The Vision Of Faith

Well, let's all stand together, pick your bibles up, wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

I've got something to share with you tonight.

Let's say this together.

So, Heavenly Father, thank you for moving in our midst tonight.

We do honor you.

We are grateful for all that you've done and we're hungry for the Word of God.

We know it's the Word and the Spirit that's putting us over in all the circumstances of life.

Shine your light on the Word for me tonight.

Help me apply it in my life in Jesus' name.

Let's look at 2 Corinthians, chapter four, in verse 17,.

Paul writing to the church at Corinth.

And also, while you're opening to go to Hebrews 11, one, we'll start with 2 Corinthians four, first, verse 17.

Paul says for our light affliction.

Well, that's quite a statement, isn't it?

I don't know anybody who's been beaten with all the stripes 39 times, how many have forgotten, but anyways, a lot.

For our light affliction, which is, but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding internal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen.

For the things which are seen are temporal or temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

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.

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.

So tonight I wanted to share a message entitled faith, the vision of faith, the vision of faith.

Faith and vision you can't have one without the other.

Faith sees what others don't.

When our loved ones and friends and all, we're seeing something different because of our perspective of the spirit realm.

They're looking at the natural, they're looking at the temporal, we're looking at the eternal.

You know the world is programmed negatively.

Most Christians have not had their minds renewed to the Word of God, so they think the way the world thinks and it's programmed negatively.

You know the half empty versus half full kind of thing.

But when we look at something, we look at it overflowing.

We don't look at half empty, half full, it's overflowing when we look at it.

So what you constantly focus on is what you get.

And really the Bible says faith is the evidence of things not seen.

So it's obvious that if you can see it, you don't need faith for it.

Brother Hagin talked about a woman that came up in the healing line.

She had been a minister, very well respected, and heard a nomination think it was Presbyterian she got preacher of the year or something like that and very loved in her community and she had health issues.

And she came to one of Brother Hagin's healing meetings years ago and she a bunch of people there knew her and knew that she was ill and she hadn't received her healing and it was kind of hindering the meeting because people were coming up in the healing line and they thought like this well, you know, if Sister Jones can't get healed, what chance have I got?

And so, you know, brother Hagin usually would teach a week on faith and all that healing and then at night he would have a healing line.

So he asked the Lord.

He says, well, lord, is there any way I can help her?

And so she came up in the healing line, you know, and he prayed for her and she's, you know, he says, be healed.

And she said no, no, no, it's still there, I still there.

So Brother Hagin thought about the, you know, the blind man.

Jesus had to pray twice for you know.

He said I see me and his trees walking or something.

Jesus even had to pray for him twice.

And so, no, no, it's still there, I still feel it.

And so then the third time and she still didn't get it walked back to her seat.

Well, the meeting kind of fell, because she's an example.

And so he said you know, three times for anybody is enough.

But people were still healed.

But there were people that weren't connected to her.

She had a group of people there.

And so finally he said Lord, I'm gonna help this woman.

What can I do?

Other people got healed.

What can I?

How can I help this lady?

So he didn't really get an answer.

He just felt in his spirit the witness of how to handle this lady.

So would you come back up here?

And so she came back up here and he said when are you gonna start believing God for your healing?

And she said well, as soon as I'm healed.

We're all laughing because we know better than that.

Everybody in that church knew better than that.

But this woman here, she is a preacher.

He said well, why would you do that?

You wouldn't need to believe if you could see it already.

And see, and Brother Hagin.

You know he said she started batting her eyes like a toad frog in a West Texas hailstorm and she said well, why?

You know, I'm not going to believe something that I can't see.

I'm not going to believe something I can't see.

He said well, then you turn around and go down and back to seek, because you're going to have to do without this, You're not going to be able to receive your healing.

And I mean he went to that church every year for several years.

That woman never did receive her healing because she wouldn't believe what she couldn't see.

You know, we're faith people.

