Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome here to our afternoon service at Calvary Baptist Church at Trehearne. And also welcome for those who interviewed us via live streaming all over the world. Please open the hymnals at number 57. Five, seven. Jesus, I am resting. Number 57. Jesus, I am resting, resting in the joy of what the world I am finding of the greatness of Thy loving heart Thou hast made me gaze upon Thee, and Thy beauty fills my soul, for by Thy transformation Jesus, I am resting, resting in the joy of the Word. I am finding out the greatness of Thy loving heart. Simply trusting Thee, Lord Jesus, I behold Thee as Thou art, And Thy love, so pure, so gentle, Satisfies my heart, Satisfies its deepest longing, compassing me round with blessings, Thine in love indeed. Jesus, I am resting, resting in the joy of wonder, I am finding out the greatness of thy loving heart Ever lift thy face upon me, as I work and wait for thee, resting midnight's my Lord Jesus, earth's dark shadows flee. Brightness of my Father's glory, sunshines of my Father's face. resting, resting, feed me with thy grace. Jesus, I am resting, resting in the joy of the world. I am finding out the greatness of thy loving Our Heavenly Father, we are thankful that we can rest in Thee. We're thankful that we can have the forgiveness of sin through the blood of Thy Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We can be at peace with Thee and we can allow Thee to direct and guide us so that we can know the right way to walk. We thank Thee for the opportunity of meeting together again this afternoon, for providing us a place to meet, We pray that we'd be a blessing to this community, and also on the internet, that we can help others to be faithful to Thee and to know Thy peace and blessing. We continue to pray for our country, pray for the salvation of many in our country, as well as across the world. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Over to 260 260 Is my name written there number 260 you Lord, I care not for riches, neither silver nor gold. I would make sure of heaven, I would enter the fold. In the book of thy kingdom, greatest pages of air, Tell me, Jesus my Savior, is my name written there? is my name written there, on the peace, white and fair, in the book of thy kingdom, is my name written there. Lord, my sins they are many, like the sands of the sea, But I've learned, O my Savior, He's sufficient for me. For thy promise is written in red letters that glow, Though your sins be as sickly. I will make them like snow, is my name written there. On the peaks wide and fair, in the book of thy kingdom, is my name written there. Faithful city with its mansions of light, with its glorified beams, If your garment's of white Where do we build a comet to swell? Yes, my name's written there Yes, my name's written there On the page white and fair In the book of thy kingdom Yes, my name's written there And over to 450. Four, five, zero. Isn't the love of Jesus something wonderful? Number 450. There will never be a sweeter story Story of the Savior, life divine Love that brought him from the realm of glory Just to save a sinful soul like mine Isn't the love of Jesus something wonderful? Oh, isn't the love of Jesus something wonderful? Wonderful it is to me Boundless as the universe around me Reaching to the farthest soil away Saving, keeping love, it was not far That is why my heart can truly say, Isn't the love of Jesus something wonderful, wonderful, wonderful? Oh, isn't the love of Jesus something wonderful, wonderful? Love beyond our human comprehending Love of God in Christ, how can it be? This will be my theme unnever ending With redeeming love of Calvary Isn't the love of Jesus something wonderful? Oh, isn't the love of Jesus something wonderful, wonderful it is to me. Take your Bibles and turn to the book of Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11, known as the faith chapter in the Bible. I'm gonna read there from verse seven through to the end of verse 16. We'll stand, please, for the reading of God's Word. Hebrews chapter 11, starting at verse 7. By faith, Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive foreign inheritance, obeyed and went out, not knowing whether he went. By faith, he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country. dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age. because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. but now they desire a better country, that is, and heavenly, wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city." Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful again for reminding us of the importance of this true biblical faith that we know that others had in the past. We see again in this chapter that Old Testament saints were saved by faith, not by works. They trusted in thee, they believed in thee, and they followed thee, and they were blessed by thee. We today, we have thy word, we too can know thee, we can trust thee, we can follow thee, and we can be blessed as well in that walk of faith. We pray for each one that's listening. Thou knowest the heart of each one. Pray for anyone that's listening that's not saved that they might see the importance of true repentance toward Thee and trusting in Thy Son alone for their salvation. Help those of us that are saved that we would grow in our faith and trust Thee more and that we too would look for that city that hath foundations. That we would want to serve Thee faithfully while we're here. but we look forward to the soon return of thy son, the Lord Jesus Christ. May thy will be accomplished in each heart and life, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. The title of the message this afternoon is True Faith is Built Upon Sure Promises. True faith is built upon sure promises. There's a lot of people today who exercise faith in empty promises. They believe in things that are not very profitable. And they believe in things that have no purpose in life. And we have too many people in our country and in most countries who believe in the deceptions of their politicians. and they trust in them when there is nothing to trust. But we can have our faith in the true God, the God who made heaven and earth, and the one who never lies, and we have examples of individuals