particularly verse five this time. Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Faith, F-A-I-T-H, forsaking all, I trust him. I want tonight to home in on the word faith. The word faith appears, well, only twice in the Old Testament according to the various concordances and that, I was looking up, but I noticed that in the ESV it appears three times, but it's just words that have been changed. But there is, strange enough, in the New Testament, the word faith appears over 240 times. I counted them and that's what I got. So I suppose all of us who are keen to move forward with God should, and we should heed these words of the apostle in our text regarding self-examination. And as it is in our life, we need to examine in great detail. We need to examine invisible qualities by evidence, and that is why we examine our faith by examining our life. Faith is unseen, and it leads us to God, who also cannot be seen. And if we were to see faith, it would never lead us to God. We need to remember that true faith is active, and it produces results, and that faith, can it be seen, should make no difference whatever to its importance in our lives. We read in Hebrews chapter one that Great Faith chapter, that Moses forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. In his ministry, the Lord Jesus made it quite clear how we can see the invisible God. He said, no man has seen God at any time. The only begotten son of the Father, he has delivered him. And how do we see God? We see him by looking at the life of Jesus. And by all he did and all he said, Jesus described to us as the Father in heaven. In 1 Corinthians 11, verse 28, The Apostle Paul exhorts us in words many of us are familiar with, used in our communion services, let a man examine himself. And Paul did this because the absence of self-examination among believers in the Corinthian church was resulting in many of them being weak and sickly and spiritually inactive. Today, a little more self-examination might avoid a lot of problems which come because of our failure to correct what is wrong. It is this failure which causes us untold difficulty. It is your faith and my faith we must examine. The early church quickly came to use the words, the faith, to describe the whole Christian doctrine, and it is a term which arose out of Christian living. Believers in the early church knew changed lives because they experienced the living Christ. It is the foundation laid for us by the apostles and prophets, and one to which we must all subscribe, and one upon which we must all build. But when you and I examine our faith, we are not concerned with the foundation already laid that we were looking to illustrate this. We have only to look again in Acts chapter three, where we read of the man healed at the gate beautiful. by faith in the name of Jesus, this man was healed. And as more and more turned to the Lord, this personal faith became known as the faith. So the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy towards the end of his life and said, I have kept the faith. That is to say, if you examine my life, you would have my personal faith in line with the foundation of faith that is laid down by the Lord and conveyed through the Holy Spirit to the church. He meant his personal faith revealed by holding fast the true revelation of Christ that had involved much suffering for Christ's sake. We do not find self-examination easy because we approach the examination with a foregone conclusion. to conduct an impartial inquiry into our own conduct can be difficult. C.H. Spurgeon says that, to many people, faith seems a hard thing to exercise. The reality is, it is only hard because it is easy. There is nothing about it to confuse anyone, but because everybody expects to be puzzled by it, many are somewhat bewildered when they find it to be so very simple. The fact is, we do not believe that God means what he is saying, and so we act as if it could not be true. Spurgeon then told of a Sunday school teacher who performed an experiment on his class. His teacher had been trying to illustrate what faith was and could not get it into the minds of the boys. And he took out his pocket watch and said to one of them, I'll give you this watch, John, will you take it? And John wondered what the teacher could mean and made no answer. The teacher said to the next boy, Henry, here is the watch, will you have it? And the boy very politely replied, no, thank you, sir. And the teacher tried several of the boys with the same result, till at last a youngster who was not so wise or so thoughtful as the others, but rather more believing. He said in the most natural way, thank you, sir, and he put the watch in his pocket. Then the other boys woke up to the startling fact their companion had been given a watch which they had refused. And one of the boys quickly asked, can he keep it? Of course, the teacher said he can, of course he can, said the teacher. I offered it to him and he accepted it. I would not give a thing and take it back again. And each one protested and said, I did not