Hebrews chapter 11, we have been in Hebrews chapter 11 for probably over... over half the year, I imagine, by now. And we're gonna finish it up today. It's been a great chapter to look at all these characters of the Bible and their lives of faith. Hebrews chapter 11, and we're gonna begin reading in verse 33. And who they're talking about in verse 33 and going forward is these previous people and all that they've done. It said, who through faith subdued kingdoms. wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead, raised to life again, and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sewn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better things for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. Let's pray together. Father, we bow our heads to you today. And God, we want to praise you for the great God that you are. Lord, we praise you for being holy and righteous. God, for being loving. God, for wanting to even be a part of people like we are. And guys, we read these verses today about faith. I pray that you'd help each and every one of us to be men and women of faith, people that trust you to do extraordinary things. And God trusts you to just live your life through us. And God, we just wanna praise you for your goodness and grace toward us. And we ask all these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. You know, as we come today, one thing we know is that it's really all about faith today. You know, you came here today, even you being here is an act of faith. You've come and you believe there's a God in heaven that's here and watches us and is worthy to be worshipped. We're not just going through the motions or we're just not here because of whatever. We're here because of faith. You know, the Bible says this, that without faith, it's impossible to please God. Can you believe that? Without faith, it's impossible to please him. And I know as humans, a lot of times we like to operate, and at least I do, in the five senses. I like to operate in things I can see and touch and smell and hear and all that. But as Christians, we've been called upon to live outside of the five senses. We've been called upon to be people of faith. You know, the Bible says this, the just shall live by faith. the just. Those of us that are justified by Jesus Christ should live by faith. Every day that we live should be a faith life. It should be a walk of faith. It's what our lives ought to be. And let me tell you something as a preacher that I truly believe today. I try to live the faith life. There is no other life like it. There's nothing as great in all the world as living a life of faith, living a life in connection with God, a life where you walk and talk with Jesus along life's narrow way. There's nothing like it. There are extreme highs and there can be very difficult lows. There are great days and there are bad days. No one ever said the life of faith was without challenge or was without a bad day. We're gonna see some of that today in our text. But it's about faith today. You know, you got faith today that this Bible is God's Word. You believe that. You believe this is God's Word. You believe the things that it says is true. And you've banked your life on it today, folks. Think about that. You're gonna one day die, and you'll step off into eternity, and you're banking it all on faith that this is true and it's right. It's the deal. The faith life is the deal. You know, I just want to look at some of the things that it says through these verses we read today and just talk about what faith can get you, what faith can do for you, and how faith works. It says over there in verse 33, It says, who through faith wrought righteousness. You know what that word wrought means? It means that they obtained righteousness by faith. Do you know how me and you are going to obtain righteousness today? We obtained it by faith. The Bible says, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that it's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. If you want to be today righteous before God Almighty, you know how you get that way? You get that way by faith. Faith in what? You put your faith in the work that Jesus Christ did on the cross of Calvary. You see, a works-based religion might as well be a crossless religion. If I can work and earn my way there, there was no need for Jesus Christ to come and die. And let me tell you what, I've been around long enough, and it ain't been that long, but it's been long enough to know this, that there's probably people even sitting here that are still trying to make it by works. They still here, they say, hey, I'm doing good. I'm trying hard. I'm trying to be at church. That ain't got nothing to do with the day, folks. It's got to do with whether or not you've ever put your faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior and the Son of God. That's what it's about. Jesus Christ came and died. The Bible, if you've been reading our reading calendar, pick up a reading calendar on your way out and read a chapter of the Bible a day with us. Guess what it said? It said He that knew no sin became sin. That we might become the righteousness of God in Christ. You understand what that says? That means Jesus Christ, who knew no sin, He was sinless. On the cross of Calvary, He became our sin. He became it. He became, Jesus bore on His shoulders all of our sin. Every bad thought