who did trust in him, and we see the blessing they received, and we can receive blessings from him as well. So the first thing we want to notice is the importance of godly fear. Says in verse seven, by faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house by the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. Noah lived in a unique time in the history of the world. It had never rained in the time of Noah. And yet God said to Noah that he was to build an ark because he was going to send a flood. He was going to send rain that was going to flood the whole earth. Well, what was rain? The only thing that Noah knew was dew. The Bible says that the earth was watered by a mist, a dew that fell from heaven. We see that sometimes where you step outside and the grass is wet. Depending on how much dew, the grass can be quite wet, but it didn't rain. And that's the only thing that Noah knew. He didn't know anything about ship building. He didn't have a boat. We don't know that he ever traveled by any kind of boat or raft along the rivers that were there at that time. But he was told by God, says, being warned of God of things not seen as yet. A flood. What's a flood? How can there be enough water to cover the highest mountains? So there were things that Noah had to trust God for, and he had to act upon what God said, not because he saw it, but because he believed in God. It says in verse seven that he was moved with fear. And that fear was not a fear of death, but it was a reverence for God, a recognition that what God says is what he's going to do. We need to be moved with that same fear today. Those that are saved, we know that death is a reality. We know that there's a savior that's coming back. We know that the Antichrist is coming, and we know many other things as well from the Word of God. So moved by fear, we act in a certain way. That fear again is not that intimidating fear, but that reverence for God, and we want to know him better and serve him more faithfully. And we see that here, that Noah Notice again, by faith. The first thing was his need for faith. Based on his faith, it tells us he prepared an ark to the saving of his soul. So Noah was not saved by preparing the ark. He was saved by faith. The fact that he had faith moved him to build the ark. If he wouldn't have had faith, he wouldn't have built the ark. He might have built some kind of a ship, but he wouldn't have built the ark that God told him to build if he didn't have faith in God. And that's important for those who want to suggest that Old Testament people were saved by works. No, they were not. Tells us here that he prepared an ark to the saving of his house. So Noah was not just concerned about himself, but he was concerned about his family. And so he prepared this ark to the saving of his house. He didn't build that ark in such a way that it would fall apart right away. He was careful to follow the instructions that God gave him so that that ark could weather the storms of more than a year in the rough waters. When those waters were upon the face of the earth, there was also wind. And so there would have been waves. And that ark would have been rocked by the waves. and it would have been moving around and it would have had the opportunity of twisting and breaking apart if it wasn't built properly. So Noah followed the instructions and it tells us here that by faith he built that ark by the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. Notice again, his righteousness was by faith, not by works. So his actions, the fact that he believed God, he built this ark, and then, of course, we know that he entered that ark, and by doing that, he condemned the world. Everybody except for his family was locked out of the ark. They couldn't get in. God shut the door. Noah had no way of opening that door, because God shut it. And the people, we aren't told, but even if they would have all been banging on the ark door, and if they even would have taken some wood and tried to pry it open, they couldn't do it. It was sealed by God, and everyone outside that ark perished. And so Noah gives us an example here of what true faith looks like. We don't have to understand everything before we believe it. We just need to believe in the God who makes the promise. And that's the same thing for us today. We need to trust in God and believe in him. And if we will do that, then we will have the blessings of God that he promises. But it's based on faith. It's based on trusting God for things that we don't see, as we've already looked at in verse one. We don't see them, but we know the God who promises them, who tells us that. Nobody has seen the Lord Jesus Christ come back yet, but we believe he's coming back. We believe that there's a home in heaven. Nobody has come back to report on that. Jesus tells us about heaven. John wrote about heaven. But nobody has been there and come back to tell us about it in spite of the fact that there are people and there are books that are written of people that have supposedly died and gone to heaven, seen things and come back and told others about it. I don't believe any of those stories. I believe those people are lying. And of course, the publishers, they don't mind printing a book like that because they can make money off it. That's all they care about. They don't care about truth. They just figure, oh, here's an easy way to make money. So the important thing for us from the first point here is to have that godly fear that will cause us to obey what God says. The second thing we look at is the faith of Abraham. And quite a few verses in Hebrews 11 address Abraham. So in verse eight, it says, by faith, Abraham, and again, you notice there by faith, not because of what he did, but by faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out, not knowing whether he went. So Abraham didn't have a map of the world. He didn't have a map of the Middle East. He was told by God to leave his homeland, Ur of the Chaldees. That's all Abraham knew. He didn't have any way of seeing the rest of the world, but he knew of Ur of the Chaldees. Now Abraham, according to genealogical records, he lived about 352 years after the time of the flood. So in that time, There was enough of a population already that Ur of the Chaldees was there, but we