Glorious Way Church
Glorious Way Church equips believers for the work of the ministry and stands for God’s truth in our culture. We serve as a regional center, where people from all backgrounds find refreshing worship and true communion of the saints.
Glorious Way Church
The Faith Life
Faith isn't just your emergency response system – it's meant to be your lifestyle. In this eye-opening message, we dive deep into what it truly means to "live by faith" as described in Habakkuk 2:4 and Hebrews 10:38.
We do like to lift our Bibles up. It's just kind of a good way to make Jesus glad and the devil mad. Remind ourselves that this Word we stand on it. Let's say this together Say Heavenly Father, I stand on this Word. This Word is truth. Father, thank you for the Word of God. Tonight I believe I receive revelation that will build my faith, develop my spirit. I want to bear forth fruit in these last days and bring you glory in Jesus' name. Amen.
Speaker 1:Hebrews, chapter 10. And we'll start reading there with verse 35. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Hebrews 10.35. Cast not away, therefore, your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward, for you have need of patience that after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise For yet a little while. And he that shall come will come and will not tarry. Now, the just shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them not seen For by it, that is, by faith, the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear Verse 6,. But without faith, it's impossible to please Him, for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. And so when we go back here to verse 38, the just shall live by faith, the just shall live by faith.
Speaker 1:And so tonight I wanted to share a message entitled the Faith Life. Ours is the faith life, or we could say the faith lifestyle. You know, faith is not just something we use when we're in trouble. Faith is not just something we use when the house is burning or the car is wrecked or when the money is run out. No, faith is a lifestyle. Our lifestyle is a lifestyle of faith. And then, of course, faith is defined. Here We've got faith. He paints a beautiful picture of what faith is and really, the just shall live by faith. He's quoting Habakkuk 2.4. It says the just shall live by faith. He's quoting Habakkuk 2.4. It says the just shall live by their faith. See, I don't live by your faith, I live by my faith, my faith. I don't live by mama's faith, I don't live by daddy's faith.
Speaker 1:At some point in time you've got to develop your own faith. You can kind of hitchhike down the road and kind of hook up with people that have got more faith than you do can kind of hitchhike down the road and kind of hook up with people that have got more faith than you do, and I think you should. I think you've got to have some relationships where people are wiser and smarter and know the ropes better than you and you can learn a lot from them and they can help you grow. But at some point you've got to adopt your own faith lifestyle, and so my job is to give you the tools that you can do that with.
Speaker 1:I think about 2 Corinthians 5, 7, we walk by faith, not by sight, not by seems like, not by looks like, not by sounds like, not by feels like. No, we, you know, we walk by faith, not by sight, not by sight, not by natural sight, and it's the life or the lifestyle that continually pleases God. Think about living a lifestyle where you're always pleasing God, you're always I mean always putting a smile on his face. I mean you know, oh, pastor, I don't think I can. Yes, you can, because then the Bible lied. If you couldn't attain it, then the Bible lied, I mean.
Speaker 1:I believe we can grow to the point where we just have this lifestyle or we're going to or we're going to stumble and fall. Well, we don't have to. You might, but you don't want to. There's nothing says you have to. I've heard preachers say, oh, you've got to and we've just got flesh. Well, no, we've got the tools to keep our flesh under submission to our spirit. I mean, that's what Paul said. I keep under my body lest, while having preached to others, I myself would be disqualified. Even Paul had trouble with his body wanting to do things that he wouldn't allow it to do. I mean, your body's not saved, just your spirit. And your mind, of course, needs to be renewed day by day. You need to renew your mind with what, the Word of God, you've got to get rid of the world's way of thinking and be conformed to the God's way of thinking on everything that takes effort on your part. Amen.
Speaker 1:So the life that continually pleases God. You see, god loves everybody, but he's not necessarily pleased with everybody. I'm going to say that again. You know God loves everybody, but he's not necessarily pleased by everybody. You know he hadn't been necessarily pleased at certain times about me. I mean, I haven't always pleased him. Why? Because I had to learn to walk by faith and adopt it as a lifestyle. And I'm still working on that. I don't know of anybody that's graduated with a doctoral degree in that subject, but we're working on it, aren't we?
Speaker 1:And I really believe that this generation, which I am fond of calling the terminal generation, because I'm just I could be wrong, I mean, I could be wrong about it, but I just believe this is the generation that's going to see the Lord come. I don't have a date for you, but I just see the signs all around. I can, like the sons of Issachar, we know what the signs of the times are and know what Israel ought to do, what the church ought to do. Well, god told me what the church ought to be doing. Back in March of 1999, 26 years ago. He told me to wake up the church. And we doing. Back in March of 1999, 26 years ago, he told me to wake up the church, and we're busy about that right now. I mean, god has opened door after door after door after door to wake up the church is just breathtaking and exciting After years of nothing happening on that front.
