The City of God - Living Faith

[00:00:00] I want to turn to a verse in Luke, chapter one, lukes gospel, chapter one, verse 37. [00:00:26] For no word from God shall be void of power. It's quite a unique rendering. It's the rendering of the american standard version. [00:00:39] Most of your other versions have got something along the line that with God nothing is impossible, but no word from God shall be void power. And Mary said, behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word. [00:01:04] And the angel departed from her, no word from God shall be void of power. Or, as most of you have it in the other versions, with God, nothing shall be impossible. [00:01:22] And then, if you will turn to Matthew and chapter 17 and verse 20, he saith unto them, because of your little faith. [00:01:40] For verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, or remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove. And nothing shall be impossible unto you with God, nothing shall be impossible. But even more remarkable. [00:02:10] And nothing shall be impossible unto you with God, nothing impossible. [00:02:24] With you, nothing impossible. [00:02:30] Now, all I want this morning is to just underline the necessity of a living faith. [00:02:40] Of course, all of us, most of us, I'm sure, are well aware that we need living faith, and that indeed, without faith, it is impossible to please God, that all that is not of faith is sin. [00:02:58] How that finds us out. [00:03:01] I have no doubt that in most of our christian lives, mine included, such a lot is not of faith. [00:03:12] We can even make our prayer life, our reading of the Bible, not a matter of faith. [00:03:20] We knew all kinds of things, how vital it is that we should know God given living faith. [00:03:34] Now, this faith is not something which we have, as it were, in ourselves. That is, it's something that is produced by ourselves. I think here it's good for us, although many of us know these things, to just, again, define one or two matters. You see, there is this idea that if you are simple minded, if you are a credulous person, if you are a superstitious person, let me put it even more plainly. If you are the kind of person who, before you were saved, did not walk under ladders, did not wear green, or did not sail on Friday the 13th, if you are that kind of person and you get saved, faith comes easily to you. [00:04:31] There is this idea in so many people, you know, they sort of say, well, of course, I have terrible difficulties over faith, because I have. Well, I don't like to say it quite, but I have an academic intelligence. [00:04:48] As if academic intelligence and faith are opposites in other words, if you are a superstitious, credulous simpleton, then you are going to steam ahead in spiritual things like a jet propelled plane. [00:05:09] Nothing could be farther from the truth. [00:05:13] The fact that God uses very simple people, that's another matter. [00:05:18] That God sometimes takes people who have very little of this world's gifts or talents and makes them tremendous sums of him, that is another matter. But credulity or superstition was never at any single point in the history of this world. Living faith indeed, those people who are credulous and superstitious have often more to get rid of. If they are going to know real faith at work in them, then the others, at least those with a certain amount of sort of what we call academic intelligence, or whatever you like to call it, they do start off on the basis that they haven't got faith in them, and that therefore, if they're going to have it, it's got to come from God. [00:06:07] Whereas you get these naive and silly people who think that they can take any promise and push it into a sort of being. [00:06:16] Faith is the gift of God. [00:06:22] Ephesians two eight. Faith is the gift of God. It is God given. [00:06:34] God given. [00:06:37] I think thats very, very important, that we should understand that right at the beginning that faith is something which is God given. And therefore you can have the greatest intelligence in the world and the most living faith, or you can be a very simple person and still have living faith. We've got plenty of examples of such. God could take the apostle Paul and make him the apostle of faith. [00:07:07] A man with a brain, with an intelligence, with an academic background. He could see that there was a living faith at work in the man, that he could see miracles, he could see things coming to pass that were not possible on any other level, than that God broke in again and again and again. [00:07:30] And we can have Peter the fisherman, with no university background at all, no college training at all. And also he is another apostle of faith, and he speaks of the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it is tried by fire, may redound unto praise and glory and honor at the appearing of our Lord Jesus and savior Jesus Christ. [00:08:04] Faith is the gift of God. [00:08:09] Then there is another point I think we need to get clear on. [00:08:16] Many people make the mistake of looking inside for faith. [00:08:21] And the more you look inside for your faith, the less you will find. [00:08:26] For the more you inspect it, the more it withdraws into its shell. [00:08:32] It's rather like those hedgehogs