Faith Series: Resting on God

Faith Series: Resting on God

Let's take our Bibles together and turn to Hebrews 11, please. Hebrews 11, and when you arrive there, let's begin reading. Follow along with me as we read in verse 1. Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, 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 the things, or 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. 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 those who believe. He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

Please mark this passage with me to your Bibles through this passage in Hebrews chapter 11 this morning. This will be our text for the message, and let's ask the Lord's blessing upon what we've read. Gracious Father, we are reminded once again that we need you to… to be with us today. We thank you for this appointed day, this first day of the week, the pattern of the church in the scriptures we see gathering on that first day. And Lord, we also see them gathering on other days as well. But we thank you that we can begin our week in corporate worship, and we can hear your word together, Lord. And we pray that this word today that we are looking at will have an impact on our lives. As we go out into the week, that we will take the name of Jesus with us, that we will meditate in your word day and night, that we will carry it with us, and it will be incorporated into our activities and our conversations, and that we will grow in wisdom as we fear the Lord, and that we will…the grace of God will be upon us as we humble ourselves and we draw nigh to you. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. to take that and to make the application to our individual lives, myself included, Lord, as we go out tomorrow, as we go out throughout the rest of this week, even today and through the remainder of this week. May our lives, may our words, may our actions bring glory and be the evidence that our faith is not merely in word. It's not dead, but it is alive, and it is found in the one who is the way, the truth, the life, the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray these things now and ask that you bless us as we continue in this service. In Jesus' name we ask. Amen.

When we see the word faith in Scripture, it's always speaking of one of two things. It's either speaking of personal faith or the body of faith, the body of doctrine that we hold by faith. Personal faith is simply trust God. Trusting God. Trusting God means I trust His word, right? I take Him at His word. That's what Pastor Peacock often said. Faith is simply taking God at His word. The implications of faith, in some further messages I'd like to talk about that, but today I want us to understand what faith is and what it should look like in our daily lives. We have the Scriptures that have been given to us. Jude tells us that the faith was once delivered to the saints. And it is in our hearts that we hold this faith by faith. We hold on to the things that the Lord has delivered to us. We are to contend earnestly for this. Faith that has once been delivered to the saints.

But this faith is not merely to be preserved on the paper or parchment or whatever age we are living in. It's not merely to be preserved on the pages with ink. It is to be, thank God it is preserved in that form, but it is to be preserved by personal faith in that faith. I know we have thought about our church. We have an aging congregation. And we have some younger people. We're growing them from the inside, right? We're growing them here on the inside. But our prayer is that we have got to, as a church, be able to commit the faith to faithful men. We've got to be able to pass on, not just, well, here's a Bible, but to pass on to another generation, the faith. I cannot have faith for anyone else. I, faith is a very personal, individual matter. It is, it is between my heart and God's. It is between my heart and, and, and his word. In my response to that word, we saw this morning, a couple of examples of faith.

We saw Manasseh's faith very late on in his life. After all the wickedness, yet, humility, the affliction that brought the humbling and the faith of his heart being the response. I know that the Lord, he is God. Nebuchadnezzar would say that I know, I know, well, Daniel demonstrated faith before him. The Hebrew young men demonstrated this faith before Nebuchadnezzar. And he even, we even see later on, wasn't it Darius would say, I know that thy God whom now service continually, he's able to deliver thee. Does that mean he had personal faith? Not necessarily, but when the day came, you know, Nebuchadnezzar had already acknowledged, well, you, you must serve the living God. But there came a day when his pride was truly humbled. And that faith of Daniel that Daniel held became his own faith. It became his own personal faith. It's not good enough to imitate. The children are good imitators, right? But it's not enough to simply imitate an example. We must have that personal relationship with the author of the faith. And, and trust his own word ourselves.

So the New Testament was obviously written in Greek. And the word in the, the New Testament here for faith now faith Pistis, the word for faith here is simply has the idea of belief, trust, confidence. That's the idea of the, of the word faith. And it's, as we said, a very personal thing. But even as we think about our English vocabulary, we think about, I like, I think brother Christopher likes word etymologies as well, because we've talked about that some brother Christopher nice longer. Um, I like to see the connections between words and think about, we use, we, we, we, we are influenced in the English by the Latin language. We were influenced by other languages as well, but Latin is one of those languages that has a strong influence upon our words, our vocabulary. Uh, and if you think, if you stop and think about this, the word in Latin for faith is the word feed ace. Uh, and so. That's F I D E S that is seen in a lot of the words we use in our just everyday conversation.