know that as Abraham traveled that he encountered the Philistines and others, and there was enough of them to cause Abraham to be afraid, afraid for his life. So the earth had repopulated again to a certain degree in those 350 plus years. But it tells us that Abraham was called to go out into a place which he should after receive foreign inheritance. So God told Abraham while he was in Ur that there was a new land that he was going to bring him to where he would have an inheritance. But Abraham didn't see that land right away, but he obeyed. So again, we see that faith came first, causing Abraham to obey. And he went out not knowing whether he went. So he would have walked. He might have had camels to ride on, I don't know, but he wouldn't have traveled that many miles in a day. And it would have been a bit of a distance to get from Ur of the Chaldees to the land of Canaan. And every day he got up and followed the Lord on his journey. Every night, he had to trust God to protect him as he went to sleep. By faith, he journeyed. Then it says in verse nine, by faith, he sojourned in the land of promise. The word sojourned means that he lived there, but it was a temporary dwelling place. He didn't own the land. He was promised the land. He walked through the land. God said, this is yours. But he was also told by God that his descendants would spend 400 years in captivity before they would actually possess that land. We know that Abraham purchased a field with a cave for the burial place for his wife. Later on, he was buried there. Isaac and Jacob were also, or Isaac was buried there. Jacob was taken back to that land after he died in Egypt, but it was all by faith. By faith, he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country. dwelling in tabernacles. Abraham didn't build any houses. Tabernacle is like a tent. So Abraham would have lived like a Bedouin. There's Bedouins living in that area now, they live in tents. And when you live in a tent, if the conditions are poor in a certain area, you just pick up your tent and you go somewhere else. But he was dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob. So even Isaac, even though Isaac lived there after Abraham had been there for a number of years already, and then Isaac spent his entire life there, but he never built a house. Didn't build anything out of wood. Nowadays, a lot of things in Israel are built out of concrete. but they wouldn't have had that then, but they would have had wood. But it says that dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. So Abraham walked by faith, and his faith was such that he could pass on to his sons, or his son, and to his grandson, the truthfulness of the promise. So that's a long time that these men trusted in a promise without seeing its fulfillment. Jacob, we know he's mentioned there in verse nine, Jacob left the land of Canaan as an older man, and he took his family with him into Egypt. But we know that Jacob still believed that the land of Canaan would be theirs. And when he was dying, he made Joseph promise that they would take his body back to the land of Canaan for burial. And Joseph also believed that that land was theirs, and he made the children of Israel promise that when they left Egypt eventually, that they would take his bones with them back to the land of Canaan. That was all done by faith, faith in a promise, not a piece of paper that had been signed by someone, but a promise. In verse 10, it tells us, for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. So even though Abraham had the opportunity of walking through the land of Canaan, of seeing the people there, being able to be friendly with at least some of the people, but he was looking for something better. He was looking for a city which hath foundations. So while he lived in Canaan, he didn't build a city. So he had nothing there that had foundations. He was living in a tent. And that tent is movable. That's all he had. but he was looking for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. So Abraham, we see that his faith was not just in the promise of God that he would give him the land of Canaan. He was looking for something much better than the land of Canaan. And that should be the case for every one of us that are Christians. Before we're saved, we have plans. We want maybe to have a house. Maybe we want to have a fancy house. Maybe we want to have a cottage by the lake. Different things that a person might want to have before they're saved. After a person is saved, they still need a house. They don't need the cottage by the lake. But they need a place to live. But we change our perspective. We don't put so much emphasis on that house that we have, doesn't mean we don't look after it, but we don't put so much emphasis on it because we're looking for something better. And we understand, as Jesus said in Matthew chapter seven, we understand that on this earth, the things that we have, moths and rust, can corrupt them. Thieves can break in and steal them. So if you have a house, Your shingles are supposed to last for 25 years. They don't anymore. But even if they last 15 years, you have to replace them. Your windows. You might get a good quality window, but over time the seals break down and you have to replace the windows. You have to do some painting. If you have siding on that house on the outside, depending what kind of siding it is, it's going to need maintenance. So there's always gonna be something to look after to repair on that house. But this house that God makes, that house doesn't need any repairs. There are people who believe that Jesus is in heaven today building mansions for us. Some people believe that. That's not what the Bible teaches. Jesus is in heaven today interceding for Christians, those who are saved. The mansions are built. They were built when Jesus went to the cross. And there is a place that is permanent, will never be destroyed. It's there. That's what Abraham was looking for much earlier than the scriptures were completed. But he had enough scripture, enough of the promises of God, that he did not doubt this eternal home that God had promised for him. In verse 11, it says, through faith also, Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age. God waited until it was past the time for a woman