Let's take our Bibles and let's turn to the book of James. Now, I'm not taking over James tonight for pastor. I would not do that. But he is not at this section of scripture yet, so we'll see if I can do it justice. But we're just going to start here in the book of James, and you can turn to chapter 4. There's an interesting verse here in James chapter four. It's not the only one in the Bible. We'll look at two. We'll look at this one first, but this one in James chapter four and verse number seven, it says, submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. I'm going to stop right there and pray. Lord, thank you for the time that you give to us today. Thank you for our church. Thank you for bringing us here together and Lord, thank you for the Bible. Thank you, Lord, as we've heard many times here that it's a light to our path and, Lord, it can give us clarity of mind. Lord, it can guide us through this life. Lord, we thank you for salvation. We thank you for Jesus Christ. Thank you, Lord, for all that you've done for us. Lord, we can't even begin to imagine what all you've done for us or what is ahead of us, Lord, in eternity. We look forward to seeing you. Lord, while we're here, I pray that as we go through the word of God tonight, that you'd bless it and bless our understanding of it. And I pray the spirit of God would have his way, in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so the Bible's telling us here something that's pretty important. I think it's very important, and it's talking to us about resisting the devil here. And the Bible has a lot to say about the devil, of course, and he's our foe, he's our enemy. He seeks to devour us like a roaring lion. He desired to sift us as wheat. He wants to take as many of us to hell as possible. Of course, he can't do that once you're saved, thank God for that. So you're impervious to him in certain ways, right? He can't touch your soul. but he can certainly destroy your life. And we've got plenty of warnings in the Bible about our flesh and how we're supposed to defeat our own selves, let alone the devil. And so, am I on? Just making sure. And the Bible gives us, right here, it tells us something that we're supposed to do in order to get rid of the devil, and that is to resist him. Now, if that's the thing that we ought to do, how are we supposed to resist the devil, right? That's the big question. How can I resist the devil? Well, one thing I know for sure, and that is I'm no match and you're no match for the devil, right? We cannot just take that command and say, well, I'm gonna resist him in my own power. Whenever the devil shows up, and I don't know about you, but I have felt at times that he showed up around me. And I can tell you this, I do not have the power to resist him by myself. I can't do it. I wouldn't attempt to do it. I think Eve had that attempt and she failed miserably. And here we are, right? And so resist the devil and he will flee from you. Well, this can't be done in our own power. We have to get more information on this. The Bible has more to say on this. I want you to go over to 1 Peter chapter 5. 1 Peter chapter 5, and we're going to see almost the direct same verse. but worded just a little bit differently. 1 Peter chapter 1, or 1 Peter chapter 5, rather, and verse 9. Of course, verse 8, we all know the verse, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. The sentence continues. It says, whom resist? Same thing we just read in James. Whom resist? Steadfast in the faith. knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. So it gives you a little bit more information here in 1st Peter than it does over in James, and it's telling you whom resists steadfast in the faith. So in the faith is the key thing, and that's what we're gonna really be talking about tonight. We wanna learn how to resist the devil. We can't do it in our own power, but we can do it in the faith. And that phrase is pretty important. You know, the Bible tells us in Ephesians chapter six, we don't have to turn there right now, but I think you know it, where it says that the fiery darts of the devil come upon us. And how do we resist those? Anybody know? We have the shield of faith, and that's how we resist those. So it's talking about faith there. The Bible tells us in Ephesians chapter four, in the same book, it says, neither give place to the devil. And when you think about, so we get advice throughout the scriptures about the devil and how we're supposed to resist him. And if you think about no place to the devil, this is one of those places that you can get away from the devil. If you're in church tonight, I hope, I hope that you didn't bring the devil in here with you. I doubt that you did. I doubt he wants to be in here. I don't think he likes the atmosphere in here. I don't think he likes the singing. I don't think he likes the reading of the Bible. I don't think he likes being talked about like I'm going to talk about him tonight. But you know where he is? He's right outside. And he'll wait outside for you. And he'll wait back at your house for you. He'll be every other place. And you know the Bible tells us, neither give place to the devil. So that's a real easy one. We might just want to avoid the places where the devil shows up, right? That's one of the ways we can resist. But most of what we want to look at tonight is, what does it mean to resist the devil and do it in the faith? Well, the word faith shows up 247 times in your Bible, believe it or not. And we did a sword drill tonight, and one of those verses was Deuteronomy 32. Go to Deuteronomy 32. And do you know that of the 247 times the word faith shows up in the Bible, that only two of those times are in the Old Testament? The word faith is in the Bible two times in the Old Testament. And both of those times that it shows up, one of them is in Deuteronomy 32. And the Bible says without faith it is impossible to please God. So, you know, one of the reasons why you resist the devil in the faith, because in the faith, when you're in the faith, you're pleasing God. And if you're pleasing God, you're not pleasing the devil. He doesn't want to be anywhere around that environment. There's a lot of environments this world has set up for him, and they've given place to the devil. But one of the things that he doesn't like as a Christian who's walking in the faith, but Deuteronomy chapter 32, both of the times in the Old Testament that faith is given, it's in a negative sense. Now this one's more negative than the other one we'll look at, but Deuteronomy 32 verse 20, it says, and he said, I will, am I in the right place? And he said, I will hide my face from them. That's right. I will see what their end shall be, for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith. You see, God