In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of prioritizing the things of God over worldly pursuits. He highlights how people's hearts can be blinded by ignorance and alienated from the life of God. The preacher also draws attention to the tendency of both pagans and the church to focus on worldly treasures rather than eternal value. He emphasizes that all the laws of the Old Testament are fulfilled in the commandments to love God and love one's neighbor. Additionally, the preacher addresses the common belief that humans are unable to stop sinning, emphasizing the need for a singular focus on Christ.

So I've talked to these young men on a number of occasions, and I'm very, very interested in what they're doing. I've wanted to know Miles's heart. I want to know Evans's heart. I want to know Eli's heart. And each young man brings a specific role and gift into the work that they're doing as a triune, interesting, I hadn't thought of it till now, triune evangelistic group moving out there. And they complement each other really, really well. Under certain circumstances, Eli speaks. Under certain circumstances, Evans speaks. Under certain circumstances, Miles speaks. And one thing I discovered about Eli, he's got a heart to preach. And the other thing I remember is that I remember I used to just feel like, I've got to talk. I've got to talk. I've got to preach. Somebody give me a chance. Put me anywhere, and I'll preach. Well, that's how he is. And he's just got this burden inside to share the word of God. And so I want to pray for him as he comes up to the pulpit to share what God has laid on his heart. And I know that you'll be blessed by this, young man, because he has a real heart for Christ, a real heart for the word, and a real heart for you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, now as Eli comes to share his word, your word with his words and his lips, Father, may you bless him. May you speak through him and his heart. May you organize his thinking and his mind and his words to speak the exact message that you desire him to speak. May we have open minds and open hearts that we see that message with great joy, with conviction when conviction is necessary, with encouragement when encouragement is necessary. And Father, may we do it all for the glory of God. May we do it all for our benefit and blessing. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Thank you, Pastor Chuck. All right. Wonderful to be here again. Am I all right, sound-wise? I don't want to knock these plants over. Do you think I'll just, well, I'm not going to touch it. All right. Oh, that's right. That's right. Are they just plastic, too? OK. How many people can remember what we talked about last week? There's three things that hinder the fruit that we grow as Christians. They were, one, taking right of scripture, the cares of this life, which aren't sin, but just the everyday things that take priority over the things of God. The second one was the deceitfulness of riches. And we sum those up as lovers of self, lovers of money, lovers of pleasure, all deceitful. You're just laying up for yourselves a fortune on earth when really, as Pastor Chuck read, we need to be building up our treasure in heaven. And the third thing was the lust of other things. And I talked about how we need to have a singular vision on Christ and Christ alone. As I talked about, the eye is the lamp of the body. And if the eye is single, the whole body will be full of light. So I just want to summarize that to refresh you. And this morning, I'd like to turn to Hebrews chapter 11. We're going to be talking about a little bit different subject this morning, but nonetheless important. Hebrews chapter 11, famous chapter in the Bible, often called the hall of faith, the chapter of faith, records all these great men of old who did amazing things for God. And so we'll start right at verse 1. Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. For by it, the elders obtained a good report. Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. By faith, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts. And by it, he being dead yet speaketh. By faith, Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him. For before his translation, he had this testimony that he pleased God. I like that. I want to please God. Don't you, brother and sisters? Don't you want to be pleasing to God? But without faith, it is impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Let's go to verse 32. And what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and of Barak and of Samson and of Jephthah and David also and Samuel and of 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 sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in the fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again, and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection. And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn asunder. They were tempted. They 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 and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise. God, having provided something better for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. I think I'll just say a word of prayer before I begin. Heavenly Father, I just thank you again for being here and this privilege to speak your word, Lord. And I just pray that the word of God that you just read, Lord, would be like a fire and would burn us up, Lord Jesus. And whatever is in us that is not of you may it burn it up, Lord, as