Think about the word fidelity, fidelity, faithfulness, faithfulness. It could be fidelity to one spouse, right? Fidelity to my spouse means that I am faithful to her and keeping myself for her and for no others. Uh, there's actually a financial investment. There's a company called fidelity investments. Uh, and that, what, what do they say? What is the name? Why would they call a company that fidelity investments? Well, they're gonna, they're saying they're gonna manage your money responsibly and ethically. They're going to be faithful in the management of your money and they're not gonna, you know, blow it is the idea of high fidelity. Audio, uh, reproduces a sound very. True to the original, right? It's the fidelity and the recording of that we have infidel. Well, if we talk about Islam, we, the, the word infidel pops up quite a bit. We don't, we, we just typically say unbeliever. If someone's not a believer, they're just not a Christian or they're unbeliever, but it's the same thing. Really infidel without faith. They're not non believing, right? They're unbelieving infidel. We have the word confide.

Notice in all these words, they have that FID in there, right? Uh, confide. If we can fight, if I can find something to you, uh, uh, I am telling you something, I'm entrusting it to you, and, and maybe it's a secret. I'm confiding something you, I want you to keep it a secret and you know, you need to be, you need to be faithful to keep that and not, you know, not tell it to the world. If it's, if it's setting confidence right in confidence where there's the word diffident. I. I don't think I have that as a regular part of my vocabulary, but it is an English word, diffident. It means lacking confidence. And then we have a good old Latin phrase that we use. I at least, I think it's supposed to be said in good Southern English, bona fide, you know, bona fide. That's a Latin Englishization. I don't know if we say it in the English way. It's probably bona fide if you were to say it in the Latin. But bona fide means literally in good faith, genuine or sincere.

I just looked up an example of how it would be properly used in a sentence. And the sentence would be something like, he is a bona fide expert in marine biology and has been in this field for 20 years, has experience for 20 years or something like that. That's a genuine. And he's a faithful and genuine marine biologist. It's not, he's the real deal. It's not just sort of appearing to be something that's not actually the case. And so when you see all those words, and maybe I'm more interested in the etymology than some of you are here, but I think it's interesting that we have it very much in the words we use in the everyday conversation with people, with one another. We have to have faith in, I have to have a certain degree of faith in what you tell me to say, well, that must be the case because that person is trustworthy. I have reason to believe that this is true because brother so-and-so or sister so-and-so told me that they witnessed it. They saw it and they've experienced it. And therefore, that is the reality.

I don't say, well, you know, if I'm, if I'm talking about somebody that likes to tell tall stories, then my faith and confidence in that person is going to be a good bit lower. Let's say, well, take that with a grain of salt, right? Now take that with a grain of salt because they depends on which version of that person we've got today, whether they're actually telling the truth or they're not telling the truth about this matter. And so there in, we have this understanding. What, what do we want to put faith in? We want to put faith in something that's true, faith in something that's real faith in something or someone that is telling us the truth, not lying to us, because if you put your confidence, if you lean on a rail and the rail falls over, you're probably not going to lean on that rail again. If you sit in a chair and it falls to the ground, you're not going to sit on that. Right?

For brother Pete, my father sitting in a swing with his boss, man, one day at the house, the boss man came over to the house and they were sitting out there talking and he had lag screws holding that, or I guess with the little eye, you know, that you hang the hooks from the swing into anyway, they were, they were screwed up into the rafter above on the porch and they fell to the ground. They fell very loudly to the ground. And I know that had to be embarrassing for dad that day, but one thing's for sure. He didn't get back in that swing with those three inch bolts. He got our screws. He got in there. He put six inch ones in there before he got back in that swing because the truth was it did not hold. They, he just assumed it would hold, but it did not. Pastor Peacock is often mentioned in the past. He said, every Sunday we come in here and we sit down on these pews because we just believe they're going to hold us. They've held us. Every other time. Right. And they haven't broken on us or fallen through.

Now, in our passage this morning, we see that faith is the substance of things hoped for. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. This literally the construction of the word in the Greek means something that stands under. Well. This is. This is holding it up. Right. This is supporting something that's standing underneath of it. I am standing on something that's holding something else up. Well, faith is the substance. It is the ground. It is the stable support on which hope is built. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Well, what? Why is that? It's because the thing or the person or the. The word that I have faith in is true. My faith is only as good as the objects or the word or the person that my faith is resting in. And so we very much and we're going to see it this morning that have the idea is coming through that faith. Faith is resting on something solid. Not on. Not on a lie. Not on a. I hope it works out, but on substance, on reality, on on truth.