Speaker 1:Everything I tried there's nothing wrong with trying something. I mean, I didn't have his total plan. So I had to make my own plan and you know I'd work it. You know I wrote a book and I went to the National Booksellers Convention in Denver, gladys, and I spent four days up there meeting the owners of all these Christian bookstores. I had a book with a forward, written by Oral Roberts. I just knew the thing would sell a lot of copies and people would begin to wake up. Guess what. Well, at least I had a plan. It wasn't. It didn't work out that well. It didn't. Nobody cared to hear what I had to say, but I'm obeying. As far as I'm concerned, I'm doing what I can do. You see what I'm saying. And then now it's beginning to pay off.
Speaker 1:I said this this morning, but Royce reminded me that five years ago today that uh, michael Berry interviewed me on his radio program and it went across the country. He's got five cities that he was in at the time. I don't know how many he has nowadays, but he's syndicated and his podcast goes all over and he spent a long time with me on his program. That evening he was going through the offices of a guy that was interviewing me on 700 AM. I forgot his name. I can't remember his name now, but he had heard about our lawsuit, heard about we were open for COVID wanted to know all about it. So I'm on the morning, in the morning I'm talking to this guy on his radio program live and Michael Berry comes sashaying through his office and he heard me, heard my voice, and said who is that? And so they took a break and Michael Berry said who is it? And he told him who I was. He said tell him, I want him on my program tonight. That's how God opened the door. And by God opening the door five years ago today, it caused my name to be all over the country. Search engines picked my name up and I became known as the renegade pastor from Houston.
Speaker 1:And all of that I mean a lot of it was negative. Well, I'll take you. I learned this from Donald Trump. Even negative is good. All publicity is good, all notoriety is good. Let them lie about me. I don't know. Just talk about me, get my name out there. God will vindicate me down the road.
Speaker 1:Until now, we just broke through 27,000 followers on our Pastor John Griner Facebook page. 27,000 followers. I mean, I'm just amazed at that. I'm amazed at that. I know they're not my friends. Okay, I got that. I know they don't constantly listen to everything I say and all that, but it's kind of cool. And you know they'll ask for prayer, I'll pray for them. I get on there, man, I've gotten where I pray for people and I, you know, ryan says I just love watching how you answer some of these crazy prayer requests I just get. Blesses me. Ryan is our, is Royce's son, he's our, you know, our consultant that handles my Facebook page. Thank God for a good consultant. Ryan is a great guy.
Speaker 1:So I'm talking about now the faith life, and this generation has to master living the faith life because Jesus is coming soon. We've got to develop the lifestyle of faith and then here in Hebrews 10.38, now, the just shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him, if any man draw back him. Many men draw back. I've seen people draw back.
Speaker 1:It hurts to see people draw back. It hurts to see people get to a place you know and then, for whatever reason, they draw back and they just relax their hold on walking by faith. And now they're walking by whatever, whatever circum they're defined by, whatever disappointment, offense, sin, whatever it was, has taken over now and they're moving back away. And then he goes on and says but we're not that way. We're not of them who draw back unto perdition. Perdition is ruin, destruction, waste and death. I've seen people draw back to death, not spiritual death, just physical death. I mean they drew back from what they knew to do and they were taught better and they quit doing it and they drew back and the devil took them out. It's no fun to watch that. I hate it. So that's why I preach this. I preach this to remind us you know, um and Isaiah 28,. Let's turn over there. And in Isaiah 28, let's turn over there. I'm going to talk about the faith line, isaiah 28. So you get to a place and you draw back. Think about that.
Speaker 1:You had this line, you know, in March of 1836, so you know, colonel William B Travis, commander of the Alamo, took out his sword and drew a line in the sand in the Alamo. They had about 200 guys there. It was differing numbers, 180 to 250. They don't know exactly how many Texians were there, but you had some Davy Crockett, not Jasmine Crockett. Davy Crockett not to be. She's no kin to Davy, I'm positive. But Davy Crockett was there, the Tennessee boys were there, and he drew a line and he said and by that time they knew that they were outnumbered they had 1,500 Mexican regular soldiers surrounding the fort. These were professionals, these were their top line soldiers, line soldiers outnumbered 1500 to 200.
Speaker 1:And uh, just this crummy, you know crumbling spanish mission for a fort. And uh, he drew a line and he said all right, everybody that'll stay with me and help battle these guys and make their job that much harder, because we're battling for time for Sam Houston and San Jacinto. He hasn't got his army together and if we don't slow Santa Anna down right here, right now, then Sam Houston is not going to be ready when they advance. This was a war for Texas independence. So he drew a line in the sand. He said anybody that will cross this line, you cross this line and stay with me. And they all crossed the line. Now they sent some innocents out, some wives and some children, and they sent some other civilians out.
