In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the simplicity of the word of God and the importance of sticking to it. He highlights the story of Abraham and how he had faith in God's promises, despite the challenges and doubts he faced. The preacher emphasizes the need to focus on what God says rather than relying on human wisdom or personal feelings. He also emphasizes the power of faith and how it is the only way to be saved and receive God's blessings.

Everything hangs on that one item, if we believe. When the man came with the lunatic son, he said, Lord, if you can do something for us, help us, Jesus said, if you can believe. If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And that shows what faith really is and how imperatively necessary faith is. We cannot be saved any other way but by believing God. If we believe, why all these things are added to us, and here is the great example of Abraham, and here is the principle of faith set forth in a wonderful word. I met a man who was sick, and people had told him, well, all you have to do is believe that you're well. That's sort of a Christian science, you know, if you happen to stumble when you're on top of the Empire State Building and you fall, all you do is flop your arms and say cuckoo, and you'll land softly. And yet that's the way people talk. And this man said, how can I believe when I'm sick? I said, that isn't faith. Faith, the Bible says, Abraham was fully persuaded, fully persuaded. He didn't doubt. Everything spoke doubt to him. The devil said, have God said? But Abraham knew what God had said. That settled it forever. That settled it. What God said was ausschlaggebend, as we say in German. That settled it forever. He was fully persuaded. Oh, but everybody came around and tried to make him doubt. They brought him bottles of aspirin tablets, and they brought him salves, and they told him about clinics, and about doctors, and about baths, and so on and so on. That didn't give him any faith. What did God say? In spite of all hell, in spite of all appearances, in spite of all the feelings I have, what did God say? That's going to happen. Praise God. And he was fully persuaded that what God had promised. Well, did God promise? Yes, but we have a thousand question marks. Is he able? Is he able in this condition? Now, my wife, Sarah, she nagged him. She laughed at him. She made a fool out of him. God was still able, thank God. And Abraham gave God the glory by saying, when the devil said, God is lying, or God forgot, or God can't, he gave God the glory by being fully persuaded what God had promised is as well as finished. No matter how long he was tested, when God made promise to Abraham, the Bible says Abraham didn't see anything, didn't feel anything, but God swore by himself. That was the wonderful thing. That's how firmly God established his word to Abraham. And all Abraham had to know was that God said it, and God swore by himself. God gave me the guarantee that it shall be so. And so, after he had patiently endured. Why did he have to endure? Why did he have to be patient? Because there was a whole hell to be defeated. And only faith defeats hell. Faith wears down the devil, drives him into the pit. And now God says that he swore by himself, surely I'll fulfill my promise. Abraham settled down. The Bible says he waxed strong in faith instead of getting weak like we do, like people do when they're prayed for. Yeah, but I still got a kink in the back. They, they take the thermometer and they measure their, their fever and their high blood pressure. And so that's what determines their faith or their unbelief. But with Abraham, it was the opposite. The longer the test lasted, the stronger his faith became. Why? Because he had respect unto the promise. He occupied himself with the promise. What did God say? Beloved, that's what brings faith into your soul and my soul. To meditate therein day and night. This word creates faith. The words that I speak unto you are spirit and are life. Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast words of eternal life. Oh, what fools we are when we prefer the words of men, no matter how holy they are, and the words of the devil, no matter how plausible they are, or our own feelings to the of God. What did God say? And I'm so thankful because this word is so simple, so very simple. People give me books to read. Recently, I got a book to read about, oh, some theological doctrine, something about signs and wonders and whatnot. But it is so confusing. I said, it smells bad. I can smell a book, whether it's good or bad. It either breathes life or it breathes sickness and stagnation. But the word of God breathes life. They shall recover. God shall raise him up. Simple, isn't it? And that's what I thank God for, the simplicity of the word of God, and to stick to this word. God promised and Abraham meditated therein. The Bible says he had respect unto the promise of God. What did God say? Now, I don't know whether he wrote it down. Maybe he did. I find that's very helpful to get that promise of God and keep looking at it. I have one in my home now. When I left my home in the Middle West, almost 50 years ago, I took sick, very sick. I was in a strange place and I thought, well, this is a fine, how do you do if I'm going to die here now? What's going to happen? And then God gave me this word, my presence shall go with thee and I'll give you rest. And somebody gave me that motto. I have it in my room. I look at it all the time because God has fulfilled that promise. Another promise he gave me when everything seemed like nailed up with boards, commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in him and he shall bring it to pass. And he did. I didn't have to tell him how to do it. It seemed very difficult. It seemed sometimes impossible. And the more impossible it seemed, the more I laughed. I often said to Jesus, well, Lord, this really interests me how you're going to manage this. I wouldn't know how, I wouldn't know how to tell you. No matter how much I prayed, I couldn't tell God how to do it. But you said, you'll bring it to pass. Oh, to be fully persuaded. Beloved, that's my job. That's the only way in which I can honor God. