FAITH ON TRIAL
January 26, 2020
FAITH ON TRIAL
January 26, 2020, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Our nation is in a trial of faith.
On Monday, I asked the LORD what he says of the impeachment. He answered immediately:
“The Articles of Impeachment are an act of sedition.”
1.
SEDITION:
[səˈdiSH(ə)n]
NOUN
Seditions (plural noun)
1. conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.
synonyms:
incitement (to riot/rebellion) · agitation · rabble-rousing · fomentation (of discontent) · troublemaking · provocation · inflaming · rebellion · revolt · insurrection · rioting · mutiny · insurgence · insurgency · subversion · civil disorder · insubordination · disobedience · resistance · defiance
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.
The LORD GOD has declared through his prophet that He is busting up rings of darkness in D.C., our justice systems, media, pedophile rings, Hollywood and what is called My Church.
This week we watched “sedition” play out on our television screens. Information which we know are false was presented to the American people and the Senate as true. We also saw for the first time the President of the United States stand with the March for Life.
We must not speak or come into agreement with words being spoken which are not the words of God. As Christians, we must not repeat those words and give them power to be carried by demons.
“A living faith is always on trial; we call it faith for that reason…Does anybody know of a time when the Christian life was a simple walkover, with neither principalities nor powers to dispute its advance.” (J. Edgar Park)
Power and authority is given to the Church to speak and declare wisdom against the enemy that sets itself against the government of God.
Eph 3:10To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God,
We have an ungodly sect within the government of the United States whose intent it is to take our nation to the brink of economic collapse to finance an ideology of Socialism and Marxism. We have discovered corruption at the highest levels of government. They set to impeach the President through perversion since his first day in office. It is disgraceful.
In the days of the prophet Habakkuk, the law was “slacked,” literally “chilled.” (Hab. 1:4). It had been rendered ineffective, paralyzed. It had come to be looked upon as being without force or authority. Because of unrighteous judges, true law and justice had been set at naught. Most forms of judgment were corrupted; hence, life and property were insecure. The wicked were hemming in the righteous. Miscarriage of justice was the order of the day, ensnaring the God-fearing by fraud; the ungodly perverted all that was right and honest.
Habakkuk prophesied during the closing years of the wicked king Manasseh. The most horrible practice was the sacrifice of human beings, especially children, to the gods of the heathen. (2 Kings 21: 1-5)
Manasseh was filled with wickedness. Horoscopes, witchcraft, sorcery, and séances polluted his court. Nothing was sacred, not even human life. He offered human sacrifices to the heathen god, Molech, “the abomination of the children of Ammon” (1 Ki. 11:&; Lev. 18:21; 20: 3-5; 2 Ki. 23:10).
Another idol who demanded live human offerings was Chemosh, the national god of the Moabites. Like Molech, Chemosh was worshiped by burnt offerings of child sacrifice. The name “Chemosh” means to “subdue”. It can also mean the “power one” (Numbers 21:29).
What is faith? It is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Heb. 11:1)
- Faith is a spiritual force. God is a Spirit. He is a Faith God who is only pleased by Faith. (Heb. 11:6)
- Faith is the absence of doubt; the opposite of fear. (11Timothy 1:7)
- Faith is the present tense. “Now Faith is… (Hebrews 11:1).
- Faith is a gift. It is an impartation of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 12:3)
- Faith is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. It grows. (Gal. 5:22-23; Rom. 1:17)
- Faith comes by hearing of the Word of God. (Romans 10:17)
- Faith speaks. (Romans 10: 6-10)
- We live by Faith. (Gal. 2:20, Acts 17:28)
- Prayer of Faith – Prayer that touches God and brings the answer. (James 5:15, 1 Jn. 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 logos (written word). The whole truth is both logos and rhema are written, and both are living (the Word made flesh, made visible)”! The logos become the rhema when spoken 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 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.” – (Strong’s Concordance)
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.
At the time, the Faith movement was countering a spirit of humanism, pragmatism and a spirit of poverty in Christianity. These doctrines of religion had created 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.
We then began to see the Lord purify the Word of Faith and test it in us. This then became the trial of our Faith.
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:
- Believe God as Abraham did. (Ro.1:16-17)
- We believe God because He manifest himself through His creation (Ro.1:16-20
- The LORD speaks to us and deposits faith in us.
- The Holy Spirit gives us the Gift of Faith.
- Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Rom. 10:17).
Rom 10:16But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “LORD, who has believed our report?”
Divine response to our faith requires we obey the gospel. We obey what God says in His Word. We obey what He tells us to do. Again, my experience is obedience will be a “faith risk.” The circumstances will always appear to contradict the faith walk. Otherwise, it will not be faith. If I have faith to believe that the Lord loves me and I can trust His best for me, then I will trust the best outcome for my life is in the will of God, not in my natural understanding.
Our first level of faith is to believe that God is.
Our second level of faith is to believe that God is our creator: Heb. 11:3: 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.
Hebrews 11:3: 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.
We must have faith to receive our Salvation and to receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God.
Faith is fundamental to perseverance. If we do not have the faith to persevere when we face life challenges, then we will faint and miss God’s best.
Gal. 6:9:And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
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. Heb. 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 exceptional 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 which is released to mankind.
Habakkuk knew how to lay hold of God. In the intimacy of their relationship, he poured out his complaint to God, unburdened his heart, and confided to God.
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.
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)
“Jesus Christ is the Revealer of the snares and chasms that lurk in darkness, the Rebuker of every evil thing that prowls by night, the Stiller of the storm-winds of passion, the Quickener of all that is wholesome, the Adorner of all that is beautiful, the Reconciler of contradictions, the Harmonizer of discords, the Healer of diseases, the Savior from sin. He is the Torch of truth, the Anchor of hope, the Pillar of faith, the Rock for strength, the Refuge for security, the Fountain for refreshment, the Vine for gladness, the Rose for beauty, the lamb for tenderness, the Friend for counsel, and the Brother for love.”(Peter Bayne)
If you believe this and walk forward in it, then no matter what life throws at you, you will overcome.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries, Inc.
This is a teaching formed from over thirty years of teaching on Faith. If I have quoted from another author other than noted in the text, I no longer know from whom or where I read the quote.