you are a consuming fire and you burn up everything that is not of you, Lord. And I just pray that you do that work this morning, Father, that you would search our hearts and allow us to examine ourselves, Lord, and to look within, to see whatever is in our lives that is not of faith, Lord. Whatever is in our lives that's going to be burned up, Lord, at the judgment seat, Lord, I pray that we would examine it and rid ourselves of it now before it's too late, Lord. And I pray that you put within us a fire, Lord, a Holy Spirit, Lord, the Holy Spirit of power, Father, and the unction and the vision, Lord, and the faith that we need, Father, to live as your children in this day. Lord, I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. OK, when I read that last scripture, the last verse, and these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, oh, it blows my mind. God having provided something better for us. And when I think of that, I mean, we read here these amazing accounts of men. Faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, and weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in the fight, turned to flight the armies of aliens, women received their dead raised to life, and so on, and so on, and so on. They received not the promise, and we have something better than what they have. And then I have to ask the question, wait a second. That doesn't make any sense. What? How many people feel that when you read that? You read of these great accounts, and it says, we have something better? And you say, what? How can that be? How can that be? I mean, these guys put us to shame, don't they? These guys, as we read this, living in dens, living in caves, being sawn asunder, all for faith. And they still didn't receive the promise. They still didn't have as good a promise as we had. This ought to cause us to tremble. This ought to cause us to wonder, what did they have that we didn't, that we don't have today? Why did they have such faith? Let me just make this seem even more, let me just shape this picture a little bit more. Today, I'm going to say why we have the better promise. Today, Christ has come. Jesus Christ is Messiah, and he has come. And we know who he is. He fulfilled all the prophecies, and we can easily look into scripture and see Jesus fulfilled that, Jesus fulfilled that, Jesus fulfilled that, Jesus fulfilled that. Jesus is Messiah. So Messiah has come. These men were hoping and looking and having faith that he would come. They had the prophecies. Some of them didn't. Some of them lived before the scriptures were even written. Cain and Abel. But these guys, whether they had the prophecies or not, they didn't have Messiah. They looked forward to him. So they didn't have that confidence saying, he's come. They're saying, he's coming one of these days. So they were living their lives in faith, in one to come that hasn't even happened yet. And they lived the way they lived. Now, another thing is Jesus died on the cross and put to death. He conquered death. He conquered sin. He conquered the devil. Before that, Christ hadn't come. And these men still, we have the better promise. Christ Jesus has died on the cross for us. One sacrifice done away with all sacrifices. These guys had to take a lamb or a bull or an animal, put it on an altar, take a knife, stab it through, and hope that their sins would be forgiven and hope that Messiah was to come. But we can look back to Jesus on the cross, our final sacrifice who did away with all those ordinances, disarmed the power of the devil, and rose again third day. And he's our sacrifice, our perfect lamb, the lamb of God. I mean, if we were to read about all that in Hebrews, we'd know that the sacrifice of Christ's a million times, unfathomably times better than the sacrifices of lambs and goats. Another advantage we have is we have the Holy Ghost. Where in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit of God was given to specific people to do specific tasks. But Joel said, in the last days I'll pour out my Spirit upon all flesh. Therefore, the Christians are filled with the Holy Spirit. The Christians have the opportunity to be indwelled with God's Spirit, the power from on high, gifts of the Spirit, fruit of the Spirit. These guys didn't have that. Only a few. This is serious stuff to consider. Let me bring something a little more practical. We today have a Bible, a B-I-B-L-E. We got all the 66 books in one. Nice, handy, you can go to the store and buy a little pocket Bible. You know, you can choose whatever kind of Bible you want. Large print, small print, small Bible, pocket size, you know, pulpit size, pastor size, study notes, commentaries. They didn't have anything like that. Some of them didn't even have the Scriptures. And if they did, they were all bulky scrolls, and they were maybe one book. You have the scroll of Isaiah from chapter 1 to chapter, you know, 12, and then the next big scroll would be chapter this to that. We have the better promise. Amen? Oh, it puts us to shame, it puts us to shame, to shame to say that we have this book at our hands, at our fingertips, so easy access, and all the books, how wonderful. You know, these guys would have probably died to get one of these. They could see in the future and say, you guys have a handy, bound, disposable, you know, you can get another one if it wears out. With all the books, all the prophets, old and new. Oh, they would have loved it. Bear in mind now, they didn't have the New Testament. No epistles. No epistles from Paul, those letters we love to read, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Romans, which is such a blessing to have, Hebrews, Revelation. They didn't have all these wonderful epistles. They didn't have the writings of Peter or John. They didn't have the verse, nothing is impossible with God. You know, we have that verse and most of us don't even believe it. You know, we have that verse. They didn't have that verse. They couldn't say, they couldn't look at the situation around them and say, yes, but the Bible says nothing is impossible with God. They didn't have that verse. But you know what they had? Faith. They had faith that nothing was impossible with God. As we read Hebrews 11, let's look at that. Hebrews 11, verse 3. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that things which are seen were not God and His power spoke these things into existence from what was not. Therefore, nothing is impossible with God. They just used their faith. They just saw and they understood by the things that were made and by faith that nothing was impossible with God. It's just fascinating. Just think about this for a minute. They just understood that God was all-powerful because He made the whole earth. They didn't have the verse, we walk by faith, not by sight. Now a lot of us, when we fall into trials and temptations or whatever, we say, oh, but the Bible says we walk by faith and not by sight. And so we take comfort in those verses. I'm not saying that you shouldn't take comfort in those verses. I do. I'm just drawing an illustration that these guys didn't have it. And guess what? Enoch walked by faith and not by sight and he was translated. He was gone. He was taken. And that puts us to shame. Enoch was before the Bible was even written. And he walked by faith and not by sight. Now we who have the scriptures and have the promises, have the prophecies, have Jesus Christ has come, have the blood of Christ. My question is, do we have the faith that these men had? Now it says here in a couple of verses, verse 2, for by it the elders obtained a good report. And also verse 39, all these having obtained a good report through faith received not the promise. I want to talk this morning about obtaining a good report. But these men had the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. That's what they had that I fear that we lack today. We lack faith. Faith, the substance. It's stuff. It's not just a thought. It's actual substance of things not seen and evidence of things hoped for. 1 Peter 1.7 says it's more valuable than gold, more valuable than riches. And Revelation 3.17 says, you know, you think you have all, but you don't understand you're wretched, poor, miserable, blind and naked. He's talking to the church. Because there's a tendency to get, when we have, when we have stuff. You know, when you don't have everything, you're grateful. When you don't have everything, you're mindful of God. But when we live, you know, we live in a very rich society. I'm just talking in material senses now. You know, we're not very grateful. We're not very thankful. You know, Miles is commenting, you know, when you want to go out to eat, you can pretty much choose where you want to go to eat. I want this kind of food, Japanese food, Italian food. You know, in America, you can get whatever kind of food you want. You know, he went to Ukraine, and you don't have that luxury to say, I feel like eating Chinese today. You know, you have to eat what the Ukrainian farmers raised, basically. Which is? Horses. That's right. It's just that simple. I mean, but it's the same in the spirit. You know, we have the Bible, we have the better promises. Are we getting complacent like the lay to see in church? Do we have the faith that these men have? Are we going to obtain a good report? This is what I'm worried that we won't. And here's the thing. It's faith that pleases God. Amen. It's faith that pleases Him. And without faith, you cannot please God. And, you know, we have to watch out that we don't lose our faith. Our faith might be so small. But God needs men that have large faith. If we're going to, you know, do what these men did, you know, conquer cities, subdue kingdoms, wrought righteousness, the lions of the devil, we're going to need faith. And not just a little bit of faith. You're going to need the faith that these men have. The faith that believes the impossible. The faith that says nothing is impossible with God and then acts because faith acts. Faith is not dormant. Faith works. But I'm jumping ahead. You know, this is the hall of faith. This is the hall of faith. But today, you know, most people are more concerned with the hall of fame. You know, the hall of fame. Who hit the longest home run. And we're more concerned about that than, you know, This was my favorite movie. God says, come on in, thou good and faithful servant. How many times did you watch it and memorize all I had to say? How many of you can quote more quotes from a movie or a song than you can scripture? Well done, thou good and faithful servant. You obtained a good report. A, B, C, D, E, F. You know? Or E's not in there, I guess. But A+. You know, what report are you going to get? What is your eternal? Where's your treasure? That's the question. Where's your treasure? Eternal value is not found in sports. Kind of takes us back to what we talked about last week. The priority. The things of God. I said yesterday, or last week, that those things choke the word. And they do