You know, lies are mirages, aren't they? Lies appear to be something. And then we find out they're not what they appear to be. It appears that this is good. It appears that this will be helpful. It appears that this is this is true. And yet it's not. It appears and it appeals. But no, with faith, faith is the substance of things hoped for. It is the evidence of things not yet seen, not seen. They will be seen, but they have not yet been seen. I I can can hear you tell me something. You can say I have been to, you know, someplace in Washington state or some someplace. And I can tell you all. I can tell you all about that place. I know you've never been there before, but don't waste your time. Don't go over here because you'll. This is a this is a money trap over here. This is a tourist trap. You really want to go over here and visit this thing. And, you know, if I have confidence in your word that you're telling me the truth, I'm just going to go out there and. On what you told me. And that's the idea, even though I haven't yet seen that place. Or maybe you say this is the most wonderful dish. You ought to try it. Well. I haven't yet seen it, haven't yet tasted it, but because I believe what you've told me, that's what my hope is resting on. That's that's where my hope is.

And then we see the faith is the substance of things hoped for. But it is the evidence. It is the evidence of things not exposed to convince of a reality by, well, uncovering the really the truth of a matter. Right. But but to convince to to bring something to light. And so faith is the evidence of things not seen. And therefore, I am convicted of those things that I have not seen. I am. I believe. Yes, I'm convicted that this is true, even though I have not seen it. That is what faith is. I believe it's it's true. God has given each one of us a conscience, hasn't he? God has given you and me a conscience. He's given everybody. He didn't give it to us when we got saved, when we put our faith in him. He he gave us a conscience from the beginning. We have a conscience, each one of us. And that conscience is like a little witness on a stand. And that witness is either accusing us of not living consistently and thinking or speaking or whatever consistently with the standard that we hold others to or that we hold to be that we know to be good or bad. The conscience could be weak. But even even the. The weakest conscience knows some things are wrong and some things are right.

You know, a child instinctively by conscience knows it's wrong to kill somebody. Right. It's wrong to murder. You don't murder. You don't harm. You don't hurt someone else. And unbelievers, we thought about the word infidel unbelievers. It's amazing how sensitive an unbeliever's conscience is. To the wrongdoing of other people. Right. Maybe not myself. But look at the unethical behavior of these politicians. Look at the unethical behavior of this, you know, council person or that individual or this business. They treated me wrong. Well, you know, the difference between right and wrong. You know, it's wrong to take from somebody, especially when they're taking from you. Right. You know, it's wrong for someone. Someone. The image of an innocent individual or a weak or a harmless individual, you know, individual that's not able to defend themselves. You know, that's wrong. And so we have a conscience. That's wrong. You shouldn't do that. That's right. We shouldn't do that.

But what about when God begins to speak to the conscience of a child? It could be something very simple. A conscience of us individually. Maybe an adult. But when God speaks. To that conscience. What do we. What do we do with that? What do we do when God begins to speak to the conscience?

What's the purpose of a witness in a courtroom? A witness is helping to establish a case which is supposed to be establishing the truth. Right. The witness says. I saw him. I saw her. Do this. And then another witness comes in and says, I saw them do that, too. And another witness. And you get several witnesses that are saying the same thing. And in, you know, cross-examination, they don't contradict themselves or whatever. That's going to begin to form. Right. It's going to begin to form for the jury a picture because the jury wasn't there. It's going to begin to form a picture of what the reality, what the truth of this. Matter is.

We read in our text this morning about something we weren't there for. In the past. In Hebrews 11, verse three, it says, 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. Now, of course, we have passages like Romans. Chapter one. Remember, in Romans chapter one, it says for the invisible things of him. Verse 20 from the creation of the world are clearly seen. Being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power in Godhead. So that basically in so many words, it says there that we are without excuse. We are without excuse because there are certain things conscious. Our conscience may not know everything. But we can. We can even use the God given eyes that we have and the ears that we have, the mind that he's given us the conscience. And these are witnesses of God, aren't they? They're witnesses. And when God gives us his word, I think of those that are have come to the realization God is real. If we believe that God is real. Well, verse six, I'm going to get to this in a few moments, but it tells us we must believe that he is. Right. We must believe that God is real. Yahweh, the eternal existent one. I am. He is. He is real. What you think about him doesn't make him unreal or real. He just is real. He is the true one, true God.

