Fathers Of Faith

Pick your Bibles up, wave them around.

I wanna get into the Word with you.

This Father's Day, let's say this together say, heavenly Father, I'm so glad to be free.

It's the appropriate day.

It's Juneteenth.

We're celebrating freedom.

I'm so glad to be part of a nation that banished slavery.

As bloody as that banishment was, we're beginning to reap the benefits of it.

We've got more to do, but, oh Lord, you've shown us this morning whom the Son sets free is free indeed.

Thank you for the Word.

I receive it in my heart.

It'll change me and I will accomplish what I'm here to do in Jesus' name, amen.

Let's turn to our Bibles, to Hebrews 11, please, and verse one.

I don't know how many times I've preached out of these verses, hebrews 11, one.

Now, faith is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen For.

By it, that is, by faith, the elders obtained a good report.

By faith, we understand.

Through faith, we understand that the world were framed by the Word of God.

So the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

By faith.

Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, god testifying of his gifts and by it he being dead, is yet spoken of in my margin.

He's yet spoken of by faith.

Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him, but before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God.

But without faith it is impossible to please him, for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them who diligently seek him.

And so, on this Father's Day, I just wanted to preach a simple message entitled Fathers of Faith.

Fathers of Faith, you know, not all of us and I'm aware of this not all of us have earthly fathers that we look up to.

Some of our earthly fathers frankly failed.

They either abandoned or they were abusive, or both, or they were disconnected.

Whatever the case is, we have another generation that by and large, there's huge numbers of young people in this country being raised by their grandmothers and certain cases by their great grandmothers, and one of the reasons why we have such a mess is that there's a lack of any true fathering.

And I just I congratulate all of you good fathers that are here this morning, but maybe you don't, maybe you didn't have a father.

I say I was so blessed to have a father that I looked up to and, my fine, I wasn't saved when he was alive, I didn't get saved till after he died and but he was a wonderful father, a wonderful example, and, like most young people, you know, young people go through this phase in their teenage years, and some all the way up into you know, their early 20, in my case, all the way till I was 22.

When I was 22, I finally figured out.

My God.

My dad was not as dumb as I had always thought he was.

You know how smart Alec kids can be, you know, and I was the worst, just terrible.

I was the youngest and it kind of showed in my behavior.

But he was a wonderful father and a very I mean, he shared with me things, taught me things, full patient with me.

I think I'd have ripped all the hair out of my head if I was him, you know, but he was always patient with me and I lost him way too soon.

But you may not be in that case.

In which case, then, you need some Bible examples, because we all stand, all fathers today stand on the shoulders of these men that are mentioned here in what I call the hall of fame of faith.

And so they're flaming torches really to light our way.

They're examples in their own right.

And it says here in 1 Corinthians 10,.

It says that all the Old Testament was written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the age are come.

And we're starting to see the end of the age, aren't we?

I was reading the Gallup poll just yesterday that said that belief in God is at an all time low in America.

It's gone, it's plunging.

And guess where it's plunging the most?

It's plunging among Democrats and leftists.

I'm surprised that any of them are left that even say that they believe in God.

I wonder what God they believe in.

But and then young people, young adults, and so I was looking at one chart.

It was pretty constant at about 92% of America, and we're talking about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the Father of our Lord, jesus Christ.

That God, not all these other gods that we've imported into our nation.

But you've heard me say this, and this chart absolutely verifies what I've been saying.

So during World War II, all the 40s through the 50s, it barely moved.

In 1965, you can see the decline start Very gently.

What was 1965?

Well, 1965 was when Ted Kennedy changed the immigration laws and we started importing the gods of all the world, or the godlessness.

You started importing all of the false gods.

God is not looked kindly on that, and so you see belief going down, down, down and plunged.

When was the biggest plunge?

During Obama?

During Obama, 2010 was just like a huge dip, like, wow, it's amazing.

It's almost like people who are in charge politically then can't really admit to believing in God because they're so godless in their policies.

So it's easier for them to say well, you know, I used to believe that, but I don't.

Anyway, it's basically pretty much unchanged among Republicans and only slightly unchanged among independents.

So I mean, when I hear people say, hey, god, kind of Republican.

Well, all I can say is most Republicans believe in God and a lot of Democrats I won't say most Democrats, but a lot of Democrats don't.

And even if they do believe in God, what God is it Because of?

The policies are so anti-Christ.

Are you with me now?

So what I'm saying is we, as the church, need to be the fathering part of our nation.

We need to be good fathers.

Stand up for what's right, teach our kids what's right and wrong, even if they don't want to hear it.