Speaker 1:But as far as the guys that were there to fight, they all went over the faith line. They all said, no, we're going to go over the faith line, we're not drawing back Isaiah 28, verse 13. But the word of the Lord was unto them, talking about Israel, precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line. Here a little and there a little, that they may go, that they might go and fall backward and be broken and snared and taken. Ooh man, that's kind of hard. Why in the world would God say that about Israel? Because it's true, it's exactly what happened. He's the prophet.
Speaker 1:Isaiah looked. He's a prophet, he's looking through. I'm sure he didn't quite understand it. He's just speaking it forth, but he prophesied what Jesus basically said in Mark 11, 23. He really wasn't talking about the fig tree, he was talking about Israel. When he cursed the fig tree, he wasn't just cursing the fig tree, he's cursing Israel for their lack of belief in him. They rejected him from the very first moment when he said the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to preach the gospel. And what did they do? They wanted to throw him off the brow of the hill. What did they do? They said crucify him. And of course, they've suffered as a nation ever since. I mean, they've gone through what they've gone through there.
Speaker 1:It is right there, line upon line, precept upon precept, precept upon precept. Prophet sent after prophet, after prophet Repent, repent. They killed them, they persecuted them, they rejected them Line upon line, line upon line. Here a little, there a little, over thousands of years. He gave them lots of time. Now all Israel shall be saved. I mean, you know God's going to save them all. I mean, at the end he concluded them all in unbelief so that at the end he can save all of them. Now I believe the Bible, I believe that that's exactly what's going to happen, the book of Romans. And so I'm not saying that to be critical of Jewish people. I'm just saying that there is a line, there's a faith line that we've got to cross. We've got to say yes to that line and say, yeah, I'm crossing that line. I'm not drawing back under perdition, I'm not drawing back to be fall backward and be broken and snared and taken. Glory to God, ooh, that's powerful. And so in Romans, let's turn over.
Speaker 1:There, talking about the faith life or the faith lifestyle, I mean, you know, when you, when you think about just never going by what your five senses tell you, you know it does take a little, a little doing, doesn't it? I mean, if you're going to ignore your five senses and make decisions based on just this word. What does that mean? Well, it means you've got a lot of word life and prayer life, which I know I sound like a broken record, but I don't apologize because there's no shortcut. There isn't any shortcut to the faith life it's, it's, it's, it's based on your word life and your prayer life. If you don't have one, you don't have any way to live it. You are automatically going to do what? Draw back under perdition. Yeah, there's no way. There's no other way. No, there's no shortcut. Yeah, there's no way. There's no other way. There's no shortcut.
Speaker 1:But in Romans 1, 17,. Let's look in verse 16. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein what Therein what Therein the gospel, therein what Therein what Therein the gospel, therein the gospel. The good news is the righteousness of God, revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith. There it is again, quoting Habakkuk, quoting the Old Testament.
Speaker 1:God didn't change his mind. He expected the Jews to live by faith. He gave them the opportunity to. They didn't. Joshua and Caleb lived by faith. Two spies, they'd live by faith. Oh, we're well able to. Let's go up at once. Let's go up at once. They're bred for us. Caleb said Ten, twelve spies. Ten of them had a bad report. Oh no, we'd be not able.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you right now, those cities, they're walled up to heaven. And all those giants, those giants, I tell you, we're just like grasshoppers in their sight. In fact, we're just like grasshoppers in our sight. We see ourselves as just a bunch of grasshoppers. Well, that ain't faith talking, is it? No, we're more than conquerors through him who loved. Greater is he that's in us than he that's in the world. We're not trapped, we're not in a box. I mean whom the son sets free, is unquestionably free.
Speaker 1:Hallelujah, everybody say from faith to faith. See, I mean that's where you go. You go from one level of faith to the next level of faith, and then one level of faith to faith. Faith to faith. See, I mean, that's where you go. You go from one level of faith to the next level of faith and one level of faith to faith, faith to faith. Over these last 26 years, after God told me to wake up the church, we've just had to go from faith to faith.
Speaker 1:We didn't quit, we didn't stop. It looked like we were behind in the late in the second half, like Houston was they were. They were six points down Excuse me, 14 points down, with six minutes left in the game. I mean they looked like there was no way they could win that game. I mean to tell you, they didn't stop, they didn't quit, they just kept coming, they kept coming, they kept coming. I mean it was amazing.
