just come here. We'll give you one for free. You get the truth, right? But people are spending millions and millions of dollars today to try to prove this verse wrong. And guess what? They will never figure out how these things are actually put together. Because they have zero faith. They do not have faith. They do not have that substance. They don't have any hope, right? Look at the verse. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. I mean, that's Genesis 1-1 there. You start reading the beginning of the Bible with faith. You get it. You're in. You understand how these things came to be. And it makes sense. Also because you can see it. Because you can hear it. You're in creation. Look, the human eyeball is more complex than any scientist, any biologist, any whateverologist wants to even claim that they know. They have no idea the intricacies of the human brain, of all these different things, though they try to pretend like they do, right? Think about it. That's just one person, right? There's billions of people on this planet here. How did that happen? You want to tell me that's by coincidence? I think not, okay? Our God spoke these things into existence. But what does it say? At the end of the verse. So that the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. It's kind of like this building. It's kind of like we know what an electrician's been in here. We know there have been painters. We know there have been plumbers. We know there have been people who've laid carpet, but we don't know who they are, right? But there's plenty of evidence that they've been here. It's a very simple process. Nobody would argue that. Your most raunchiest atheist wouldn't even be able to argue that. But yet they'll go out to something far more complex, out in nature, and be like, yeah, the trees, all the various animals, and the sea creatures, and the ocean, and the way the rain comes, the way the wind blows. That's all just by accident. You see how stupid these people are? And look, you see, you're being rude. I'm just being honest. It's dumb. It's ridiculous. It's folly is what it is. It's absolute foolishness, okay? And so now he's going to start going through these Old Testament characters that displayed faith, okay? They displayed faith. Verse four, it says, Well, if he was righteous, then what does that mean? He was saved. He was born again, okay? Not because of his works, but because he believed God. Look at the rest of the verse. So again, kind of like I was talking about this morning, what we do in this life matters not just in this world, but in all the worlds, the physical world, and the unseen world. Verse five, Okay, if you want to know how he pleased God, he pleased God by faith. He pleased God because the information that was available to Enoch during his day, he believed it all. He walked by faith, not by sight. He loved God. He loved God. That's why God took him. Now, did Enoch do that to himself? Did he invent, like, did he spend millions of dollars on this program called CERN where he opened up a black portal and then, you know, transported himself to heaven? No, God took him. It's all going back to God. All of this points back to the Creator, right? It wasn't Enoch that did it. No, it was his faith, which then in turn caused God to take him off the earth, and he didn't see death. Look at verse six, it says, Faith, don't miss this, okay? Here's the question for us today. Do we believe that? Do we believe that if we walk by faith that he will reward us? Or do we have this mindset, well, I've done too many bad things. Well, I didn't do this today. I didn't do that today. God's probably just gonna hammer me. If that's you, if that's your attitude, you're gonna have a rough Christian life, okay? Understand that. But, verse six, but without faith, it is impossible to please God. It is impossible to please him. And I love to throw this out there because it's so true when a preacher gets up and says, well, you know, it doesn't really mean that, or in the original manuscripts. You know what you're seeing there? You're not only seeing somebody trying to be a mediator between you and God, but you're also witnessing somebody who has no faith. They do not have the faith. They do not believe the promises in the Bible that God would preserve his truth unto all generations. And the list goes on and on and on and on. And then we call them out and we say, you know what, God, you are not pleasing God right now. Your liberal, weak-sauce, watered-down church is not pleasing God. And they go, ow, you're so hateful, I can't believe you would say something like that. What does the Bible say here? But without faith, it is impossible to please him. So when a preacher stands up and says, well, these things weren't really in the Bible until 1940, Leviticus chapter 20, verse 13 wasn't in the Bible until, you know, 1940, 1946, so Pastor Jones is wrong. All this guy is doing is saying, I'm a big idiot, I don't believe the Bible, I've got zero faith, and I don't please God. That's the real meaning. You want to talk about somebody who can translate? Right here, I just translated that statement for you, okay? And