So there are two kinds of people, including Christians: (a) those that have an ear to hear, and (b) those that don’t. Those that have an ear to hear are divided into two:
(a1) Those that hear and mix it with faith, which means they believe, and that Word produces new life: It begins to grow and it produces fruit and they are blessed. And this cycle of blessing and fruitfulness begins or continues, as the case may be.
(a2) And the other part have ears to hear and they either don’t mix that Word with faith, or they disbelieve and that Word remains dead in their hearts, waiting for the day when It shall judge them. Or else, if these men are really bad, when they hear, and they really don’t like it, they plug their ears. And the Lord brought me to another beautiful part of His Word.
Zechariah chpt.7 and this is just an example, Zechariah 7:9: “Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his brother: [He is talking also to the Church] And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart. [Now this should be preached in churches, too!] But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law [or the Word of God], and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts. Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts.”
Now this does not apply only to Israel, this applies to every man and woman on the face of the earth, especially the Church. Because that is where the Lord speaks, and the people plug their ears. And so when the Tribulation comes and they start crying, the Lord will tell them exactly this, “I’m sorry, I don’t hear anything, I don’t hear a thing, I stopped my ears.”
What is faith? Faith is the substance of things hoped for. We hope for the coming of the Lord, we hope for the Kingdom, we hope for the Millennial rule, we hope for justice, we hope for holiness, we hope for eternal life, we hope for love, for peace, for joy, we hope for many things. All these things that we hope for we have the substance of them in us, and furthermore we have evidence enough of all these things which we cannot see. And this faith pertaining to the Salvation was given to every man. The Creation was made such that no man has an excuse, for he can clearly see the Power of God, the Grace of God, the Wisdom of God and the things which these physical signs typify in spirit.
Faith is reality because the substance of those things we hope for is reality, those things are reality. I know they are because I have already had a foretaste of them. I have evidence of them. So faith is reality and faith equals water. The Lord came by water and blood. He came by faith, which was obedience to the Reality of the Father, and His plan of redemption, and He came by His Own Life which was in His blood (Lev.17:11), which He shed. So He came by water and by blood. And we must be born by water and by spirit. Which means by faith, which we received anyway; we didn’t work for it, we didn’t produce it, we didn’t deserve it. It was given to us, which is a Grace of God, and this was the water by which we were saved and born again. And by the spirit according to John 3:5, where the Spirit, of course, is also the One Who makes the Word of God alive.
The new life which is supposed to grow from the Word of God, which seemingly is dead, that new life is grown by the Spirit. The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life (2Cor.3:6). So we are born by this Life of the Word of God and by water, which is our faith. This is the reality about faith which was a mystery to us for years. This is the simplicity of faith and I believe as we walk with the Lord and continue with Him unto perfection according to His Word and His desire, He is able to bring us into faith and show us things that are past, where we erred, how we tried to substitute things for faith, how we tried to misuse faith, abuse faith, bypass faith, neglect faith … we tried everything possible. Thanks to His Grace, He prevented us. Of course, we cannot change reality, so we cannot change faith; but we can neglect it, we can forget it, we can reject it, and then it becomes or remains dead. And this is just as bad, in fact, worse than hearing about it, because once I hear some Word and I keep it dead, that Word will judge me!
So this is the practical outcome of this sharing and of the beauty of the Word of God. And I personally praise God very much and I thank Him very much. There is more to come, I believe, because I have other notes here. We barely have touched Hebrews chapter 11, but maybe next time we will go there and we will continue. We can speak for a long, long time about this, but it is again up to the Lord when to continue and how to continue and for how long to continue.
We praise the Lord. Amen.
* * *
To be continued next week
brother Hanola
…