Speaker 1:I like what their coach said at the end of the when they were interviewing him. He said well, you know, God gets all the glory, but these young men get all the credit. I just really, I really appreciated him saying that I didn't know that he had that in him. I don't know him, but he did. He said that God gets all the glory, but these boys get all the credit. I thought that was pretty awesome and they did they. They, those boys. They played a well, they're men, they're not boys, they're men. And Duke had a 6'9 freshman that I've been watching him and he's the next big star in him, but you watch him and he is an amazing player and was amazing. He, I think, scored 27 points last night, but in the last 14 minutes, in fact the last 10 minutes, they scored zero field goals. So whatever the coach did to line up the defense on, that young man worked.
Speaker 1:What am I saying? All this about sports I'm just talking about. It's so similar to us. We can give up, we can back up at any point. We can let circumstances get so hot that we just finally just say no. We're going to go from faith to faith and from glory to glory. We're not stopping, we're not giving up, not waiting for anybody's acclaim and not waiting for anybody's approval. We're looking for his approval.
Speaker 1:Second Corinthians 3, 18. You know, we look in the mirror. Look at that one. We look in this wonderful Word that God gave us. It's just again. It takes your effort, it takes your dedication and commitment Verse 18, 2 Corinthians 3,. But we all, with open face, beholding, as in a mirror, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as the spirit of the Lord, in other words God, illuminates this word. As we look at it, we see ourselves and we say, nah, I need to change, I'm not lining up with this. This mirror is showing me an image that I need to grow into and we're moved from glory, one level of glory, to the next. That's the faith, life, lifestyle of faith. You get anything out of this tonight? Yeah, let's meet. You're chewing on some steak. I'll cut it up a little bit, but I mean otherwise you're gonna have to chew it.
Speaker 1:I think about Peter. You know he decided bless God, I'm not going to sit here in this boat. My comrades here, they're in this boat, we're all in. You talk about trapped. They're trapped in the boat, but Jesus is out there walking on the water. It's a stormy night boat, but Jesus is out there walking on the water. It's a stormy night, waves, wind, and Jesus is walking on the water. And Peter just said I don't want to stay in this stupid boat, I want to get out of this boat. I want to cross the line. I want to cross the line. I'm not going to sit here and while he's doing that wonderful stuff, I want to do what he's doing. Why can't I, jesus, if it be thou, bid me, come to thee on the water? Talk about putting somebody in a box. What's Jesus going to say? No, it's not me. He had the answer in the affirmative yeah, it's me. And he went over the side, he went right across that line. He's the only one that did All the rest of them had to sit there and go, wow, isn't that something.
Speaker 1:And they got to gloat a little bit when, you know, he started sinking and you know, oh master, save me, I'm sinking. And Jesus had to kind of rebuke him and say, oh thou of little faith. Well, at least little faith walked on the water. I mean, what the other guys? What kind of faith have they got?
Speaker 1:They've got faith in the status quo. I mean, look, we've got to break out of the status. We've got to break out of the status quo and get over to the next line. How many of you want to come on? Let's lift our hands right now, lord, we're going to break out of the status quo and our finances. We're not going to let the devil set our finances in a place where we don't grow. We're growing, we're reaching to the next level and that means we're reaching to the next level of giving, because that's how it works. Well, we've had to do that as a church. I mean, we are sowing seed like you cannot believe. It's breathtaking and it's reflected by our CPA when he gives us the report and it says, ah, a whole lot more went out than came in for the first two months. Because why? Because we're sowing seed. We're not worried. That's exactly what I want. We have got to give, we've got to crank the giving up because the need is huge, the need of the ministry to go spread from state to state to state to state.
Speaker 1:I mean, man, it's a lot. Are y'all with me now? It's exciting. There's no other life but the faith life. There is another life but it's not worth living. I lived it. I was in that life. I'm so glad I got saved. I'm so glad God got me to Lakewood Church where I could sit under a man like John Osteen and glean from him and learn from him and observe him in close proximity what an honor. And to get to be around all of the other men and women of God that came around, that I got to actually interchange with and take to lunch and drive them and go places and sit down with them and talk normal talk. I mean it's just amazing the life that God opened for me. Praise God. So faith here.
Speaker 1:Now let's go back to Hebrews. Now we're not staying in the status quo boat, the USS status quo. We're on a cruise where we've got a cruise here on the Sea of Galilee. On the USS status quo, all of our meals are supplied. We have a fillet of carp on the menu tonight. Alright, on the menu tonight, all right.