for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, these idiots wrote an article, there was a big meeting about us last week, where these super-duper faith leaders got together and created a safe space for a bunch of people claiming that my words hurt them or whatever, so be it, it's the word of God, I didn't make it up, and they're just like, well, you know, here's how you respond to people clobbering you with the Bible, with the word of God. Basically, all you got to do is just let them know that all those verses they used, they weren't even in the Bible until 1940. Really? Do we need to pull out the Bishop's Bible, and, you know, the Geneva Bible, and all the ones before the King James? I mean, look, I'm still trying to wrap my head around that statement. That's literally what these people said. They said that every verse I used wasn't in the Bible until 1940? I wonder what they'd say if I was like, well, it's still in the Bible now. So what's the big deal? Take it out. This is pretty much what they've done. Those people are not pleasing God, but yet they're the ones, you're going to hell. You're gonna die. I'm gonna blow you up. You're gonna die when you're going to hell, you're going to hell. You don't have the Bible. Love thy neighbor. How about you love some truth? And how about that? How about you try to keep some of God's commandments and do something good that would actually please God? Oh, you can't because you're not saved, you have no faith. You haven't even got to first base yet, which is to get saved. Okay? Let's start with that. You need to get saved before you can even understand these things. I just proved that. These people have no idea of the concept of faith. Look, do you think Kenneth Copeland knows what faith is? Absolutely not. If you don't believe me, just go watch some of his videos. You know, I mean, and he's not alone. There's tons of these kinds of guys out there. You know, you could just will it. You could just name it and claim it. You know, you gotta tell the demonic kingdom. No, you don't have to tell them anything. I told you this morning how to deal with those types of people anyways. So, again, all of this to teach us, hey, without faith, without believing these promises, you're not pleasing God. See, I don't really think that means what that says. And, you know, I think there's another explanation. I think in a couple of years they'll dig something up and change. Guess what? You're not pleasing God at all. You know, just accept it. That's what the Bible says. You know, why do you call yourself a Christian if you don't believe the Bible? Just say I'm a Satanist. Just be honest. Just be honest. And then we would have so much less beef. And be like, oh, okay. I wouldn't even talk about you like half the time. It's ridiculous. Look at verse 7. By faith, okay, by faith being warned of God, of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness, which is by faith. Okay? So think about it. What motivated Noah to build the ark? It was fear. But what brought it on? Look at the verse. By faith being warned of God, of things not seen as yet. Well, guess what? What was that? The rain, the flood. God said, hey, I'm going to flood this place. I'm going to fill this thing up with some water. Right? What did Noah do? Okay, Lord, I've never seen that before. We've never seen rain on the earth before. I haven't heard anything like this, but I'm going to go out and I'm going to tell people about it. I'm going to go preach about it. Right? The Bible says that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. He took what God had told him, and he would go out and tell other people. And they'd mock, and they'd laugh, and they'd scoff until the day that it began to rain. They're like, oh, what's this stuff coming from the sky here? What's going on here? And the next thing, you know, they're underwater, man. They're done for. That's going to be this world someday. Okay? So again, you know, people hear faith. Faith is just salvation. Faith goes beyond salvation. You know, after you're saved, after you've placed your faith on Christ, you've believed, you've received, you're in the family, you're good to go forever. Hey, now it's time to start learning the Bible and understanding these things so that you can walk by faith and not by sight, just like Noah did, because that's what the Bible's telling us here. He jumps down to Abraham. Look at verse 8. By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place, which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out, not knowing whether he went. Right? God didn't give him the exact details in every specific thing, right? What did Abraham do? He believed. He loved God. You said it, Lord. I believe it. I don't understand it, but I believe it. Look, there's a lot of things coming on this earth that we're not going to understand, even though they're written down, because, you know, our understanding just isn't quite always there yet. Sometimes we need these things to pass before, you know, we can really, like, lock it in and actually put it into perspective. Right? But we still move forward. Right? We don't know what heaven looks like. We don't know exactly what the