We believe what we can't see because we have eyes of faith.

I was meditating on and I preached some of this this morning about the comparison between spiritual growth and physical growth, you know, and when your baby is born, comes out of the womb, you know, and it's light is brand new to it.

It's been dark in the womb, you know.

I guess babies can hear a little bit in the womb, you know, they hear their mother and hear the heartbeats and all that.

But the first thing that happens to them is they get slapped on the behind and they start crying to get.

They start breathing, see, in order to breathe.

And then somebody with a camera is going to flash the camera at them and their little eyes are going to go tilt, and you know, and when you pick up a brand new baby, I mean a lot of times they're cross-eyed, their eyes are, you know, like this and they're not focusing.

Well why?

Because they're developing their five senses.

Is what they encounter this world with their five senses, and all five of those senses have to be exercised, they have to be developed.

It takes a little while, and when we're born again, you know, I got to meditating on it this way.

I never really thought about it this way, but we have spiritual senses that are similar to our senses that we encountered this world with, and so it's not any crazy thing, it's not an abnormal thing for those senses to take a little time to kick in.

It takes a little effort to develop our spiritual senses.

Tonight we're talking about the sense of sight.

Your spirit has eyes.

Isn't that what we pray in Ephesians, chapter one?

Oh, father, pray a grant unto me of the Spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of God.

The eyes of my understanding be flooded with light that I might know.

So our spirit has eyes, and the eyes of faith are similar to the spiritual eyes.

Amen, and really, when you start.

And so I started meditating on my spiritual equipment that senses, spiritual senses, and so I wrote some of them down.

So we have the vision of faith In Galatians 3-2, we have the hearing of faith.

He said did you receive the spirit by the works of the law talking to the Galatians, or by the hearing of faith?

We've got to develop our ears.

Our spiritual ears have to hear.

Are you with me now?

This is how we can be led by the Spirit.

It's a combination of all of our spiritual senses.

When we first start out, we can't see much, we can't hear much.

But if we keep at it, how do we get that?

By developing our spirit.

Developing your spirit will develop your spiritual senses.

You know Mark 11, 24,.

Therefore, what Jesus said what things soever you desire when you pray, believe, you receive it and you shall have them.

The word receive means to take.

So the hand of faith, faith has a hand by which it receives things from God.

What belongs to us, we receive by the hand of faith If you don't take hold of it.

In other words, you got to feel it, don't you Sense of feeling?

But it's not feeling like we experience in this realm, it's in the spirit realm.

You can begin to know what something belongs to you and you take it.

Take it now.

Love that little song we sing every now, and then the glory is here, he's passing out gifts for all to receive.

Let's take it now.

Let's take it.

See, take has got kind of a negative connotation, not in the spirit realm.

I mean, we're foolish not to take what God gives us.

If I hand you my pen and you don't take it, what happens to it?

Well, it falls on the ground.

If God has given us something and we don't take hold of it, it's going to be wasted, isn't it?

So we've got eyes, we've got ears, we've got feeling.

Hand to faith.

We've even got sense of smell.

Oh, pastor, you're going off the deep end.

Now.

We've got spiritual smell, all right.

Second Corinthians 2.15,.

We're the saver or the fragrance of life.

Those of us that believe we're the fragrance of life.

We're the fragrance of life to those that are saved and the fragrance of death to those that are not.

And so we can smell and we give off an aroma or a fragrance.

Are you with me now.

It's really amazing that we have all these spiritual senses.

I'm still talking about the vision tonight, but I want you to be aware of these other things.

And then, of course, in John, chapter 6, jesus said unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.

John 6 · chapter mention

We have to have an appetite for more of God.

He said, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled.

There's got to be an appetite.

You develop an appetite, a taste, taste and seed that the Lord is good.

You develop an appetite for God and the things of God.

Some people just aren't hungry, some people just aren't thirsty enough and they can't move the needle at all.

