The Consequences of Not Trusting God - Part 1

We do welcome our guest. We pray the Lord to speak to your heart. All through the service and now in the word.

I'll talk to you tonight about the consequences of not trusting God. The consequences of not trusting God. I want you to keep your Bible open to the twelfth chapter of Genesis.

Genesis, the twelfth chapter, and leave it open on your lap, please. At Times Square Church, from now on, we'll not say if you have your Bibles, because we know you have your Bibles. Chapter twelve.

Just leave it there because that's where I'm going to be preaching from tonight. The consequences of not trusting God. Lord, it's been a good day.

It's been a wonderful day in your presence. I give you thanks. We give you thanks.

Holy Spirit, now we come to the word. How we love your word. How we yearn for your word to change us and to mold us into your image, Jesus.

Lord, there's nothing, nothing that touches us more than your word. Jesus, you are the word. This is the living Christ.

We glorify you, Lord. We magnify you tonight. And I acknowledge my need of your anointing.

I can't preach this in my own strength or power. I give it to you, Lord. We take authority over every demon power, her principality, power of darkness.

We pray, Lord, you give us a hearing ear and let this word flow out of my heart as you caused it to flow into my heart. Sanctify this vessel, I pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Give me just a little more on the monitors, please. I'm going to make a statement that may offend some of you, but I believe it to be the truth. With all the talk today about faith and all the books and the tapes, the teaching and the preaching, I believe this is one of the most untrusting generations of all time.

With all our training books, everything we have preached and taught about faith, we have had more written and taught about faith than any generation, but we are the most untrusting of all I believe in history. We talk faith, we preach it, we sing about it, and in good times that may be all right. That may suffice for a season, but when really hard times, we don't have often what it takes.

Like the children of Israel, we cry, God, where are you? We come to church, we sing, God can make a way. I'm glad you sang because that's in my message. But then we get in a hard time and say, well, Lord, where's the way? We start questioning, God, where am I? Where are you? And we fail when the real test of the difficult times comes upon us.

The Bible says that just to live by faith. Now, that's not just for eternal salvation. That means your daily life.

That means everything that you are and everything that you do in life, you are going to live by faith. And folks, there are times that are coming that will be so hard, so difficult, so calamitous, you're going to live by faith. You will not be able to afford doctors, you're going to live by faith.

The time is coming that this Scripture will be more than just something we read and forget about it, the just or the righteous shall live by faith. Jude, speaking of those living in the last days, said this, Beloved, build up yourselves in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost. He said it's time to build yourself up in your last days.

Build up your faith because you're going to need it in this hour. Oh, beloved, this is not a time for wavering faith, not at all. In Psalms 22, David said of our spiritual fathers, Our fathers trusted in thee, Lord.

They trusted and you did deliver them. They cried unto thee and they were delivered. They trusted in you and they were not confounded.

Our fathers lived by faith. Our fathers believed that you would keep your word. They were never confused and they were not confounded.

God made a way for our fathers. And one of the fathers that David is speaking about was Father Abraham. The Bible says of Father Abraham, He staggered not at the promises of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what God had promised, He was able also to perform.

Now God has set before us an example of a man who the Bible says was not weak in faith. He never staggered the promises of God. Once he came into full faith.

Now he didn't come into full faith until he got his faith name Abraham. He was called Abram up to the time his faith was being grounded and tested. I want to take you on a little trip with me tonight and talk a little bit about faith.

We'd like to have this kind of faith that's described here as belonging to Father Abraham, not weak, not wavering, fully persuaded, all doubts that are conquered. But folks, that kind of faith does not come easy. That kind of faith comes only through failure, after failure, test after test.

And that's what my message is about tonight. 1 Peter 1.7, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold, that perisheth not, be tried by fire, may be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Folks, our faith is going to go into the fire.

We're about to go into the fire. I told you from this pulpit a few months ago, in fact, probably four or five weeks ago, when the stock market was way down, almost 15%, I said it's going to go back up again. There's going to be a phony rise.

There's going to be a manipulated market. There's going to be a fool's market. And that's where we are, just as we talked about from this pulpit.

But folks, watch out. We are headed for the fire, and it's going to come. But the Bible says, out of that are going to come a people with a tested, tried faith.

There's going to be unshakable, unmovable, who are kept by the power of God through faith to salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. In the last time, God is going to reveal a body of people, a body of Christ, that has an absolutely unshakable faith. They're going to live by faith, and they're an example of living by faith.