know you meant it, sir, but I thought this and thought that. No one took the gift, but everyone thought. Each one had his theory, except the simple-minded boy who believed what he was told and got the watch. Spurgeon went on to say, apart from saying that he wouldn't use that to legislation because it would be quite expensive. But Spurgeon went on to say another part that, now I wish that I could always be like a simple child and literally believe what the Lord says. and take what he puts before me, knowing that he is not playing with me and that I cannot be wrong in accepting what he sets before me in the gospel. If only we would trust and raise no questions, but we keep thinking of doubts. When the Lord lifts up his dear son, Before a sinner, that sinner should take him without hesitation. If you take him, you have him, and no one can ever take him away from you. Why won't you put out your hand and take him at once? When inquirers accept the Bible as literally true and see that Jesus Christ is really given to all who trust him, all the difficulty about understanding the way of salvation vanishes like the morning's frost at sunrise. And another part of the same book that, by the way, the book is around the Wicket Gate, I'm sure you've all, most of you have read it anyway, and it's been updated and reprinted by Peter Masters of the Metropolitan Tabernacle. And I think every home should have a copy of that book. Spurgeon says again, God has made the necessities of life very simple matters. We must eat. and even a child can find the way to his mouth. We must drink, and even the tiniest baby knows how to do this without being taught. Now, faith is, in spiritual things, what eating and drinking are in earthly things. By the mouth of faith, we take the blessings of grace into our spirited nature, and they become ours. I remember many years ago an anecdote that appeared in the Gospel magazine, a reprint from 1859 issue, and I think there was a similar instance of this in Africa. It was somewhere in the in this part of the country when we had several weeks of drought, which it was anticipated would result in fearful consequences. It was ultimately decided by a few godly men to meet for prayer, to ask God to send rain. And at the prayer meeting, a little girl came in, carrying a large umbrella. And the pastor asked her, Mary, what have you brought that here for? And she replied with all simplicity, are we not met to ask God to send rain? And sure he will send it. So I brought this umbrella to keep me dry. And the rain did come, but she was the only one who had faith enough to believe in God. Going over my notes of the sermons last Lord's Day, I liked what our minister said about the the spiritual DNA. But I was interested in, he said that Job was a man of great faith. It took me back to my teenage years, being told of the woman in the northeast corner of Scotland, who was noted for her great faith in God, when one day she was met by a stranger who asked her if she was the woman of great faith. She said, no, I'm the woman of little faith in a great God. And on another occasion, if I remember correctly, was when she was asked where she was going. And she said, I've come from Cape Wrath, and I'm going to the Cape of Good Hope. So a Christian is someone who trusts in God, who believes he is there, totally reliable, and in full control. Perhaps one of the hardest things about the Christian life is the fact that we cannot see most of it. God's presence is everywhere, but we can't see him. His kingdom reigns, but we can't see his throne. We can't see wisdom, heaven, eternity, the spiritual realm. Following Jesus would be so much easier if we simply saw the world as God sees it. That's why we need faith. Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Hebrews 11 one. Faith is like spiritual sight. It is not wishful thinking. It is knowing what is true in the unseen realms and living accordingly. Some of you know I have the privilege of owning one of Robert Murray MacChain's Bibles, and in reading today in his Bible, when it's got Mark 10, and when it's got it there, it's Mark 10 and Romans 10 are the two, there's four sections every day, and if people read these four sections, they can read the Bible twice, the Psalms and the New Testament twice. and the Old Testament once in a whole year. But if you read it, if you take two sections, you can do it in two years. So today it's Mark 10 and Romans 10. And Mark 10, my chain has underlined the words in the story of Bartimaeus. He's underlined the words in verse 47, have mercy on me. And in verse 48, he has underlined the words, thou son of David. And John Blanchard, he tells us that Bartimaeus knew exactly what his need was because of his great faith. Jesus met it completely, and we read that he received his sight. There is a lesson here. As you come to Jesus in prayer and find your needs met by him, never be content to go on living as you did before. step out with the Master into the fullness of life which he has planned and prepared for us. The Christian life is