I mean, we've got to continue to stir ourselves up.

This helping you tonight, this comes with, this is free of charge.

Just a little.

This is just a parenthesis here that I got this past week about the senses.

But we have spiritual senses that need to be exercised.

So by this faith, or we could say this different way of seeing the elder, is obtained.

The elders you know all the ones that are listed there in Hebrews, chapter 11, all of you know Abraham and Sarah and Moses and Rahab.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

They all saw things a little differently than people around them and they obtained a good report.

They saw things differently.

For instance, enoch saw life and not death, and God took him because he had this report that he pleased God, so he didn't even go through the veil of death.

He's alive with, just like you and I.

He's got flesh and bones, he's got a brain, he's got regular eyes and regular ears and he's in heaven right now.

Enoch, is you start thinking about that?

What must it be like to be a human being?

You're not a new creature, you're not a spirit.

Well, he's a spirit being, but I mean he's Old Testament.

He's up there somewhere along the way.

He saw Jesus and he got saved.

Are you with me now?

No, I saw a flood.

Everybody else saw the status quo.

They didn't, they couldn't, they didn't understand why he's built in an art they didn't understand.

He saw the flood.

He saw what God said.

He's God said it, he saw it.

That's what faith people do.

I mean, they see it before it appears.

Abraham saw several things.

He saw a future land that wasn't his yet.

Gonna, you're going to inherit this.

I mean, hey.

He saw a city not made with hands.

Who's building makers, God.

He saw a resurrected son.

I saw a drama one time about Abraham and and Isaac and how he had taken him out there was going to kill him and he was.

He was just in just in this, in this drama.

It wasn't scriptural at all, but he was all upset and just didn't want to tell his wife and he was just so nervous and he was so sorry that he was going to have to kill his son.

No, he knew that when his son died, god would raise him from the dead.

He received him as life.

He didn't see him as dead, he saw him as alive.

And he went all the way down with the knife.

And then the angel said don't touch your son, don't do anything to him.

And then you read the angel said to him had to been Jesus in his pre incarnate, you know his pre incarnate days.

He said now I know, See, it took that to convince Jesus.

Now I know that you, that you believe.

Now I know and I'm going to bless you with with the seed.

But he had to prove it, didn't he?

He had.

He had to sacrifice his only son.

Why did that have to happen?

Because there had to be a type and shadow of the death of Jesus.

Jesus was a lamb slain and, and so Isaac was that sacrificial son to to be the type and shadow that Jesus, and that's why Jesus couldn't back up on his.

You know, oh Lord, let this cup pass, pass from me, nevertheless, not as I will, but thou, thou, thy will be done.

Well, he wasn't.

He would have.

He was tempted not to do it.

I mean, why can't we understand that?

That's not the way we ever pray.

We should never pray if it be thy will.

That was one thing that Jesus did.

He was entering in the temptation not to die on the cross and fulfill the, the, the type and shadow in the Old Testament.

But he knew he would.

He just went through that.

In fact, he was so tempted that angels had to come and minister to him.

He sweat great drops of blood.

I just got through reading it in in book of Luke.

It was a legitimate temptation that Jesus suffered.

He wasn't so spiritual that he wasn't tempted.

Yes, he was tempted, just like you and I would be.

In every point the Bible said are y'all with me now?

So we see things a little differently.

Elder saw things differently.

Sarah saw a healthy wound.

Took her a while to see that he's 90 years old before she saw it.

You know, we we see.

We see God moving in the earth.

We see a great harvest on its way.

We see, do I, do I see it in the natural?

No, I don't see anything in the natural, but a bunch of crazy stuff going on.

But you know what I've?

No, god's working behind the scenes.

I know what the Bible says is true.

I know we're going to have a great harvest.

I know that God is the greatest farmer that ever lived.

I know he planted his son.

He's going to receive many sons under glory.

He's big enough to do it and we get to be here.