indeed. They choke our faith. They make our faith small. You know, the pagans chase after all those things. The pagans, you know, all they're interested in is the things of this world. I remember I was working last summer at the university in New Brunswick. And I was working for the physical plant guys. And my worker mates were just infatuated with sports. They just, they would not stop talking and they'd talk about other things. They were infatuated with sports. And they would say, did you see this play that this guy made? And they'd talk about it all day. This guy's play that he made. And they said, Eli, don't you think that's amazing? I said, okay. He did something great, but it has no value in it. What does it matter? And they said, what does it matter? And they're trying to come up with every reason in the book why this is important. So a guy, you know, caught a piece of leather ball and ran down a field, you know. My focus is not on those things. It shows where your heart is. Those people's hearts are in the dark. Ephesians 4. These people are alienated from the life of God because of the blindness of their heart, because of the ignorance that is within them. But if the pagans are acting like this, I have to make this observation. I see the church acting like this, too. The church is acting like the pagans. And it's time to wake up. When souls are going to hell, it's time to wake up. Let me ask you, when is the good time to wake up? After 200,000 souls go to hell, 1,000,000 souls go to hell, when is it time to wake up? When all your family members go to hell, is it time to wake up? When the Word of God, the truth, has fallen in the streets, is it time to wake up? When the homosexuals are parading, is it time to wake up? When people are being imprisoned for homeschooling their kids, is it time to wake up? Because they want them to go into secular school and learn evolution. They want them to go into secular school and learn about sex as good as a little child. When is it time to wake up, church? That's just the question. It blows my mind. How many people have lost loved ones? I do. How much time do you spend praying for your lost loved ones? As opposed to how much time do you spend doing useless things that are important? What does God see? Now, the reason is because we don't have faith. That's just as simple as it is. We don't really believe that it's worth it. Or we don't believe God will really do it. And you know, faith is not just intellectual assent. Faith is unyielding assurance that God will. That God is, and that God is a rewarder of those who seek Him. That's faith. Substance. And it's faith that moves mountains. It's faith that conquers kingdoms. It's faith that shuts the mouths of lions. And faith works. If you don't have a working faith, James says, faith without deeds is dead. It's not alive. Because faith works. If you believe God, you'll do. Didn't Paul say, I believe, therefore I have spoken? And, you know, if you believe God can save, if you believe in the power of prayer, you'll pray. That's the point I'm trying to get at, folks. If you believe in the power of prayer, you'll pray. If you don't believe in the power of prayer, you won't pray. If you believe in the Scripture that says God has used the foolishness of preaching to save the lost, you'll preach if you believe it. But if you don't believe it, you won't preach. If you believe that God can make a man holy and is able to, you know, what's the Scripture say? To him who is able to keep you from falling and preserve you blameless under the day of Christ Jesus. If you believe that, you'll walk in it. If you don't, you'll fall to the left and you'll fall to the right. If you believe a man can be holy, you'll be holy. If you don't, if you don't have any faith that God, you can't overcome the world, you won't. This is the victory that overcomes the world. Even our faith. Isn't that a wonderful Scripture? Our faith overcomes the world. Not our programs. Not our, you know, 12 steps to being a happier person. Our faith overcomes the world. And if you believe it, you will. Now, if we look at Hebrews 11 again, it goes through a whole list and it says, by faith, by faith. Abraham does this, Moses does this, by faith Joseph does that, by faith Gideon does this. And, uh, that's the wonderful thing about it. They had faith. And so they did. We looked at a Scripture the other day. By faith, Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, verse 24 over 25, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect under the recompense of reward, as I was saying yesterday. Look ahead, look, set your affections on things above, and by faith, by faith, if you believe that, you know, that we will stand before the judgment seat of Christ, Christ will return and reward everyone according to what he's done in the body. You know, you're not going to enjoy the event, you'll turn from it, you'll run from it, you'll esteem the reproaches of Christ, greater riches. Alright, there's nothing, I think one of my greatest pet peeves in the church, my greatest pet peeve is Christians who are ignorant. Christians that, it's a willful ignorance, it's dumb on purpose, it's a, I don't know because I don't read, that sort of ignorance, you know, or I read, but I don't know because I don't understand, because I don't read by the Spirit, I don't ask for wisdom, I just read, read, read mindlessly. It's a willful ignorance. A lot of Christians are ignorant, a lot of Christians don't know anything, they just don't know