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MESSAGES ON FAITHCONTENTS1. MARVELOUS FAITH Based on Matt. 8:5-132. FEAR OR FAITH Based on Mark 5:21-24, 35-433. THE WORD OF FAITH Based on Luke 23:39-464. FATALISM OR FAITH Based on Acts 17:16-34
 
5. A STEADFAST FAITH Based on I Thess. 3:5-8
 
6. FAITH BUILDERS Based on Titus 1:1-167. FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE Based on Titus 1:1-16
 
8. HOW TO TELL IF YOUR FAITH IS TRUE. Based on James 2:14-26
 
9. THE FOUNDATION OF FAITH Based on II Peter 1:1
 
MARVELOUS FAITH Based on Matt. 8:5-13By Pastor Glenn PeaseFaith is not necessarily always a virtue. In fact, sometimes it seems to be anactual vice. A superficial unfounded faith can be of less value than having no faithat all. Even skepticism has values, which are lost by a naive faith. This wasillustrated to me in a personal experience. I wanted to get into the county jail to talkwith a man being held there. I did not know how to go about it, so I called and theofficer in charge told me I should go through the Council of Churches. So I calledthere and a man agreed to meet me at the jail and see that I got registered. Heexplained to me that the jail officials had requested this procedure to identifyministers because they had trouble in the past with men coming in impersonatingministers. One had just got out of prison, and then came back to talk with aprisoner in jail by impersonating a minister. This frustrated the officials and sothey asked the Council of Churches to identify ministers so that only truly ordainedmen would be registered and permitted to speak with prisoners.Certainly this was a wise plan, but in practice it became almost meaninglesssince it was based on faith. The man from the Council of Churches took my wordfor it that I was a minister, and when I signed the registration book he approved itwith his signature. He did not know me at all, and he did not ask for anyidentification. The officer at the desk did not ask for any identification either, for hewas acting on the assumption that the Council of Churches representative would notapprove of anyone unqualified. The result is that the system is now so thrown intothe realm of faith that the need for any identification is eliminated. My thoughts asI left the jail were that this system devised to keep out the unauthorized really opensthe door to anyone capable of lying. This faith system increases rather thandecreases the danger it was set up to prevent, for now a man would not even have toshow any identification to get in and become permanently registered.
 
 Things like this make me realize that faith without evidence is no virtue. Afoundationless faith is a blind faith, and it is of no relationship to the faith, whichthe Scripture holds so high. It is because many people equate the faith of the Biblewith this superficial faith that they think the Christian is one who forces him self tobelieve what he knows is not true. They think of faith like that illustrated by LewisCarroll in Through The Looking Glass. The white Queen claims to be 101 years, 5months and one day old. Alice said, "I can't believe that." "You can't," respondedthe Queen, try again, draw a long breath and shut your eyes." In other words,however fantastic a thing is, if you have faith you can believe it. Faith here is beingdefined as the ability to forget and ignore the evidence, and believe in spite of theevidence to the contrary. This is not Christian faith, but is closer to pagansuperstition.The Christian does not hold it to be a virtue to believe that without evidence, orin spite of evidence. A faith that is without a solid basis and sufficient authority hasno claim on the Christian. John Milton, the famous blind poet and author of Paradise Lost, went so far as to say, "A man may be a heretic in the truth; if hebelieves things only because his pastor says so, or because the assembly sodetermines, without knowing other reasons, though his belief be true, yet the verytruth he holds becomes his heresy." In other words, a blind faith even in the truth isa vice and not a virtue. It is because it leaves one open to the danger of believing allkinds of nonsense about the truth due to misunderstanding.A skeptical Philadelphia businessman was actually virtuous in his unbelief because it kept him from believing the nonsense of his misunderstanding. He said tohis Christian doctor, "I do not refuse to believe in the story of the ark. I can acceptthe enormous size, its odd shape and the vast number animals it contained, butwhen I am asked, my dear doctor, to believe that the children of Israel carried thisunwieldy thing for 40 years in the wilderness-well, there, I am bound to say, myfaith breaks down." A faith that could have shut its eyes and gone on believing thatthe ark of Noah was the same as the Ark of the Covenant would not have made hima giant of faith, but a greater fool instead. Let us be aware that not all that is calledfaith is good. There is a distinction between biblical faith and many other thingsthat are put under the heading of faith. The best way to come to a properunderstanding of true faith is to study examples of biblical faith.The passage we are looking at is an ideal starting point of such a study becauseit is a record of the only faith ever exhibited that caused Jesus to marvel. Jesus mayhave marveled at others, but this is the only incident we have recorded of it. BothMatthew and Luke record that Jesus marveled at the great faith of this RomanCenturion. We want to examine this marvelous faith and seek to identify thosecharacteristics, which make true faith a great virtue. The first thing we see here isnot unique, but it is common to all other examples of faith in Scripture. We see thetrue faith is characterized by-
 
I. ACTION.The Centurion came to Jesus beseeching him to heal his sick servant. As aCenturion there would be many obstacles in the way to prevent action. First of all,he was a Gentile, and to make it worse he was a leader in the Roman army thatoccupied the land of the Jews, which kept them loyal to Rome by force. TheRomans had legions of 6000 men divided into 60 centuries of 100 men each, andeach of the centuries was commanded by a Centurion. The official Jewish positionwas one of hatred toward the Gentiles, and especially the Romans. They wereconsidered to be dogs and children of hell, but this was not the case with thisCenturion. Luke records that he came to be loved by the Jews because he honoredtheir religion, and he built them a synagogue. Nevertheless, he felt unworthy as hestates that Christ should not even enter his home, for he had been convinced by theJewish view that one was defiled by entering a Gentile dwelling. Under thecircumstances it would have been so easy to just hope Jesus would come to him.Some may have even told him to just have faith.Setting and waiting and hope is often considered a virtue, but it is not faith.Hebrews 11:1 says, "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Faith is present assurance, which can only be demonstrated byaction. By faith Noah built an ark. He did not set and hope one would be built. TheCenturion, in spite of his feelings of unworthiness, acted on his conviction that Jesuswould heal, and so he asked him to do so. The Centurion had good reason to believethat Jesus could heal, for He had already performed several miracles of healing inCapernaum. But believing in the evidence is not effective faith in its self. Had hestayed at home believing Jesus had the power to heal, it would have been just as realand sincere a belief, but it would accomplish no more than unbelief. It is only whenfaith acts that it becomes an effective virtue, which opens up the door for the powerof God to enter.All prayer, for example, is action, which demonstrates faith. Other factors suchas ignorance or false motives can still make it ineffective, but any prayer does havethis basic characteristic of true faith because it is a form of action. Believing Jesuscan heal, guide or save is one thing, but asking Him to do so is another, and it is thisaction of asking that makes the difference between a living and a dead faith. Faithwithout works, which is a faith without action, is dead no matter how sincere itmight be. Faith that counts is a faith that is practical and realistic. It is one thataffects not just some groves in the brain, but the whole man in daily life. BernardShaw said, "What a man believes may be ascertained not from his creed, but theassumptions on which he habitually acts."We see the need for a fine distinction between what a man believes and what hebelieves. In other words, it is possible to believe and not act on that belief. It is alsopossible to believe and act on that belief. It is the second kind of belief that isChristian faith. And inactive belief in Christ and His Word is only a subtle form of unbelief that allows a person to be a practical atheist while at the same time
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