WHAT FAITH BELIEVES - CHAPTER # 2

WHAT FAITH BELIEVES - CHAPTER # 2 !!!!!!
(Preached in the Emmanuel Baptist Church on Sunday evening, JUNE 27 1976)
READ: PSALM 116; 2 CORTHINHIANS 4:1__15
"I believed, therefore have I spoken. . . . "_PSALM 116:10.
"We having the same spirit of faith, according as it written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak." _2 CORINTHIANS 4:13.
My subject may seem a rather strange one: "What We Believe." There is no question about in whom we believe. Different ones have asked me, "Just exactly what does this church believe? "No one could give his whole creed or all that we believe in one service. But tonight I speak on "What We Believe." The psalmist said, "I believed, therefore have I spoken. . . ." Paul said: ". . .we also believe, and therefore speak."
# 2 _Your believing is the most important thing that can happen to you. It is a life-changing experience. Your belief affects your behavior. We read: ". . . they trusted in thee, and were not confounded" (PSALM 22:5). The most important thing that can happen is to come to the place where one really believes. Years ago when I was on the radio ) DR. TOM MALONE every morning, one day I came down out of the Riker Building, where WCAR radio station was at that time; and I found a Pentecostal preacher out on the sidewalk slapping his thighs and laughing. He was by himself. He and I were friends even though we both knew we differed in what we believed in many instances.
# 3 _I walked up to him and said, "What are you laughing about?" "I just talked to a man I met on the street. When I asked him, 'What do you believe?'  he said, 'I believe what my church believes.' I said to him, 'What does your church believe?' He said to me, 'My church believes the same thing that I believe.' " Now that Pentecostal preacher was slapping his thighs and laughing at that. He said to me, "Don't you think, Brother Tom, that fellow does not really know what he believes?"
I said, "I think that is true."
The psalmist declared, "I believed, therefore have I spoken."
# 4 _In 1935, the second week of August, I had an experience that perhaps nearly everyone in this room has had. I believed, and my life and whole future were changed. My past  was even changed because, in God's sight, it was blotted out. To believe is the most life-changing experience a person can ever have. Belief is absolutely essential to successful living. A person should know what he believes. I do. There is a system of truth I believe. I may be speaking out of turn, but no power on earth could change what I believe because it is based on what God said!! Believing is essential to successful living.
# 5 _A man came of Jesus bringing his lunatic, demon-possessed son, saying, "I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cast him out." Jesus looked at that man standing at the foot of the Mount of Transfiguration and said, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth" (MARK 9:23). You will never please God until you, by faith, believe Him.
# 6 _Belief determines your relatioship to God and man: "But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him," says Hebrew 11:6. It is more than that. That is what the psalmist and Paul are talking about. The Bible says that, without this belief, it is impossible to please God, because he that comes to God must believe that He is. Watch that last phrase:". . .and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."
# 7 _I believe everything that affects my life is going to be all right with me. I believe God will reward me as a Christian. These things we believe for certain. We are not "wishy-washy" about them.
LUKE, in chapter 1 of Luke, says something about what we believe.
"Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee. . . ." _Verses 1__3. In verse 3 he is saying, ". . .having had perfect understanding of all things from above." He is saying, "What we believe came from above! it is not traditional, not man-made; it is not a decree of man nor creed of man. What we believe came from above!' That is true tonight of those who are born again. We believe something that is not earthly, but heavenly. On these seven things hangs the important faith, the important belief, that we share tonight.
# 8 _1. I BELIEVE IN A SACRED BOOK __THE BIBLE !!!!
I never believed anything any more in all of my life than I believe that the Bible that I am reading from and preaching from is the Word of God. I believe in a sacred Book. "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 TIMOTHY 3:16). The Bible says that all Scripture is given by the Spirit, is Godbreathed. The Book that lies before me is the infallible, inerrant, indestructible, indivisible Word of Almighty God.
# 9 _Whether one believes the Bible or not, makes a difference. It sets a guideline for our lives. Whatever it says is so. I may not agree with some person on what it says, but one thing we agree on is that whatever it sys is true because this is the Word of God. We believe in the sacred Book__the Bible. I believe the Bible is a perfect Book. PSALM 19:7: "the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." I could give you serveral hundred resons why I know the Bible is a perfect Book. Each Christian sitting here is a testimony that the Bible is perfect Book. "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." Every time a soul is saved, God is saying, "My perfect Word did it all!!!"
The WORD of GOD is a PERFECT BOOK.