They might roll their eyes at you, but they're listening, they're listening, they're listening and you're sowing seed into them, the seed of truth.

Are you with me now?

So here in Hebrews, one version, it says 20 times by faith, you know by faith.

Abel.

By faith, ennick.

By faith, noah.

By faith, abraham.

By faith, you know, moses.

It says by faith, 20 times there in Hebrews, 11.

And another version says by an act of faith.

And so we want to examine these fathers that I'm going to preach about this morning.

What was their act of faith that they were known by?

And that's a good guide to us, and I believe the church has got to rise up and be the fathering spirit in the earth right now.

The first one we read about is Abel.

Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.

So Cain was Adam and Eve's firstborn.

And when you go back to Genesis, chapter four, you find out that Cain, after the process of time, he offered to God and offering which was part of his crop he was a tiller of ground.

Abel was a razor of sheep.

So why, you know?

God said you know, I don't accept your sacrifice.

Abel's sacrifices is correct.

What did he offer?

He offered a firstling of the flock.

He offered a lamb, the firstling of the flock, and God accepted his sacrifice and deemed him righteous.

And God visited Cain, said Cain, I can't respect this, this is not correct.

If you'll just do the right thing, it'll be accepted.

What was the right thing?

Well, his daddy taught him, you know, adam taught them how to approach God.

Remember, adam walked with God in the cool of the day or in the Ruach, the spirit, the breath of the day.

I mean, he knew how to approach God and the only way to approach God.

This is way before the law, this is way before any Bible was written and the way that God instructed Adam to maintain contact with him once he sinned yeah, once he sinned.

I mean he separated from God.

He's spiritually dead, he can't hear God, he can't see God.

Before he was walking with God.

Are you with me now?

So was God through.

No, he said you can still maintain righteousness with me by offering the firstling of the flock.

That's over a bleeding sacrifice.

That is how.

That's a law over a bleeding sacrifice.

Well, our bleeding sacrifice was Jesus.

It was one time, for one forever.

But for them, when they came to God.

They had to come over the blood of a lamb or a goat or a animal, over a side of a bleeding sacrifice.

Well then, so he taught his boys, don't you think he taught his firstborn first, cain?

Certainly he did so.

Cain is like a lot of young people.

He just blew his daddy off and thang hey, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna make my own way.

That's too much trouble, I don't wanna fool with that.

What would he have had to do?

Well, he would have had to take some of his grain over to his brother, abel, and say hey, abel, I need to swap some grain for an animal.

I need to come to God, I need to bring God the firstling of the flock.

That's how daddy taught us to do it.

But you raised animals.

I don't have any animals.

I'll be glad to buy one for me.

How much is it gonna cost me?

Three full bushels, five bushels?

Oh no, you don't have to give me anything.

You're my brother, I'll give you.

Uh-uh.

No, it can't be free.

I can't offer to God.

Something doesn't cost me, oh, okay, well, in that case, give me a couple of truckloads of grain.

No, but anyway, you know so he could have done that, but he didn't do it.

He's too proud.

He didn't like his brother.

He's jealous, for whatever reason, we don't know why he's jealous of his brother, sibling rivaly, who knows.

But I do know that he sinned and so his offering wasn't accepted.

But Abel's was.

Abel's was what was his sacrifice?

We was sacrificing in order of his act of worship.

It was worship.

Your tides and offerings are not just a method for you to get rich.

It's not even a method just for you to open the key for your supply to operate.

It's primarily an act of worship, and we just got through teaching on the laws of receiving your kingdom supply, and there are certain laws of the kingdom.

But I wanted to say that.

We've said it before.

We'll say it again, though.

Really and truly, for us as Christians, our worship, the worship without sacrifice, is vain.

People come to church and just sing the songs that we sang this morning and then leave the offering off, and leave the tithe off, and just.

You know.

Well, you know I'll get around to it In the process of time, when it's convenient to me.

See, that's Cain.

You're trying to approach God in a way that is not what he prescribed.

He's prescribed all the ways to approach him.

Religion makes its own way, which is how we've got all these crazy religions, all this goofy stuff.

You know, I've been in India on numbers of times.

I mean they go crazy with Diwali, the festival of light.

Man, I mean every year.

I mean I was there.

The last time I was there it was happened to be again festival of lights and it wasn't just fireworks, it sounded like cannon fire.

I never heard such.

And they do.

They fire off these cannons and they got explosives.

They set off, and every year hundreds and hundreds of people die of the fireworks during Diwali.

And why is that?

Because they don't value your life.

They just say well, if you die, you'll come back in the next life.

