Faith is Fact

Pastor Carolyn Sissom (7346 views)

FAITH IS A FACT

 

Eleven years ago I had a dream in which I saw a book title:

 

FAITH IS A FACT

 

HOPE IS A CERTAINITY

 

LOVE IS A REALITY

 

I waited five years before I put the first sentence to pen.  I last taught this on September 10, 2000.  It has now been over six years and I still have not written the book except to walk it out in the Spirit. 

 

Last week I shared with you a dream I had several years ago in which the Lord spoke to me.  He said, “Your faith has been purified in the fire seven times, go and teach it.”

 

The scriptures confirm this word in Psalm 12:6:  “The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver tried in a furnace of the earth, purified seven times.”

 

My personal experience with the Lord has been once Faith is dropped into my heart by the Lord then there is a trial of that Faith.  God gave Abraham the promise early, but fulfilled it late.  As Abraham waited, he learned the ways of the Lord and became the father of the faithful for all generations to come.

 

God gave David the promise early, but fulfilled it late.  But the trials that he went through worked in him a heart “after the heart of God” and the shepherd boy from Bethlehem became a shepherd king over all Israel.

 

God gave the whole human race the promise early, and fulfilled it late.  God promised that the “seed of the woman” would bruise the serpent’s head”.  Men almost despaired of the promise, but in the “fullness of time” He came forth.  Jesus, the author and finisher of our Faith is better than all of the Old Testament faithfuls.

 

Our study of Faith will be centered in Hebrews 11 and 12.  Old Testament Faith is found in Hebrews 11 and New Testament faith (the faith of Jesus) is revealed in Hebrews 12.  Hebrews 11 faith is in part and brings a good report.  We can die with it and not obtain the promise.  Hebrews 12 faith is faith in fullness and makes itself of no reputation.  We can conquer death with it and obtain the promise.

 

The writer of Hebrews begins his exhortation on Faith in chapter 10:26 with a sermon from Habakkuk, “The Just Shall Live By Faith”.

 

He reminds them of the great reward they had earned in the early days of their salvation.  The writer says, “This is no time to throw away your confidence.”  In verses 32-36, he reminds them of the former days, “which you were illuminated.  You endured a great struggle with sufferings….Therefore do not cast away your

Confidence which has a great reward.”

 

He is referring to the “prophet’s reward.”  Jesus mentioned it to His disciples, “Blessed are you when men hate you, ostracize you and heap insults on you…for the sake of the Son of Man.  Be glad and leap for joy, for great is your reward in Heaven, for in the same way their fathers use to treat the prophets.” (Luke 6:22, 23)

It is possible for a person to lose his reward after he has once earned it.  All he has to do is draw back from his stand of living for Jesus, start living for himself, and taking up the ways of the world.  The Apostle John warns, “Hold fast what you have that no one take your crown.” (Rev. 3:11)

 

This statement is not referring to our salvation, but to our rewards.  No one is even in this race until he is saved.  The writer is saying; don’t throw in the towel now, your too close to receiving what you have already earned.  However, there could be tough days ahead so you need all the patience and perseverance you can muster in order to stand fast.

 

(Verse 39):  The writer delivers the most encouraging words of all.  He assured his readers that both he and they are not in the same category with those who despise the Lord and turn away from Him.  He says, “We trust the Lord with the kind of Faith that insures the salvation of our souls.”

 

Our great hope as a Christian is to appear with Jesus when he is revealed to the world as King of Kings.  The Holy Spirit who is received by faith is “Himself” the guarantee of all true believers of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, our salvation.”  (Eph. 1:13-14)

 

Hebrews 11:  The writer brings before us a list of heroes of the Jewish Faith and how they were approved by God.  The Old Testament Saints had nothing but God’s promises upon which to rest.  Yet they committed their entire lives to God on the proposition that He would do as He promised.

 

What is faith?  “It is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen.”

 

1. Faith is a spiritual force.  God is a Spirit.  He is a Faith God who is only pleased by Faith. (Heb. 11:6)
2. Faith is the absence of doubt; the opposite of fear.  (11Timothy 1:7)
3. Faith is the present tense.  “Now Faith is… (Hebrews 11:1).
4. Faith is a gift.  It is an impartation of the Lord.  (Romans 12:3)
5. Faith is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.  It grows.  (Gal. 5:22-23; Rom. 1:17)
6. Faith comes by hearing of the Word of God. (Romans 10:17)
7. Faith speaks. (Romans 10: 6-10)
8. We live by Faith.  (Gal. 2:20, Acts 17:28)
9. Prayer of Faith – Prayer that touches God and brings the answer. (James 5:15, 1Jn. 5:4)

 

Faith is one of the power or action gifts which enable us to do the Works of God.  Weymouth describes the Gift of Faith as the God given ability to perform the impossible.

 

In the Charismatic Revival we heard:

 

The Rhema Word means “that which is spoken (Faith speaks) what is uttered in speech of writing (Vine).  It is commonly used to denote the Living Word (prophetic word) in contrast with the Logs (written word).  The logos becomes the Rhema when spoke in the anointing. (Mt. 4:4; Lk. 1:37-38; Ro. 10:8)

 

Hebrews 1:1-3:  “God, who at sundry times in divers manners spoke in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high;”

 

The whole truth is both logos and rhema are written.  The Word made flesh or visible. 

