Well, it's sure been my joy to be here this week. Thank you so much for your kindness. And thank you for those that have listened intently. You've put your best face on. This is the only one I got, so it ought to cheer up. You'll soon be dead. Jesus is coming. All right. I broke the batteries. I think. Oh, you did fine. Turn it to wind it up. Yeah. Don't push till it slides in there. There you go. All right. Same question I asked Sunday. How many are here tonight? Why? I think that I think there's three that aren't here yet. that you're sitting there. All right, well, thank you, Pastor, his dear wife and family. Thank you for allowing us to be in your home today. Thank you for the wonderful dinner. Thank you, everyone, for your kindness. And we don't get that everywhere. I'm just a common man, common preacher. I'm not bigger or better or smarter or wiser than anyone, but whatever I am, I am what I am by the grace of God. And if I'm going to try to do anything for the Lord, I'm going to have to do it by faith. Faith is the only thing that pleases God. Once you get your salvation settled, once you know that you're going to heaven when you die and you have the Holy Spirit of God living in you, We need to accomplish something for God. Sometimes it's to bring that carnal nature under control of the new man. But sometimes it's to share the kindness and the neighborliness that we need to give to other people. Sometimes it's a way of having peace even with our enemies that we can try to share the gospel and the love of Christ and to give our life a ransom like Jesus did. We had those missionaries here this week and what they're willing to do is to take uproot their family and go someplace and set themselves down in the midst of people that probably despise them, hate them, don't want to change, don't want to be Christians, but yet they're going to try to convince them. The missionaries are going to try to convince them that they have something that other people need. And that something is someone. And that someone is the Lord Jesus Christ. But we have to exercise faith. It's not just head knowledge when you get saved. You don't just say, well, I believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I believe He died on the cross. rose from the dead, I believe He's gone to heaven, I believe one day He's coming back. Oh, I had that, I had that for 21 years. And you wouldn't have shown me something in the Bible that I didn't believe, but I had never made a commitment of faith to that person that died on the old rugged cross for me. Faith is something that you implement. Something that you don't just have up in your head, but it comes down to your heart. And you fall head over heels in love with Jesus. And you fall out of love with the world. The world hates a Christian. The whole world system is in the lap of the wicked one. But we're left here as ambassadors. We're left here to represent the Lord Jesus Christ. And that system will work if we will use God's system against the world system. And God's system against the world system is faith. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Faith is a work. It works toward God. If it doesn't work, it's not Bible faith. For faith without works is dead. It's a dead faith. It's just words. Just like the pastor was saying, we can sing the songs and say the words, but that doesn't mean we really believe them. We need to believe them, and to believe them is to practice them. To believe them is to speak them from our heart. I believe, therefore have I spoken. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, therefore I prayed. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, therefore I come to church. Because I planned on meeting Jesus when God's people come together. But the source of faith is Romans 10, 17. So then, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. The Bible is the source of faith. I'm not going to preach much on that right now, but faith is not only the source of faith, it's the source of our salvation. We're saved because the Bible says so. But if you don't believe the Bible, you cannot be saved. These are the words which the Holy Ghost teaches. Holy men of God speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. These are the words of the Lord. And the Apostle Paul said, Let any man think himself to be spiritual, let him acknowledge that the words that I speak are the words of God. That's why they've lasted all through these generations. For over 2,000 years, the New Testament has been proven, hammered against. It's been shot at. It's been ripped up. It's people that wrote the Bible and copied the Bible and translated the Bible have died by the millions. so that we can have the Bible in our hands today. Salvation is by faith. But sanctification is by faith. I've had so many people after they get saved say, I don't think I can live that Christian life. I said, don't worry, you can't. The Christian life is a supernatural life. You can only live it by supernatural means or you'll just be just like