wants faith. Even in the Old Testament, he wanted faith from the children of Israel. Now read the next verse, if you will. They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. That's idolatry. And they have provoked me to anger with their vanities, and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people. That's us, by the way, that's the Gentile world. That's what's talked about in Romans chapter 11. I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. The reason why I read that verse is because that is us, that is the Gentile world, and that's why of the 247 times faith is in the Bible, 245 of those are in the New Testament. Because he's gonna provoke the children of Israel from a people that are no people, and it's gonna require faith, and that's one thing that they never had. Now go over to Habakkuk, Habakkuk chapter two in verse four, this was the other part of our sword drill. And I'm going to test myself because I have trouble finding that book. I'm there. Did I beat you? Habakkuk 2-4. And notice, this is not necessarily negative, but it's negative in the sense in which we have it here in the New Testament times. And that is, it says, behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him, but the just shall live by his faith. Now I have that phrase underlined in my Bible, the just shall live by his faith, and I have the word his underlined twice. Because I want to emphasize that, that idea is that in the New Testament, you don't live by your faith. It's not your faith, and that's what we're gonna look at tonight, the faith, the faith. It's the term the faith. Now, 247 times I've mentioned faith is in the Bible, but 40, let's see, I have it written down here too, 43 times, 43 times, The faith, the phrase the faith is listed in the Bible, and that's a very specific term, and that has to do with Paul's doctrine and the way that we resist the devil. And so, the faith is what is mentioned in 1 Peter 5, 9, whom resists steadfast in the faith. So the faith of Christ is what we're talking about, is given to every believer in order to be saved and to live the Christian life. You've been given a gift, Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8, everybody know that? For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. What's not of myself? Faith. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourself. It is the gift of God. And of course, verse 9, not of works as any man should boast. So the gift of God is the faith that's being talked about that we're able to use to resist the devil. resist the devil in the faith. Now, it's very specific. It's talking about Jesus Christ and His faith. Now, if you take your Bible and go over to Romans chapter 1, Romans chapter 1, one of my favorite books of the Bible, one of my favorite chapters in the Bible is chapter 1. Romans chapter 1 and verse 17. You're going to find something very interesting, and I'm not going to get into this tonight because we don't have time for it. In fact, I was looking at this message. I really have five points. I'm in the introduction right now. You know how I am. I'm never going to get into five points. I said, this could be a five-week series, but the pastor's never going to give me five Thursday nights, so we'll cram in as much tonight as we can. And I may slip some of this in on Sunday school because when we get to the book of Colossians, or I should say when we are in the book of Colossians, chapter 1, verse 23, We're going to talk about this very thing all over again, about being in the faith. But anyways, Romans chapter one in verse 17, there's a very interesting thing here in the Bible, and it used to confuse me until I realized about rightly dividing and what I just shared with you about the Old Testament versus the New Testament and faith. It says, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed. Let me just go backwards one verse. It says in verse 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. That's the thing you want to get, the context right there. I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it, the gospel, it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein, what in? Therein, the gospel, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed. The righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel. Yeah, that's the faith that we're talking about. That's the gift of God that's given to you. Jesus Christ, his faith, Jesus Christ, what he did, Jesus Christ, the man, Jesus Christ, is what saves you. It's no longer faith in your works. Remember Habakkuk 2, 4? The just shall live by his faith. No, no. Today, you literally do live by the faith of Jesus Christ. I could take you to Romans chapter 8. My mind is going right now. I could take you to Romans chapter 8 and show you that when you get saved, your body literally gets crucified on a cross. Your body dies. The only reason why that flesh of yours is still alive, living and breathing, is because the Spirit of God came in and revived that body. And we won't turn to it, just trust me on that, Romans chapter 8, read it sometime. And so we live by the faith of Christ. We are saved, eternally secure, going on our way to heaven, sure of that, because of the faith of Jesus Christ. And we're able to live the Christian life, and we're able to resist the devil, and he can have no power over us if we're steadfast in the faith. So it's very important, it's a gift that God gives us. It's something that we wanna take advantage of, not something that we necessarily work at. The world is working at this. They're working at being a good person. They're working at trying to obey God's commands. They're working at this and that. But it's a gift of God. Anyways, I gotta get back to the text. It says in verse 17, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith. Do you ever wonder what that was from faith to faith? Well, that to me, all that's telling you is from Old Testament faith to New Testament faith. Old Testament faith was his faith, his righteousness, his works, his belief in God, of course, along with it, but his works, his righteousness, and now the righteousness of God from the gospel for therein is the righteousness of God revealed. from faith to faith. Your faith is different. It's far different than the Old Testament faith. If you are trying, and I know this is Thursday night, I know I'm talking to Christians, but if you know anybody or you yourself even are still trying to live the Christian life and think that that is going to get you to heaven, then you're living Old Testament faith, and you're in a wrong dispensation. And you know what? It might be Bible, but if it's a wrong dispensation, it's a wrong dispensation, and it will send you to hell doing that. And so look at Galatians chapter three and verse 23. Galatians