Living without fear is going to be a testimony to the whole ungodly world. Tested faith, tried faith, coming forth as gold. Now, Abraham was a good and righteous man.

Here's a man that takes a journey of faith. God calls him to a walk of faith. He started out with just a simple, trusting obedience in the Lord.

The Lord came to him and said, and let me read to you from verse 1, chapter 12. Look at verse 1. Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house unto a land that I will show you. Folks, look at me now.

This is where faith begins. This is where the little germ of faith begins. A call to abandon oneself into the hands of God, the whole future, just total abandonment to the will of God.

Faith has to begin there. This man is called to take a journey. Now, he doesn't know where he's going.

He's not told about the hardships he's going to face on the way. He's not told what he's to expect when he gets there. He's told simply to get out of his comfort zone and take a leap of faith in the arms of his heavenly Father.

And he says, I want you to just pick up everything. Now, this is a step of faith for this man because he's got children, he's got family, he's got relatives, he's got a cattle business. This man's got to pull up stakes.

He's got to pull up everything, and he's going to go out to the unknown. He's going to go out and head 300 miles into a desert. Hot sun, snakes, wild animals.

He has no idea where he's going. Now, folks, that's faith. That's where it begins, where you take a leap into the arms of your heavenly Father.

You look into the arms of Jesus. Jesus has made that call to all of us. He says that just so live by faith.

That's the call Abram got. You take a leap of faith into the arms of the Lord and say, I commit my life. He says, come and follow me.

Put your life in my hands is what he said to Abram. Abram, pick yourself up in your comfort zone. You've had it nice.

Now, I'm going to ask you to go out into the unknown. Totally unknown. God told him, out of your loins will come a great nation.

I'm going to bless you, Abram. I'm going to make you great. You're going to be a great blessing.

Now, folks, you've got to understand the magnificence of what God was saying. The importance of this statement that he's just made to Abram. He said, all the families on earth are going to be blessed by you.

Now, folks, he's not talking about Abram himself, but you see, he's talking about Christ. He's talking about Jesus. The whole world is going to be blessed by the seed that comes out of your very loins.

This points to Jesus Christ. He's saying to Abram, I'm going to make you the father of a new race, a new kind of people that I've been looking for from the very beginning of creation. He's seen the sin and the debauchery and had to do away with the whole race other than Noah.

No, he says, I want a race that's going to walk by faith. I have to have a man who walks by faith, and I'm calling you to myself to abandon yourself to me. And, folks, he's talking about, he's laying a foundation for a new race of people who will walk blindly by faith because you see what is coming.

He's going to have to believe. He's going to have to have faith. He's going to have to believe in the impossible because there's going to be a child born to a man who's no longer fertile into a womb that is already dead, and the seed is speaking about an immaculate conception, an absolute impossibility.

He's talking about the coming people of God, the race that he's going to raise up named Israel, and God's talking about the impossible things that are going to happen. There's going to be a Red Sea that opens and people walk on dry ground. He's talking about bread falling out of heaven, angels' food falling out of heaven.

He's talking about water coming out of a rock. He's talking about impossible, humanly impossible things, a whole race who believes and sees the impossible. How can he be the father of a race of believing God for the impossible unless he has that kind of faith? He went out.

Now, here's the definition of faith as far as I'm concerned. Here's the definition of the beginning faith. Here's the seed of faith.

And he went out not knowing where he's going. He went out not knowing where he's going. I've been there.

He's saying, Lord, I'm stepping out. He takes this step. He says, I am stepping out in faith now.

I lay down all my own ideas of how I'm supposed to live. I'm not going to try to work out my own blessings. I'm not going to try to lead my family my own way.

I'm not going to try to provide my own living by my own wits. Lord, I'm going to put everything in your hands. I'm going to go to fully trusting your leadership.

Lord, you're calling every shot from now on. I'll lay it all down. You told me to pick up and just follow you.

You said you'd lead me. You'd guide me every day. All right? He abandons himself into the hands of God, and he sets out on this journey.

He's 75 years old. His wife is in her 60s. She's a beautiful woman in her 60s, just like my wife.

Score one for the preacher. Don't try to tell Abram that faith is easy. Don't go to him and say, explain faith to me, just like we do today.

Explain faith to me, Abram. Give me your theology on faith. You see, that's our preoccupation today in the church.

We dissect it. We analyze the word. We go to the Greek.

We go to the Hebrew. We write books, and we study it.