anything. They know like the basics, but they haven't moved on. Paul says in, whoever wrote Hebrews, could be Timothy, could be Paul, could be somebody else, but he says in Hebrews 5, he says, you know, at this point, you should be teachers, but now you have someone to teach you all over again. You should be teachers, and folks, we should be teachers. We got this book, 66 books in one little binding. Lots of time. No persecution. We should be teachers. We should know this book. How many people know this book? It's like a part of you, it lives in you, it dwells in you richly. How many people know this book? You know it. It's like a third arm. You can, as easy as it is to move your hand without thinking about it, you can navigate this book, you can quote this book, you can speak this book, you can teach this book, it dwells in you, and you love to teach it. It's your third arm, and without it, you'd be handicapped. That's how it should be. This should be so a part of us, really, let the word of God dwell in you richly, it should be our heart, it should be the life of our body, that if we lose it, we die. We should be so much a part of God and so much a part of his word dwelling in us. Just read Psalm 119. That without it, we just die. We just love your word. Oh how I love your word, oh Lord. You know, if you meditate on this book and dwell it in you, the Bible promises you'll be like a tree planted by rivers of water, who believes does not wither. Bears fruit in season. Wonderful promises. But who obtained the promises? The men of faith. In verse 33, obtained promises. That's how you obtain promises. You know, a lot of promises in this book, you could find them every day. A lot of people read promises, but they don't actually obtain them. You read the promises, but you don't obtain them. Because you have to obtain them by faith. You know, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. You'll never obtain that if you don't have faith. Never. Same with salvation. You can read John 3.16 all you want and go to hell, unless you have faith. It's just as simple as that. You have to actually believe. Not intellectual assent, but unyielding assurance that Jesus Christ is Messiah, is Savior, died on the cross for your sins, cleansed you of your sins, and is making intercession for you, and is able to save to the uttermost, and will take you to heaven when you breathe your last, unyielding assurance. So it's this ignorance. One of the ignorant things a lot of people, you know, people just don't know. People just don't know. You know, in Fredericton, I hear this all the time. I don't know if this epidemic plagues us here, but they say, the Old Testament, that's gone. That's obsolete. That's no more. All you need is the New Testament. I don't even read the Old Testament anymore. It's just useless. Don't even need it. They might as well just cut it right out of the book and throw it away. Of course, we know in Timothy, it says, all Scripture is useful for instruction, righteousness, teaching, rebuke, exhortation. And, uh, he wasn't talking about his letter when he wrote it. He was talking about the Old Testament. Paul wasn't saying, my letter is useful for instruction. You know, he wasn't thinking like that. It is, but he was thinking Old Testament. And, uh, the Old Testament is not obsolete. It's just fulfilled. All of the law, all of the law, all of it is summed up in two. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. All the law. That's all the law from thou shalt not kill to you shall not tattoo yourself. All the law is summed up in love God and love your neighbor. It's all there. Everything. It's not gone. It's fulfilled. Romans 7. You can't stop sinning. You're only human. I'm just human. It's inevitable. I'm going to sin tomorrow. I'm going to sin tonight. I just can't help myself. I just have to go to the bar. I just have to get drunk. I just can't help myself. It's just not my fault. That's not true. For the law of the spirit of life set me free from the law of death. And, of course, 1 Corinthians 10.13 says, No temptation has come upon man except that which is common. And God always gives a way of escape for us. Now, here's the catch. Do you believe it? Do you have faith that that's true? Because you're not going to obtain the promise if you have no faith. It's just that simple. Faith obtains the promises. Faithlessness always falls to the wayside. You'll never get the promises without faith. And so, here's my point. We read Hebrews 11. We say, Wow, I could never do that. Wow, I could never be like these guys. Moses is different than me. Enoch is different than me. Elijah, oh my goodness, I could never be like him. Paul, no way. He's just some superman that's unattainable. You know, Peter, give me a break. Quench the violence of fire, not for me. Escape the edge of the sword, no. Weakness, we're made strong. Wax valued in the fight. Turn to fight the armies of aliens for the old guys. Women received their dead raised to life again. And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance. I don't think I have the strength to do that. They might obtain a better resurrection. Others had mocking scourgings, yet moreover bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn asunder. They were tempted. They were slain with a sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, and fermented. Not for me. You know what? Elijah was a man of like passions. Read James. Elijah was a man of like passions. Paul went and did a miracle with