three. Now we're just laying the groundwork of what is the faith. The faith is a very specific thing. You know, the world talks about faith, have faith, have faith in yourself. That's a, that's a bad idea. Uh, have faith in the government, have faith in whatever, you know, even have faith in God. But the Bible lays out, it's a whole prescription, it's there in the Bible, what the faith is and what it encompasses. Galatians 3.23, look at something very interesting to establish this idea of from faith to faith. Galatians 3.23, but before faith came, now in my Bible, I have above the word, I'm not correcting the Bible, but above the word faith, I wrote the name Jesus. Because you could just as easily say, but before Jesus came, We were kept under the law, is what it says. Shut up unto faith. Now that's an interesting phrase. Shut up unto faith. What, they didn't have access to faith? Well, it's only in the Old Testament two times. And it's to provoke the Jews to jealousy in the New Testament, 245 more times it shows up over there. Faith, faith, faith, faith, faith. So they were shut up unto faith. They didn't have access to Jesus Christ and His righteousness. They didn't have access to Ephesians 2, 8. For by grace are you saved through faith. And that, it's a gift of God, right? That we can live by. So before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto faith, which should afterwards be revealed. And I can read on, wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ. That's the faith that it's talking about in 23. That we might be justified by faith. But after that faith has come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. We're no longer under the law that brings us to Christ. Okay, so we're getting the idea of what is this faith. Let's go to Romans chapter 10, back to Romans and look at chapter 10. It gets very explicit right there, Romans chapter 10. You can look at Romans 9 actually before you go to 10. And you can see something in Romans chapter 9 at the end of the chapter Let's see, in verse 30, it says, what shall we say then that the Gentiles which follow not after righteousness have attained unto righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith? But Israel, verse 31, which followed after the law of righteousness, that would be the law, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. So they were living the law like the Pharisees were, but they didn't attain unto the righteousness they were looking for. Why? Wherefore, in verse 32, because they sought it not by faith, Deuteronomy told us that, Deuteronomy 32, 20. Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law, for they stumbled at the stumbling stone. What is the stumbling stone, everyone? It's Jesus Christ, right? And so now we jump over to chapter 10 and we look at verse 8. It says, but what sayeth it? Now we're talking to Gentiles and we're talking about what the Israel missed. It says, but what sayeth it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the word of faith, which we preach. We preach. What are you talking about? That's what Paul preaches now. That's what the apostles are preaching and decided in Acts chapter 15, that that was the gospel message. that Christ and Christ alone. It wasn't anything to do by the works of the law not to get saved, not to stay saved. They had that debate in Acts chapter 15 and they settled that. So this is the word of faith in verse 8 which we preach. And what is that? That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shall be saved. You know, I preached this same, not the same message, but I preached the same idea at the jail when we were at the jail last Saturday. And I believe that's why that young man got saved. Do you know that? I don't know if you remember, but the last time prior to that, that we were there, there was a Jew there. Did you remember me telling you that there was a man who was a Jew. He had the whole beanie thing on. He had the beard and squared off at the, you know, at the, at the end, but he came. And at the end of that service, we talked about the Sabbath day that time, and we talked about it being a sign to the Jews, and that's no longer the thing, and if you keep the Sabbath day, you're just doing it in vain, it doesn't matter, that's not the Lord's day. And you know that man came back again, and he said at the end of that service, he says, that was very interesting. And he said, I learned something about, and he didn't say exactly what, but he said, I learned something. And he came back, now he didn't get saved, we wanna pray for him to get saved, But that young man that I talked about sat in the front row, he heard this. And I'm sure it gets into their minds because all the false religion that tries to steer people into their own faith rather than the faith of, that we're trying to establish right now, the faith of Jesus Christ. Listen, I talk about it all the time. There are eight to nine billion, I don't know what the number really is, somewhere eight to nine billion people in the world. And do you realize that of the, let's say nine billion, You realize of the 9 billion people in the world, I'll try to be liberal about it, there might be 100, 200, I'll say 500 million people that are actually on their way to heaven that know the Lord. You know that's over 8 billion people that are going to hell. Think about it. You say, why do you think that? Well, go to any other church tonight, go to any other church on Sunday, study and read up on any other religion, and they're all trying to access the faith of the Old Testament. which is doing it by your own works, by your own righteousness. And they are not recognizing the one thing that I hope everyone in this room recognizes, that it's not a religion. It's not a denomination. It's not you being a Baptist. It's not you attending church. It's you knowing somebody. And that somebody is the one who made you. It's the one who made all things. It's God. And his name is Jesus Christ, that's one of his names. But that's the name that the Bible prescribes in Romans chapter 10. What is this faith that we preach, Paul? It's the faith that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus. And I told those guys at the jail, and you should see the eyebrows go up when I said this, and you should see the looks they're giving each other when I said this. I said, and it's not Buddha, it's not Confucius, it's not Gandhi, it's not Muhammad, it's not Allah. Boy, that struck a chord. Because all those religions, including satanic religion, and the Wicca, witches, and all that come in there. And they get exposed to so much. And you know, even people in jail get a little nervous when you start kicking their gods, as a pastor would say. But you know what? You better be kicking some gods down in your