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. And that means that when I believe God, I please him. All hell is displeased. All the devils, whatever their names is, Beelzebub or Lucifer or Legion or Mephistopheles or whatever their names is there, they hate it when you speak the word of faith and when you think thoughts of faith. And we don't know how sick we are with unbelief, how the devil vaccinates us, how we listen to people and we get sick. Telling the folks in India how when I had been here a year or two, I had a nervous breakdown. Not a nervous breakdown but a real breakdown in health. I was feverish and I was in the house of some of the saints. I asked them to please let me lie down. They had invited me for a birthday party and I couldn't eat. I couldn't look at the food. I said, please let me lie down. So they gave me a bed. I went to bed and in the middle of the night, God healed me. God spoke to me. He healed me. The fever was gone. The headache was gone. When I woke up and unfortunately, there were three nurses in the house and they gloated over me. They thought, now we got him where we want him. And when I wanted to get up, they had taken my clothes away, mind you. And they brought me a laxative that would have turned a herd of elephants inside out. That made me sick. You gotta be careful. Then I was sick for about four weeks, really sick. I should have stuck to my guns. I should have gotten up and bought a new suit of clothes and walked out of that house. Really and truly, beloved, what God has promised, why did he promise? Not to make you feel good, but because his honor is at stake. His honor is at stake. It doesn't matter whether I live or die an atom in God's universe, but it doesn't matter whether God's name is glorified in me. That's why he says, we glory in tribulation also because tribulation worketh patience. You gotta stick to it, and patience worketh experience. That's where you find out how absolutely true God is. And here's the secret of faith, to be fully persuaded that what God had promised, he was able also to perform. That makes God to be active. That makes me a masterpiece of heaven. That's how God works, by speaking his word, by swearing by himself. Now son, I've given you my word. I give you the blueprint. I'll show you what I'm going to do with you. Now the question is whether you're going to be fully persuaded, no matter what the devil says, no matter what your feelings say, no matter what anybody says, your mother-in-law or anybody else. You're going to give God the glory, and you're going to stand by faith and fight the good fight of faith, and you're going to glorify God no matter what the devil does. We've had a number of experiences along that line, but the best that I know is Mrs. Robinson, of whom we often speak. God told her that she was going through a trial. You're going to be tested. The Lord knew what the devil would do, try to rob her of her life. And the Lord said, you're going to forget my promise. She said, no I won't. I'm going to write it down, put it where I can read it. She didn't. She came to the place. Elder Brooks was telling me that news came to him one day that Mrs. Robinson was dying, that her eyes were set, and that if he wanted to see her, he'd have to go immediately to visit her. He said, that woman can't die. He knew that. And she was dying, and she felt it. She felt her life ebbing away. Now, it would have been easy for her just to close her eyes and go. It would have been the most comfortable way to go to heaven. But she wanted God's will to be done. That's it. What did God say? That's God's will. And it's my business to say, thy will be done as it is done in heaven. That's what God gives his word for. The exceeding great and precious promises are given to us, that they might be fulfilled in us. Why do we have the baptism in the Holy Ghost? Because we've insisted on it. Why do we get healed when we're sick? Because we insist on it. God said it. Nothing else can satisfy my soul but the will of God to be done. And that's where we fail. We get used to our sicknesses. We tolerate them. We get used to our sins and our bondages, and we tolerate them, instead of recognizing that what God has promised, he will perform. That's salvation. And so, here was Mrs. Robinson dying. She was about 34 years old. And she said, Jesus, this looks like death. The Lord said, she had a gift of wisdom at that time. God spoke over her lips. The Lord said, it is death. Are you afraid? She said, no, Jesus, you didn't bring me thus far to drop me now. And presently the Spirit of God rose within her and commanded death to flee. She told us that she saw a dark power leave her. And next day Elder Brooks told me, now you know he is pretty blunt. He said, I went to see her, and instead of finding a dying