Barnabas and all the people began to worship him as Zeus. And he said, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just a man of like passions. You know, Paul was just like you and me. The difference is he had faith. And Elijah was just a man like you and me. But the difference is he had faith. All these men and women were just like you and me. If I could just if you could just understand, they're just like you and me. The difference is they believe God. If you believe God, nothing is impossible. If you just believe God, all things are possible. And what are the limits? You know, when God calls us, as he's calling this church to do, do you believe God? That he could do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ever ask or imagine? We believe we can see souls saved, our lost family members won, and shut the mouth of the devil. Stop the forces of evil. When the enemy comes in like a flood, the spirit of God will lift up a standard against him. Do you believe it? And will you be a part of it? See, this whole attitude of like I can't do it is just of the devil. Where in the Bible does it ever say that? You know, that's actually, I hear more from Christians I can't do it, and it's just not possible. Actually, that's pretty much that's pretty much the 99% of things you hear. It's just not possible. Where in the Bible can you quote me the scripture that says it's just not possible? Where is that scripture? Second Opinions, Chapter 3? Where is that? Where is it? It's just not possible. Where is it? I've been searching my whole life for it. I haven't found it. Still looking. You know, it sounds like the devil. It's the devil. He's just trying to shackle us and choke us by the things of this world and hinder us from bearing fruit and stop the church from doing its purpose. It's kind of been the theme of this last week. The purpose of the church is to work. Remember we were saved by grace not of works through faith but we are his workmanship unto good works, to do good works. That's the purpose of the church, but we're not going to ever do it unless we have faith. It's faith from the beginning. It's faith till you die. You know, you enter into the life of Christ by faith. You have access into grace by faith. And it's not like that's over now that once you become a Christian. You know, I became a Christian by faith but now faith is I don't need it anymore. Paul said, how did you receive the Holy Spirit? By the works of the law or by faith? When they healed the lame man. It's not our own holiness, it's faith in Jesus Christ. That's what it is. So faith is from your birth, the new birth till your death. Everybody understand? Now I've been looking. I look for people of this caliber. I look for men of this caliber in life. Very rare. Very, very rare. I'm always on the lookout for them. Everywhere I go. Where is a man of the caliber of faith that is this high? And those are the people I want to hang around with. We want to walk with giants. You want to walk with people who have Goliath's heads on their belt. You don't want to walk around with those Israelites who are always running away at Goliath. You want to be with guys named David. They're the people I want to be with. The Davids. Saul has killed his thousands. But David has tens of thousands. That's who I want to hang around with. David. So where are these men? Are there any here? Where are these men? God doesn't use machines. God doesn't use programs. God doesn't use instruments. He doesn't use bullhorns. He uses men. He inhabits men. It's faith is the breeding ground of the promises of God. It's not program. Oh, if we only had a better program here on this side. Or a program for the young people. Or this kind of a program. If we only had that better sound system, God would move. If we only had a bigger building. If we only had on and on and on. All those new gadgets. Churches today are saturated with electronic gadgets. Nothing wrong with them, Bob. But churches are saturated with them thinking that the better stuff we have, then people are going to come. And people are going to become Christians because we have a high-tech sound system. That's not why you come to Christ. You could have a hole in the wall and a person that believes God and something would happen. That's what happens. All the revivals of old, you get two people praying in a hole in the wall, believing God and a revival came. It's just that simple. It has nothing to do with gadgets or gizmos. It's just men and women who have faith and believe God. And God loves it. And God looks for it. Those are the people God wants to move through. And just to wrap it up here. We're living in a... This is a nice sermon, you might say. This is very good. Very motivated. But it's more than that. This message of faith... We're living in a time of intense spiritual warfare, intense spiritual battle. The devil is making his advance on all sides. If we say, that's a nice sermon and close our ears or this Bible is really nice and it says a lot of good promises and we just close our ears to it, we're going to be overrun. My point is, it's not the time... This is the time to act. This is the time to get our act together. This is the time to get our faith rising up. Because we need it. It's not just, I'd like that or that's a good idea or yeah, I'll do that tomorrow. We need it now. The devil is not waiting. Why are the Christians waiting? The devil is advancing. Why are the Christians retreating? You know, in World War I or World War II, Hitler, he was