life, because it's none of those things. It's the faith of Jesus. And the only way you're going to resist the devil, and one of the greatest ways you can resist the devil, by the way, is get saved, That's the first and foremost thing you have to do. You have to receive the faith of Jesus Christ. And then when you receive that faith, you have to begin to walk in that faith. You have to begin to grow in the grace and the knowledge of that faith. It's the same difference, the faith of Jesus Christ or Jesus Christ. We looked at in Galatians before faith came before Jesus came. So as you walk in the faith of the word of God, you're walking in Christ. And when you're walking in Christ, you're resisting the devil. Now, this faith is given by Jesus Christ. I mentioned that. Go to Acts chapter 3. Acts chapter 3. Listen, it's very simple to me. I trust in the creator of the universe. What do you trust in? Yourself? I wouldn't do that. I know myself. I can't trust in myself. You say, well, I know there's really no God. Well, you know that? You know that? I like Kent Hovind. You know Kent Hovind? I've introduced you to Kent Hovind before when we studied Genesis. And he had a great argument one time. He talked to a lot of college students. And they would say, well, there is no God. And so he would just simply say to them, oh, you know there's no God, right? There's no God. And he would look at him and say, well, let me ask you another question. I'm being very serious. I'm not getting critical with you. I'm just asking you a plain, simple question. Do you know everything? Well, I don't know everything. Well, so you don't know everything. And they would say, yeah, okay, I don't know everything. And he'd say, well, is it possible that, how much don't you know? How much do you know? Do you know 10% of everything? Do you know 20% of everything? Do you know 50% of everything there is to know? I don't know, and they would give him a number. Maybe I'd know 20%, that'd be very, that would be a genius level. I mean, you know 20% of everything there is to know. Okay, okay, I'll grant you that. You know 20% of everything there is to know. That means there's 80% of this world and of this universe and everything that you don't know. And is it possible that God exists in the 80% that you don't know? And I thought that was a brilliant argument. You know, I mean, there's no God. Why? Because you don't want there to be one? That's no argument. And you ought to see through your own arguments that way. But the Bible tells us that, let me get back to this. The very first occurrence, by the way, the very, and you know, we don't teach the law of first mention. When you study the Bible, when you see something in the Bible for the first time, it sets the tone for that word or phrase throughout the Bible, generally speaking. You get to Acts chapter three, right? That's where I have you, verse 16. And look what it says there, it says, and his name, through faith in his name, this is Peter healing a man, and he's going into a little preaching here, and he's explaining how he was able to be healed. He said, and his name, through faith in his name, talking about Jesus, hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know, yea, the faith, the faith, which is by him, hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. So it wasn't Peter, Peter wasn't claiming I did this. He was saying it was by the faith of Jesus Christ. And it's verse 17, and now brethren, I want that through ignorance you did it as your rulers. They crucified him is what he was telling them. And so that's Acts chapter 3 verse 16. Go over to Galatians chapter 2. It's the faith of Jesus Christ is what I'm telling you. Galatians chapter 2. In verse 16. This is this is about as plain as it gets in the whole Bible. It says, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith. Look at that next word there of Jesus Christ. It doesn't say by faith in Jesus Christ. It doesn't say by your own faith, right? It says, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. That's the gift of God, not of works as any man should boast. Even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. So go to Philippians chapter three. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians chapter three. And verse 9, it says, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ. Now look at that, it says next, the righteousness, which is of God by faith. So you get the righteousness from God, not yourself. you get the gift of God, which is the faith to live the Christian life, to not only get saved, that you have to have that to get saved. If you don't have the faith of Jesus Christ, you're lost and on your way to hell. If you're trying to be a good Catholic, if you're trying to be a good Methodist, if you're trying to be a good Muslim, You're on your way to hell. You say, why? It's in the Bible. They did it in the Bible. Yeah, they did it in a different time, a different dispensation. But now the faith of Jesus Christ is what God says the righteousness which is of God, that is given to you as a free gift, is the faith of Jesus Christ. That's how we are found in him according to Philippians 3.9. And it's also, go to Acts chapter 14. Go back to Galatians cuz we're real close by. Go back to Galatians chapter 2 and verse 20. This faith, the faith, I mentioned it already many times, is the way of a Christian. It's not only how we're saved, it's the way of a Christian. The way of a Christian is to walk in the faith. The way of a Christian is not to become a denomination or to be a better person necessarily. I mean, you will be if you're walking in the faith and you'll resist the devil. You won't have a problem with the devil. That's the gist of the message is twofold tonight, how to get rid of the devil and how to recognize the faith, and what is the faith, and how can you walk in that faith. Galatians 2.20, we talked about it, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life, now this is it, the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by how? How do I do that? By the faith of, there's that word again, the faith of someone else. By the faith of the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me." Now go to Acts chapter 14. Acts chapter 14 in verse 22. This is what we're supposed to be doing. confirming the souls of the disciples and exhorting them to continue in the faith, not just faith. You say, well, what's the difference? There is a difference. It's not just faith in general, you know, have faith in yourself, have faith in people, have faith in mankind, you know, have faith in the system and faith in whatever, even faith in God is the faith. It's a very specific phrase in the Bible. It's, as I said, it's mentioned 43 times in the Bible and each time It's talking about something