Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Today, guest speaker Charles Price wraps up his message, faith against the odds, and looks at what those who have come before us teach about trusting God and holding on to faith even when what the future promises is unseen. We'll get started in just a moment, but first, everyone experiences disappointments in life. And when things don't go the way we expect or desire, either tragically or in similar ways, discouragement can become entrenched as we begin to believe destructive thoughts like it's always going to be this way or I'll never overcome this. And when those thoughts are left unattended, they can lead you to despair and cause you to miss out on the abundant life Jesus promises.

That's why we want to help you win the battle against feelings of discouragement by sending you Stuart and Jill Briscoe's five message series, Hope for the Disheartened. In it, Stuart and Jill help you discover why your hope must be tied to trusting God and reliant on his strength and timing. You'll learn that even in troubled times, you have a God who loves you and gives you every reason to look forward with unspeakable peace, hope, and joy. The Hope for the Disheartened series is our thanks for your gift to help more people experience life through the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth.

So request your copy when you give today. 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here's Charles Price.

Charles Price: We have to know certain things about God. I mean, I'm going to trust God. And God, of course, is the the object of our faith. We're going to put our faith in God, we have to know certain things about him that give us the confidence to put our faith in God. Let me point out three things in the Hebrews 11. First of all, Hebrews 11 verse 6. Without faith, it is impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists. Now, that's the first thing. The first ground of our faith is that God exists.

No matter what we see and experience, God is. He that comes to God must believe that he is. You see, true faith is not for things. It is in God himself. What I mean by that is this. So there are many folks who believe God for and then fill in the blank for what they would like to believe God for. We we have faith for someone's healing, for an example, and they die. We have faith for reconciliation and marriage, and they divorce. We have faith for financial success, and it doesn't come. And we start to think this this Christianity is is a bit of a miss.

It's a fantasy. It's like the emperor with no clothes. We all believe it because we believe it because we believe when you poke it, there's nothing there. Doesn't seem to work. True faith is not in what God himself may or may not do. It is in God himself period. So the best things God has done in scripture through people's lives were done to things that they would have done anything to avoid because of the difficulty and the pain of those things. And the faith of many was severely tested as we read just now where in verse 35 others were tortured.

They refused to be released that they might gain a better resurrection. They faced jeers and flogging, some were chained, put in prison. They were stoned, they were sawn in two. They were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheep skins and goat skins, destitute, persecuted, mistreated. They wandered in deserts and mountains in caves and holes in the ground. What a pathetic picture of people being brutalized and isolated. Yet these were all commanded for their faith. Yet none of them received what had been promised. What was the nature of the faith they were commanded for?

Not that God would do this or do that or take the matter of here or switch that and change that and transform this. Their faith in God was faith in God. What is God doing? That's his business, who God is. And that's where we find our security too. We find our security not in our circumstances. We we look for our security there. We find our security in God himself. The second thing also in verse 11, anyone who comes to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. This is a big picture now.

God is a rewarder. We place our faith in God even though we may be chained and imprisoned and stoned and sawn in two and put to death by the sword and all these things he's been talking about. But that is not the whole story, nor is it certainly the end of the story. God is a rewarder of those who seek him. Now, he's not a rewarder of those who want God to meet their needs. That's their motivation for praying. That's their motivation for putting faith in God for this outcome, for that outcome. He's not a rewarder of those of us who only pray when we're in need.

He's a rewarder of those who earnestly seek him. Verse 6 says that is not a a passive relationship with God. That is an active relationship, earnestly seeking him. In the face of every obstacle and disaster, we seek God. We turn from whatever situation is difficult for us to God and we seek God. Job spoke about this. Remember Job with all his pain and sadness and loss and bereavement. His wife was discouraged and told Job just to curse God and die and let him finish you off. And Job said to her in Job 2 verse 10.

So we accept good from God and not trouble. This is having been to the funeral of his 10 children, having buried the workforce who had labored for him so faithfully, having lost all the resources, the income that came from his sheep and his cattle and his camels either being stolen or destroyed. This is a man now who's got sores in the top of his head and sores on his feet, has to sit in an ash heap which is sterile and scratching some of the broken pottery. And he says in the midst of this pit, shall we not accept good from God?

