Running To Win 15 Minute Version

Guest (Male): Let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. When we pray for something, we hope for a quick response from God. But God has his own clock, not always in sync with ours. How do we handle prayers that to us are time-critical when the answers seem to be anything but? Today, Erwin Lutzer takes on this challenge. Stay with us. From The Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Today, Pastor Lutzer continues a six-part series on The Triumph of Unanswered Prayer. Join us now for a message on what to do when the answer is delayed.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: I'd like to begin today by two quotations from Word of Faith preachers. One says, using Philippians chapter 2, who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, speaking of Christ.

Guest (Male): Now if I'm to take what is said here and put it on, then my whole attitude should be that I have equality with God. Now somebody says, well, that's hard to think that way. Well, keep saying it, talk yourself into it. You have equality with God.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Here's another.

Guest (Male): But it was not in Christ's mouth that Bartimaeus healed. The power was in Bartimaeus's mouth. He could have whatever he said. Jesus was saying, my hands are tied because I can't do anything for you other than what you say. And then he goes on to say, God now has your attention and he's looking at you saying, what do you want? What do you want? Name it, baby, name it. Declare it, speak it, confess it, get your list out.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Millions of people are buying into that. We need to rethink the whole business of what the Bible says about the promises of God and what can be claimed and what can't be claimed and why it can't be claimed. Today I need to say that the faith healers and those who speak this way are not wrong in urging us to have faith. Indeed, the purpose of this message is to increase your faith. They're not wrong in telling us to do that, but they're asking us to believe things that God hasn't promised and to claim things that God doesn't want to give us. We need to understand what's going on.

Yes indeed, the purpose of this message is to increase faith and to begin to help us to understand what God is up to in our prayer life so that we pray more, so that we believe more, so that we trust more, and we honor more and we submit more. That's the agenda for the next little while. Thank you for taking this trip with me.

In order to do this, I want you to take your Bibles and turn to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11. Many of us have been in London and we have seen Westminster Abbey. Westminster Abbey basically is a cemetery. It's filled with all the heroes of the past in England. The 11th chapter of Hebrews basically is the Westminster Abbey of the Bible. Here are the heroes of faith, not in the Hall of Fame, but the Hall of Faith. This mighty chapter begins with these startling words.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Those two phrases, the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, basically are parallel expressions. The word faith is the assurance, that's the word hupostasis. It can be translated in many ways. Many of us who memorized the King James remember faith is the substance of things hoped for. That's good. It can be assurance, it can be conviction, it can be essence. It is the firm conviction that what we have hoped for and what we believe for is true and shall come to pass.

He goes on to say, for by it, that is by faith, the people of old received their commendation. We think of the fact that God gave a promise, didn't he, that Jesus was going to be born way back in the Garden of Eden? God promised that and centuries went by. But people kept believing the promise and eventually the promise happened. A good example of that is Noah, for example, in verse 7. It says by faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed the ark.

Do you realize that when Noah built that ark, it had never rained yet on the earth? The earth was actually watered by a subterranean phenomenon. So God says I'm going to send rain and he hasn't even seen the rain and he begins to build the ark. You talk about a man of faith. Then you have various others. The scripture also says, if we may go to verse 3, by faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. In other words, we believe it by faith.

Is it a rational faith? Of course it's a rational faith. Atheistic evolution cannot account for the world as it is. If reason means anything, if two plus two is equal to four, you cannot be an atheist and be rational because you cannot account for the world as it is. You can't get from chemistry to biology to human consciousness and to thought, all that because some molecules, some dumb molecules were messing around in some slime and they decided without any outside help to get together and become very complicated? You can believe that.

No wonder a French journal said many years ago that evolution is a fairy tale for adults. It was Huxley who said the reason that we believe in evolution without proof is because we don't want God to interfere with our sexual mores, he said many years ago. Of course we can't prove that the universe was made ex nihilo by the command of God. But that's reasonable, it's rational, and it accounts for what we have in the world today. Psalm 33 verse 6: By the word of the Lord was the heavens made and the host of them by the breath of his mouth.