rising to power, doing a lot of evil things and people sort of knew what was going on. Hitler had, of course, an ambition to take over the whole world. And, you know, Chamberlain, you know, he went to visit Hitler and tried to make peace with Hitler and came back and said, peace in our time. It wasn't long after that till that was all to the wind. And he made the mistake of ignoring the threat at hand. There was an imminent threat to the whole world. People were dying. People were being slain. Hitler was gaining in power. And Chamberlain, you know, he said no, nothing. And Churchill, of course, Churchill was saying, look, there's a problem. Churchill was one of the only voices in all of England that was saying, we need to do something. You know, rally the military. Start building planes. Start getting people ready for war. We need to act now or Hitler is going to overrun us. People didn't listen to Churchill until it was too late. And then they had to scrounge Britain. They had to really scrounge for resources. And you know what happened? The Brits got beaten. And they retreated. And of course the Americans came in and saved the day. But, you know, they ignored Churchill, the one voice who was saying, act now. Now is the time to act. Hitler is on the move. And it's like in the church, you know, there's these voices going out saying, rise the church. Wake up, because the devil is on the move. What are you going to do? Are you going to be like Chamberlain and say, peace in our time? Peace in our time? The prophets of old said that. They were dead wrong. You know, always it was the people that were blowing the trumpet in Zion saying, wake up. Sound the alarm. Those are the people that were speaking the words of God. And so church, we need to wake up. We need to get faith. And we need to fight. We need to win souls. We need to pray. We need to act. Because the devil is not slowing down. Romans 13. Turn with me there. It's not peacetime right now. See, in peacetime, people are at home comfortable. But at wartime, the factories are working. People are working overtime. The men are overseas. The women are, you know, in the factories working. People are busy, busy, busy. It's stressful in wartime. It's not peaceful. The bombs are going off. You're hiding. And people need to be on the alert. It's not peacetime. But a lot of Christians live like it's peacetime before peace is even here. Jesus never came to bring peace to the world. He came to bring a sword. I'm talking spiritual sense here. We're engaged in warfare. So Christians, it's not peacetime. Just to remind you. Peacetime is when, you know, you either rest, you know, when you're asleep, as Paul said, or when the Lord comes back. And we rest. And we'll eat supper with the married supper of the Lamb. But until then, Romans 13, verse 11, and that knowing the time that now, now bear in mind when this is written. This is not written yesterday. Now it is high time to awake out of sleep for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. The imagery here is war time. And just like David had his mighty men, God needs his mighty men today. Who are they going to be? Are they going to be us? Are we going to miss it? David had his mighty men. And where are the mighty men of God today? Where are the mighty men of God today? Where are the men of faith? God needs those men. God's going to do stuff. I believe He's going to raise up men of God again. Are you going to be a part of it? That's the question. We read last week, 2 Timothy 2 4, no man that warth entangles himself in the affairs of this life because he wants to please Him who has chosen him to be a soldier. Let me remind you why we're chosen. And so folks just in closing here, it's faith that's going to win these battles that are up ahead in the future. It's faith that's going to obtain the promises. It's faith that sets the boys from the men. So when Jesus said here's the sobering thing this is the sobering part of the message Jesus said when I return will I find faith on the earth? Foreseeing that men would have little faith in me. When I return will I find faith on the earth? If Jesus was to come in through the doors right now would He find faith in the church here? Would He come in and say I came in here to recruit for the work of the Lord but I need men of faith. Is there anyone here? Would He find faith? Will you have faith? Will you live for Jesus? Will you be mighty in war? Will you obtain a good report? Heavenly Father I'm so humbled when I read this chapter 11 Lord in Hebrews of these men Lord who had not received the promises that we have received Lord and of course it says Lord that we have received the better promises and God I pray for each and every one of us here myself included that God when we come face to face with you and stand before you Lord at that judgment seat Lord that we ourselves would obtain a good report as these men have Lord because we believe God we believe what you said Lord Lord I'd rather die believing you too hard than not believing you at all Lord and Father I just pray that this morning you would just put within our hearts again a faith Lord that is unmovable, a faith that works a faith that moves mountains Lord a faith that believes the Bible that we read week after week day after day Lord that you put within us the desire and a vision and a fire to wake up and put on the armor and to fight the good fight of faith Lord that we may too receive that good report when we meet you Lord Thank you Jesus, Jesus name Amen