Speaker 1:Hebrews 11 tells us what faith is. Faith is what substance and evidence. Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Let's put it up there, if we can, in the Amplified Talks about it's the title deed. Now, faith is assurance, the confirmation, the title deed of the things we hope for being the proof of things we do not see in the conviction of their reality. The proof of things we do not see in the conviction of their reality. Faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses. Your faith perceives as real fact what is not yet revealed to your senses.
Speaker 1:So when you have an earnest money contract on a new home, I sold homes for 25 years. I built them and sold them and I did both. I built them and I sold them. I mean, sometimes I was the selling agent like a doofus. I never got my broker's license. That would have helped me a whole lot if I had just went ahead and got a broker's license. I remember in the 70s when we were approached, it would have taken just a minimal amount of effort to not only get my real estate license but to get my broker's license.
Speaker 1:Now, broker's license is not that easy to get. I mean, you get a real estate license but get a broker's license, and it was just going to be a handful of hours where I could just go to a school and get and get that, just because of all the they gave they, they had a grant, they were grandfathering in home builders to where we would have been able to have gotten brokers. I should have gotten my brokers. I mean, are you crazy? I mean I've sold a lot of houses, I've signed the deals up, took the open title at the title company, like the realtor does, and some of them were my houses and some of them were my brother's houses and my other partners. I mean it wasn't just for me personally, it was in our subdivision, I don't know how many, let's say it was about two years, almost three years, where I sat every weekend, that's, saturday and Sunday. I sat in a home with no table or chairs or anything, just leaned up against the wall waiting for people to walk through the door so I could jump on them and sell them a house, and all I had to do was just follow through and get my broker's license. And then, you know, when times got bad, I wouldn't have even had to hire an agency or a real estate. And then, if I did, they had to split their commission with me because, guess what, I'm a broker. If you're going to get 6%, I'm going to get something. But no, I was not yet saved, I was just walking.
Speaker 1:But a title deed. So you have an earnest money contract. All you've got is a piece of paper. You don't have a house money contract. All you've got is a piece of paper. You don't have a house.
Speaker 1:Back then we'd take a $1,000 check, made it out to the title company. I would take the contract. How much is the sales price? Here's the sales price. How much is the loan amount that they're going to apply for? They're going to apply for a loan. Sometimes they were pre-approved for a loan. Sometimes they had to go, you know, apply for the permanent loan. And I would go to the title company, open title. They would start investigating and get ready for closing, and I'd give them the thousand dollar check.
Speaker 1:And the people, all they had to show for it was what? A piece of paper. It's called the earnest money contract. Do they have a house? No, do they own the house? No, it's all in the future. All they have is a piece of paper. That's all they have. But then they call their relatives, they call their parents, they call their siblings, they call their friends. Oh, come see our house. We just bought a house in Candlelight Hills. We just bought a house over here. Oh, come see our house. And they'll go is the house open, mr Builder? Can you make sure it's open? I want to show my family our house. Sure, they say it's their house. Well, it's not their house, it's my house. It's not their house until when? Until they close it, and that's usually 30 to 45 days, minimum 30, 45 days, I mean nobody closes right away, it's usually more like 45 days by the time their credit's checked and they go through all of the stuff. But what do they have? They have the earnest money contract, that's all they have. But what have we got? Well, we've got the earnest of our inheritance right here.
Speaker 1:The Holy Ghost has shined his light on this word and he gave us. He gave us illumination to tell us what belongs to us, even before we can see it, touch it, taste it, smell it, feel it. We have it by faith. Oh, that's the simple definition of what we're going through and you know you have to live your life that way in all areas. So, yeah, it does take. It's a challenge. I admit the faith life.
Speaker 1:Now, you know, years ago I got somebody gave I don't remember how I got these cassette tapes. You know I was when I first got saved. I felt so far behind Because I was 33. And it seemed like everybody that I went to church with had grown up in the Word of Faith. They'd grown up knowing, you know, about the baptism of the Holy Ghost. They knew so much and I didn't know anything. I was so dumb when it came to the Bible. I would be amazed. Brother Osteen would get up there and preach and he'd just start quoting whole passages of Scripture. And I'm going where is that? I've got all these little? Did y'all have these little markers in your Bible? You know where you could find. You know second Chronicles and second John. You know I'd have. I have these little markers, you know, and I. By the time I found it he was through quoting it and I was just amazed.
Speaker 1:I was amazed that people could stand up and just pray and pray the word and pray these wonderful prayers. And you know, as a Catholic, we had the missile. Do you remember the missile? Any of you Catholics you remember having a missile? You open the missile. It's just the pre-printed prayers. You prayed the same prayers every mass. When you went to mass you prayed the same prayers right out of the missile. I don't know why they called it a missile. It wasn't even a firecracker but anyway, sure wasn't a bullet. I felt so far behind.