 

The fruit of Faith is one of the characteristics of the nature of Jesus Christ.  Here faith would take on the meaning of the Hebrew word, “Aman” (to render firm or faithful; to trust or believe; trustworthiness; permanent or quiet; to be true or certain.”).

 

(Hebrews 11:2):  The elders here could be two-fold.  He could be speaking of church leaders, but also a term for the heroes of the Jewish Faith who went before them.  Their faith pleased God.

 

When the Faith movement was birthed in the 1960’s, one of the excesses was to teach that if we have Faith we can have whatever we speak in Faith and claim.  This was termed the, “Name it and claim it doctrine.”

 

At the time, the Faith movement was countering a spirit of humanism and pragmatism that was creating apathy and apostasy in the global church.  The Lord did some pretty dramatic signs and wonders through the Fathers of the Faith movement.  The power of words spoken in Faith was so strong that many creative miracles were done through the spoken word.

 

But as with all movements, the Faith movement was like a pendulum that swung too far out.  We then began to see the Lord purify the Word of Faith and test it in us.  This then became the trial of our Fait.

 

(Hebrews 10: 35-36):  “Do not cast away your confidence which has a great reward.  For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the Will of God, you may receive the promise.”

 

How does the promise come?

 

Several ways:

 

1. Believe God as Abraham did.  We believe God as we read the Word. (Ro.1:16-17)
2. We believe God because He manifest himself through His creation (Ro.1:16-20

 

(Hebrews 11:3):  The first example of faith our writer chooses is the Faith in God as creator:  “by faith we understand the world was formed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.”

 

Peter also confirms this Creator-Preserver power of the Word of God in 2 Peter 3:5-7:  “By the Word of God the heavers were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water by which the World that then existed flooded with water.  The heavens and earth are now preserved by the same Word.”

 

(Psalm 19:1)  “The heavens declare the Glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.”

 

Nature reveals the Supernatural.  God has made His witness so plain, man is without excuse.

 

Faith is based as it is on the firm Word of God.  It is then not “a leap in the dark.”  It assures one of the realities of the invisible world and it’s superiority to the visible.  Faith is fundamental to perseverance.  Perseverance is Faith in the evidence of things not seen.  Circumstances can be a stumbling block to receiving our promises without the dynamic of Faith. 

 

The dynamic of Faith is described in Hebrews 10:38:  “the righteous shall live by Faith.”  In its primary meaning that despite circumstances, man who believes God and is walking in the revealed Will of God will be preserved and prosper.  In the church era, we are lifted to a higher plane than the ancients.  The promised life (the promise) is in the very life of the risen Christ.

 

The gospel, and gospel church knows no frontier except the frontier of Faith.  This faith will break forth a church with the splendor of the noon day sun.  For those of us who are frontier women and men of God, we have the assurance that we will spend eternity riding the crest of the waves of Faith.

 

The trial of our Faith can be one of the hardest things to overcome.  Why do the Godly suffer?  Our hero of Faith today is Habakkuk.  He is described in Hebrews 11:32-39, “and the prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the word, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.  Women received their dead raised to life again. And others were tortured, not accepting deliverances; that they might obtain a better resurrection: and others had trail of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea moreover of bonds and imprisonment:  They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts, in mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.

 

Habakkuk commended in Hebrews 10:38 gave us the revelation, “The righteous will live by Faith”.  Habakkuk is exception for his honesty and his moral and spiritual integrity with which he faces the circumstances around him.  He grapples with this in a way, which can only be described as courageous.  The conflict which erupts in his heart and mind is due to his inability to reconcile and understand the tragic reality he is witnessing with his bedrock conviction that all history and life is under the direct control of a sovereign, omnipotent and Holy God.

 

The inescapable reality appears to contradict this.  Habakkuk cannot ignore the problem.  Indeed the need to resolve it becomes for him imperative and urgent.  He goes into travail and is pregnant with a gospel revelation and truth, “the just shall live by Faith.”  In his travail, he births this great truth.

 

Habakkuk knew how to lay hold of God.  In the intimacy of their relationship, he poured out his complain to god, unburdened his heart, and confided to God.

 

David, “I poured out my complaint before Him; I showed before Him my trouble.”

 

If we know how to get in the presence of Jesus, we can come out to face the trial of our faith and overcome with a deep rooted peace that will render us steadfast and immovable.  It is a bedrock Faith.

 

Habakkuk approached God with a storm of anguished questions and complaints. (Hab. 1:2-4)  He. Proceeds in turbulence but at length Habakkuk emerges tranquil and confident. (2:1-4; 3:16-19)

 

Habakkuk’s ministry is the reverse of the prophet’s traditional role.  Habakkuk deals with God for the people rather than dealing with the people for God.

 

The promise of eternal life for the Faith-righteous man/woman is a living, creative, active, mighty force of Faith.  So, it is impossible for this great power to fail to produce good works.

 

“Faith says that order grows from chaos and that life is born from death.  That from the wreck of rending stars behind the storm; there dwells a heart of central calm; and this, this is FAITH” (author unknown)

 

Carolyn Sissom, Pastor

Eastgate Ministries, Inc.

 

This is a teaching formed from over twenty years of teaching on Faith.  If I have quoted from another author, I no longer know from whom or where I read the quote.