New Jerusalem's going to look like. No one in here knows what their glorified body's going to look like. Right? No one in here is actually seeing hell with the eyeball. We get glimpses of it from the Bible. Right? But, hey, we have faith in all of that, and that moves us to do exactly what Noah did and to go out and proclaim truth. So verse 8, start talking about Abraham. Look at verse 9. It says, By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. Verse 10, For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Now, real quickly, just go to Galatians chapter number 6. Galatians chapter number 6. So, again, what are we looking for today? What are we preaching today? What are we trying to get people to understand? We're trying to get them to understand the mystery that we talked about this morning. That, hey, both Jew, Gentile, male, female, are one in Christ. That's the family. That's the nation. That's what this thing is all about. Right? And it's God who is the maker. Modern Christianity comes along and says, No, no, look at this tabernacle made by hands, like what we've done, look at what we're about to do, and all stuff pertaining to the hands of men. Look at the physical nation of Israel over in the Middle East, and look at all the stuff that they're doing. Look at how blessed Jerry Seinfeld is, and look at how blessed the CEO of Home Depot is, and all these, you know, these modeling agencies that make millions of dollars, they're all headed by Jews. Look at Hollywood. Look at all the Jews in Hollywood. They're blessed, guys. They're so blessed because they're Jews. That's Christianity for you. You don't believe it. Go to Treasure Valley Baptist Church, and go talk to some of those people. That's the kind of Christianity you're going to get. But what was attributed to Abraham? He looked for a city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God. Did he understand that completely? No, but he lived his life and worked towards that anyways. Our mission is the same thing today, okay? We don't know what everything's going to look like, but we know one thing. You better get saved, or you're going to the lake of fire. You're going to hell, right? Galatians 6, look at verse 15. Paul says this to the Galatians. He says, for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creature, okay? Who makes that new creature, the new man? It's God, right? We talk about this all the time. When a person gets saved, God quickens that soul and spirit. That becomes a new man, a new person inside of you. And that new person is incapable of sinning, right? But guess what? That old man sure is, right? We have that dual nature thing going on here, but that's what it's about. It's about the new creature. So it doesn't matter circumcision, uncircumcision. You know, you're a Jew, Gentile. No, it doesn't matter. We're one in Christ. Look at verse 16. It says, in as many as walk according to this rule, peace beyond them and mercy upon the Israel of God. That is what we have our faith in today. That is what makes us so influential as believers because we understand the us in the book of Ephesians. We understand this concept here. Hey, it's not about whether you're circumcised or uncircumcised, you're a Jew, you're a Hebrew, you're of this tribe or that tribe. No, it doesn't matter. If you're saved, you are of the Israel of God. Why? Because that's the promise. That's the faith. That's what we are about. And that's, you know, that's basically Abraham not understanding it. He lived his life towards that. So go back to Hebrews chapter number 11. Let's look at his wife, Sarah. So verse 11 says this. It says, through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had, don't miss this, promised. Okay? When people start having quote unquote faith and things that are not promised, you run into trouble. That's the problem. You got to name it and claim it. You got to just, you know, oh, I will that someone's going to come walking through that door right now. That's witchcraft. Okay? That is not biblical Christianity. That is not what the Bible is talking about when it comes to faith. Did Sarah herself just will this child in her past age? No, she was told that by God. And at first she laughed. She laughed in her heart. Right? She got called out for it. Right? We don't even have time to go back and talk about that. You guys know that's the truth, though. Right? And what did God say? He did laugh. She's like, oh, whoops. Well, I believe now. Good, right? But that faith was attributed to her. Look at verse 12. Therefore sprang there even of one and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude and as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable. Look at verse 13. These all died in faith, not having received the promise or the promises, but having seen them afar off. And don't miss this. And we're persuaded of them. Okay? What does it mean of them? The promises. Okay? This is what is the substance of our faith. I mean, it's looking at the Word of God, understanding these promises, and believing them. Okay? That's what these people did in the Bible. It says, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. So even