I've ever had, every wrong deed I've ever done became Jesus Christ on the cross for me. And God the Father poured out the wrath of God upon Him. Why? That I could become the righteousness of God in Christ. Today, when God sees me, He doesn't see me as I am. He sees me through the blood of the Lamb. Amen? He sees me as righteousness in Jesus Christ. You obtain righteousness only by faith. If you're here today and you're trying to work your way and earn your way there, I want to tell you something. You're on a hamster wheel that says you can get off in a minute but you'll never be able to get off. You'll be running and running and running and trying and trying always coming up empty and always coming up short because I got news for you the Bible says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no not one, that means not me, not you, not anyone you've ever known has been righteous in their selves apart from the gift of Jesus Christ. These folks, these Old Testament saints, before Jesus Christ ever was born on the earth, obtained righteousness by faith that he was coming. See, God said, I'm going to provide a way, and they believed God, and God counted unto them for righteousness. That's what the Bible says about Abraham. These folks obtained righteousness by faith. Today, I stand before you righteous, not in my works, not in my good deeds, not because I'm a preacher, not because I pastor the church, only because of Jesus. he came for you as well. and i want you to know something today. if you're trying to become righteous, then run to the feet of jesus and plead your unrighteousness and your unworthiness and say god i need you to save me. you know i remember when i was a kid and i've told y'all my testimony many times that my parents witnessed to me and wanted me to be saved and i wanted to be saved. i wanted to know jesus. And I asked God to save me so many times. I mean, I asked him to save me. And I just knew, I knew that nothing was different. I knew I was the same as I was, for I prayed that prayer. And I kept wondering to myself what the problem was. I mean, why can't I get saved? I'm asking God to save me. The problem was, folks, that I was trusting in myself. I was trying to pray the right prayer. I was even trying to have enough faith. And one day I prayed to God and I said, God, if you don't save me, I'm not gonna get saved. I can't do this. And Jesus saved me. He wants us to surrender. Surrender to his work, surrender to his will, and we can obtain righteousness today by faith in Jesus Christ. You know, not only that, But look at what else it said in verse 33. It says they obtained promises. You know, God's gave us a lot of promises in the word of God. And you sit here today, and I'm sure some of you say, I want them. I want to have those promises. I want to claim those promises. You know how you claim them? You claim them through faith. You claim them by believing that the word of God is what it says it is, and that God will do what he said he'd do. You know, we serve a God that can do anything. I ask my children sometimes what God can do, and they'll reply, God can do anything. And I ask them, do you really believe that? Because God can do anything, folks. And the promises that God had. He said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. Do you want that promise? You can have it. He said he'd do things that were beyond our expectations and beyond our mental capacities. Do you want those things? You could have them simply by putting your faith in Jesus Christ. You know what the Bible says? It says, be it unto you according to your faith. And I worry about that with me sometimes, do you? He said, be it unto you. You know, I think about what we could have if we just believed. what I got access to if I just simply believe his word and trust it, what all I could have. I remember an old preacher named Lester Roloff was a great man of faith. He did great things and he just lived the faith life. And was saying one day he was praying and asking God, said, God, I wanna walk with you like Elijah walked with you. And I wanna walk with you like Elisha walked with you. And he said, God spoke to him and said, well, go ahead and get started. In other words, he could have it if he had just believed it. Brother Robert gave a devotion this morning on Elijah praying that it had not rained and then that it would rain. And he kept sending a servant out there looking for rain. He said, go look for the clouds coming. Sent him seven times. He sent him an expectation that God was gonna answer his prayers. He believed it. You know, a lot of times we pray, and we pray as though we're rolling dice. We just throw it out there. And we don't really believe God's gonna answer us, but if he did, it'd be nice, but we don't really expect him to. The problem with many of us today, you came to church today, and if I'd ask you just a factual question, I'd say, do you believe God's gonna be there? You'd say yes. Do you believe God's word is gonna be there? You'd say yes. Do you believe that God has a message today? You'd say yes, but we expect very little. We expect very little. Well, I tell you, if the Holy Ghost showed up today in a mighty way, we'd be surprised, because the reason we'd be surprised, very few of us expect him to show up. I mean, there's churches where people don't get saved. You know why? Because nobody expects people to