Speaker 1:But you know, I just read, I read everything. I read my Bible, I prayed. But I listened to cassette tapes. I listened. I had a series of tapes on faith, foolishness or presumption by Dr Fred Price. Dr Price was a he was something else Word of faith preacher in Los Angeles had a 10,000 seat auditorium when nobody had one that big. He had a huge church. He was later on he was on television this before he was on TV and I got that. I got a hold of those tapes and they really helped me. Everybody say faith, foolishness or presumption and so I listened to those and it was just really a cool thing to listen to how he would teach. He was a great Bible teacher. He was not a preacher, he was a teacher of the Word.
Speaker 1:And so faith is what we're called to live by, or just shall live by their faith. But you can also have foolishness and call it faith. And what is foolishness? Well, it's trying to believe for something apart from a rhema of God. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the logos. But then the logos is the rhema. I mean God's word is his will. Another way to say it is faith begins where the will of God is known.
Speaker 1:So if you don't know what the will of God is and you're saying I'm believing for X, and you don't know, if the Bible says X belongs to you. So an example of that would be well, I'm believing for a Cadillac, praise God. Well, it's not in the Bible, you know. I mean God might allow you to have a Cadillac. He might have a Cadillac in mind for you. But how are you going to know that? Well, you're going to have to wait and pray and see if that desire is his desire for you. And so you're just going to go out. I'm just believing for a Cadillac. I'm believing.
Speaker 1:So you go out and you buy a Cadillac on credit and you pay 6%. You know interest and you get. You know you pay that down payment and you roll that $80,000, $100,000 car out of the showroom. It's worth about 30% less a minute that you it gets in your name. It's worth about 30% less that instant and it goes down from there. But God gave me this Cadillac. Well, no, you gave you the Cadillac and you're calling it faith. It's foolish, because now you're paying for something that you can't afford and you sure can't afford the maintenance on that sucker, because Cadillacs cost a lot of money when you change the oil. It's just ridiculous.
Speaker 1:I have a Jaguar Now. I knew that Jaguar was going to be expensive to maintain, but my Jaguar's maintenance is covered for 36,000 miles. I don't have to pay anything for an oil change. Pay zero for an oil change. So the first time I needed an oil change was after I'd owned it for a year. I didn't have to change. I'm used to changing oil every 3,000 miles, every 90 days, this thing. You drive it one year or 15,000 miles. That's all you need to do. You don't need to take it in any more often than that. So I did. I took it in. After a year it had 13,000 something miles.
Speaker 1:And so the guy's writing it up, you know, getting me all in there, and he lays this big bunch of paper in front of me, about a quarter of an inch thick, and all these pages, you know, and on the top page it says you know, $2,400 for the oil change. I said wait, wait, hold on, hold on. I'm supposed to get. Oh, I'm sorry, that's for the Land Rover. I gave you the wrong paper, sorry. So I thought, man, I'm glad I didn't buy the Land Rover, because I'd be paying $2,400 for a stupid oil change. For a stupid oil change, I mean, are you nuts Really? I used to change all my own oil. It didn't cost $24, much less $2,400. Are y'all getting me?
Speaker 1:So foolish is trying to believe for something apart from God's word, apart from what God's will is, in other words, you don. Apart from what God's will is, in other words it's. You know, you don't know what God's will is in a situation, but he will reveal his will. His word is his will, and then not everything that his, his, his will is written down. So that's when you need a rhema word, you need God to let you know.
Speaker 1:For instance, I didn't know that where God had us have our first service. I didn't know it was at 6827 FM, 1960 West Houston, texas, 77066. That's not in the Bible. How did I find out? And I had to find out by the witness. I went looking for a place for our first church service to be in. I went for a building to lease and I found it and I had a witness. This is the place. All I had was the witness. Well, that, see, that's the will of God. Are y'all with me now?
Speaker 1:And I signed that, that uh agreement, that lease agreement for, for a year, $5,000 a month for 12 months. I signed a $60,000 lease agreement and I had nothing in the bank personally and the church had about I don't know thousand dollars in its brand new bank account. How in the world could you do that? Wouldn't that be foolishness? No, not, because I had the witness of the Spirit. God took care of the whole thing. He arranged the entire thing. We were never late, not one month. The whole time we had that building, we were on time with all of our lease payments. Are you with me now? Everybody say foolish. No, you don't want to walk by foolish, you want to walk by faith.