very specific doctrinally for us. So we're supposed to continue in the faith and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. So, uh, now that's my introduction. All right. We've established what that there is such a thing called the faith in the Bible. And as you read through the Bible and you go through the new Testament, you're reading Paul. When you see the word, the faith in there, take note of it, underline it, mark it, and you'll understand that it's talking about something that we must do very specifically. All right, and so number one, how to be in the faith. How can I be in the faith? Well, number one, you have to be saved. That's just the first and foremost foundational step. And I'm not gonna spend much time here because I assume, I have to assume that everybody here tonight is saved. But let me just say this. The Bible says in, go to 2 Corinthians chapter 13. It's something that I think we should not overlook, 2 Corinthians 13, because as I've said to you before, and I'll say it again tonight, there are people that have sat in this church that I know personally, and have talked to personally, that you would swear there's no problem there, they're saved. They must be saved. I mean, look, they sit under the preaching. They tolerate the preaching. They have a good time. They get along with people. They're always praising God and things like this. And yet, if you were to talk to them one-on-one, you would find out they're not in the faith. They might be in the Old Testament faith. They might be trying to do things under their own works and their own power. They may be having an experience with God. They may have had, you know, a time when they felt like they started walking with God. Oh, I've been walking with God since I was, you know, whatever age. I've heard that a million times. When did you get saved? Well, I just remember I've always walked with God. I remember being in church one time and I heard a message and, you know, it really resonated with me. And I just, at that moment, I said, that's right. And then I just started walking with God and I made an agreement with God. I'm just going to walk with you. Well, that's not the word of faith which we preach. Do you remember Romans chapter 10? The word of faith which we preach, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus. Are you willing to confess Jesus as God and God only and that he's the savior and you have a sin problem and he's the only one who can save you? Are you willing to bow your head right now? I told you the story of a young man. His name was Nathaniel Abraham. He was in a jail up in Michigan. I would go into that jail. It was a maximum security for young men. And this is where the rapists and murderers would go. Young kids, 12 years old, this man shot a cop and killed the policeman. He was all over the news, and I had no idea I'm watching the news. I'm thinking, oh, what a tragedy. Boy, what a dumb thing that young kid did. I mean, I can't believe. I mean, who does stuff like that? And the next thing you know, weeks and months later, I'm in the jail sitting right next to him. And the preacher's up there preaching, and I'm sitting here, and I turn to him at the end of the preaching, the invitation was given, I turn to him and I say, hey, you heard the preaching, right? And he said, yeah. I said, how would you like to get saved? He said, yeah, you know what, I think I would. I said, great, let's turn around in front of everybody. I said, let's turn around and get down on our knees right here in our chair, and he did it. He turned around, got down on his knees in the chair. And I said, you know what the Bible says, and I quote Romans chapter 10 verse 9 and verse 13. And I said, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. I said, now here's what you need to do. You need to call on the name of the Lord. He says, I can't do it. Now you say, well, he got saved because he turned around in front of everybody. He got down on his knees, and he was repentant, and he liked the preaching. He knew what he needed to do. But I would tell you this, he wouldn't pray the prayer. Now you say, it's not a magic prayer, and it's not. has nothing to do with you praying certain words. But if you're not willing to confess with your mouth, I just take the Bible literally. And the Bible says, listen, you got a problem. If you're ashamed of me, for whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. You say, well, is that God's criteria? Well, that's what the Bible says. I don't know, but that's what the Bible says. And he wouldn't do it. I said, you know what, Nathaniel, let's turn around, let's get back up and sit down. And that's what we did. And he didn't get saved. Now, maybe, and I hope maybe, because it's been years now, maybe he's saved today. Maybe he got saved. I hope so. But I didn't give him assurance. Well, don't worry, but, you know, God saw your heart. No, no, no. So we must be saved. It says, what I have you, in 2 Corinthians, I'm sorry, 2 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 5. Examine yourselves. Whether you be, what does it say? In the faith, the faith. It doesn't say examine yourself to see if you have faith. Examine yourselves whether you be in the faith. Are you in the faith? Look, I'm telling you, I'm looking at every one of you and I believe every one of you are saved. I look at every single person in here. But I'll tell you what, you have conversations and you find out different. Say, well, who is it? I'm not gonna tell you who it is. I'm not thinking of anybody here right now tonight. I'm just telling you, the Bible has a very pointed verse in here. It says, examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith, the faith of Jesus Christ, the gift of God, that is freely given to you through a man, not through a church, not through being here six times a week. and obeying all the Ten Commandments and doing all the things just right, not that, not doing all the rituals, but do you know the faith? Are you in the faith? I hope so. Prove your own selves. Know you not, your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates. That's what it would be if you're not saved. You'd be a reprobate. You just deny Jesus Christ and say, well, I'll get there on my own. God sees my heart. God knows my thoughts. You're not the judge, John. I'm not the judge. But I know how to read. Do you know how to read? I mean, I'm not trying to be sarcastic, although I guess I am. But that's what the Bible says. So the first thing we need to do is we need to be saved. It has nothing to do with any experiences you've had in your lifetime or any kind of, well, I pray every day. And I've gone through this, I think, with you before. People say, well, I pray to Jesus every day. I must be saved. I ask him every day