You might come back as Aunt Minnie, you might come back as an elephant, you might come back as a fly.

You might come back as a fly, you might come back.

They believe in that lie which is reincarnation.

It's a false religion that's been brought into America.

And then you've got the other false religion, islam, and they're at war with each other in India.

I mean they kill each other more than they do the Christians.

They hate each other.

Isn't that amazing?

Christianity is love.

Amen.

We don't do the killing.

Amen, all right.

So his act of faith was worship.

Everybody say worship.

See, I heard Shambox say this way back in the 80s.

He said the biggest sin in the church is worship without sacrifice.

What was he talking about?

People that just want to come to church and check the box and say they worship God, but they don't tie, they don't give, they don't support the church, they don't really have anything that they put.

They don't put God first, and we know we have to put Him first, and that's how you do it.

It's always with money, it's always with your.

Money represents blood, it's an exchange of your life, isn't it?

So it makes sense, then, that a true sacrifice, of course, the sacrifice of praise, the fruit of your lips, giving thanks to His name, that's another sacrifice.

So that's why we tell you, during offering time, bring your tithe up here and your offerings up here with rejoicing, and worship God and give with a heart to see the kingdom advance, see the church bless, see that gospel preached.

You give with a heart of love, amen.

So what a wonderful example he is to fathers.

Fathers have to be men of worship.

Worship God.

If you don't put God first, your family probably won't put you first, your wife probably won't put you first.

I see this all the time, I see in places in the world where women almost every place in the world women are oppressed.

They're put under, and the man takes the lead.

He demands honor, he demands respect, and so they do it by force.

If you don't, I'm gonna beat you, if you don't, I'm gonna kill you.

That's what it's like in most of the world.

America what a beacon of the gospel.

It's getting more like that, though.

You're seeing more and more abuse, you're seeing more and more violence in the home, and it's because we've gotten away from God.

Let's be the leaders back.

Let's preach people the good news amen, all right.

So his act of faith was worship.

Then the next one we see by an act of faith, enoch was translated that he should not see.

Death was not found because God had translated him.

Back.

In Genesis, it said that Enoch walked with God and was not, for God took him.

He walked with God and was not.

He looked around, and what happened to Enoch?

Where'd he go?

God took him, and you think about that.

Think about a guy that's spiritually dead.

He does not have the spirit of God in him.

Jesus has not yet died on the cross, he's not been redeemed, and yet he walked with God.

The word walked there in the Hebrew mean he continued with God.

In his generation, enoch continued with God and he had this testimony that he pleased God.

So he walked with God, continued with God by faith, and we already know that faith is based on what you can't see.

He couldn't see God.

No man has seen God at any time.

So he didn't see God, he didn't touch God, he didn't hear God.

Are you with me now?

So he walked with God by faith.

Now, 40, some odd years ago, and I was reading my Bible and I came across this and I asked the question.

I said God, where in the world did he get faith to walk with God that he couldn't see?

Now I was, there's no Bible.

How could he do that?

How could he walk and continue with God by faith?

Where did he get his faith?

And God just said this Adam told him.

Adam, you know, when you read the begets, you find out man, I mean Enoch is way down the list.

Enoch Methuselah, 960 years, and he died.

And he begets so and so at such and such an age, and then he died.

And he goes on down the list, down the list.

I said I know you're saying that to me, lord, I know it's you, but I gotta check this out in my Bible.

I gotta make sure that this is you talking to me.

I think it was fantastic because he's like six or eight down the list, way down I mean Adam is.

It's great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather.

How in the world could they have a conversation?

And I found out through my study and did a little math that their lives overlapped by 57 years.

In other words, enoch was 57 years old when Adam died, so he had 57 years to sit at.

Grandpa.

I don't know if he sang the song grandpa, tell me about the good old days, but anyway he must have told him about the good old days of walking with God in the Ruach.

Are you with me now?

I mean all of his grandkids and great grandkids and great, great grandkids.

Nobody asked him.

There's no record of anybody else sitting and interviewing him and finding, hey, hey, what was it like walking with God?

I can't see him, I can't feel him, I can't hear him, but I hear about you and I wanna know about that.

And he got faith listening to Adam talk about it.

Come on, lift your hands right now.

I believe your faith can rise up to where you can be a good father to your children or your future children.

Some of you young folks haven't gotten to be a father yet, but in any case, we need that spirit of fatherhood in the church.

The church need to be a good father.

Are you with me now?

So Enoch Believe that God was and that he was a rewarder of those who diligently sought him.

And so, finally, one day, god said well, you know what I'm really proud of you.

You've been walking with me all this time.