everybody else. It's my faith that I believe that God can take a carnal person indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God and I can yield to that power within me and He can conform me to the image of Christ. I want to grow up into Him in all areas of my life. I'm going to add to my faith virtue, virtue knowledge, knowledge temper, and I'm going to just keep adding and building myself up in my most holy faith. But if you don't have any faith that God will do it for you, that you're not co-laboring with God on it, and you don't have faith to say, Jesus can help me. Even some worldly people say, Jesus, take the wheel. That doesn't mean pull the wheel off and give it to him. That means just scoot over and let him drive. Let HIM drive. Sanctification is by faith. By whom? Also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God, Romans 5.1. We need to start ACCESSING all these good promises of grace in our life, but you've got to do it by faith. You believe the Bible's Word of God by faith, and you implement it, and you become saved. And you're saved by faith. And that faith brings the grace of God into our life. And then we're sanctified. That means S-A-C-N-C-T. Sanct. That's the root word of saint. When you get saved, you're wanting to become a saint. If you didn't want to be a saint, you didn't get saved. We've complicated a lot of things. It's pretty simple. God will take every sinner just as you are as long as you have no intention of staying just as you are. Because He has no intention of leaving you just as you are. But you have to access that by faith. Sanctification is by faith. And we know that we serve by faith. That's what the missionaries were saying. We're going to these places, San Francisco, No, I just got to take a deep breath on that one. How about downtown Indianapolis? Who would serve here except by faith? By faith. We are serving by faith, because why would I talk to someone that doesn't know anything in the Bible, doesn't care anything about the Bible, doesn't want to be a Christian, doesn't want to live like a Christian, doesn't want anything to do with Christianity, and just sit down and have love and patience and kindness and explain it to them over and over and over again, unless you really believed it could work. Unless you really believe God can take the words and do a miraculous work inside of someone. We serve by faith. Through faith we understand. Let's see. Think of a verse that went with that. But without, oh, I already quoted it. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love. Faith works by the love we have for God. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. And we love the sinner the same way God loved us. Then we love each other, the brethren and the sisters, we love each other by faith. I have been treated better many times in my life by lost people than I have been by saved people, and I had no doubt that they weren't saved people. And I've misrepresented Jesus as a saved person many times. I hated Him because my old man, the old man, he hasn't changed a bit. Michael Jerk Thurmond is still Michael Jerk Thurmond. But Michael Jesus Thurmond, there's a new person inside of me that if I yield to Him, He can bring the good part that He's put in me, He can bring Jesus out of me so that people will hear the words and understand it. But not only that, we study by faith. The reason a lot of people that call themselves Christians don't study the Bible, It's too hard. It's too much. It just takes too long. You read the Bible through in a year out loud slowly for four chapters a day. And the average is about four minutes out loud for every chapter you read. That's general. It doesn't take you all that long to read the Bible. For me, it's 30 pages a day. You do that every day. You'll read the Bible through, the New Testament through twice a year, you'll read the Old Testament through once a year, and then you'll still be able to study and think about it. But I want to get the Word of God in me. Why? Because I have faith that this book will work in me that which is well-pleasing in His sight. So we study by faith. And we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God. And so I want to see how things work. I think one of the greatest scientists in history was a good old man in America that wanted to know what to do with a soybean and wanted to know something. God, what in the world did you make the peanut for? And George Washington Carver, he said, I didn't have any schooling. But I said, Lord, I need to know the understanding of the universe. He said, George Washington, that's too big. He said, Lord, I'd like to have the secrets of chemistry. He said, well, that's too big, too. He said, well, Lord, would you just let me know what in the world to do with a peanut? And he had 3,000 inventions. out of the peanut. And somebody said, well, how did you do it? He said, I meditated on the Bible. I just meditated. And God gave me insights through the Bible. I'm telling you, we study by faith. If you read your Bible and you don't look for anything, you'll not find anything. You will never do anything for God or get anything from God by accident. Everything's got to be by faith and on purpose. If you don't want to be a Christian, don't worry. God's not going to do anything against your will. Everything about Christianity is voluntary. And everything about Christianity is substitution. The way we overcome anything in our life is put something better in our life. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. And so we substitute good music for bad music. And in every area of life, good food for bad food, we were talking about earlier. And so we studied to show ourself approved unto God as workmen that needed not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But some people go overboard on that. They don't just rightly divide the word of truth, they slice and dice the word of truth. It becomes a conglomerated mess. Well, tonight I want to emphasize something else. Bible faith, if it's Bible faith that comes by hearing the Word of God, there are some things it doesn't even consider. See, Bible faith is not, well, I've got this information and I've got this information. Well, if the Bible says that, it's so. It's settled. Forever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven. So you believe it, put it into practice, and God rewards us for obeying His words. I think everybody ought to know the Vacation Bible School song. O-B-E-D-I-E-N-C-E. Obedience is the very best way to show that you believe. The only way the world will know you're a believer is if it shows on you. We're the only Bible the world is reading. And they want to know if it works for you before they're going to hear what you say about it. If it doesn't work, why would they need it? Huh? I wouldn't ask a man that's been married and divorced and remarried 17 times how to have a successful marriage. I'd go talk to somebody like my dad and my mom who were married 78 years. How does it work? How did you do that? It's a miracle. I'm living with a miracle. Okay. Faith does not consider present or personal ability. If God said to do it, well, I can't do it. That's not faith. Faith says, well, there's nothing too hard for God. I can go to downtown Indianapolis. I can go to Castleton area. I can go anywhere in this country. I can go to San Francisco. I can go to South Africa. I can go to the Philippines. I can go to Mindanao, Philippines. I can go down to India, Brazil, Haiti, Mexico. I can go anywhere and I know this book will work. It will work. All people have to do is believe it. It doesn't consider Romans 4, verse 18. I will have you turn here. Romans 4, verse 18 and 19. Talking about Abraham, who was 90 years old, and God said, you're going to have a child. Your wife's 10 years younger than you, and she's going to have a baby, and it's well past age. Well, 10 years later, he's 100 years old, and she's 90 years old, and here she comes having a baby. But why? This is God's answer. Abraham, who against hope believed in hope that he might become the father of many nations according to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. If God said you and your wife are going to have a baby, he didn't even consider. He's an old man, she's an old woman, and she hadn't had any babies. Well, if God said it, I guess that settles it. You know how I'm saved? I believe I'm saved because God said so. I can't look in the mirror and say, you're saved. No, I'm saved because God said so. John 5, 24, �Verily, verily, Jesus said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life, born again.� I�ve got Jesus�s Word on it, so I�m saved because He said so, not because I say so. �He considered not his own body, now dead.� So we're saved by faith, and we serve by faith, and we study by faith, and we sanctify ourselves by faith, but if it's Bible faith, it doesn't consider anything but God. When Jesus said, hey, Peter, come to me on the water, Peter didn't say, well, you know, I don't think I can walk on the water, but Jesus, you said to come, And then the waves started going up and down and up and down. And oh, oh, oh. That's my imitation of, I'm not an actor, I'm sorry. But that's the worst entertainment I get right there. Because when Jesus tells me, you're going to be a preacher, I said, who, me? Does it boy? That's not very good. That's awful. It kept me from getting saved because I knew I was going to be a preacher because I'd already been dedicated to the Lord to be a preacher. But I didn't want to be a preacher. So I'm not even going to get saved. So he can't call me to preach. So I get saved and he calls me to preach. I've never regretted one moment in my life. I've regretted the sorry life I've lived for him. But I've never regretted being saved and I've never regretted... I've never met a born-again Christian that was sorry they got saved. But I've met a lot of sorry Christians. Ben won a timer of 2,000. Faith doesn't even consider past failures. One of the greatest enigmas to me in the Bible is a man named Samson. God