be saved. There's churches where nobody ever comes. They don't expect anybody to come. They expect God to do very little. We're talking about a God that can do anything. And we don't expect him to do the littlest of things. We don't expect him to answer the littlest of prayers. Folks, God can do anything. He said it in his word and we need to believe him and trust him at his word and take him at his word and claim the promises of God. He said, hey, let me tell you what, some of you don't believe that God's forgiven you of sins. He said, if you confess your sins, I'm faithful and just to forgive you of all your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteous, but we just hang on to them. We put them under the blood and then say, oh, they're not forgiven. God hasn't done that. You wanna walk in forgiveness? without the guilt of sin weighing hard on your soul, then just claim the promises of God that he forgave me. And I'm right with him and get up and walk on and move on from God and do these things. Claim the promises of God. You know what else faith can do today? I like this. Faith can do impossible things. Look at what it said. It said in verse 33, who through faith subdued kingdoms, Man, you ever think about them Old Testament saints? Israel facing innumerable odds. I mean, ain't no way they're gonna be able to win. It's the David and Goliath scenario time and time again. And yet God subdued kingdoms before them, supernaturally defeated them. Look at what else it says down on a little ways. It says at the bottom of the verse, it stopped the mouths of lions. You remember they threw him all into the lion's den? Daniel get thrown into the lion's den? He's sleeping on lions, laid back with them. You know what they should have done? They should have ripped him to pieces, because they hadn't been fed in a few days, and they threw him down there to be ate by the lions. But guess what? Faith stopped the mouths of the lions and kept them shut. Imagine if you were thrown into a lion's den today. Would we trust God to be able to deliver us? Faith does impossible things. It says on down there in verse 35, women receive their dead raised to life again. Faith raises the dead. Now folks, I know we're all sitting here today and we're saying, those are all good stories, but it can't happen today. God can still do anything. He can do anything he wants to. The reason why he doesn't do much is because our faith is so little. The reason why we haven't seen the things that God wants to do is because our faith is being under you according to your faith. We've had what we believe what we could have, instead of trusting God for impossible things. But let me tell you what about faith. There is a thing where faith and works meet. You know, over there in James, he said, you say you believe, that's nice, but I'm gonna show you I believe. And all throughout the scriptures, guess what we see? We see faith and God's answers being met by people that are being obedient to what God said to do. You see, we think God's gonna, let me tell you what, God ain't gonna save nobody if nobody witnesses it to him, amen? Ain't gonna happen, we got a role to play, we got a job to do. Ain't nobody gonna come unless we invite them. How can they hear without a preacher? How can he answer prayers if we're not praying? There is a responsibility that we have. I can take you throughout all the scriptures. I can show you where human responsibility meets divine operations. I think about Lazarus dead in the tomb. Jesus shows up. They said, Jesus, you're four days too late, buddy. By now, Lazarus stinks in the grave. Now, you know what Jesus could have done? He could have spoken all into existence, but you know what he does? He lets people play a part in divine operation. He said this, he said, y'all roll that stone out of the way. And that was an act of faith. Because they could have said, he's dead, he stinks, we're not gonna upset the family, we're not gonna do all this, and you asking us to do all that? You know what they did? They rolled the stone away. It was an act of faith, but it was a work. And then Jesus said this, Lazarus, come forth. He spoke life back into Lazarus' body. Boy, Lazarus got up and walked out, and he was bound with them linen clothes. You know what he could have said? He could have spoke them off, but he said, now y'all take them linen clothes off of him. I think about the wedding feast when he turned water into wine. You know what he said? He said, y'all fill these pots full of water. And they, by faith, went and filled the pots full of water. See, because they could do that. God's not gonna do what you can do. God's only gonna do what he can do. God only works in the supernatural. He only works in the impossible. So he's not gonna paint these walls, folks. He ain't gonna come change that ceiling tile right there. I'm gonna have to do that. He's not gonna build this building over here that we're doing. He's not gonna do what we can do. But you know what he'll do? He'll do what only he can do. He said, fill them pots full of water. They filled them to the brim. You know what he did? He turned that water into wine. And he said, now y'all start passing it out. I think about when he fed 5,000 with five loaves and two fishes. He said, tell these folks to sit down. They said, we ain't got but five loaves and two fishes. He said, tell them to sit down. They