I believe that.

I believe we're going to be the ones that see it.

So let's look at 1 Samuel 30 and see some a Bible example here.

I just got through reading this the other day, which is partly why I'm giving you this.

See, I just.

You know, brother Osteen taught me just feed yourself and feed the people out of the overflow.

Don't be trying to work up a sermon, don't be trying to figure out what you're going to do.

Just feed yourself and out of the overflow, out of your personal devotion to God, you're going to get things that your people need to hear.

So 1 Samuel 30,.

Just read this.

The other day, and let's read, starting with verse one, came to pass when David and his men were come to Ziklag on the third day that the Amalekites had invaded the south and Ziklag and had smitten Ziklag and burned it with fire and had taken the women captives and that were therein.

They slew, not any, either great or small, but carried them away and went on their way.

So David and his men came to the city and, behold, it was burned with fire and their wives and their sons and their daughters were taken captives.

Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voices and wept until they had no power to weak.

They had a big pity party and David's two wives were taken captive, a henna woman, the Jeseralites, and Abigail, the wife of Nabal the Carmelite.

And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him.

Price of leadership.

I've had to dodge a few rocks in my day because the soul of all the people were grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters.

But David encouraged himself and the Lord his God.

And David said to Abithor the priest a himalek son, I pray they bring me hither the ephod.

And Abithor brought thither the ephod to David and David inquired of the Lord, saying shall I pursue after this truth?

Shall I overtake them?

And he answered him pursue, for thou shalt surely overtake them and, without fail, recover.

All Praise God.

So here we see David at Ziklag, seeing with the eyes of faith, maybe not right at first, sometimes we get overwhelmed a little bit, and we're in good company because David had the same thing happen.

You can kind of understand that.

And you know Paul says you know there's a great door and a factual open under me.

There are many adversaries, we like to say it this way greater doors, greater devils.

But the greater door that he wasn't aware of was being the king of Judah.

72 hours from this date, right here, he became the king and what he had been anointed for years before by the prophet Samuel came to pass in partiality with Judah.

And then later, seven and a half years after that, he became king over everything.

The northern tribes anointed him king seven and a half years later.

But, and so you know, the devil knows certain things.

He's not God, he's not omnipotent and omniscient, and all of that.

He doesn't know everything, but he picks up on things and he will attack promotion.

He will attack when God is about to do something great in your life.

If he gets wind of it, he's going to pull out all the stops to get you out of your faith and see if he can short-circuit it.

So David recovered quickly from his initial shot, and so I've got several keys here to seeing clearly, in other words, to maintain your vision of faith.

Several things that David did.

Number one, verse four control your emotions.

Now, at first he cried with everybody else, but he quickly got a hold of himself and encouraged himself in the Lord as God.

He got his emotions under control.

You know, feelings are the voice of the flesh.

The quickest way not to see by faith is to get in the flesh and let this world show itself to you.

You start talking about what you can see with these cameras here, but no, we're not looking at the things with these cameras, we're looking at things with our faith.

And that's where he had to go.

He had to get to the place where he encouraged himself.

You know, god, you're not intimidated by this raid.

You're not falling off the throne.

I know I'm going to encourage myself and the Lord, my God, you're the one that caused me to lead these people.

You're the one that got these two wives from me and I'm just not going to get all upset about it.

Amen.

Stop focusing on what the devil brings.

Quit talking about it.

Get focused on what God has said.

I mean fear, grief, anger, bitterness.

I mean you're going to have to get rid of that, alright.

So second thing, encourage yourself and the Lord, your God.

God is greater, the greater ones in me.

I've already talked about it.

Jude 20, build yourself up on your most holy faith.

Pray it in the Holy Ghost.

Second Corinthians 4, 13,.

Look at that one.

Second Corinthians 4, we were in that chapter verse 17 and 18, look what it says in verse 13.

We, having the same spirit of faith as it is written, I believe, therefore have I spoken.