who are perfectly happy? Well, it sounds a bit irreverent to put it like this, but are perfectly happy when no one is around. But if you start to come too near, they curl up into a ball, and that's that. [00:08:50] They refuse to walk, they refuse to perform, and they refuse to look at you. [00:08:56] And I think a lot of people have had this problem with their faith. They hear about great faith, they hear about the acts of faith, they hear about the necessity of faith, and they start to say, where is my faith? And then they start to look in. And the more they look in, the less they find a faith. And the more they investigate their faith, the more paralyzed their faith becomes, so that in the end, they almost wonder, have I got any faith at all? [00:09:20] Once I was able to believe so easily, but now I can't anymore. [00:09:26] But the apostle Paul again comes to our rescue in one corinthians, chapter two and verse four. And here is, I think, something which is basic to this whole matter of living faith. [00:09:45] One Corinthians, two, four. And my speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Now, many of us have got a kind of faith which can work once we get into someone else's presence. [00:10:13] Really, if we can only see someone doing something, immediately, we feel better. [00:10:20] And although the apostle Paul is speaking, of course, of the human wisdom, that they should not stand in the wisdom of men, nevertheless, it is a valid point I'm making, that many people feel that if they can only have a rational explanation or something that is perfectly down to earth, and that's the point, down to earth, they can reason out. Then they say, well, we'll be okay. [00:10:50] But the apostle Paul here says that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. [00:10:59] In other words, faith is not something we find in ourselves. Faith stands in the power of God. [00:11:11] It falls flat on its face anywhere else. [00:11:16] But when it comes to the power of God, it stands in the power of God. Your faith should stand in the power of God. Now that, of course, brings us just back to this wonderful thought in Luke 137. Nothing shall be impossible with God, for nothing shall be impossible with God. Now, when God says nothing, he means nothing. [00:11:54] As we've said before, none of us believe that God is a liar, but most of us believe that God is an exaggerator. We believe that he overstates the case in order to help us. But God does not overstate the case. [00:12:11] If God says nothing is impossible with him, nothing is impossible with him, and God does not change. [00:12:23] The God who could carve a way through the red sea has not changed one whit over the thousands of years that have passed by. He is exactly the same. [00:12:37] The God who could deliver a people out of Egypt, the God who could take a people right through the wilderness, leading them infallibly. The God who could get them over Jordan into the promised land. The God who drove out their enemies before them. He is exactly the same today. The God who caused the sun to stand still in Joshua's day. He hasn't changed. [00:13:03] The God of Elijah, the God of Elisha. He hasn't changed. He is exactly the same today. [00:13:16] God who could take five loaves and two fish and feed a multitude. He is the same today. God Jesus, who could calm a storm with a word. Is exactly the same God as today. The one who could raise Lazarus from the dead. He is the same today. He hasn't changed. [00:13:39] It's not as if somehow or other the Lord Jesus has undergone some change. Which makes him less compassionate, less in touch with us, less powerful. [00:13:54] Nothing is impossible with God. And we have so many scriptures we can go back to. We think of the wonderful one in Hebrews six and verse 17. The immutability of his counsel. [00:14:12] That is that the counsel of God that we have here in this book from Genesis to revelation, is immutable. [00:14:20] The 20th century can't change it or cause it to be adjusted. Or somehow or other mean that it is not quite the same. It's not quite. Has not got the same power. No word of God shall be void of power. Now, isn't that wonderful? [00:14:43] No word of God shall be void of power. [00:14:47] This book is the most extraordinary book in the whole universe. It's like nothing else. I've never known a word from Shakespeare. Jump out and do something in me. [00:15:00] I remember when we used to read Shakespeare that now and again I thought there were the most amazing insights into human nature. All the illumination that man had. He was genius. [00:15:13] But nevertheless, with all his genius and the genius of any of these other great writers, there's no book like this book. God can take some obscure little phrase in some obscure part of this book. And suddenly it leaps out of the page and into you. Does something explain that? [00:15:30] If we would have all the saints here down through the ages to testify. And had a marvelous month's convention of testimony, we'd have them, one after another, coming up here and telling you all kinds of things some people sort of would almost say, well, haven't they taken it out of its context? Well, that's one of the problems we have with the early church, because now and again, they appear to have taken some words from the Old Testament. It