said, y'all sit down. He took them five loaves and two fishes and broke them up and said, y'all start passing it out. Now, you know what they could have said? They could have said, this is ridiculous. They could have said, this isn't enough to feed four of us, much less 5,000. But by faith, they began to pass that food out. And they took up fragments in baskets and had leftovers left. Can you believe that? They had the people sit down, and they, by faith, began to pass out the food. I think over in the Old Testament, he told them, he said, y'all get some shovels and dig this valley full of ditches. You won't see any rain and you won't see any wind, but I'm gonna fill them up with water. And they had to get the shovels and start digging. But they did it and he filled them full of water. My point is today, if you wanna see divine operation, it's more than just sitting back and saying, God, we want you to do it. Of course we want him to do it, but he wants us and expects us to do what we can do. The Bible says you have not because you ask not. I would say today that the reason why most of us don't have anything is because we have asked for nothing. We've asked for nothing. We haven't asked for God to show up supernaturally. We haven't asked for God to work in our lives. We haven't asked for any of those things, and because of that, we have nothing. You must ask. You must work. You must operate in what you can do so God can do what he can do. It says, some of you ask amiss. In other words, you ask and you don't believe God's gonna answer it. I must confess, I've done that before. I've asked God for things that I did not believe he'd answer. I did not believe he'd do. I did not believe he could do. And because of that, I did not get what I wanted. It's just the facts of the matter. You know, oftentimes I pray like this. I pray like the man. who said, God, I believe, but help my unbelief. I think most of us would be there. We'd say, God, I believe, but help my unbelief. And God answered that man's prayer, and he gave him what he asked for. And so if you have a struggle living by faith, and I understand it, ask God to bless you despite your lack of faith. Tell him you wanna believe, but you need help. These people saw faith do impossible things. They saw the lion's mouths closed. They saw the violence of fire quenched. They saw all these things. The dead raised back to life. You know what else faith can do? Faith can deliver us. I've got to move quickly. Verse 34 says they escaped the edge of the sword. Faith can deliver us from anything we're facing. I want you to know that. He can deliver us from hard times. He can deliver us from what seems to be a no way out situation. By the way, God can still heal the sick. Miraculously, He can do it. He can deliver us. But we gotta have faith, amen. And we gotta believe Him. We've got to believe he can do those great things. God is still the same God of the Old Testament. He's still the same God that walked on water and raised the dead and gave the blind back their sight. We still serve the same God. Look at what else it said. It said in verse 34, they escaped the edge of the soil or out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Well, faith will defeat our enemy. You wanna know how to defeat Satan today? By faith, by faith. The Bible says resist the devil and draw nigh to him. You wanna know the escape that God has gave for us? He gave us an escape from the enemy in Jesus Christ. You gotta run to him by faith. The problem is a lot of us try to fight him. We try to rise up, say, I'm gonna try harder, I'm gonna do more. No, you need to run to Jesus, amen? and by faith run to him. He will defeat our enemies. I got news for you today. As our church, I pray, becomes more of a church of faith. You know, we've been doing this deal, come by if you live close by, if you take the time to, stop by in here and pray. And several people have testified to me about how good it is to come and get in the presence of God. But I got news for you. Do you know who the devil will attack? He will attack those that are praying. He's gonna try to knock us. You know what he wants us to do? Shut that down. He don't want us coming up here praying every day. I can promise you. He doesn't want us crying out to God. Cause you know what he knows? He knows if we pray, we can have what God can do. And he knows if we don't, we can just do what we can do. He can handle us, but he can't handle God. And so what he doesn't want us to do is to be crying out to a God that hears us and answers our prayers. Boy, when we pray, we move the hand that moves the world, and he doesn't want that. He wants us silent. So I want to tell you, the attacks will come. They've been coming. Boy, I can tell you what, the devil's been attacking me. And I know why, because I'm leading God's people to pray. And I just turn to the Lord and I run to him and I say, God, I trust you in all these things. It's all I can do. I can't, I ain't gonna lie to you and tell you, I don't try to bear some of the burden, but I know I can't do it. And I come up short and I fail and I got to run to him. God can deliver us from our enemies. By the way, if you think we don't have enemies, or you don't think you'll be attacked, well then we won't be like Jesus, amen? There'll be people that don't like us. There'll be people that talk about us, slander us, slander our