to conceive and bear a child. And after it was past time for a woman to be able to bear a child, he brought about conception in Sarah and she bore Isaac, long past the normal time for that age, that time. It says she was delivered of a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had promised. So again, this was through faith, not because of something that she did, but because she trusted in the promise of God. Now we know in the Old Testament that she laughed at one point when the angel said that she was going to have a son. And but she got beyond that. We also know that she told Abram to Abraham to go into Hagar because she figured that they were not going to have a son, her and Abraham. But she got beyond that, too, because it tells us here that she trusted in God. She received strength. to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age. So she learned something. So we see that this faith that we need to have, we don't always have that faith in the right capacity. We need to learn to walk by faith and sometimes we need to learn the hard way. Sometimes there are challenges that we face that can help us to see the importance of trusting in God. And that's what we see here with Sarah. She had to face some challenges to get her to the place where she would trust God to provide her with that promised seed. Verse 12, therefore sprang there even of one and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude and as a sand which is by the seashore innumerable. So Abraham is the one being spoken of in verse 12. And he as well was as good as dead as far as reproductive capacity was concerned. And yet from him, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude. The Bible tells us in Genesis 12 that nations would come from Abraham. We know that after Sarah died, that Abraham married Keturah. And we know that with Keturah, he had several sons. So even though he was past the time of reproduction in verse 12, we know that God gave him the ability to have sons with Keturah after he was 100 years old. So there were, a multitude of people that came from Abraham. They weren't all alive in Abraham's time, but the nation of Israel right now, there's over 7 million Jews living in Israel. And then there are Jews scattered across the world. We know that some 6 million Jews were killed during the time of Hitler. And we know that there have been other Jews as well that have been killed in battles and so on, and then those that have died naturally. So there has been an innumerable amount of Jews that have all come as descendants of Abraham. He is the father of the nation of Israel. And so he trusted God, He believed God and acted upon the promise of God, and God blessed him in that way. The nation of Israel will never be destroyed. It will be a great nation in the millennium. And that, again, is still all part of God's promise to Abraham. And then the third thing we see is persuaded through faith. In verse 13, it says, these all died in faith, not having received the promises. So Noah, he didn't receive the promises that were given to him. Abraham and Sarah, they didn't have Jacob and Isaac and Jacob as well. They didn't have possession of the land that God brought them to. They died in faith, but they did not die discouraged. We already said that Jacob believed in the promise of God and told his sons to take him back to the land of Canaan after he died. Pharaoh, the Pharaoh that was alive at that time, gave permission for the family to travel back to Canaan to bury Jacob. So they believed in the promise, even though they didn't have title to the land at that particular time. Having seen them afar off, so they believed God, they knew God would keep his word, but the promise was afar off, some 400 years after God gave it to Abraham. They were persuaded, it says, of them and embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. They were persuaded. They believed in God and they were persuaded by God to trust him, even though they didn't have the title for the land in their possession. That's the same way that you and I need to live today. We need to be persuaded of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's not here today. We don't see him today, but we have the promise in God's word that he's coming back. Not only that, but we have the promise in God's word that we can know the peace of God in the midst of a troubled world. When we look at Canada, we know that in the last years of Mr. Trudeau, there were a number of churches that were burned to the ground by the enemies of God. Most of those churches were either Catholic or Anglican, so they were not true churches, but they were buildings that represented religion. And the Indians, of course, they were upset with both the Anglicans and the Catholics because of the way they treated them. And when Mr. Trudeau was the prime minister and these buildings were being burned down, Both he and one of his chief assistants said that they could understand why people would be upset and burning those churches. It was not considered to be against the law by Mr. Trudeau. He thought it was justified to burn them down. We today have a building here. This building could be destroyed one day. It would be hard to start it on fire from the outside because it's all metal. But there are things inside this building that could burn. And there could be enemies of God that would want to destroy this building. But our hope is not just in this building. We appreciate this building. It's very useful for us. But our faith doesn't have to end if this building were to be destroyed, because our faith needs to be in something that is greater than the material things that we see. We need to be persuaded by the word of God, not by the things that we see. So in verse 14, it says, for they that say such things declare plainly that they seek for a country. And that was Abraham, Jacob, and Isaac. They were looking for a country. And verse 15, and truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. Now, we know Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees, but you remember that when he was old and Isaac was of marrying age, that Abraham sent his servant back to his homeland to find a wife for Isaac. And the servant said to Abraham, well, what if she doesn't want to come with me? Do