Can we not wait long enough and persevere in the situation we're in? You see, Job looked at God and interpreted his circumstances by God. That things are not about God. God is good is what he says here. I know about God. God is good. So I look at my circumstances and I interpret them by what I know of God. He is good. Others look at their circumstances and interpret God by their circumstances. So my circumstances are evil and difficult. God is evil and difficult because I'm interpreted by my circumstances. An unbelief is interpreting God by our circumstances which causes them to doubt anything you may have known about God because our circumstances don't seem to measure up and fit what we would expect.

Whereas faith looks into the circumstances, interprets them by God as one to trust him, trust him no matter what is going on. It's a big difference between saying these things happen, therefore God is not good, and saying God is good, therefore he will redeem what has happened. We know that verse in Romans 8:28. We know that in all things God works for good. Made the point before, not all things work together for good as the King James translates it, but in all things God works for good. It's not the things that work for good. It is God that works for good in whatever things, even though there may be bad things.

We know in all things God works for the good of those who love him and who have been called according to his purpose. Living according to his purpose gives us this confidence that ultimately God is a rewarder, a giver, and he is good. Maybe there are those of us we feel God has made promises to us, but they've not come to pass. Things we feel he whispered in the quiet moments, but we have not seen their fulfillment. Maybe vision we sense that he gave us, but it's not gone anywhere. It been impossible is downward in front of us.

We believed from God these were right things, but they have fallen away. I talked with a friend in England who said to me I I I sought to follow God's leading. But most things I have been involved in have seemed to end in failure. And he was very discouraged. Actually, he's a really good husband and he's a great dad to his two children. When he stands before God, God won't say, well, did you do this well? Did you do that well? That's not the first question, but did you love your wife? Did your kids grow up in a environment that's secure and loving?

That's what's really important. And to live by faith is to live in the midst of doubt about what is happening, but a trust in God who rewards those who seek him. And the third thing is in verse 3, God exists. God rewards those who seek him. And verse 3 he says, by faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command. So that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. In other words, the visible things we see were made from invisible things we cannot see. The third point then is that God brings the visible out of the invisible.

There are many things that are invisible in our lives. We are certain of what we do not see is Hebrews 11 verse 1, defining faith. There are things we do not see. So why does he put this first here? I I I I I suggest to this because this principle holds true for us too. There's much we cannot see. There's much that is invisible. You do not see the hand of God where we would like to. We don't see his ways. We don't see changes that we would long for. But this God in whom we put our trust brings visible things out of what are invisible.

He surprises us in the ways he does that. One of the events that had a huge impact on the global Christian church in the 20th century was the martyrdom of five missionaries in Ecuador. Many of you are familiar with this. These men were seeking to build contact with a remote, primitive, stone age tribal people known as the Waorani in Ecuador. They were then known as aucas, which meant savages. But that is not their real name that was a a derogatory term for them. So their real name is Waorani. These five young men had gone to Ecuador for the purpose of reaching these souls of and they were they were they were skilled, able, well educated, godly men with their wives.

They all had wives. One of them was Naim F. Palates. His name was Nate Saint. And they would fly over this area where they knew that the Waorani people were living. They dropped presents to them. They had a a megaphone. They they would shout down to them. No one they wouldn't understand, but they want to know we're friendly. We're friendly. We want to want to get to know you. And some of these Waorani people come out and they waved to them and they think, you know, this is this is getting better. And they they came when they landed the plane on a little beach on a river.

There they waited and a man came out from the jungle. They they gave him the name George. Dressed in a loin cloth. Never seen foreigners before. And they gave him food and they kind of gestured back and forth with him. And then he went back into the forest and they set up camp to sleep on the river bank. And just before the sun fell, the whole group of these Waorani Indian men came back to them and speared all five of them to death. Had a huge impact all across the world. People said what a waste, what an absolute waste of such vital young men prime of life.

News of this spread around the world. Dr. Paul Roberts was the doctor in the hospital in Quito, Ecuador who made the first press announcement, radio announcement actually, to the world that these men were missing. He was part of the rescue, attempted rescue who found their bodies only and he brought them back. She made his wife Elizabeth Elliot and Nate Saint's sister Rachel Saint decided to go back to visit these people again. Two women taking their lives entirely placing their lives entirely at risk. And they went back into this community. They built friendship. They learned their language and they began to lead some of them to Christ.

Nate Saint's son, Steve Saint, was baptized in the river in which his father was speared to death by the very man who had killed his father. He's baptized by by his father's killer. That community, it seems, was transformed. Steve Saint's children call the man who killed their father, they call him grandpa. They've adopted him into their family. He's their grandfather. It was moving to see what God had done out of the martyrdom of those men. Steve Saint actually gave me a little necklace that was made by the Waorani people in the village where those missionaries being killed.