We also believe and therefore speak.

In other words, the same spirit of faith, the same attitude of faith.

You know, you've got to have an attitude.

You've got to have an attitude that you're tougher than the devil, that you've got the greater one living in you, that you're never second best.

You're a victorious.

Whatever this is going on is temporary, that your eyes are not on the temporary.

You're, your eyes are on the eternal.

The eternal has made you a victor.

You see the victory before it ever shows back up.

That's what this is talking about.

Attitude, all right number in verse seven inquire of the Lord.

Start praying, don't worry, you know.

I like what the message says.

Philippians 4, 6, don't worry about anything, pray about everything.

It's time to pray, it's time to inquire of the Lord.

Okay now, lord, this thing is going on, but there's a way of escape.

I want to pray about what is my way of escape on this thing.

What do I do next?

I'm not intimidated by this thing.

I know the end from the beginning, but I want to know my part.

How do I act?

My faith, what do I do next?

So what did he do?

To inquire of the Lord.

He called for the, for the ephod.

He had a priest there.

He called for the ephod.

What's the ephod?

It's the umum and the thumum.

Let me say that five times fast.

But there were stones that that.

The theory was that they would glow a certain color, and you're talking about the Old Testament.

They don't have the spirit of God living on the inside of them and the Holy Ghost was only upon the priest, the prophet and the king.

So the priest was in charge of the ephod.

So he called for that so that he could pray and inquire of the Lord.

Shall I pursue them, shall I overtake them?

And the answer came through those stones You're going to, you're going to overtake and recover all.

We're not told.

But I would imagine the priest probably gave him the interpretation of what the umum and the thumum said.

I said it again praise the Lord.

Usually I get tongue tied, all right.

So, inquire of the Lord, see, ask James, one five.

Ask for wisdom, nothing doubting, don't be doubting.

Ask for wisdom, god, you know, don't just go off half cocked, as they say.

You know, find out from God what your response should be.

And then the next thing is go to church.

Where is that in there?

Well, it's related to the priest.

He had the priest come with the ephod.

Some of the greatest answers I've ever had to trouble has come.

When I went to church it's like there's an open heaven.

I goes all the way back to Lakewood days and I mean I had, I had more trouble.

I mean I'm telling you, man, just learning how to follow the Holy Ghost.

I made so many mistakes, and every mistake I made there was, there was trouble.

There was always.

I let you know.

I just went the wrong direction.

I zigged when I should have zacked.

Don't look so innocent, you act.

You're so superior.

You're looking down your nose at me like that never happened to you, you know it did so go to church, psalm 7317.

When I came into the sanctuary of God then I understood.

I mean, you know that's another reason to come.

I'm so glad you all are here on a Sunday night.

You know I can't think about the answers many of you've had already when you've got through the preaching.

Yet God answers things and under the anointing there's something about church, something about your pastor stretching out his rod over his, feeding you out of the Word of God.

It's just a now word.

That's what happened to me at Lakewood over and over.

I said he's been my example.

I don't try to mend.

I tell you what.

It's not about preaching something brand new every week.

It's about preaching what the people need.

That's why I tell people give me a year of your life.

That's what I told all our new members.

I'm gonna tell them that next Sunday, give me a year of your life.

That's what brother Osteen told me I gave him 15.

But I've been telling people that since the first building some people have given me 26.

Tom and Teresa gave me 26,.

Going on 27 years.

They did a lot.

Woo, amen.

So go to church and then number five fellowship with your own company.

You'll see 400 of the 600 won the battle.

The other 200 stayed behind and they were just exhausted from what they had happened before.

They had been fighting battle after battle and besides that I know they stayed home because they were tired, but they also had to guard something.

I mean, david couldn't take everything with him to the battlefield, so they were staying by the stuff here.

Sometimes people have to be pulled off the front lines and sent to the rear to be refreshed.

I had to make a decision a few months ago.