to save me. Well, you know what? You're not trusting him then. You know what that is, by the way? That's you trusting in a prayer. That's easy believism right there. That is me trusting in fact that I prayed, now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Now that may be okay to teach a little child, but I don't even know about that. But I'm telling you what, it's a ritualistic prayer. And God is not listening to ritualistic prayers. I can show you in Romans chapter 10, a man named Cornelius. who prayed ritualistic prayers, and God heard him, but what did he do? He sent Peter over to him to save him because he wasn't doing it the right way. And God requires faith to understand what the faith is. The faith is Jesus Christ. It's not your ritualistic repeated over and over prayer that the heathen do, the Bible says. All right, so we need to be saved. The second thing we must do in order to grow in the faith and have the faith to resist the devil is to go to church. And I'm looking around and I think all of you are here tonight. Right? You're here tonight. And so that's one of the prescriptions the Bible gives for staying in the faith. Look at Acts chapter 16. Acts chapter 16 and verse 5. Now listen, one of the things I didn't like to do as a kid, maybe your kid likes church. If your kid likes church, thank God for that. Because when I was a kid, I didn't like it. I didn't want to go. Now, I didn't want to go to school either, and there's a lot of things I didn't want to, there's a lot of things I don't want to do today either. But you know what? It's something that we ought to do. You know, we don't always want to go to work tomorrow. We don't always want to, like I said, go to school. We don't always want to do the things, but we know we have to do them, and so we do those things. But church, if we want to resist the devil, listen, you don't want the devil on your back. You don't want the devil anywhere near you. You want to insulate, you say, well, I don't care. Okay, well then what about your children? Do you care about them? What about your family? Do you care about them? Do you want that kind of stuff coming into your house and affecting them? Well, then you better put them in the place, give no place to the devil, right? You better put them in a place where the devil isn't and get them familiar with that and put that habit in their life. And so Acts chapter 16 and verse 5, it says, and so were the churches established in the faith and increased in number daily. You know, the purpose of a church is not to go there to say that, okay, I got that done for God. Now he must be smiling and give me his favor. That's not what you go to church for. You ought to go to church to get something from church. You ought to go to church to learn something. You ought to get the church to get closer to God. And it's not, it's not even necessarily about the people. It's about you and the Lord and doing what the Lord says. You know what the Bible calls you if you're saved? You all do know what the Bible calls you if you're saved. It calls you the church. That's your new name. Do you understand there's a designation in the Bible? There's Jew, there's Gentile, and then there's the church of God. And you're one of those three. If you're a Gentile, you're going to hell. If you're a Jew, you're going to hell. If you're the church of God, you're not going to hell. You're in the body of Christ. You have the faith of Jesus Christ. And that's by definition who you are anymore. The Bible tells you that you're a new creature in Christ. Well, first chapter of Colossians, maybe we'll get to it on Sunday. I think we will. We're gonna talk about that. What does that mean? I'm a new creature in Christ. Well, you are now part of his body. You're actually literally bone of his bone, Ephesians chapter five, and flesh of his flesh. You're one with Christ. I hope you can get used to that fact. I hope you can enjoy that fact. I hope you can live to learn that fact. And you might as well down your, the reason why I believe he leaves us here is to learn more about that and to grow in that. And we're supposed to be, according to Acts chapter 16, established in the faith. Now, for sake of time, well, go over here because I want you to read the context. Go to Ephesians chapter four. on this same note, Galatians, Ephesians, chapter four, and start in verse 11. And this is talking about the church and what Christ did. It says he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints. That's why he gave those things, for the perfecting of me. for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come, and this is the verse I really want, till we all come in the unity of what? The faith. The unity of the faith. You mean we're supposed to agree? Yeah, we're supposed to agree. How do we agree, John? I mean, how can we? Because we have one common final authority, and that is the Bible. It's not up to me to give you my thoughts so that you agree with me. It's not up to the pastor to do that for you. It's not, you know, and if you say, well, my pastor believes or my church teaches, you're in the wrong, you're going on the wrong path. You're not in the faith. The faith is that I know my own Bible. And that's the idea of getting rooted and established and grounded in the faith. And that's the purpose of church. That's the purpose of it. And so we all are supposed to come into the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Now look, that blows my mind. I don't know what it's gonna be like when we get into eternity. I just don't know. I can speculate and I can imagine. I just know it's gonna be better than here. But I'll tell you what, I am literally bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, and I am supposed to be working on coming into union with that. I am supposed to be walking in a faith that is teaching me, that the Lord is teaching me, hey John, get used to that fact. It's gonna be glorious, it's gonna be wonderful. Wait till you get here. I can't wait till you get here. It's gonna be the best thing I could ever do for you. It's gonna be epitome of joy and happiness and bliss and whatever word you can put to it. So I want you to get a taste of that now. And I call you the church, and I establish the church, and if you read through all of Paul's epistles, they're all the churches. 