Speaker 1:Presumption what's presumption? What's the difference between foolishness and presumption? Well, presumption is proceeding on just mental ascent. You might have a word, you might know what the will of god is about something, but then you've, you know, you really haven't built your own faith, you just agree with it in your mind. You just say, well, god's will is for me to be healed. So, for instance, a presumption would be and I've seen people go to heaven on presumption would be, and I've seen people go to heaven on presumption. Presumption would be that you've got a bad report from the doctor, go to the doctor and you've got stage four cancer and they're going to make a presentation of treating that cancer. Most of the time they do, unless it's so far gone that there's nothing they can do, in which case, when there's nothing they can do, well then you're going to be forced to have a faith issue. I mean, all your faith is going to be wrapped up in getting your healing before you run out of time.
Speaker 1:Dodie had that. Dodie had terminal cancer of the liver. There was nothing at that time, in 1981, that medical science could do for her. There was no treatments. They suggested, pastor, you're going to need a miracle. He said, well, we'll get one. Well, you know, and they did. They got a faith miracle. I mean she just immersed herself in the word of God, and what a mighty testimony. I mean she just immersed herself in the word of God, and what a mighty testimony. I mean it works. I said it works. But if you were to say, well, you know, I know the Bible says himself bore my sicknesses, took my infirmities by his stripes, I'm healed, I agree with that.
Speaker 1:Listen, I'm just not going to take all these treatments. They said that I could take chemo. You know they'll present a plan for you to look at. Most places will, depending on your type of cancer, where it's at, you know what stage it is. I don't know how they come up with these stages. I don't even know if it's scientific. To be honest with you, a lot of it's guesstimates. I don't trust very many of what I hear coming out of the medical. It's hard to trust anybody out of the medical establishment after what happened with COVID Amen, when I still see them wearing masks and that I mean are you nuts? But anyway, they're still wearing these masks. Okay, whatever cranks your tractor, just go ahead and wear it. I'm not going to wear one, though, okay. So, anyway, they're going to give you a plan. There's chemo for so many weeks, and then, after that, we'll do a series of radiation treatments for so many weeks, and so forth, and we'll check your progress as we go. And so that is your plan.
Speaker 1:That's what they have planned, and presumption would be oh no, who wants to have chemo anyway? Who, in their right mind, would want to have it? Nobody. Who would want to submit to radiation? Nobody. So what do you do? Presumption says oh no, I'm healed, and you've never believed God for a headache. See, you're presuming that you have the faith to overcome this thing that's been growing in your body. You're presuming that you can beat it before it kills you, and I'm saying that that's not faith, that's presumption. What you should do is go to the Lord and say okay, here's the report, here's what they want to do.
Speaker 1:Now, lord, I just submit this. There's no temptation, test or trial or diagnosis, but such is common to man. I mean, the devil's got no new tricks, all he's got is cancer. But you've got something greater. You've got the blood, you've got. I've got the word, I've got the Holy Ghost.
Speaker 1:Now I want to know from you what is my way of escape, Father, I need a way of escape on this situation. I'll do whatever See. Father, I need a way of escape on this situation. I'll do whatever See. That's the way to pray right there. That's when you find out what is God's way of escape for this attack on you. Now you're no longer in presumption, you're walking by faith. Oh, come on, let's lift our hands right now. Glory to God.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, when you take a strawberry shortcut around that and just say, oh well, I'm healed. I've seen it, I've seen it all. I've seen people in this church go to heaven just saying they're healed. Well, they never did really hook up, they never really engaged in the fight of faith. I mean, if we would really do what we should do with the Word of God and prayer, I mean we wouldn't have to depend so much on medical science. There it is, I said it. But thank God for what medical science can do. I mean, from time to time they can help you. They've helped Gladys. I mean thank God for the neurosurgeon. He was able to drill a hole in the side of her head and put this little device in there and get the water drained out of her head. Praise the Lord, she's better, she's getting around. She's finished two full weeks of PT now, three times a week, an hour each time. So she's moving better now.
Speaker 1:Thank you all for agreeing with us. We're not trusting the doctor, we're trusting the word. But he uses doctors. So I'm not against doctors, we're in the same line of work. But everybody say faith, foolishness, presumption. So we're going to wind it up here your words and your actions, if you're going to have a lifestyle of faith, your words and your actions have to line up with what you're believing. And I just say this all the time, but just I quote these famous men of God and people ask them what is faith? What is believing? Believing is not mental assent, believing is an action verb. Believing is acting. Faith is an action. It's not just agreeing up here, it's an action.
Speaker 1:Raymond T Ritchie, what is faith? Faith is acting on the Word. Raymond T Ritchie, great pastor of the Assembly of God here in Evangelistic Temple, which was an Assembly of God church here in Houston in the Heights for many, many decades, historic church, and he was there. He had a lot of people said that he that Brother Osteen's healing ministry was very similar to Raymond T Ritchie's healing. He had a healing ministry and Lonnie knew him. Lonnie knew Raymond T Ritchie and Lonnie knows everybody. Lonnie, I'm not a guy, he knew everybody, praise God. So Raymond T Ritchie said what is faith? Faith is acting on the word.