appears out of context. So it would seem. But God was with them, and God spoke to them through the word. [00:16:05] You might well say it about us. When we asked the Lord years and years ago about this very house in the prayer meeting, God gave us a word. You shall have a house upon the hill. It came from somewhere about the house of the Lord being on the top of the hill. I mean, it's nothing to do with Halford house on Richmond Hill. But we knew it was the law because three people had it at the same time in the the prayer meeting. And we didn't know our bibles that well. We knew God was speaking to us through this book. He was saying, I'm going to give you a house. We all knew it was a material house, and we never faltered on that. We went and saw all kinds of houses on Richmond Hill, on the London side of Richmond Hill, on the park side of Richmond Hill. Oh, we saw Lord hall, belicious place, that magnificent. [00:16:52] And we were convinced that was the place with that marvelous. Well, it had a sunken roman bath with all Mac blue mosaic, and we thought it was the baptistery, another room, but we never got it. We saw Anchorstar lodge at the top with its own gate into the park, and we thought that was it. [00:17:13] Well, God gave us a house. It's on the hill. [00:17:16] It's on the lower part of the hill, but he gave us the house. [00:17:24] Now, the point is this. When God makes this book, lived to us by the spirit, no word of God is void of power. Never despise the word of God. Some people say, well, I don't understand Leviticus. I could as well do with the Bible without it. [00:17:41] Maybe you could. You just wait till you've got a little further on in the Lord. You'll find you can't do it without Leviticus. When you begin to understand some of its strange symbolism, its type, its figure, you will glory at it. [00:17:57] People say, what about all those long, boring genealogies? [00:18:01] Those long, boring genealogies are vitally important for the proving of the fact that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of David, or there are many other things. But no word of God is void of power. [00:18:19] That means when God really speaks a word, then it is not void of power. Within that very word is the power to do something. Now, we know this, of course, from Hebrews and chapter four and verse twelve. For the word of God is living and active. Living and active. The word of God is not something inanimate. It's not just something written. It is living. [00:18:54] That means that when the Holy Spirit does breathes upon the word, it comes into us and can do something. It's living and it's active. It is creative. That is, it can do something in us. The word of God, once it gets into us, does something. Now, the whole of church history is the evidence of this. You find man after man, woman after woman, who were living careless lives. Even christians born of God, sometimes living lethargic, apathetic lives, and then God met them through his word. [00:19:28] And certainly something happened. Whole life changed. [00:19:35] Well, the 20th century is not too great a problem for God. I think we get man on a moon, photograph Mars. [00:19:45] You think God has sort of withdrawn to outer space because it's all too much for him, these things buzzing around. I mean, it's ridiculous. As if somehow or other they're too much for God and this world's getting too much for God. And he says they're too clever, too intelligent for me. I shall have to withdraw. Isn't it ridiculous when you really think about it, God hasn't withdrawn not one single inch. [00:20:13] We all live and move and have our being in him, even unsaved people or we exist by the basic energy of God's life, everything around us. [00:20:28] God is everywhere. But of course, he's a person and we know him in Jesus. [00:20:35] We know him and understand him. So there's no problem, no difficulty, no obstacle, no bondage, no sin, no disease, no breakdown. Nothing which God cannot touch, nothing which God cannot see, soul, nothing which God cannot overcome. [00:20:58] What an encouragement. [00:21:03] It is, of course, the word of the Lord which liveth and abideth forever. [00:21:09] Liveth and abideth, liveth and abideth. That's one. Peter 223. [00:21:17] No word of God shall be void of power. Or if we only knew the exceeding great and precious promises of God, if we only knew them. You know, I was saying to the folks I was speaking to yesterday, you see, it seems to me, without being harsh or accusing, we Christians, especially the evangelicals, we've become like Saddam. [00:21:49] We believe everything. [00:21:52] We cross our t's and dot our I's in the right place. [00:21:58] We bleed the Bible from COVID to cover. [00:22:02] It's the word of God. [00:22:04] But when it comes to putting those promises into operation, we fail completely. [00:22:16] Yet there is a promise for everything. [00:22:20] And if only we lived with God and walked with God. We would become aware of the word of God much, much more. We would devour the word of God. We would study the word of God. Some people say, well, I find thy study of the word rather a drudgery. Well, in one sense, all study. [00:22:38] But, you know, it's a wonderful thing to store away. Go to the ant mouse, sluggard, for in the summer, the ant stores up for the winter. [00:22:51] And