called him, put his power on him. He did great exploits. Caught 300 foxes and tied firebrands to their tails. Killed a cape lion like he was a kitty cat. took a new jawbone of an ass, and slew a thousand men hip and thigh. Brute force, not finesse. Wa-ha! No, no. Brute force killed, crushed the life out of a thousand Philistines. But, disobeyed his parents, disobeyed his vow, disobeyed the Nazaretic call, lost his morals, lost his direction. God had his eyes burned out. He lost his hair when they shaved his head. It was a symbol of his power. They made him grind like a mule. made him grind old rhinestone, and they made sport over him, humiliated him. But he dared to pray one more time. In spite of all of his failures, he said, Lord, I've lost my sight, I've lost my power, lost my position, lost my hair, I've lost my My morals? Put your power on me one more time. He pulled the whole temple down and killed 3,000 people. Because he had enough faith. to pray one more time. I know people that have been to an old-fashioned altar dozens of times. They've asked the Lord. They've said that sinner's prayer dozens of times. They've prayed every kind of prayer. They've tried everything. They've tried Jesus over and over and over. But they dared to come one more time. One more time. And God did the work. Because that time they came by faith. Faith doesn't consider past failures. Faith doesn't consider future provision. Most people spend their whole life worrying about the things that Jesus said, don't even think about that, I've got you covered. They spend their whole life thinking, what am I going to eat? What am I going to drink? What am I going to wear? How am I going to get there? How am I going to do? How are you going to supply my house? He said, you do what I tell you to do and I'll cover the cost. It's my work. You're my servant. I'm going to take care of you. Faith doesn't consider future provisions. Therefore, Jesus said, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. It is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment. Behold, the vows of the air they sow not, nor do they reap, nor gather in the barns. Yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? I always tell my wife, we feed the hummingbirds, we feed the birds, we feed the animals and everything. And I said, you don't have to help God. He can feed those birds. And she said, but this is my little responsibility right here. God's using me to help. I'm just, I'm co-laboring with God. So why take ye thought for food, or for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither did they spin. And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothes clothe you, O ye of little faith. Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what withal shall we be clothed? For after all those things do the Gentiles, the heathen, seek. For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all those things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness. Then all these things shall be added unto you." Just do what I say. And that's so hard because this old carnal body, though we have a new person on the inside, it still has to move through this old system. And it's reluctant. It's holding us down. You see, we all still are abiding under the law of depravity. It works just like gravity. You know, there's always something pulling you back down. You come to church on Sunday, you get excited for the Lord Jesus, you get to the altar and you pray and sing the songs and God really pumps you up and lets you, oh, we have met with Jesus today. And you go back and you go to bed and you get up the next morning and you get out and say, oh, I'm gonna have a day like yesterday today. And your body says, get back in bed. I'm not letting you do that again. That was Matthew 6, 25-34. But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory. Jesus doesn't skimp, and I wish preachers would stop telling all the poor mouth stories about how hard it is being a preacher. Yeah, we have tight time, but the Apostle Paul said, I've learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I've learned how to be poor, and I've learned how to have money. I've learned how to be free, and I've learned how to be in prison. I've learned something through all these different things. He said, but faith doesn't consider How is God going to do it? Now, Lord, I'm going to go serve You, but now You've got to give me chapter and verse. You've got to give me on the calendar. You've got to show me how it's going to work. You've got to show me why it's going to work that way. I've got to know all this before I trust You enough to just go do it. I believe I could take a broke-down car Call up Brother Ramsey and say, help me! And I believe he'd get me on the way home. I would have enough confidence to call him. Why don't I have enough confidence to say, Jesus, help me. See, Bible faith doesn't even consider our weakness. We sing the song, I am weak, but thou art strong. Jesus, keep me from all wrong. But we're saying, well, I'm going to