# 10 _I saw Look magazine's lengthy article quite a few years ago on "Is the BIBLE a Myth? THE BIBLE__50,000 Errors??? How that stirred my soul. I wrote the editors of Look magazine. I sent them every kind of letter__from a penny-postcard to a registered, airmal, mulemail letter. But I could never get an answer. Finally, I did receive a halfhearted acknowledgment. Not one person would dare accept the challenge of a Baptist preacher that the Bible was a perfect Book?? Do you know why? We have irrefutable proof that God's Word is without a flaw and without an error. "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul."
# 11 _The Bible is eternal. No other book has, in the annals of human history, suffered the fierce, satanic attack that the Bible has suffered. The scholarly man has sought to extinguish it. The fool in his folly has bombarded it with his little pebbles of thought. But the Bible still stands because it is an eternal Book. That is what Jesus meant when He said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (MATTHEW 24:35). I thank God as a preacher, whose whole life is given to preaching the Bible, that I preach a Book of which Jesus said, 'It shall never pass away!' When mountains have crumbled to dust and the stars from Heaven have fallen, this Bible will still be. I believe the Bible is eternal.
# 12 _I believe that it is indestructible, for Jesus said in John 10:35, ". . . the scripture cannot be broken." You cannot break this truth. This is divine truth, the unbreakable sword of God Almighty. There are so many evidences of it in the Bible itself. The Lord Jesus was crucified between two thieves. Crucifixion was not just a matter of nailing someone to a cross. The Roman law demanded that, before one could ever be removed from that cross, there had to be certain proof that the person was dead. The Roman custom was, with a big, long Roman ax, to break the legs of the one hanging there. They would chop into the thighs and literally almost server them from the human body. By doing so, they were making sure that not a drop of blood remained in that body. This made sure that the person on the cross was dead before he was ever brought down.
# 13 _There were two thieves, one on either side. The Scripture said of Jesus like it said of the passover Lamb, "Not a bone of that Lamb shall be broken." Here is Jesus on the cross, God's eternal Lamb. The Bible prophesied of Him, "He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken" (PSALM 34:20). His brow shall be pierced; His side shall be opened; His hands and feet shall be nailed; but note a bone of Him shall be broken!
# 14 _Here comes the Roman soldier. He comes to one thief and breaks his legs. He comes to the other thief and breaks his legs. Here is the important figur, the One who stirred the whole Rome Empire. The soldier stands with his ax raised. I watch that ax raised, that Roman soldier standing there. The Word of God hangs in the balances! If that Roman soldier can swing that ax and break a bone in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, this Bible will be broken. But the lowers his ax and walks away, "that the scripture should be fulfilled" (JOHN 19:36). All the power of Roman legions could not break a bone of the Son of God after the Bible had said, "Not one of them is broken."
# 15 _We believe in a sacred Book that is indestructible and is lifegiving. It gave life to me. In John 6, when the multitudes turned away, Jesus said to the disciples, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." He said, ". . .the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life" (verse 63).
# 16 _There is life in this Book. So many times when I hold it to my heart, I can almost feel it breathing. God says it is a living Book. No book written by human hands gives such peace as does this Book. "Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them (PSALM 119:165). When you hide this perfect, this eternal, this indestructible, this unbreakable, this life-giving Book in your heart, it means you have a peace that passeth understanding.
# 17 _When Sir Walter Scott lay dying, he said to his nephew by his bedside, "Bring me the Book!" Since Sir Walter Scott had many books, his nephew said, "Uncle Walter, what book? Sir Walter Scott replied, "There is but one Book__the Bible!" "I believed; therefore have I spoken. . . ," declared the psalmist. I too believe in this sacred Book.
# 18 _I BELIEVE IN A SACRED SON__A SECOND MAN
We read in 1 Corinthians 15:47, "The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven." The first is speaking of Adam, who came from the fall. He was sinful and a sinner. Then God sent another Man, the Lord from Heaven. He is above sin. Jesus is divine. You ask me, "What do you believe?" I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. I believe He was born of a virgin, with no human father like you and I had. I believe as Peter said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (MATTHEW 16:16).
# 19 _He lived a perfect life and said, "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" (JOHN 8:46). He died a supernatural death for the sins of the world. The veil was rent in twain. The earthquake broke the rock. The resurrection took place, and people came out of the graves. They stood back and saw it all and said, "Truly this was the Son of God" (MATTHEW 27:54). He arose from the dead. He saves, He keeps, He satisfies. I believe in a sacred, divine Son.