they understood, hey, this is a greater cause than just a physical nation. There's something greater going on here that God is doing. And they were all about it. They lived their lives going, pointing towards that concept here. Now, I mean, it's pretty amazing when you think about Abraham. How many other people in the nation became an actual nation? I mean, how many people in the Bible, rather, became a nation? Yeah, Esau, and he was of Abraham. Right? I mean, but it all goes back to Abraham. I mean, pretty interesting. You know? All because he believed. He had faith. He was told by God, hey, this stuff's going to happen here. You know, I want you to get away from your father's house. And he's just like, I believe it. I'll do it. Whatever you say, Lord. Right? And he was a great man of God. You know, he was also a man after God's own heart. He believed the promises. Now, did he have his moments of doubt? Of course he did. Right? Didn't he not lie about his wife being his sister and stuff like that? You know? She's not my wife. She's my sister. Right? We all go through that. Okay? We all go through that. And that's what you've got to love about the Bible. You know? It puts us where we belong. We're sinners. We're not perfect. There's none righteous. No, not one. Which is why we need a savior. Which is why we have this book. So that we can look at these promises and trust them and believe on them. But again, we start getting into some dangerous territory when we start believing promises that were never promised to us. Look, this is why people develop an anger towards God. Oh, so and so didn't get healed of cancer. And a pastor told me that if I had strong enough faith, it would. And she died. It's like, now it's your job to straighten that error out, isn't it? And it's hard. You've got to let them know. Look, you're not promised that anywhere in the Bible. You're not promised another second or another day. What, you think just because you're saved, you're guaranteed all these riches and all this glory? No one in here knows what's going to happen an hour from now. You think you're guaranteed another minute in here? You're crazy. Be thankful for everything that you've received. Everything that you've been given. Because it's not you. It's because of God. All right, verse 15 says this. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country that is unheavenly. Wherefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God. For he hath prepared for them a city. I mean, that's a glorious truth. That God, you know, he's not ashamed to be called our God. But also with that, we don't want to try to like quench the spirit here, right? And give the accuser of the brethren reason to bring shame, you know, on us in front of God. And we talk about that all the time. Let's look at verse 17. So, by faith, Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac, and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son. Okay, now, did he actually go, did Abraham actually go through with the offering up of Isaac? No, he didn't. But he was willing to, right? I mean, who in here would be willing to do that? Look, if I just said, hey, I want you to give up your phone for an hour, you guys would try to lynch me and try to march me right out of here. You'd try to get me right out of this building, and you know it's true, right? Give up your phone. We're going to do a no electronics, I don't know, no electronics Sunday. These periods would be empty. These periods would be empty. You're like, I'm not doing that. You know it's true, right? This dude here was about to give up his son. He was about to give up Isaac. Why? Because he already believed God. God said, hey, I'm going to bless all the nations of the earth through you. I'm going to give you a son. He's going to go on to do this and this and this. And so he figured, well, if I offer him up, God's probably just going to bring him right around the corner. I mean, think about that. Wrap your head around that and think about that tonight. That is faith. Believing the promises. It should not be hard for us to understand what faith is. It's believing the promises. That's what it is, okay? Believing the promises. Let's move on here before I get sidetracked in here for the verse 18. Of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called. And there it is. There you have it. He heard that. God told him that. He believed it. So he's like, God's not going to lie. He's not going to ask me to do something to violate that. So if he wants me to offer him, you know, Isaac, just bring him right back. No problem. That's the kind of faith that we need to develop and we need to have as a church, right? And in doing so, you apply what I talked about this morning, the manifold wisdom of God. Verse 19, accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure. Verse 20, by faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. Yeah, and so like, you know, Jacob, he goes off, you know, you get the house of Jacob or the nation of Israel, the 12 tribes. Esau goes off and becomes Edom and that whole mess there, right? So, I mean, Abraham, think about that, literally became nations. That physically happened. But also, I mean, think about it. We're in Abraham now, right? Someday we will get to meet Abraham. I mean, go read Luke chapter 16, right? The rich man and Lazarus. When Lazarus died, I mean, Lazarus begged his whole life. You know, Lazarus was poor and he gets the privilege to actually meet Abraham face to face in eternity. All right, so we got to get moving here. Verse 21 says, by faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph in worship, leaning upon the top of his staff. 