But we see also that now we begin as we we know that there is a God. And then we begin to realize God. He has revealed things about himself in his word. He's told us and through faith in that word, we understand things that we weren't there to see, right?

God, first of all, has has dealt with our conscience as Christians this morning. He's dealt with us how we came to put our faith in him because we realized, like the woman at the well. Come. You haven't done that much. You haven't done anything wrong. But you can be a good priest. You can believe. You can believe in God. You can believe there are soldiers and priests and so on. So God has told me all that I ever did. He knows me. He created me and he knows me. He has told me the truth. About who I am. He's told me my heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. And it is. He's told me that I, I have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And I have if we're honest, I talked about this morning briefly in the Sunday Gazette, Sunday Gazette, Sunday Gazette, Sunday Gazette. Sunday Gazette. school hour how one day the the very conscience will be laid bare at the judgment and God will reveal the secrets of hearts well isn't it amazing even a child can understand right a child can know a child can believe in fact we are given the example of the faith of a little child the faith of a little child to to simply trust God and trust

and then if we if we trust God then we need to say well what does God say if we know God is real then what what is what has God said to us if God has made all these things that he's made surely he has something to say to us and he does in his words look at if you will in in John chapter 8 look at if you will in in John chapter 8 with me with me for a moment

you know it's interesting to me that four times in the New Testament we have faith and a good conscience mentioned together faith and good conscience are mentioned hand and glove together and I believe they do go hand and glove if we're come to believe that God is we must have a conscience a right conscience before God we must not we must not kill that conscience we must like we see in Romans chapter 1 we must say yes I can see there's a God and then believing there is a God we must have a good conscience toward his words and if we have a good conscience toward his word you know what's going to happen we're going to get saved and then we're going to with a good conscience we're going to grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ the only thing that's going to keep us back from that is a is a is a It's a conscience that has been damaged. A will, we could talk about the will too. The will says, no, I don't want to do that. It comes down to our heart, doesn't it? Toward God. A heart, we have a heart of faith. Or do we not believe? Do we not believe what he tells us in his word?

Well, here in John chapter 8, we have this example of a woman taken in adultery. At least so they said, assuming that they were telling the truth. In that, John chapter 8, verse number 1, Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives. And early in the morning, he came again into the temple. And all the people came unto him, and he sat down and taught them. And the scribes and the Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned. But what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last. And Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst.

Now let's stop there for a moment. I think this is a profound scene here. Every last one of them with their conscience realized, you know, I should probably be stoned too. I certainly shouldn't be throwing any stones because I have sinned. Well, that's something to be said that they would even admit that. They would even acknowledge it by walking away and dropping those stones. The conscience that this woman, who was evidently in open sin, who was caught in the act of sinning, and yet the Lord is telling them, you do not have the right to be the final judge in this matter. You have sinned as well. Or he didn't even say that. He said, if he that is without sin, let him cast the first stone. And then what does he say to the woman? He's not justifying her sin in this by any means. He lifted him up when Jesus had lifted up himself and saw none but the woman. He said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She said, no man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee. Go. Go and sin no more. Thank God for a clean conscience, a cleansed conscience. I believe that day that woman received such and she, my sins are blotted out, buried in the depths of the deepest sea. I can serve God because of what Christ has done on the cross for me with a clean conscience, with a pure conscience, can serve God.

It is the same conscience that convicts us of sin. It's necessary. It's necessary that we must realize the truth is, yes, I have sinned. And when we look at Pilgrim's Progress, we look at that story. And anytime we see that Pilgrim comes across someone, whether they jumped over the wall some other way or they, you know, he begins to question them. And you always see there's an issue when there wasn't, a convicted conscience of sin coming to the cross. And they have some good works that they did, or they had some other thing that they did, you know, formalist and all of these kinds of people. There's always some issue because they don't actually believe what God's word fully says. They have some other, some other construct that they've made, but their faith is not in the actual word and words of God. It's in themselves. Ultimately, it's faith in them, faith in what they can do, faith in any number of things, but it's not in Christ. It's not in him fully. It might appear initially to be, but it's not actually resting in my savior as my all in all, standing on the promises of God.