I'm gonna bring you up here where you can see me face to face.

I mean God's God.

He can do anything he wants to except lie.

You think about Enok being up there and now Elijah's up there.

They're both up there and they're just regular men like you and I, except they're not born again.

That blows your court, doesn't it?

So what was his act of faith?

Well, his act of faith was walking or continuing with God.

That's not how you start out.

It's whether you keep on going.

The just shall live by faith.

We walk by faith, not by sight, not by how it feels how it looks like.

We walk by faith, not by sight, and this is what pleases God.

Pleases God when we ignore the spirit of this age, when we ignore every symptom to the contrary, when we ignore every indicator and we just keep walking with God and trusting him and knowing his word comes to pass, everybody say I'm worshiping God, I'm walking with God by faith.

And then the next one is verse seven.

We didn't read, so I'll read it by faith, noah, by an act of faith, noah.

By an act of faith, noah being warned of God, of things not seen as yet, moved with fear.

My margin says being wary.

In other words, he didn't doubt.

Listen, I want you to see.

Noah was a spiritually dead person.

He's not a prophet, he's not a priest, he's not a king, and yet somehow God we don't know how it was that God communicated with him.

But he communicated with him that there's gonna be rain and there'd never been rain, and there's gonna be so much rain that everything was gonna flood and there'd never been a flood.

And so the Bible says he was wary, he feared God.

In other words, he feared God, he took account of what he said and he prepared an ark, didn't say he just built it, says he prepared it To the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

First Peter I find it here 215 says that Noah was a preacher of righteousness.

With every swing of the hammer, with every stroke of the saw, he's preaching a message.

The Bible says the earth in the dime of Noah was filled with violence.

The Bible says Jesus said that in the last days the coming of the Son of man was gonna be like it was in the days of Noah.

And we're seeing much violence.

We're seeing violence.

It's not new, but to me it's more intense now than it's been in my lifetime.

I know it's been that way.

You go back in history.

It was pretty violent during the founding of our country, you know, and there was violence on the frontier because there wasn't any law there.

So you had gun slingers and you had crime and all of that kind of thing way back.

But we have such senseless violence right now.

We had a safety meeting here at the church.

We have them every month, precinct four, now precinct three and we have law enforcement.

We had a real interesting.

James gave me a rundown on it and they were saying listen, do not get involved with road rage incidents.

Listen, people are getting killed almost every day in a road rage.

The people that are running around out here are either high on fentanyl or they are there completely.

I mean, their nuts are unhinged.

Listen, if somebody cuts you off, just hang back, do not engage, do not look at them, do not try to, don't honk, don't do anything.

Just stay cool, because I'm not saying that to fear you.

It's just a way that we have to maneuver right now.

You cannot, unless you're prepared to have a gun fight on the beltway, and I'm not prepared.

I might have a gun, but I don't want to have a gun fight, do you?

It's not worth it and I've been cut off.

I can't remember how many times the craziest drivers I mean they just run up and just whip right in front of me.

I'm driving the speed limit I learned you can't go slower because you're gonna get run over.

Usually I'm just, I won't say what I normally do, but anyway, let's just say I won't get run over from the rear unless they're nuts, and some of them are.

I mean, they're driving 90, 80, 90, and they come right in front of me and you know, I mean maybe in years past I might react.

I know that Glad is.

I know that Glad is hoping that I don't pull the machete with the kids in the car like I did on 1960.

Anyway, that's under the blood.

That guy died.

He's no longer here, just be warned.

But Noah moved with fear, the fear of God.

He moved with wariness of the reported God.

He didn't understand it but he acted on it.

Just think of the faith it took 100 plus years.

Nobody.

There's no record of anybody listening to his preaching except the animals.

I've had a few animals.

Listen to me.

Ellen Druscio, I sent me a photograph of her cat watching me on live streamer.

Are you watching, kitty cat?

Yeah, nancy says yeah, she's watching.

Okay, I've preached to my sheriff.

Animals, you know squirrels, mostly birds, occasional possum, and so he did have some animals that listened.

They'd gathered up and they came in the ark.

But no people, just his family.

He prepared and the world perished.

So what was his act of faith?

His act of faith was prepared.

We need to prepare now for the coming of the Lord.

We need to do, we need to be busy about kingdom work.

Are y'all with me now?

I mean we can't just act like, oh you know, there's no reason to get involved.

This is wickedness.

No, we need to get involved, we need to be voices, we need to be influences.

Amen, praise God, no one prepared by faith.

Enok walked with God, continued, able, worshiped.