meant to be one of fullness and progress. So I would advise you, if you haven't got a Bible reading plan, to adopt that plan because it's all over the world now, that plan. And Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, he recommended it to R.T. Kendall and to John Stott and many others to adopt the plan for themselves. So at the end of Romans 10, I was reading today that we do have these words, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Warren Worsby says that Jesus questioned to Bartimaeus, what do you want me to do for you? Seems a strange question to ask a blind man. It was a similar question he asked James and John in the same chapter, verse 36. And Jesus wanted to give Bartimaeus the opportunity to express himself and give evidence of his own faith. What did he really believe Jesus could do for him when Bartimaeus called Jesus Lord, he used the title Rabboni, meaning my master. And the only other person in the Gospels who used it was Mary in John chapter 20, verse 16. The beggar had twice called him son of David, a national messianic title, but Rabboni was an expression of personal faith. I have a book in my cupboard, a 30-day devotional on First Thessalonians by Alec Mottier, who spoke on a Wednesday night from this pulpit on one occasion. I give two quotes from his book. You first became aware of God's grace and peace when you were saved, but that was just the beginning. Experiencing God's grace and peace daily nourishes your faith and helps it to grow. Give thanks today for all the evidence of God's grace in your life and rest in his peace. Knowing your wholeness and well-being are not wrapped up in your achievements, but only and always in Christ. The other quote was, circumstances may be difficult and you may feel very weary, but don't give up. Hold on to faith. Faith in Christ saved you. So trust him with every difficulty that you face today. The late Dominic Smart, Aberdeen, in his book, Grace, Faith, and Glory, says, the grace is God's, so is the glory. The grace is God's, so is the glory. The faith is ours, but faith, too, is a gift from God. It is part of the fruit, the evidence and effect of the Spirit in our lives. Why is it essential that we discipline our minds and hearts, which always want to claim some credit, to see faith as a gift? Because otherwise we turn grace into something that we've earned by our faith. Grace is a pure gift. Faith is not a meritorious work. It, too, is a gift. You cannot buy it, or it is no longer a gift. Grace laid hold of by faith, which is the gift of God. A. W. Tozer has written many books in his lifetime. In one of his books, he says, faith is the misunderstood doctrine. In the divine scheme of salvation, the doctrine of faith is central. God addresses his words to faith, and where no faith is, no true revelation is possible. Without faith, it is impossible to please him. Every benefit flowing from the atonement of Christ comes to the individual through the gateway of faith. Forgiveness, cleansing, regeneration, the Holy Spirit, all answers to prayer are given to faith and received by faith. There is no other way this is common evangelical doctrine and is accepted wherever the cross of Christ is understood. Let God be true, but every man a liar is the language of true faith. Heaven approves such faith because it rises above mere proofs and rests in the bosom of God. Faith as the Bible knows it is confidence in God and his son, Jesus Christ. It is the response of the soul to the divine character as revealed in the scriptures. And even this response is impossible apart from the prior and working of the Holy Spirit. Faith is a gift of God to a penitent soul and has nothing whatsoever to do with the senses or the data they afford. Faith is a miracle. It is the ability God gives to trust his son. And everything that does not result in action with the will of God is not faith, but something else short of it. In another book I was reading by Colin Peckham, of the late Colin Peckham of the Faith Mission. He says, justifying faith is the initial act of the Christian life and is accompanied by an inward spiritual change known as regeneration. Faith unites the believer to the living Christ, and this entails a change of heart when our sins are forgiven. Righteousness is imputed in justification and imparted in regeneration. The Christ who died for us becomes the Christ who lives in us. I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me, he testified. And God demands the impossible of all of us for what he demands he supplies. Give what thou commandest, then command what thou wilt, said Augustine. We can all do all the will of God for faith makes his strength our strength. The realization that Jesus Christ is in us makes all the difference. It stimulates dormant faith into positive action. We are none of us where we ought to be. Some of us are not where we hope to be. For us, all examination is good. Where we have turned away, he will turn us back. And where we have fallen, he will lift us up. We'll leave it there. Now time's going on. and