I I'm not sure what this tooth is. Greg thinks it's a boar tooth. Um and it's it's a very treasured possession. These men had no idea what God was doing. And the verse we could write across their lives is Hebrews 11:13. All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. They welcomed them from distance, slain on the bank of that river. And by the way, they had guns in holsters in case they were attacked by wild animals, but all those guns were undrawn when they were attacked.

They tell us that 10,000 people went to the mission field as a result of those martyrdoms, 10,000. And I have no doubt that figure it is close, if not underrated. I have met people all over the world without people on our staff who say I'm in ministry because of that event. I'm reading through Gates of Splendor or hearing that story. These men had no idea their wives and their absolute grief and mourning and their children and their mourning had no idea. And though these men died still living by faith and had not received the promise, they saw something.

They welcomed it from a distance because they had to come to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder. There is a future. There is a distance in which he brings the visible out of the invisible. Once in Liberia, which is a country in West Africa, where where Annette Cooper grew up, country that's been through enormous tragedies with civil war, the Ebola outbreak, the epicenter that was Liberia. I was there a few years ago to speak at an SAM conference, missionaries and and others who gathered together for that. In the well, the last 50, 60 years, there's been a great work of God in Liberia or back in the 20th century.

They're struggling because of the decimation of civil war and other things that that have made the church. We pray for the church in Liberia. But but numerically it was very strong. And one man said to me at the mission conference, do you want to know why the church in Liberia is so strong? And I said I'd love to know. He said, I would take you and show you one afternoon. So we got into the car. We drove into the city of Monrovia. We found an old church. And behind this old church was a cemetery. We went into the cemetery and he pointed out to me the names, western names.

These were missionaries who had gone there in the early days from Europe, from North America. And you'd have the father, the mother, you'd have three children or whatever it was. You had whole families that were buried, a lot of them within months of arriving there because they didn't have the immunity to resist some of the local diseases. Many of these missionaries had gone to West Africa taking their coffins with them. They used them as trunks to take their possessions. But they were coffins in which they anticipated they would be buried. And they were. But the seed of their work germinated, came to life.

And the verse for those people was all these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. You may be living by faith in God. Is your life in trouble? Your marriage is difficult. Your children not where you want them to be. Your workplace, things falling down around your shoulders. But the message from this chapter says, hold tight to God. Persevere. And even if you don't receive the thing promised now, you see them from a distance and you welcome them that one day when the story is told, the story will be God is a rewarder of those who seek him.

God is. God rewards those who seek him. God brings something out of nothing. For we live by faith, Paul said to the Corinthians, not by sight. We live by faith, not by sight. Let's pray together. I don't know how the word of God and the spirit of God have spoken to you personally. Things may have come to mind as I have spoken. And you would long that that burden be lifted, that boulder be rolled away. And maybe God will do that. But this is where you live by faith in the midst of it. God is.

He exists. He is. He is a rewarder. And he brings something out of nothing. Would you believe him? Well, some this life or the next so you see the fruit of that.

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us today here on Telling the Truth. We pray today's message has helped you to experience life in all its fullness through Jesus Christ. Here's a note from Kevin, a listener in Wisconsin who says, I love listening to your messages. They are very encouraging in today's uncertain world. Thanks, Kevin. Everyone experiences disappointments in life. And when things don't go the way we expect or desire, either tragically or in similar ways, discouragement can become entrenched as we begin to believe destructive thoughts like it's always going to be this way or I'll never overcome this.

And when those thoughts are left unattended, they can lead you to despair and cause you to miss out on the abundant life Jesus promises. That's why we want to help you win the battle against feelings of discouragement by sending you Stuart and Jill Briscoe's five message series, Hope for the Disheartened. In it, Stuart and Jill help you discover why your hope must be tied to trusting God and reliant on his strength and timing. You'll learn that even in troubled times, you have a God who loves you and gives you every reason to look forward with unspeakable peace, hope, joy.

The Hope for the Disheartened series is our thanks for your gift to help more people experience life through the teaching and resources of telling the truth. So request your copy when you give today. 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thanks for listening today. Come back tomorrow as Charles Price kicks off a message all about hope. Don't miss that next time on Telling the Truth.