I won't even tell you today about the stars. A number of years ago some of us went to visit an astronomer and he showed us pictures of the stars, absolutely mind-boggling, millions of light years between them and God says he calls them all by name. He's got that one named and that one named and they're all different names. Why does the Bible tell us that? Because God wants us on our faces. God wants to show that he is absolutely almighty and by his word the heavens were made out of something that did not exist—nothing—and he spoke and it happened. Wow. By faith we believe that.

Now with that introduction, you'll notice though in verse 6, one of the most important verses in the Bible: Without faith it is impossible to please God, for he who comes to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who diligently seek him. We're not going to emphasize that today because that's going to be part of the message next time. But what I'd like to do today is to give you an example of someone who believed God and how he believed God and why he is known in the Bible as a man of faith and an example of faith, and his name is Abraham.

Then we'll connect it with the promises of God, the Word of Faith movement, and the whole bit. It's all going to come together in the end. Trust me. I know where I'm going even though you don't know yet where you're going and that's perfectly biblical. Abraham, the Bible says, went out not knowing whither he went. Now notice it says verse 8: By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place he was to receive as an inheritance. He went out, not knowing whither he went.

You'll notice that in the life of Abraham what he did is he believed, he believed in the future against the present. Abraham was living in Ur of Chaldees. It was a very culturally astute city for those times. Here God says, Abraham, leave Ur of Chaldees and go into a land that I will tell you about. He went from culture, high culture, to no culture. Went from a city to an agricultural lifestyle, wandered around and the Bible says that when he left Ur, he knew not where he was going.

Can you imagine the discussions that he had with Sarah? Sarah is saying, Abraham, I love you but I do have to ask you again: How do you know that that was the voice of God? How do you know where we are going? Well, we really don't. All that we know is we're supposed to go and maybe it'll get clear later. I'm reminded of when Rebecca and I came to America. This was 1970. We crossed the border with I think about $100 and an old 1965 Buick packed with stuff—that's everything that we owned fit into the back seat.

We were on our way actually to the East Coast. I was supposed to do some graduate work there and we got stopped in Chicago. We came and we often thought we're going whither we do not know. Had no idea what God had planned for us. In the very same way you and I sometimes have really no idea. Now when it comes to the land, Abraham learned the guidance of God. God guides you to the land. When it comes to the tents, you'll notice that the next verse says that he was in a tent: By faith he went into the live in the land of promise as a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob.

Now he became a nomad and he learned about the provision of God. Then if you look at the life of Abraham in the book of Genesis, you'll notice he often built an altar and it was the altar that taught him the presence of God. When God came to Abraham, Abraham believed in the future over against the present. He said to himself, the present is more rational, it is better for me, it is more comfortable, but Abraham believed in a future and he says belief in God and the future is more important than believing in what is best for you in the present.

There's some of you to whom I'm speaking today and God is leading you. You're not sure exactly where you are going, but you're on your way. When you get there, God will clarify the issues. Abraham believed. He believed in the future against the present. Secondly, notice that he believed in the invisible. He believed in the invisible over against the visible. I'm looking now at verse 10: For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations whose designer and builder is God.

Remember that Abraham was a city dweller in Ur. God plucked him up and said I'm bringing you to this land and God gave him the dimensions of the land. God says I'm giving this to you and to your descendants as an everlasting possession. Abraham wanders in the land, what does the text say, as a foreigner? He wanders there as an alien. He really doesn't belong even in the land that God gave him. Why was he so motivated? Why was he so willing to do it? It's because he looked beyond the present, he looked beyond that which you could see, and he could see a city whose designer and builder was God.

Well, my friend, this is Pastor Lutzer, and that's exactly the kind of attitude we have to have. No matter where we are in our own journey, the fact is this: eternity lies before us. The reason for Running to Win is to help us to prepare for that very critical city to which Abraham looked.

Guest (Male): Erwin Lutzer with part one of When the Answer is Delayed, the second message in a series on The Triumph of Unanswered Prayer. Next time on Running to Win, more on how Abraham endured his long delay. To help you work through some tough issues, this series will be sent on CD as our thank you when you give a gift of any amount to support Running to Win. Just call us at 1-800-215-5001. That's 1-800-215-5001. Ask about The Triumph of Unanswered Prayer. Online go to offerrtw.com. That's offerrtw.com. Or write to Running to Win, Moody Church, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Running to Win is a ministry of The Moody Church.