some of these people, they want to just drift through and have a lovely, happy time. And then when the crisis comes, they want scripture after scripture to flood into them. [00:23:02] But it won't happen. [00:23:05] Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. [00:23:11] Get to know your Bible. Get to know it while you've got time to get to know your Bible. And in the day when you have no Bible, God the spirit will bring back your bible to you. [00:23:24] Remember the word of God which liveth and abideth forever. Oh, there are so many things in the word of God. There are so many promises which cover every kind of need and problem. It doesn't matter what it is, whether it's material, whether it's physical, whether it's spiritual, whether it's personal, whether it's corporate. Everywhere there are promises. [00:23:52] I don't know how depressed you are with what's happening in this country. [00:23:58] It's depressing, but we expect it. [00:24:02] We know that these things will come to pass. We know that the british, proud british empire, the sun has set on it. [00:24:11] We know there is nothing but dissolution in front of us. We know that. [00:24:18] But somehow, when we begin to see it actually happening, the shock of it is sickening. When we begin to see bombs going up in the center of our own metropolis, when we begin to see people gunned down, when we are told by one of the leading CID officers that for every single day last year in the greater London area, there were four serious muggings every day of last year. Most of you know how Doris opening the door. Doris Bailey, opening her door on Friday afternoon at 230, was coshed down by two young fellows she said she couldn't have been more than in their mid teens mugging. All this kind of thing, bombs. [00:25:12] The hardness towards brutality and violence that is growing whenever all this must surely shock us. But just wait, just wait. I've got a promise. [00:25:23] Now. This just proves the point. Now, here's my promise. [00:25:27] Here it is. Listen to this haggai there. [00:25:31] Now, I bet. I won't say I bet, but I expect that quite a few people, especially you younger people. I don't suppose you've ever thought of reading haggai. What a boring little book it is. All about some building program. Thousands of years ago, some people wouldn't even know where to find haggai. [00:25:52] But listen, here's a promise. Now listen to this. Chapter two, verse six. For thus saith the Lord of the host, yet once it's a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all nations and the precious things of all nations will come. Now the other reading is the desire of all nations shall come. But really it's twofold promise. God is going to shake things and shake things and shake things and shake things in preparation for the coming of the Messiah, in preparation for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Furthermore, he's going to shake things and shake things and shake things till all the precious things fall out of their pockets into his hands. [00:26:40] I don't mean silver and gold, but what I mean is that he will shake it so that his purpose gets accomplished. And what is his purpose? Here it is. Listen. And I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. [00:26:56] So the purpose of God, which we are beginning to see fulfill before our eyes, is that everywhere in the earth the nations will be shaken. And in all the ruins of a society which has been secure for centuries. Out of this unrest, this discontent, this breakdown, God will complete his building program. And what is his building program? Oh, how we need to get clear, don't we? We talk about this place as the house of God. It's nonsense. We talk about going to church. Nonsense. You can't go to church. Someone says, I left my handbag in church. How can you leave your handbag in church? Can't do it. I left my umbrella in church. You can't do it. Where does it say in the Bible anything about being able to deposit anything like that in the church? Of course it didn't. Or how we need to be delivered from these kind of phrases which all belong to something which is unbiblical. [00:27:58] The church has never at any time been a building except in the old Testament. And even then it wasn't a building. It was the temple. That was the building. [00:28:08] The church was the congregation. [00:28:11] And we have it, of course, in some of the quotations of the Old Testament, in the new way, it says, the church in the wilderness, I will sing thy praise in the church, in the assembly, the congregation. [00:28:25] The church is the living members of Christ is Christ. [00:28:30] Now here is the wonder of it all. [00:28:33] We believers have thought of the church so much as a Cinderella, as something little and small, as something that's not important. Our job is just to get on with witnessing to others, getting other people saved, that God has started this great shaking, to shake everything so that all that we trust and all that we've got, our security and we lose. And in all the ruin and the loss, the people of God will discover their true treasure. [00:29:05] What a promise. God doesn't say, I will shake all nations and maybe, maybe I will fill this house with glory. No, he says, and I will fill this house with glory. Out of the shaking will come