We must stand on the promises of God. We must, we must walk. What do we read? What are we reciting this morning? This is the love of God that we keep his commandments, right? His commandments are not grievous to us. We talk about a faith, which works that work if it operates by love. That's the kind of, that's genuine faith, isn't it? And this woman was now, motivated to go out and sin no more because of a faith that knew that he loved me first. His mercy toward me. He did not condemn me in my sins. He convicted me of my sins, but he did not condemn me in my sins. And I can go out and serve him. I can live for him. That's faith. Faith in God.

God, God, God, God, God, God. If it wasn't for the fact that God is merciful between the law and our conscience, we would be doomed. But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith he loved us, even though we were dead in trespasses and sins, he, he, he saved us and called us with a Holy calling. And now we're not our own. We're bought with a price. We're to glorify God. How do we glorify him? Well, the just shall live. shall live by faith we were born again by faith in the incorruptible seed of the word of god and we are to walk as we receive christ let's walk in him let's walk by faith walk by faith don't turn to the right hand don't turn to the left hand just let your eyes look straight on if something needs to be chastened and dealt with and corrected and he let it be healed and let's make straight paths for our feet let's walk by faith let's not walk by sight let's walk by by faith

what is faith again it's resting it's confiding it's trusting the lord trusting trusting his word um what is it that keeps people from faith i'm a pretty good person i'm a pretty good person right brother brother bergman pointed out in bass bites about his dentists this past week ecare and um you know we we like to we like to frame the narrative don't we well everybody's but i'm still a pretty good person you know i like i like to just kind of not make myself sound too good, but not too bad either. That's just human sinful nature, isn't it? I'm an okay guy and not any worse than anybody else kind of thing. Well, why do sinful men do that? They just want to be happy. They want to be comfortable. They don't want to be convicted. They want to feel we, as in our sins, apart from God, want to feel like everything's okay. But what are men playing with when they do that?

An invaluable eternal soul is being toyed with, is being played with, and we're willing to have, the question will be in the end, are we willing to have? Comfort at the cost of the truth. Are we willing to have comfort at the cost of sacrificing what is actually true, which my conscience is saying, this is right and this is wrong? We can apply that to unbelievers and we can also apply it to believers, can't we? Can apply it as Christians in our lives. Are we going, are we going to, to hold faith, and a good conscience before God, or are we going to say, I love pleasure more than I love God? That's the characteristic of our times, of the perilous last days, that men will be lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. Well, I know it might not be right, but it feels good. I know it might not be right, but it kind of makes me feel good about myself.

No, that's a dangerous sign. That's not true faith, is it? I can sort of cherry pick what I want from, no, every word of God is pure. Every word of God is applicable to you and to you and me. And so if you have cancer in your body, I would hope that you and I would want to know, right? Well, just not knowing isn't going to make the cancer go away. I need to know, well, so that I can address it, right? So that there can maybe some remedy, some treatment, some help for this. At the very least, and this is not least, but I'm just saying, immediately I need to begin to pray, Lord, would you have me to do certain treatments? Or, you know, Lord, if it be thy will, touch me and heal me. But I don't need to just act as if I don't have a cancer, right? I could say that's a hard pill to swallow. But nonetheless, it's true, I have cancer. And so I can't act as if it is not the case.

I can't act as if this is not a reality. Genuine faith is a firm persuasion, a firm conviction that something is true. And then once I say that is true, then I'm going to need to submit myself to that truth, right? I'm going to need to submit myself to that which I say is true. And then what's going to happen? What's going to happen? What's going to happen? What's going to happen? What's going happen as I submit myself to the truth in simple faith, what's going to happen is just like grape juice comes out of a grape and olive oil comes from olives, so a faith that is not dead will result in good works. It will result, there will be something to show for it. Jesus said you'll know them by their fruits, right? If I have genuine faith, James talks all about this, there will be some evidence of that, right? There will be fruit of faith. There will be a fruit to be seen.

We read this morning here in Hebrews chapter 11 that, well, a number of elders are mentioned here, but that, gained a good report by faith, one of them being, we see here, Abel. Abel, evidently, even though we're not told, we don't have the exact words that God gave to Abel and Cain about the type of sacrifice, we do see that God expected of them not to bring the fruit of the ground, but to bring a lamb, right? To bring a blood sacrifice, a blood offering. And Abel, you know, he didn't just, you know, I believe God. I'm still going to do what I want to do, but I believe God. No, he offered a more excellent sacrifice and obtained witness, more excellent than Cain, and by which he obtained witness that he was righteous by faith. The righteousness comes by faith. It wasn't simply the act of offering the animal, it was the heart of belief that led him to offer the animal. In faith to God, that God accepted the sweet smell of the sacrifice of faith on his part, the faith-filled sacrifice that he made to the Lord. And it says, in God testifying of his gifts, and by it he being dead, yet speaketh.

