Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. Now that simply means this. At this time, the temple was not destroyed. Persecution that was going to come from the Gentiles, the Roman Empire, had not yet broken upon believers. And He’s saying to them, You just haven’t yet resisted unto blood, though you’re having your problems and trouble. The only cure for your weakness and your weariness and your faltering and your failing and your stumbling and your discouragement is to consider Him. Consider Christ. Turn your eyes upon Jesus; look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

Now my friend, may I say this to you very candidly today. I want to be very careful. And it’s this: Unless you stay close to the Word of God, which will keep you close to the Person of Christ where the Holy Spirit can take the things of Christ and make them real to you, you’re going to get weary in the Christian life and you’re going to faint in your minds. And that’s the reason there are so many discouraged Christians around today. My friend, you come to the Word of God and get close to Jesus Christ, and you’re going to be encouraged. And you’re not going to be weary about this life down here.

If you think that somehow or another that putting up a few little rules that you’re going to avoid all of the rough places and the hardships of life, you’re wrong. You’re going to find out that one day you’ll argue with your wife. You’re going to find out one day that you’re going to have a problem with that child that you got. You’re not going to have a thing that’s ideal by any means. And how are you going to handle all of these? My friend, by faith. By faith. You and I are going to have problems, but if we walk by faith, He’ll see us through. Until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

Now you and I have seen that the worship of God leads to obedience to God. It leads to work for God. It leads to doing the thing God wants you to do. And you don’t have to spend time brow-beating people and telling them they should get busy for God. Because that’s not the proper motive. If they can come in and worship God and catch something of the glory of the Person of Christ, then I believe that you can depend on them from then on to work for God, to obey Him. Worship leads to obedience.

I want to give a quotation now from Dr. G. Campbell Morgan. He says, Life is to be mastered by faith, and not by doubt. It is to be forevermore illuminated by hope, and not darkened by despair; and, in its activity, love is to be practiced in fellowship. Faith is not some jewel that you put in a case, like a diamond, and look at it. That’s not the way it’s given to us here. These are men and women that got right down to the nitty gritty of life, and faith was operative in their lives. And faith is not something, therefore, that you put in a case. Faith rests upon the Word of God.

God wants us today, not only saved by faith, walk by faith. Christ died down here to save us. We look back in faith to Him. We walk today by faith. We look up to Him, the Living Christ today. That gets right down where the rubber meets the road, you see. That’s for right now. That’s for today. That’s for, well, are you going to go shopping? You going to go to work? You going to go to school? Going to some social engagement? Well, then, go by faith. Look to the Lord Jesus Christ. We walk by faith and not by sight. That’s the way God wants us to walk today.

Now if your faith does not rest upon the Word of God, it’s not Bible faith at all. It has to rest upon what God says. And, actually, it means to believe God. The question is whether you believe God or not. Don’t come up with this idea that you’ve got intellectual problems, because that won’t work. The thing that keeps men from the Word of God is sin. It’s sin in your life that’s keeping you from coming to God, you see. It’s the heart that needs to believe. It’s the heart that believeth unto righteousness. You see, when you’re ready to give up your sin, the Holy Spirit will make real to you the Word of God.

We come to God by faith. Faith here, it’s a substance of things hoped for. It’s an evidence of things not seen. And therefore, faith rests on a foundation. Spurgeon put it like this: It’s not by hold on Christ that saves thee; it’s Christ. It’s not thy joy in Christ that saves thee; it’s Christ. It’s not even thy faith in Christ that saves thee, though that be the instrument. It is Christ’s blood and merit. That’s what saves you, friend. And faith just lays hold of it, that’s all. It is that which looks to the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. And that word draw back means to take in sail. The believer is like a sailor who should let out all the sail. And the thought here is that a believer could reef the sails. He could become stranded because of discouragement, because of trouble, because of persecution, because of hardship, because of depression, or some other stumbling block. But the thought here is: Friends, since we have a living God, and today we have a living Savior, let’s go on. Let’s go on. Let’s open up all the sails. Let’s move out today.

In Hebrews, it’s the just shall live by faith. This epistle tells of a living Intercessor, that it was the same one who died on the cross for us, came back from the dead, and the emphasis is upon His resurrection, that He is the living Christ at God’s right hand. And those that are His own, since we have a living God, we have a living Savior at God’s right handwe shall live by faith. That’s no leap in the dark. It rests upon the Word of God. It’s whether you believe God or not, and whether you have the reality of the Lord Jesus Christ in your heart and in your life.