the very things by which the house will be built. That's what it means. The precious things of all nations will come out of the shaking will come. And didn't it come to pass? Now just think, we were late in starting, but I will finish. [00:29:40] But just think for a moment a little bit of history, a little less history, less. [00:29:50] How did God get the old temple of which haggai is speaking built? [00:29:58] At that time, just before then, was the strongest empire the world had known, at least in the Middle east, in that whole area, the babylonian empire. Cruel, strong military might, power personified, embodied in Nebuchadnezzar and the kings of Babylon. [00:30:19] Oh, what a cool policy they had. [00:30:23] Their policy was like the nazi policy was to take different nations and disperse them, take them on bloc, away from their own national homeland and disperse them over there and bring people from there and put them in this homeland. [00:30:39] There's a way of keeping everyone down. [00:30:42] God said, I will shake all nations. And he shook Babylon. You remember the wonderful word? [00:30:47] Daniel went in and said, there's a writing. They couldn't understand the writing on the wall. Daniel said, I can tell you what it is. When they called him in, he said, thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting. [00:31:01] Thy kingdom is taken away from thee. And that very night, Babylon fell in. One of the most amazing miracles of history. The proud, strong babylonian empire passed away in one night and an altogether different system took over the Persian. Now, the Persians were totally different. For one thing, the persian people, the persian rulers, believed in one God, and that immediately gave them a sympathy with the jewish people. [00:31:33] Furthermore, they didn't believe that their God should have any symbol except Fire. [00:31:38] And so they understood the jewish people. [00:31:42] And what happened? The whole policy Overnight was reversed. [00:31:47] And Cyrus said, I will give you the money. Where did the money come from? The money had come. Babylon had collected it from all the nations. Now he says, open the coppers and pay them all that they need to go back to Jerusalem and build this house of the Lord. Then God, you see, I will shake all nations. Now, if you'd been living, supposing you'd been there in Babylon and you had a nice business and a nice home, and you went along to the synagogue and worshipped God, they might have well thought it. Things are very good. Children are going to school. So are the wonderful. They learn not only Hebrew, but they learn Babylonians as well. As well. It's good. [00:32:32] And then, you know, when we. When we were back in the old days, great grandpa's days, we were always going back. But now, no, we don't. We've learned. We've learned we've got a much purer relationship with God. Now. I don't think it really matters about going back to that stuffy little Canaan. [00:32:51] Why not stay where we are in exile? Why not just get on with where we are? But no, the wonderful thing was that God, the spirit of God, stirred them up and they went back. Now, there was a promise. There. There was a promise. Here it is. I will shake all nations and the precious thing of all nations will come. [00:33:14] And I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord. And Zechariah, who prophesied with. With haggai, he took it a stage further and said that the top stone shall be brought forth with shouts of grace. Grace unto it all in the midst of this shaking of the nations, all in the midst of this chaos and up evil. Then dont be afraid, dear child of God. [00:33:42] Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. [00:33:50] And if your treasure is in Christ, follow him. [00:33:55] Follow him. Dont be afraid. Were bound to all of us to suffer. We cant help that were part of a nation. Were in thing. Were all bound to suffer. But shall we not lend our voices to that great heavenly choir that are praising God for the destruction of all those things which make the coming of our Lord Jesus much nearer? [00:34:22] Thank God, then we have promises. No word of God shall be void of power. What kind of problem have you got? Have you got a physical problem or a material problem? Or you've got a spiritual problem? It's a personal problem. Or maybe we've got big corporate problems. Problems in front of us as a company, or problems in front of us as the people of God in the whole earth? That great mountain before zerubbabel, it shall become a plain and the topstone shall be brought forth. May God help every one of us to understand. [00:34:59] We may really get a clear understanding of these things. Shall we pray? [00:35:09] Dear Lord, we ask thee to help us, for we all need thy help. And we pray, Lord, that thou'lt keep us walking in the way of real faith. [00:35:23] Thou hast said we walk by faith. O Lord, help us. [00:35:28] Thou knowest alone the assault that there is upon living faith in every one of us and in us as a people. [00:35:35] But we look to thee, Lord, that thou wilt keep us moving on with thyself. And help us, Lord, to exercise the little faith we have, even if it be as a grain of mustard seed. Help us, Lord, to exercise that faith. We ask it with thanksgiving in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.