We saw Enoch. Enoch had this testimony that he pleased himself. No, he had this testimony that he pleased God. He had the testimony, that he walked with God. That's quite the opposite. I want to serve. I want, I want to be a Christian. I want to, it's easy. There's, there's many places now that you can be a Christian. And I mean, it's very hard, in fact, to find anyone that will not, will admit that they're not a Christian anymore. It seems like so, so many say they're Christian, but, but if I am a Christian, what is that going to do? It's going to, it's going to make a difference in the way that I think and the way that I speak and the way that I act. Christ is the difference in my life. And, and with, with Enoch, he believed and therefore he walked with God and had this testimony that he pleased God. He pleased God.

And then think about Noah with me. We didn't read for far enough down to see Noah, but I thought about Noah. What, here's another example of one that truly, believed God. He rested on God's promise and God's, and he, and he took to heart the warnings that God gave. And what was it that was seen with him? He was moved with fear, right? He was moved with fear to prepare an ark, to build an ark here in verse number seven, to the saving of his house by the witch, he condemned the world. Well, by his actions, he condemned the world. By the fact that his life bore out the difference of heart between him and those that mocked and scoffed at him. He condemned the world through his simple obedience. I mean, Abel condemned Cain and Cain, Cain was envious and Cain was jealous and Cain was convicted because of Abel's obedience. And in the same way, we, we have this with Noah because he was moved by the fear of God in faith. It, what God had said, and it was not, it was through this faith that he became heir of the righteousness, which is by faith.

You see, it's more than just darkening the door of a church. It was more even with Noah than simply building an ark. It was the faith that he had in the warning that God gave that led him to build the ark that God saw. It was the faith that led to the building of the ark. It was the faith that led him to build the ark that God saw. It was the faith that led him to build the ark that God saw. And so that was the building of that ark. But then we notice in verse six, verse six here this morning, but without faith, but without faith, it is impossible to please him. It is impossible to please him. For he that's cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. It was said that John Patton, when he went to the New Hebrides island, and ministered there to those South Sea islanders was making a Bible translation for them.

And there was not a word in their vernacular for faith. They didn't have a word for that. And so he was praying and searching and trying to find what word am I going to use? How am I going to express this understanding so that they will understand what faith, what's that word mean? And it was said that one day he was in his hut translating the Bible and a native came running in to his study and he flopped down exhausted in a chair across from him after this long hunting excursion that he had been on and he said something to the effect of, it's so good to stretch myself out and rest my whole weight in this chair. And when he heard that, when John Patton heard those words, he said, aha, that's the concept. That's what I need right there. And so the equivalent of what he wrote was something to stretch ourselves on Christ or something like that or to rest or to stretch on Christ. And they understood what it meant.

And I thought, I think of this passage, if we read verse six with that in mind, think of it with those words in verse six, but without resting or stretching oneself out upon God, it is impossible to please him, right? Without resting, it is impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must, well, how could we say it? Put his whole weight upon the truth that God is. He must put his whole weight upon the truth that God is and put his whole weight upon this understanding that now if I believe that God is, I also believe that he's a rewarder of those that diligently seek him. You know, our life will have to bear out, the faith, not just our words, but our life. Because the life, if I say I trust you, you say, you ought to try this. It's really good. I say, I believe you. And I never try it. Then you might wonder, well, does he actually believe what I told him? Because he didn't actually try it. He just said he believed it.

Well, faith is resting on the Lord. And we're all, we can make the application, pray the Lord will help us all to make the application in our lives. We're all going through things right now. We're going through things we know we have right in front of us this week. We're just going to need to rest on the Lord about it. Like that tired, exhausted hunter from the jungle came in and rested on that chair. Lord, I just, I just rest on you about this and trust your wisdom and trust your way. Trust your word. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, help us as we've seen these things today now to not just file them away in some dark corner of our, of the library of our mind, but to help us to, to put them into practice in our lives in a very real way. Even today, help us to trust, help us to rest fully, put our whole weight down upon you with the things we're facing. Help us to, find you to be wholly true as we trust you wholly in these things. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.