Speaker 1:Smith Wigglesworth, the apostle of faith, had 19 people raised from the dead, including one that had been embalmed already, picked him up out of the casket, leaned him up against the wall and called his spirit back into his body. Figured that one out. Try to have an analysis on how that happened. Smith Wiggler said faith is an act. Faith is an act, kenneth Hagin. Faith is acting like the Bible is true. I think that's my favorite one. Faith is acting like the Bible is true.
Speaker 1:So your words and your actions have to line up with each other. You have to act like the Bible is true. You've got to talk like the Bible is true. You can't talk thickness and disease and get your healing. You can't talk poverty and lack and get a financial breakthrough. You can't talk one way and act another. You can't talk right and act wrong. You've got to have them both lined up together. And what does that take? It takes discipline, it takes consistency. Inconsistency lies the power, inconsistency. I mean you know it takes a while to get consistent. We're tempted sometimes to talk wrong. I mean you, you know we're in the world, I mean we've got all these people talking and if you, but without thinking about it, sometimes you'll say something about, oh, you know I get aggravated If I say it, say something wrong. Or I say it, say it out, it comes out of my mouth. So your words and actions have to line up with your faith.
Speaker 1:Back in, uh, brother Hagin tells a testimony back in years ago, in 1932, you know they had dirigibles. Remember the Goodyear blimp? So we used to have the Goodyear blimp. I got, you know, claire and Jay and Gladys and I got to ride in the Goodyear blimp. That was a really amazing thing to get to do. You climb up in there and float up. We were at 600 feet right above Candlelight Hills and looking at cypress wood floating up there and he turned all the engines off and it's just quiet. And you're just floating at 600 feet looking down traffic on Luetta. Look over toward Con conroe. You just look at it and there's no motor sounds. There's just just quiet and it's just the weirdest thing. You know, it was so cool. I've still got pictures of my houses. I took some pictures out the window of my houses from the roof, you know, down on the rooftop.
Speaker 1:But uh, but in 1932 they they32, they started using them for transportation. They were helium, which was very dangerous, and they had this dirigible that was coming in for a landing in San Diego and you know it's real complicated. You're trying to get the gas pressure regulated so that it will come down out of the altitude and begin to come in for a landing. And they landed. They didn't land it on the ground, but they, they moored it against this big, huge metal tripod that would bolt onto the front of the of the blimp, and so they had ropes that were tied to the front of the blimp, hanging out, big, long ropes, and sailors were there.
Speaker 1:The USS Akron was a Navy dirigible and so they had 200 sailors that would grab the rope and pull it and finish pulling it down by hand so that it could more against this, this uh tower and uh, as it was coming down here, the sailors and they're grabbing a hold of this ropes and they all have, you know they're, they're pulling this thing down and all of a sudden, you know it's a Pacific ocean, there's this wind that comes off the ocean and it sweeps in there and it and that dirigible just jerks up and lifts up off the ground. And some of the sailors didn't let go. And before they could let go, before they could realize they're not coming back down, see, they thought they would come back down the weight, but no, they didn't. It went way up, up, up, up, and by that time now it's too far, they can't, and they start falling. They start, you know, because you've got, you've got one rope and a guy's above you and he's his feet are hitting you in the head. I mean, you know it was, it was terrible.
Speaker 1:And so, one by one, these sailors were falling to their deaths. Many of them were injured, some of them were dead, you know, died, and it was horrendous, and it took a long time, a couple of hours, for them to be able to get that blimp back down and get it moored. And in the meantime they see this one sailor, and he's up there dangling and they're all just breathless. Oh man, he's at two or 300 feet off the ground and he's still dangling. He's still dangling how in the world, what in the world? So they finally got him down and he was in no problem at all. He said how did you last? He said, oh, I didn't last. He said I had about six foot of rope and I just pulled that six foot of rope and wrapped it around my waist, I tied myself off and I just I just swung. I just swung from the bottom of the blimp and I swung free and joined the view.
Speaker 1:Glory to God. Your faith can tie you. Your faith can keep you in the contrary winds that your faith can keep you from falling. Your faith can keep you. Let's have the faith lifestyle. Come on, lift your hands and receive today. Glory to God, hallelujah, thank you, lord. You get anything out of this tonight. Well, I enjoyed sharing the word of God with you tonight. Praise God, I believe it helped you. And we're all adopting the faith lifestyle. We're pleasing God more and more, all the time, more and more consistently. We're putting a smile on God's faith. That's what I want to do. I don't want to make him mad. I want to make him.