families, do the whole thing. But they did it to Jesus and the disciples, and they'll do it to us. All those things are great, aren't they? But there's another side of faith that we would be wrong to not touch on. It says down there in verse 35, and listen to this. First off, if you go back to verse 34, it says this, out of weakness were made strong. That's kind of the premise behind the next part of this. It said, and others, in verse 35, and others were tortured. not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Listen to this. And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, and yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonments. They were stoned. Folks, they were thrown down and had stones hailed upon them. Listen to me, till they died. Can you imagine being beaten with stones till you die? Since they were sown asunder, they were cut in half. They were tortured, they were beaten, they were imprisoned. Goes on down here, says they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, and tormented. Verse 38 says the world wasn't worthy of these types of people. They wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. My point is this, the flip side of faith is this, God will give us, let me tell you what faith can get us. Faith can get us impossible things, faith can get us righteousness, faith can claim the promises of God, faith can defeat our enemies, it can deliver us, but it also can give us the strength to endure very difficult days. You know, we read about these same, you know, those same people that handed out the five loaves and the two fishes were the same people that were martyred for the cause of Christ. Same people. The same John the Baptist that preached and told the crowd, you're a generation of vipers. It's the same one that was beheaded. Same faith, same God, same faith. So I wanna tell you something today, if he doesn't deliver you, guess what he'll give you faith to do? He'll give you faith to endure. Because we're going about, listen to this, we're looking for a city. whose building and foundation is of God. We're pilgrims passing through this land. And as we look to the spiritual things, God can give us faith to endure. I always love the three Hebrew children that they threw into the fiery furnace and their attitude that they had. Because here's what they said. They said, if you don't bow to King Nebuchadnezzar's statue and all this other stuff, we're going to throw you in this fiery furnace. And here's what they said. They said, our God is able to deliver us out of your hand. But if he doesn't, we're still not going to bow to you. Here's what they said. God's able to do whatever he's going to do. We're going to trust in him. But either we will be delivered out of this fire or we'll burn in it. But we're going to trust God. We're going to trust God. That's what these people did. I want to tell you, sometimes the answer God gives us to our prayers is no. And we got to accept that by faith. Sometimes he doesn't deliver us out of everything. Sometimes hard times will come. Sometimes we'll be faced with persecution and martyrdom and all these things, but God will give us grace and the faith to endure it. I think about Stephen being stoned to death and saying, God laid out their sin at their charge. And he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of the father. Folks, people of faith are rare people. The Bible says that he's called upon us to be a peculiar people. He used that word peculiar. I know in our day, that's kind of a weird word if you're peculiar, but he wants us to be different. And he wants us to be peculiar. And by the way, it's rare. There's not many people of faith today. There's not many people. We got fair weather fans and we got those that are front runners. We got some that come to God when things go bad, and they got some that come to God when things are good. But we need to be people of God that are with him no matter what. No matter what come, come what may, we'll be with you. We'll trust you, we'll love you, and we'll praise you. Folks, as we close out Hebrews 11 today, he said that all these people hadn't received the promise. Today, we look back to the cross We know Jesus came. We know he died on the cross. Historic fact. We know he rose from the grave three days later. We've got his word. We've got his church today. We're here today in the Oak Grove community, Washington, Paris, Louisiana, 2016, halfway around the world from where Jesus was ministering, and we're preaching his gospel. We all be people of faith. We're holding a book that's been tried to be destroyed, been attacked more than any other book in all the world. It's amazing that we got a copy, a thousands of years old book, that we've got it. Folks, we ought to be people of faith. We've got everything that God needed to give us to be people of faith. Those people were really trusting in faith. They trusted the word of a promise coming down the road. We are trusting in what we've already been told and seen, it's already happened. And by the way, I stand before you ashamed of myself half the time because guess what? God proves himself to me over and over and over and over again. And sometimes I still lack faith. Isn't it amazing? Isn't it amazing? We ought to be trusting God today. So I don't know what's in your life today. I don't know what you're facing. I don't know why you need faith.