Verse eight by faith, abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should have to receive for an inheritance, obeyed and he went out not knowing.

Everybody shout not knowing, not knowing where he went.

God didn't tell him where he was going for, he just told him to leave first.

How would you like to leave and not know where you're going?

Take some faith.

Well, I guess God will tell me whenever it's time.

Just simple obedience.

And he even didn't really completely obey, because God told him to leave his house and his household and he took his father and he took his cousin Lot, and the rest is history.

I mean, they didn't quite, he didn't quite obey, say God is just.

You know, we have these examples.

It's not about perfection, it's just about obedience.

I mean, at least he obeyed, and he got credit for it, clinging tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise, and he looked for a city which had foundations.

He's builder and maker is God.

So Abraham obeyed God, not knowing just one sentence of command.

He said soldier and a soldier.

Bible says he sojourned in the land of promise.

He never built a house and he's a rich man.

He's very rich in cattle, silver and gold, very successful.

I grew up in a little place called.

I was born here in Houston but when the fourth grade my parents moved the family to little place called Refereo, texas.

You know it was an oil.

It had the oil boom back in the 30s.

But before the oil boom we had, you know, the Spanish land grant.

People that made lots of money ranching in the areas right around Refereo and Victoria right in there, huge ranches between there and Corpus, and I've talked about the Thomas O'Connor ranch.

I own tens of thousands of acres of land.

And all those people before the oil boom they all made money in the oil boom too because they had oil on their ranch land.

But before that they were rich anyway.

And you know what?

They didn't live out on the ranch, they lived in town.

They had these huge mansions in little old Refereo Back in the 70s.

I went through early 70s and I took pictures of all those mansions, and some were already kind of in disrepair because the heirs didn't want to pay to keep them up, you know, and they weren't being used and most of them were abandoned and they were just slowly, and now they don't exist.

I went back through there, you know, in the last few years, and can't find but a couple that still exist.

Most of them have just rotted away.

My point is is that Abraham, god didn't give him inheritance in Israel while he lived.

It was for later, and so he sojourned.

He sojourned, he was intense with Isaac and Jacob.

They lived as nomads, even though they were rich.

Are you with me now?

What did that take?

It took faith, it took obedience.

Well, the only thing he did was when Sarah died.

Then he bought a piece of ground which is present day Hebron, and he bought a cave, makpala, to bury her in.

That's where Joseph is buried and that's where the Muslims today have defaced the grave of Joseph.

They mutilated that Hebron is under Islam control and quote unquote, palestinian, which there's no such thing as a Palestinian.

Get this straight.

I mean, these are ancient, ancient things that men, fathers of faith, obeyed God and cause things to be permanently altered.

Are you with me now.

So Abraham, his aim, his prize, his destiny.

A city whose builder and maker is God, that's what he was looking for the whole time.

A city oh, he's in that city now.

Glory to God.

What was his act of faith?

He obeyed, left his father's house and he sojourned.

He obeyed and he sojourned.

He did two things he acted.

He had acted Acts of obedience.

And finally, the last one is Moses will wrap it up here.

It says in verse 24, by faith, moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer a fliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach for Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.

For he had respect under the recompense of the reward.

By faith, he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.

Through faith, he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them.

So we find this last father of faith, moses, who chose Israel over Egypt.

He chose persecution over the palace.

He could have had the palace, but he chose the persecution.

He chose to slay the Passover lamb than to obey Pharaoh.

If he had just started obeying Pharaoh, all the pressure would have been off of him, but he kept all of that obedience to a God who he couldn't see.

He couldn't see God See.

No man has seen God at any time.

Well, he came close to seeing God.

He saw the fire on the mount and all that and he heard God.

But I mean, he didn't see him.

One time he wanted to see him.

Oh, show me.

He said.

Oh, you can't see me, I'm going to put you in the cleft of the rock, I'm going to pass by and you're going to see my hinders parts.

That's all he could see was a train going past him, a glory, and he came down off that mount with that glorified countenance.

So what was Abraham's faith?

He chose God's reward over Egypt reward.

That was his act of faith.

He chose a reward of serving God.

That's what we're doing right now.

We know that God is a reward of those who diligently seek him.

We're not going to allow all the mess in this world to draw us away from our faith in God.

And so we honor our fathers of faith.

And even if you don't have an earthly father that you maybe had a connection to.

Maybe he didn't fulfill what he should have.

Listen, we can always look to the Bible and we've always got our heavenly father.

Come on, lift your hands today, fathers of faith, hallelujah, glory to God.

You get anything out of this today?

Well, come on, let's rejoice.

Thank you, Jesus.