keep myself from wrong. No, we can't. Call on Jesus. He's the only one that can save you. He's the only one that can sanctify you. He's the only one that can secure you. Everything's in His hands. Walk with the Lord. Fourthly, faith does not consider permission of men. There are some people who won't serve the Lord unless they can get a whole bunch of people in agreement with it. I'm not a good illustration of anything, but I remember when God said, I want you to go to the mission field and I want you to help in a certain situation. It didn't take three years to get enough money to go do it. We figured a way out to get enough money to do it ourselves. Because God called me to do it. So I've got to find a way to fulfill that call. If I have to pay for it, if I have strong back and strong arms, I'm going to do it myself. If I can't do it myself, He's going to raise up other people who are going to help me do it. I don't have to call 30 churches and ask them to help me. But I'll just go present my work, just like these missionaries do. Just present the work. God will lay it on your knee. And God's people will always answer a necessary need. God's people will come to the rescue. Why? Somebody came to our rescue. Faith doesn't consider permission of men. That is the approval or disapproval of men. I mean, if you took advice and you tried to build your works here according to the way the big boys want it done... Well, I'm from that old school. They taught me saying, well, if you read your Bible like I did, and you prayed as hard as I did, and you knocked on as many doors as I did, you'd run a church of 10,000 just like I do. I said, take that over to Baghdad. Let's see how it works over there. Take that to the inner city and see how that works there. God puts everybody in the place where they need to be. God's the one moving this. He said, well, that just makes us a bunch of pawns. Hallelujah. I'm just scaffolding. I'm just a temporary helper. I just come in, try to help. But when I'm done, you take the scaffold down. I'm not supporting this thing. It's God that's doing that. And you are being instruments in God's hand. Faith doesn't even consider permission. I remember when I built buildings, I didn't get no permits. They put red tags on my building. So I took the red tags off and took it down to their office building and put it on their building. Now, I might not do that now. I'm matured a little bit. But they say they read it because our old part of the building, the doors went in instead of out. Well, on their buildings, their doors went in instead of out. I said, clean up your own country, your own government buildings, before you demand a church building to be updated. And they closed the whole building commission down in Morgan County, Indiana, for about two years over that. So anybody could build anything they wanted to. And that wasn't good either, because... Yeah, never mind. But faith doesn't even consider all the problems that could come because of it. If I go down to that altar and I kneel down and I am asking, Lord, what will these other guys think of me? What will those women think of me? What are the brothers and sisters going to think about me? If I go down there and I say, I've got something wrong in my life and I need help and I need somebody to help me. Well, that's not faith. It's not Bible faith. Bible faith doesn't even consider what other people might think about it. You gotta get over that. Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand, my Father which gave them me. Jesus was pretty up on himself. If I was up on myself, I'd be prideful, but he was just God's man. He was God's son, God the Son. He knew who he was. Faith doesn't consider problems that might be faced. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not into thine own understanding, and in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy path. Be not wise in thine own eyes, dear Lord, and depart from evil. Proverbs 3, 5, 6, and 7. Simon answering said unto Jesus, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing. Nevertheless, at thy word, I will let down the net. Because they had fished all night. Jesus said, go out and take another drop. Put your nets out there, and bring in some fish. We'll take care of your debt. We'll take care of your problem. They said, we've done this all night long. We've got nothing. Jesus said, one more time. Just do what I say." They went out there and they just went halfway. Instead of the nets, he just let down one net. And the net, they got so many fishes, the net was starting to pull apart. They had to call the other boat over to help get that bunch of fish in. If they had put their nets, plural, down, they could have come back and brought the whole load in. Nevertheless, at Thy word, I will let down the man." Faith, once it gets to, well, I know we've told all night, and I know these other guys know, they're not biting out there, the fish aren't coming, they're just hiding out there, they're just settling down on the bottom. We're going