woman, I found a woman that looked like a young 16-year-old girl with rosy cheeks and full of vitality and full of life. And he said, the power of God in that room, he said, a hog could have felt it. That's how he expressed it. Why, God had won the victory. It was necessary for that woman to stand her ground. It's necessary for you and for me to stand our ground. We ought to learn this lesson, that without faith, it is impossible to please God. And faith is not feeling. Faith is being fully persuaded that what God has promised, he knows how to perform. And I work with fear and trembling. It makes a lot of difference whether God's will is done in me or not. Praise the Lord. And oh, how many people are in the graves today that would be alive and serving God if they had been fully persuaded, if they had honored God. Oh my God. Hallelujah. I cannot fail. Jesus cannot fail. And I think this chapter is particularly wonderful. Now the Bible says that Abraham believed him who is able to raise the dead and call the things that be not as though they were. Now if you and I had a God like that, that's a pretty wonderful God who is able to raise the dead and to call the things that be not as though they were. And if that God had made promise to you, wouldn't you believe him? Why, of course you would. You'd bank on his promise. But what's the matter with our God? That's what I'd like to know. And that's where the wonderer comes in. He says, it's ours if we believe on him. Now Abraham had to take that by faith because Jesus Christ had not yet died and not yet risen from the dead. But you and I look back to Calvary and here he is. If we believe on him who was delivered for our offenses. Did God swear by himself? He did more than that. He himself was in Christ, took our offenses, our sins. Beloved, we have no business to live in sin or to tolerate sin. God himself took our sins away. That's what I need to be fully persuaded that sin shall not have dominion over me. And that's how I please God when I let God do what he promises to do, what he has already done. He delivered him for our offenses and he raised him for our justification. That is such a wonder I can't grasp it. That all that was done for me. That Jesus Christ is for me. That God Almighty had to pay that price for me. Had to fight that fight for me. And that now he demands from me to repent and to believe the gospel. Beloved, we ought to be more serious about the living God. Everything depends on it. Our eternal destiny depends on what we do with God's promises, God's word. God spoke to the fathers the Old Testament and to us he speaks the New Testament. And what is it for? We cannot satisfy God until he sees the travel of his soul in us. And we've been praying in these weeks that God should take sickness out of this place. He promised to do it. A woman told me that in the early days of Pentecost she never remembered a single case where people didn't get healed when they came for healing. That was wonderful. That's how they took the truth of God. But she says, we never dare talk ill one of another. Oh, that belongs to it. But here's the secret of faith. If we believe on him, my Lord, shouldn't I believe you? I'm always reminded of the time when I had a, what do you call it, a bum knee. They have another name for it. My knee would get out of joint so that I couldn't walk. And I remember in California, I was supposed to preach and my knee was out of joint. I couldn't stand. I had to get to a chair and lean against it with all my weight and bam, it went back into its socket. And while I came home from high school, when I told her, she said, that's incurable. We learned that in high school. That was very comforting. And so I was beginning to deal with God about that. I was up in Lake George and Alfred was there and he asked me, how's your knee? Well, I didn't tell him, but I couldn't go swimming. It would have been dangerous. But that night I had a dream. I wanted to know from the Lord what I had done, why he wasn't healing me. And that night I had a dream and I dreamed that Jesus was talking to the Father about my knee so lovingly. And I knew, I was fully persuaded that everything would be all right. And you know, it wasn't only out of its socket, but there was something broken there. It sounded like cornflakes when I moved my leg. Something crisp and painful. And it was getting worse and the worse it got, the more I laughed. I knew I was fully persuaded that God would make that okay, no matter what the doctor said. And so one night I was surrounded by demons. They were, I didn't see them. People that say they see the demons usually are just imagining. But in the, in the spirit, I felt they were having a merry-go-round around me and they were sticking out their tongues at me. They said, aha, now you got it. Now you have it. And in the midst of all that, I heard the voice of Jesus saying, can you trust me now? I had to laugh. I said, Lord, all the more. And now this is 30 years at least. And my knee is better than ever. I could do acrobatics now with my knee that you couldn't do. I won't try it. But beloved to be, what did God say? What did God say? He's not like we. We say, yes, I'm going to do that. And then we don't do it. But when God speaks, He puts the power of creation in His Word. It's bread that comes down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die. And we ought to really meditate in this New Testament and claim not only His commandments to be fulfilled in us, but His gracious promises.