13 epistles that Paul wrote, every one of them has to do with church. A local, New Testament, Bible-believing, preaching church. And so, till we all come into the unity of faith, it's important that we understand that. That's how we're gonna resist the devil. Now listen, I could go into a diatribe right now, it's real easy. There's other churches out there, and we call them churches loosely because they call themselves churches, but they have nothing to do with the faith. Right? And we're not getting into much doctrine right now tonight. We're just kind of establishing the idea of the faith. Has to do with doctrine, has to do with right doctrine, has to do with right salvation. But there are many, many churches, I mentioned the billions of people, that are getting wrong doctrine, and you know what? That is a place for the devil. And so people go to these places and they don't understand why it's not working. How come my life is not changing? How come I'm filled with so many problems? There's no way to resist the devil when your church is bringing in rock concerts. How can you resist the devil? You're inviting him in. The Church of Laodicea, which we talked about on Sunday, where Jesus is on the outside knocking on the door, asking if any man will open the door, I will come in and I'll sup with you and maybe we can get into the faith together. But not as long as I'm on the outside. How can you have that when you have rock concerts, dancing? They literally have girls. I've been to this place. I've watched the ladies on the stage dancing. Say, well, I can't believe, well, you might wanna go sometime and take a look. That is not the faith. What is that? By the way, why do they put women up there dancing? Right? Why don't they put a fat, ugly guy up there and have him dancing? Because it's not for that purpose. It's not for the joy of the Lord and David danced before the Lord. It's to get you to watch. It's to get you to come back. It's to get you to get, you know, to really enjoy that. All right. So it's social drinking. There's false perverted Bibles in those places. They're trained. All the ministers are trained in psychology and there's no preaching. So how do you resist the devil? That's not the faith. So what I'm telling you is I say go to church. But what church? Well, I went to church this Sunday. Yeah. What church? You know, the devil has churches. The devil is an angel of light. He's no dummy. He's much smarter than me. That's why I don't want to go up against him. I'm not going to match witch with the devil. I'm not going to have an argument with the devil and I'm not going to be like a dumb charismatic, excuse my expression, but I'm not going to be a dumb charismatic and say, well, come on, devil, let's go ahead and I'll just beat you at the Holy Ghost. Michael the archangel wasn't as stupid as you are. He said, Lord, I need help. He's going up against the devil right one-on-one. He said, I need help. And so anyway, a biblical church must be a preaching church. Let me just read this to you, Titus 1.13. This witness is true. Wherefore, rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith. You say, John, you speak sharply up there. Pastor, when he gets up, he speaks very sharply. He's very direct. He's preaching. We don't like preaching anymore. That's not the way to do it. The Bible says, Wherefore, rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith." You know, you might want to take that advice when you go home with your children. You might want to rebuke them sharply, so that they're sound in the faith. If they're little hellions running around your house, tearing the place apart, and doing whatever they want, and getting their own way, you haven't done your job. And if people are doing whatever they want in the house of God, and we let anything and everything walk in this door, and anybody who wants to can teach a Sunday school class, and there's no qualifications for anything, and you can live however you want and do whatever you want, then there's not going to be any sound in faith going on. And there's not going to be any resisting of the devil, and the devil is going to have his way. And one of the things he likes to do is he likes to devour Christians. He already has the world. You know, we didn't go over it. I would have if I was here preaching Sunday morning. I would have covered getting saved a little bit more in depth. But do you know what Jesus said about those who are not saved? He said to the Pharisees, you are already of your father the devil, and the less of your father you will do. He already tells you in John 3.36 that you're under the wrath of God. And He already tells you that you're condemned already. And so, that's the state of affairs for a lost person. But the next thing that we ought to do, just real quickly, well let me just go along with it, being rooted and established in the faith, go to Colossians chapter 2. I won't expound on this point too long because we're out of time. Go to Colossians chapter 2 and look at this. We'll be in Colossians 2 fairly soon, in Sunday school. It says, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as ye have been taught. Where does the teaching take place, John? It takes place in church. Rooted and established in the faith as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. In our own text, in 1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 9, we were talking about resisting the devil and it says, whom resists steadfast. in the faith. We do it steadfastly. We stay rooted. We stay established. We stay grounded. We stay settled in that. Listen, the question is this. Do you know what you believe? You ought to know what you believe. You ought not to have to say, well, let me call John up and ask him about it. You ought not to say, well, let me ask pastor about it. And it's okay if you do that for a time as you're learning and as you're growing. But you ought to have some things settled in your life. You ought to have some things established in your life. You ought not to be able to have a Jehovah's Witness show up at your door and convince you of anything. You ought not to pick up a book by Benny Hinn and read it and say, oh my goodness, he makes some great points, I would like that. I would like to start speaking in tongues. I would like to start having the gift of healings. I would like to be healed. I hope you're more settled and established than that and realize that that's not part of the faith that the Bible talks about for today. We're supposed to be that way. So let me just wrap this up. I won't be able to get, maybe pastor will give me some time to preach this some more, but probably not. I'm just kidding about that, but we'll probably cover more of this in Sunday school when we get around verse 23 of Colossians chapter one. But here's the thing that we need to watch out. The final stage of a believer taken captive by the devil is apostasy. You know what's gonna happen? You know what happens in every dispensation of time that we can point to in the Bible? At the end of every dispensation, it always ends in what we call apostasy. It always ends in the group of people that the Lord is dealing with going against Him and turning the thing completely around. That's the nature of man, to go opposite of God. That's what we're good at. We're not good at following Him so much, we're good at going opposite of Him, and our flesh is the one doing that. And so, the final stage of a believer taken captive by the devil in apostasy is apostasy and being reprobate concerning the faith. I'll have you turn to two more verses. Go to 2 Timothy chapter 3, and we'll wind up here. 2 Timothy chapter 3. Listen, I've told you many times, I don't want to be wrong. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be wrong. I don't like going through life saying, well, I just do it my way and it's been wrong the whole time. And especially when it comes to God. I want to know who God really is. I want to know the true God, don't you? I want to know how to really get to heaven, not how I think I get to heaven, not what my denomination says about it. I want to know how to resist the devil. I don't want to do it in my own power. I don't want to have some clever plan. Well, every time this happens, I do this, you know? No, it's not going to work for you. I want to know. I don't want to end up being apostate. But in 2 Timothy 3, in verse 8, we find a couple. It says, Now as Jannas and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also. Resist the truth. Do you ever find yourself resisting the truth? It says, they resist the truth, men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning what? The faith. The faith? Yeah, the faith that you're supposed to be rooted, grounded, and established in. The faith that you get as a gift from Jesus Christ. all over and over and over. The theme of Colossians, by the way, that we're going to study on Sunday mornings. The theme of Colossians is not giving heed to the vanity of philosophies, and worshiping of angels, and the Sabbath days, and all the other things that men are always trying to slip in and undermine what Paul was teaching. What God gave Paul to teach. The mystery of godliness. Christ in you. And so, these are people who resist the truth. You know, I commend our church, actually, because it's been such a blessing that, you know, we can teach some radical things sometimes. And they're not radical, they just go against religion. And they go against our own nature, they go against our own thought process. And we receive the truth for the most part in this church. But a lot of people you find, and I've talked to them, and you can just show them Bible all day long, and they just say, yeah, but I think. Yeah, but I don't know. Yeah, but how do you know, and they just get on you personally, how do you know that for sure? Well, I can know for sure. Wouldn't you like to know for sure? People say all the time, how can you know for sure you're going to heaven? Well, the Bible says you can know that for sure. But they resist the truth. Don't be someone who resists the truth. That'll find yourself in apostasy. The devil has his minions. The pastor says that all the time. I don't believe the devil himself necessarily comes around and is always waiting at your door. But I believe this, and I don't want to get into it too deeply, I don't have time for it, but I do believe this, that since you were a child, you know that the Bible talks about you having an angel? That their angel doth always behold his face in heaven? I believe that. It's in Matthew that the Bible talks about every child has an angel. Now, you don't lose that angel. I don't believe you lose that angel when you get saved. I believe you always have a ministering spirit, the Bible talks about them, and God uses them. to walk with you, and watch you, and guide you, and maybe even report back to God. You say, God doesn't need anybody to report. Well, I don't know how he all works everything out. I just know that I believe in that. And I believe this, that I also believe that little white angel that sits on your shoulder, there's a little black one over here, just like the cartoons show you. And one's whispering in this ear, and the other one's whispering in this ear. And it's like Brother Peacock said, it's whichever one you feed the most, that's the one you're going to listen to the most, and that's the one you're going to tend towards. And so we begin to start resisting the truth and we'll be men of corrupt minds and we'll be reprobate concerning the faith. And that devil that comes around you, he's just gonna always be there, he's been watching you your whole life. He knows the sin that doth easily beset you. And so they know us sometimes better than we know ourselves. And so the suggestions and the things that we had better be, I'm just saying, to be right, to know that you're right, and to have God's blessing in your life. Do you want God's blessing in your life or do you always want to be fighting against Him? If you want God's blessing in his life, you might want to just begin to learn about this idea of the faith, and what it is, and how to please God, and walk with Him, and be able to resist, not resist the truth. Go to the last verse, 1st Timothy, chapter 6, in verse 20. First Timothy 620, it says, O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust. Avoid profane and vain babblings. That's what the world is giving you on the news every single day. And that's what preachers are out there giving you every single day. And that's what psychology is giving you every single day. That's what the public school is giving you every single day. The college, you can name it all. Anything coming from the world is profane and vain babblings. And it says, keep that which is committed to thy trust. That's what Paul gave him, avoiding profane and vain babblings and oppositions of science, falsely so-called, which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with you. Amen. You don't want to err concerning the faith. I would rather not be wise concerning those things. I'd rather be more wise concerning the faith. And we're supposed to, I didn't get to all the points tonight, but we're supposed to be rooted and established in it. We're supposed to contend for it. We're supposed to proclaim it. And these are all the things that the Bible tells us to do in order to be in the faith. And the faith, by the way, if I haven't said it a million times already, is how you get saved, the right way to be saved. And the faith is how to walk as a Christian in the doctrines of Jesus Christ. Not in man's doctrines, not in your religion, not having completed the catechism of the Catholic Church, but walking according to the doctrines of the Bible. And if you're doing that, then the devil has no place in your life. He's not gonna be around you, and he's not gonna be around your family, and you're gonna be able to resist him the way the Bible prescribes to be able to do that. All right, I'm done, sake of time, let's go ahead.