We had Tuesday prayer for probably 10 years.

Wasn't it about 10 years?

Wasn't it 11 years?

Here's a group that's been praying together for 11 years, and then all this stuff hit where we had to shut down part of the church.

But some of our solid members were under attack in their bodies and so I, just as pastor, I had to make a decision Am I going to leave them out there, exposed on the front lines of battle, or am I going to pull them to the rear and give them a rest where they're not having to attack in that realm again?

And so you know, I haven't felt led to even get it back, and so what I do is I send out the prayer list that we pray on Thursday night.

And I know they're still praying.

They just don't pray together anymore on Tuesday Because I just felt like they were overloaded.

I felt like that my leaders were exhausted.

They wouldn't come to me and tell me they would.

They'd be like that hand dog that kept chasing Cool Hand Luke until he died.

I mean, that's how they are, they just keep chasing, keep going.

But I'm the pastor and I had to bring them off of the front line.

So you know, david, I mean he said no, it's okay, y'all stay behind, we don't need but 400.

We'll go.

And they did.

They cleaned the Amalekites clock with 400.

Why?

Because God said and so when they got back, the 400 didn't want to give the 200 any of the spoils of battle.

Thank God, we don't have that kind of spirit in this church.

We have love plus unity equals miracles in this church.

And but we all part alike, ain't nobody getting ahead of anybody else.

We all part alike.

And so David, that became a rule in Israel that we all part alike.

Nobody, you know, we all part alike.

And as a matter of fact, if you keep reading there, david sent presents or blessings to 12 different groups out of this mess.

They spoiled the Amalekites.

See, not only did they get their wives and children back and not only did they get their stuff back, but they spoiled the Amalekites.

So they had a big blessing.

And he's so generous, not only did he give the 200 that stayed by the stuff their blessing, but then he sent all kind of people, 12 of them.

List 12 different people.

One of them was the Kenites.

He sent the Kenites.

So you know who the Kenites are.

This is a test.

Anybody know who the Kenites are Kenites.

Anybody know who the Kenites are.

You don't know who the Kenites are, and many of you know.

I'm fixed to tell you who the Kenites are.

Well, that's Moses' father-in-law, jethro.

That's his people.

And Jethro's people offered.

They wanted to go and be with the children of Israel in the wilderness.

They offered to go with them in the wilderness.

They wanted to travel with them and go into the Promised Land.

And Moses said no, go back, go back to your homeland.

And so they did.

They went back, jethro, and Jethro's people turned into the Kenites.

But they were all, even though they're not Jewish, they're not Hebrew, they're not Hebrew but they're friends of Israel.

And so among the group that he sent, he sent the Kenites a bunch of blessing from that Amalekite, and so they were all in that situation.

Amen, he, you know, praised God.

So they all parted alike.

And Hebrews 10, 25, you know, talks about the puzzle pieces and they're like, not the assembling of yourselves together as puzzle pieces.

One version says that's what it means.

We're all meant to fellowship one with another, we're all meant to fit together like an army unit.

We're supposed to get along with one another and prefer one another and all those good things.

Amen, and we do.

And so the vision of faith, praise God.

I'm going to quote Victor Frankel, a Holocaust survivor, and he said this.

He said the last of all human freedoms is the ability to choose one's own attitude in any set of circumstances, and we can't always choose our circumstances.

When we can choose to have an attitude, what is that attitude?

The spirit of faith which has what?

A vision of faith, things that can't be seen with a natural eye.

Come on, lift your hands and receive the night.

Praise God.

Did I go too long?

Did I wear you out?

Amen.

I know it's a little bit later than normal, but we've got our teenagers out there getting filled up.

Praise God.

Aren't we glad for altitude.

Did you get anything out of this tonight?

Amen.

How many are you going to start working on all five of your spiritual senses?

Some of you need to work on your smell.

No, I'm just joking.

Let's all stand together.