to look stupid, nobody's going to accept us, and we're just going to be so different, and everything like that. But at Thy word, I'll do it. When it doesn't really matter, Now you're talking Bible faith. I'm going to do what Jesus commanded. I love those nevertheless's in the Bible, several of them. So faith, Bible faith, doesn't even consider all the things that could happen. I didn't know that when I got saved as a Methodist, And I became a Baptist. That it was going to cause problems in my Methodist family. I knew it. So I'm going to get saved anyway and I'm going to do what this Bible says. Then I became a saved Methodist. And I kept studying my Bible and I finally became a saved Baptist. That felt good in my throat, I don't know why. So I just kept doing it, you know. Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in him, he shall bring it to pass. Lord, if I'm going to be saved, you're going to have to do it. I've tried and tried and tried. He said, trust me. If you could have cleaned your life up, have at it. But I knew I couldn't. I knew he could. And I came one day on Thanksgiving night 1973 in the back bedroom of my father-in-law's house on Chapel Street behind the Coca-Cola bottling company with an old King James Bible I borrowed from my mama's devotions. And I got down on my bed as a miserable hypocrite. I said, God give me something I don't have to pretend about anymore. I don't have to pretend. Now some days I don't look like a Christian, act like a Christian, feel like a Christian. But He's in there. He's in there. And when I don't do right, He's in there. And He knows. And He doesn't let me get away with anything. Bible faith. Bible faith. Doesn't even consider all those things They come through our minds. But if God told me to go to Africa, we figure out how to go. We do what we can, pack our bags, whatever, and we'll start taking off. We went to the India that way. We're going back in March. We're going back to the Philippines and Japan in April. And then I'll be preaching in the Republic of Czech Republic in May. There's two churches that the man said if I can get my dad there, he's got two churches for me to preach in. Then we've got all these other countries of the world. I do the same thing there that I do in this country. Because God loves those folks as much as He loves America. Faith. Bible faith. takes God at His Word. God, how am I supposed to be? What kind of person am I supposed to be? Well, read Galatians chapter 5. It preaches against all those things of the flesh and all those sins of the Spirit. It says, Now walk after the Spirit. Walk after the Spirit. He wrote this book. Walking after the Spirit is walking according to this book. and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For greater is He that is in us than he that is in this world. Trust Him. He'll save you. Trust Him. He'll sanctify you. Trust Him. He'll show you things in this Bible that you didn't believe possible. Trust Him. you'll start understanding what's going on in your life and why God's bringing you through stuff. And if God brings you to anything, He'll bring you through anything. As a pastor, many times, families or Christians would come to me and say, Oh, Pastor, you've got to pray for me. My wife and I have really gone through it. I said, Praise God. I said, You sent it. God brought you through it. He got the Israelites to the Red Sea, but He got them through the Red Sea. My wife and I joke about this. I say, We've had times in our ministry, in our marriage, we didn't think we could go any further. It's over. I've had times in my pastoring, I said, I'm done. At last count, it was 3,764 times we thought it was over for us. You know where all those are? In the past. He's brought us through it. We're here today by the grace of God through faith. Are you exercising faith in the Bible, in God's Word, in Jesus, in the character of God Himself? It was just last week, somebody said, Preacher, my brother is lost and he won't even let me witness to him. And I said, well, go help somebody else win their brother. Because God said, you reap what you sow. If your relative won't listen to you, go help somebody else win their relative. And God will bring someone that can reach your relative. Because we're co-laborers with God. But if you show up anywhere and nobody would know you were a Christian, by life or by lip, You can't witness to them. God's not going to help you. Quote the scripture. Quote the Bible. You're the Bible they're reading. Ye are our epistle, known and read of all men. If it doesn't work for us, they know it won't work for them because they don't have anything like what we have. So go out and show forth Jesus. Let your life so shine before man that they see your good works, your good character, your good morals. They see you. And they believe. If God can change Michael Jerk Thurman, He can do it for me. And He can. Father in Heaven, we love You. Help us to live this thing and work this thing by faith. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.