I take Isaac back there? And Abraham said, no, you do not do that. So Abraham had no intention of going back and resettling in Ur of the Chaldees. We know that when Jacob was, no, when Isaac was older, and Jacob was supposed to go back to the same place for his wife, but again, he was not supposed to stay there. Now, Jacob stayed there for a number of years, but eventually he went back to the land of Canaan, took his family with him, took his possessions with him. So they were not so stuck on that land of Ur of the Chaldees that they went back there. That's what verse 15 is telling us about. Now you remember the children of Israel, when they were taken out of Egypt and they were in the wilderness, there were several times where the leaders said, let's go back to Egypt. They did not walk by faith. There's the difference. They wanted to go back to that pagan land where they had been in bondage because they did not trust in the promise of God. But Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were different. They had no desire to go back to Ur of the Chaldees and take over their ancestors' land. They were content to stay in Canaan and look forward to the promise of God. Then in verse 16, it says, but now they desire a better country, that is, and heavenly. So again, we see here that these men from the Old Testament, long before the scriptures were completed, long before Jesus Christ came, but they knew of this heavenly country. They knew of this place that was better than what they had on earth. And they knew it because they trusted in the promise of God, not because they saw it. And so in verse 16, it says, wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God. for he hath prepared for them a city. So there are a lot of people today who claim to be Christians. They claim to believe in God. But in fact, the Bible tells us that when they die, God is going to say, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity. So he's going to be ashamed of them because they don't know him. But Abraham, in spite of the shortcomings that we see in the Bible of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, God is not ashamed to be called their God. So we see here that this walk of faith that we need to have is not a walk of sinless perfection. But it is a walk of faith that causes the child of God to learn from his sins, learn from his mistakes, and to grow stronger in his faith in God. That's what true biblical faith is all about. It's something that causes us to be perfected, to be changing, So the Christian life is not a stagnant life. It's not a life that we continue on and continue to repeat the same sins all the time. In fact, the Bible tells us that true Christians cannot live in sin. So we need to get beyond that. We commit sin, but we don't stay there. And that's the difference between those who have true biblical faith and those who talk of faith, but it's not real, it's not genuine. So God gave us the example of these men and of Sarah to give us some people to look at and to examine their lives and to consider what faith looks like from the human perspective But he left out individuals who we cannot follow. And so we need to look at these individuals as we continue in the book of Hebrews, and we need to learn from those individuals that God gives us and understand what true faith looks like and understand that we need to walk by faith, but walking by faith doesn't mean we're always going to do the right thing. That's not an excuse, but it's a fact. And so we need to learn how to walk by faith and trust in the true God just as these others did, and realize that this earth is not our home. And as we look at the economy in Canada today, We know that grocery prices are going up. We know that it costs more to buy a car nowadays. We know that it costs more to buy a house and so on. And it's getting to the place where the economy is collapsing in this country. Even though our politicians are saying they know how to fix it, they don't. And our economy is collapsing. Things are getting worse. But for those of us that are saved, we don't need to take the position that people did back in the 30s when there was the Great Depression and people jumped out of the windows of tall buildings and committed suicide because they lost their life savings. We need to be wise stewards of what we have. But we need to understand that even if the government comes and takes away what we have, and they could well do that, they have that power already. Even if they take everything away from us doesn't mean we are without hope, not if our hope is in God, not if we know the Lord Jesus Christ is our Savior. We can continue on. We can continue to encourage others to believe in God because there's certainly no benefit in believing our government. We need something better than that to believe in, and we can believe in God if we're saved. So we have something to offer to the world around us. if we know the true God. So if you're listening today, that's the question you need to answer. Do you know the true God? Are you trusting in the God of salvation for your hope? And if not, you can turn to him today. You can ask God to forgive you and to save you through the blood of Jesus Christ, and you can know his peace today. And I would encourage you to do that. You need that in your life. For those of us that are saved, let's live in such a way that we can encourage others to turn to the true God. He's the one they need to know and we can help them because God has given us that promise and that assurance through faith. So let's walk with God faithfully and humbly and serve him faithfully. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we're thankful that we have thy word. Thankful again that we can know the truth. We have these examples in the Bible of men and women who trusted in thee, who are blessed in trusting in thee. And we can trust in thee as well, the same God. I pray that we would do that so that we can build our lives upon that which is real and that we can pass on to our children the things that are real as well, that they might see the importance of trusting in the true God and not in the things of this world. May thy will be accomplished in each person's life that's listening. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.