22, by faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel and gave commandment concerning his bones. Verse 23, by faith Moses, when he was born, was hit three months of his parents because they saw he was a proper child and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. I'm going to stop right there real quick. We're just going to mention this. I heard somebody one time, I can't remember exactly where it was. I don't know if it was one of these stupid emails I got, but basically, some people will try to use this verse here to say if you don't have a proper child, like if they don't have all their physical features and they're deformed in any way, then God's okay with you just throwing them down the river. We don't have time to get into it, but that's not what that means. All children are proper. And what Moses' parents understood, hey, the Pharaoh's commandment's wicked. These children are proper. They're a gift from God. Guess what? The law of God usurps the law of man every single time. That's what that means. Verse 24, by faith, Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. So what was it that gave Moses the strength to turn his back on the world? Any time you read about Egypt in the Old Testament, Egypt in the Bible, it's a picture of the world. That's how you want to look at that. What gave him that great courage to stand up and say, I don't even want to be named amongst these people. I want to be with my brother. It was faith. It was faith in the promises of God. The little that he knew at this time, verse 25, look what it says, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. So when you see these Demuses in life, you know, these people that want to forsake the faith, they're saved, but they're just really jacked up, right? And they don't want anything to do with the house of God. And they tell you, I'm praying. I love God. I've got my own thing going on. Wherever two or three are gathered together at the coffee shop over here, it's church. Don't worry. God's not mad at me. You need to understand right away. Hey, you're dealing with somebody who is actually angering God. And these are people that are enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season. Understand that. It only lasts for a season. And then next week you're going to learn what actually happens when God's chastening comes down on you. Verse 26, it says, esteeming the reproach of Christ's greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. So Moses' heart, Moses' mind was fixated on everything to do with God. The kingdom. Not only the physical kingdom that God was going to establish when he brought them out of Egypt, but also beyond that. Okay, Moses had an understanding of that. Look at the verse again. Esteeming the reproach of Christ's greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. So obviously he didn't know the name of Christ then, right? But obviously he understood, hey, there's more to this kingdom than meets the eye. It's not just necessarily about the here and now. There is a greater force, a greater plan coming for God's people in the future. And that's how he lived his life, okay? By faith. So verse 27. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is what? Invisible. Okay? So again, it's faith. People say, why can't we see God face to face right now? Because we walk by faith, not by sight. That is how God has ordained this battle right now. The just shall live by faith. What is faith? It's seeing the promises and believing them. That's faith. That's faith. Somebody asks you what faith is, that's what it is, okay? It's Hebrews 11.1. Okay, let's move on here. Verse 28 says, through faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them. So again, I mean, you know they're in Egypt and God's bringing down all these things on Pharaoh and he's like, hey, I'm about to destroy all the firstborn here. And Moses is like, okay, I'll follow this protocol to a T, right? But he did it by faith. He hadn't seen it yet, okay? Verse 29. By faith he passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, which the Egyptians, a saying to do, were drowned. Verse 30. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were compassed about seven days. You know, I wonder if you could go back, you know, to that event there if you heard people murmuring and complaining like, we're just going to march around the city and on the seventh day blow horns, they're going to make fun of us. Right? That's like Christians today. Sometimes we'll preach things out of the Bible that don't make sense to them and they're like, really? That's the fight today? No, we need to go pick it. Right? We need to go yell with bull horns at the abortion clinic. And it's like, no, you don't get it. You don't understand. God has called us to display his wisdom. And then that ensues a huge spiritual fight. And then we have help in that. And then all these things work together for the good of them that love God. And, you know, it's a whole other sermon. Let's move on here. Look at verse 31. It says this. By faith the harlot Rahab perished not. Now this is very interesting here. Look what it says. By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believe not. Wow. Wow. When she had received the spies with, I'm sorry, with peace. So when Joshua took charge and sent the guys in there and they met Rahab, you know, and she said, hey, we've heard, you know, what your God has done and we believe he's going to destroy us. Right? I mean, she displayed great faith. And you see her when? When do you see her next in the Bible after that? After that whole deal's done. Matthew chapter 1. Think about that. I mean, that faith, I mean, that had ripple effects through eternity, didn't it? And so will ours someday. Think about that though. What does it say? By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not. Think about that. The people that God said, hey, Joshua, you're going to rally up this nation here. That old murmuring generation, they've dropped dead. They're done. They're gone. You're going to take Caleb. You're going to take these guys and you're going to go start mopping house. You're going to start taking these people over. Guess what? They did not believe on God. Because some of our enemies, you know, these atheist type people, they'll come by and say, why did God tell them to destroy the Perizzites, the Canaanites, you know, all these people? It's because they hated God. There was no hope. They were beyond hope. That's why. And this confirms that. You know, it doesn't say that perish not with them that didn't repent of their sins and, you know, do good deeds. No, they believe not. So of course they're going to do whatever they want to. They're going to work after the heart of man. Look at verse 32. It says, what shall I more say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon and of Barak and Samson and of Jephthah and David also and Samuel and of the prophets. Okay? So again, all of that to make sure that we as God's people understand what faith is and understand what faith is not. Faith is not a force. It's believing the promises. That's where the power is and that's where the wisdom is, which we need. So verse 33, who through faith subdued kingdoms. Look at this. Worked righteousness. What does that mean? Worked righteousness. They show me an example of Old Testament soul-winning right here. You know, these people preach. They worked righteousness in the kingdom of Israel and throughout the world. And other people who were not born in the nation of Israel got saved. And we've talked about that in other sermons. But it says obtained promises and stopped the mouths of lions. Go look up Benaiah the son of Jehoiada. You know, you want to talk about a bad dude? That was a bad man. You know, that was a man that you would want on your side. A guy who would go out in the time of snow and kill a lion in a pit. You know, think about that, right? That is an amazing feat. But he did that by faith. He did that because he believed God's promises and that gave him the courage. Look at verse 34. This is where the title of the sermon began, okay? So to answer the questions, how do we as a church in 2022, how are we going to quench the violence of fire, which I'm using to basically say in our day and age is the violence of hell, right? I mean, the kingdom of darkness is all around us, working through people in our lives, working through politicians, working through, you know, these rich people and these hidden figures that are, you know, putting on these summits to try to, you know, reset the world and so on and so forth. How do we fight that? How do we deal with that? By faith. By understanding the things that are written, believing them and going on and teaching them to other people, okay? Look at this. Quenched the violence of fire. Look, our forefathers did that. They quenched the violence of fire. What does violence mean? To violate someone, right? Do we not have people trying to violate us today? Absolutely. Last Sunday you saw that dramatically out here. People had signs yelling the most filthy, vile things you could imagine. There's women and there's children in here, right? That's the violence of fire. How do we defeat that? By faith. We're not going to let those things shake us. We're not going to let these soft people, what are you going to do about it? We keep doing the same thing we always do, living by faith and not listening to weak-sauce people like you. All right. Let me finish the first thing. Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned the flight of the armies of the aliens. And this isn't a dispensational church. We're not talking about ancient aliens here, okay? These are illegal, you know, like foreigners, is what he's talking about, okay? That's all that means there. Verse 35. So before I move on, let me just be clear here. Jessica sent me a sermon. I don't know how she found it. But who knows who Dr. Gene Kim is? Dr., right? Gene Kim. He preached a sermon like a month ago called Reptarium. I haven't listened to it yet, but I can only imagine it's probably something to do, has something to do with the Nephilims. And it's not as cool as the one I did. So that's what I'm thinking, okay? It's got more views, though, but they got a different crowd, you know? There's always more clucks out there to believe false things than there are people about the truth. But hey, we got faith. We don't need the numbers. We need the faith, right? We got the faith. We got the wisdom. We're going to win every single time, every single time. Verse 35. Women receive their dead, raised to life again, and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Okay? So again, what is it that makes a person able to withstand torture in these types of things? Why was Paul able, after he was stoned, to get up and be like, where's the next town? Right? Where's the next door? Give me some more invites, you know? It was by faith. That's how. By faith. Believing the things that are written and understanding afar off. Okay? That's why I preach these types of sermons, to make sure that we understand, hey, it's not just about the physicals, not just about the here and now and our comfort. No, it's about the rest that we will receive in eternity. Okay? So these afflictions we go through now don't really matter. Verse 36. And others had a trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment. I had a trial I didn't even know I was a part of. You know, there's these news articles. Oh boy, so many of them. Here's these news articles. Oh, Boise pastor found not guilty of hate speech. I must have missed the court date. You know, is this not America? I thought this was America. You know, tomorrow's the fourth of July. Independence Day. But apparently I was put on trial and had no idea. I didn't get a lawyer. I didn't get a notification. I didn't get a meeting spot. I got nothing. Just some articles. Found not guilty of hate speech. Yeah, because your hate speech is invisible. It don't exist. It's ridiculous, man. But those types of things happen to us. Verse 37. They were stoned. They were sawn asunder. Were tempted. Were slain with a sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented. How will you put up with this type of thing? Well, if you don't have faith, you won't. Verse 38. Of whom the world was not worthy, they wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. Verse 39. And these all having obtained a good report through what? Faith. What is faith? Believing the promises that you haven't seen yet. Okay, the things that are written in the Bible. All of these having obtained a good report through faith received what? Not the promise. God having provided some better thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect. So he's not saying these guys didn't receive eternal life. Come on. You want to tell me that Moses and Elijah didn't get eternal life? Were they not seen at the mount of transfiguration? Come on, man. Oh no, God brought them up from hell. I mean from Hades. I mean from Abraham's bosom. False doctrine. It's a lie. Why do people have faith in that type of thing? It's not in the Bible. So look, 40 verses. A ton of Bible characters. I didn't need to park it on any one of them and go back to the Old Testament. We could do that another time and we will do that another time. The point is, what is faith? We as God's people need to understand that faith is believing the promises. That's what faith is. Not just paying lip service but believing in your heart and trusting these things. That's faith. That's how we live. It says that just shall live by faith. Right? We walk by faith, not by sight. We walk by these promises. And if some clown comes along and starts knocking down my promises and saying they're still buried in the ground, you know what? I'm gonna be upset for eternity. You know what? I'm gonna be up in heaven someday and I'm still be griping about this stuff. God's gonna be like, stop. You're supposed to be resting. We get it. We understand it. He's probably gonna do that. I'm gonna be like, no. It's a pet peeve of mine. I hate it with a passion. We should all hate that. Because it's an attack on our faith. It's an attack on who we are. And I don't like it. And we have to fight it. So let's stop right there and we will continue that thought next week in chapter number 12. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Thank you so much, Lord, again for your truth. Thank you for your safety, Lord, and all that you've done for us, Lord. Just pray that you would help us to understand what faith is, Lord. That it's trusting your promises. It's not some mystical, magical force or something like that that we've dreamed up or someone has told us about. And just pray that you'd help us to live by it. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. All right, let's turn to song number 415 for our final hymn, Victory Through Grace, 4-1-5. 415, Victory Through Grace. On the first one. Right now I'm still too gone to cry at the king and