# 20 _Back some years ago, down in a little coal-mining town called Salem, Kentucky, fifteen miners were entrapped down hundreds of feet below the surface of the ground, all from twenty-five to thirty-five years of age. It was a historic meeting, an improptu meetings, held underground. No one ever planned it. That meeting laster 153 hours__impromptu, unadjournable. When they reached them, all dead, they found written on the walls of their tomb these words: "If we are dead when you find us, we're all saved." People knew that only two or three of those fifteen men were Christians. During those 153 long and crucial hours, those two or three led the other dozen to Christ. They trusted in a sacred Son and went out into eternity saved.
# 21 _I BELIEVE IN A SECOND BIRTH
I do not believe there is any substitute for what the Bible calls the "second birth." Jesus said to a religious man named Nicodemus, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (JOHN 3:3). He said, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (verse 5). Water here does not refer to baptism. It is explained in EPHESIANS 5:26: "By the washing of water by the word." Water is a symbol of the Bible. Being born of the Word of God and of the Spirit__except a man be thus born, "he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
# 22 _He first of all says, "You can't even see it." That is why a man should not expect to understand it before he is saved. And a lot of things you are not going to understand after you are saved. I say more to you. There are a lot of things about a lot of other things you do not understand. Some of you men don't understand how you can eat the cooking you have been eating for thirty years and still live! I never could understand how a brown cow could eat green grass and give white milk and have it turn into yellow butter! I do not understand electricity, but I am not fool enough to sit in the dark until I can explain it.
# 23 _You will never understand the new birth. Jesus said, 'Until you are born again, you cannot even see it!' Then He said, 'Except you are born of water [the Word] and of the Spirit, you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.' Dear soul, search your innermost being and ask yourself life's most important question: "Have I been born again?" Jesus said, "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again" )JOHN 3:7). You just can't understand it before you are saved, and even after you are saved, you will marvel at it. Unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.
# 24 _The new birth proves many things. First, it proves that you were born wrong the first time. The new birth assumes the total depravity of the human heart. If you had been born right the first time, you would not have to be born the second time. The first time, you were born with a sinful nature. That is why the psalmist cried out, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity: and in sin did my mother conceive me" (PSALM 51:5). Children don't become sinners after they sin; they are sinners by nature, born sinners. I used to marvel at the accuracy of the verse, ". . .they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies" (PSALM 58:3)
# 25 _I once heard some woman discussing that verse. If you want to learn about the Bible, listen to a bunch of woman discussing it in a women's missionary meeting or at a Bible study! One lady said, "I don't see how that could be true, 'They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.'''
Neither did I understand it until I become a father; then I believed it. Those little rascals will tell you at three o' clock in the morning, "I'll die unless somebody holds me and rocks me! I'm breathing my last breath! I'm hurting; I'm in great pain!" All you need do is pick the little one up, rock him and sing to him, and he will go back to sleep. Just as the Bible says: "They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies."
# 26 _Man is totally depraved. Nothing makes me any sicker than to hear these modernistic, liberal, ecumenical preachers preach there is something good in everybody! The opposite is true. There is something rotten in everybody__sin. The new birth is God's sure remedy and God's cure. ___ We believe in a second birth.
# 27 _I BELIEVE IN A SECOND DEATH _I am going to tell you why I am including this tonight. We believe in the eternal punishment of sinners, as the Bible says. We believe in a second death. Revelation 20:14 says, "And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death." When someone dies physically, we think what a tragedy it is, especially when it is somebody who has not lived his expected life span. What a tragedy it is__physical death! But that is not the tragedy. Physical death is not even permanent. Spiritual death is tragic! Spiritual death is soul death! It is being cut off from God. It is separation! It is alienation from the face of God forever! That is HELL!! Anybody who deliberately refuses Jesus Christ dies without God and without hope, and suffers such an eternity as that. There is a second death. 
# 28 _Speaking of people who will be raised when the Lord comes, the Bible says, "On such the second death hath no power" (REVELATION 20:6). The Bible teaches it does have power over people who are not saved: "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, the murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolators, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death" (REVELATION 21:8). This verse is the roll call of HELL. I talk to a lot of people who say, "Preacher, I guess I should be saved, but I don't want to walk down that aisle with all those people looking at me." That means tht they are fearful. The Bible says "the faithful, and unbelieving" will have their part in Hell. With all that other motley crew of Revelation 21:8 is that one who is afraid to trust Jesus Christ! He will go just as deep in Hell and stay there just as long as the liar, idolator, sorcerer or muderer.
# 29 _God says the fearful shall burn in Hell forever. Why? Because fear is of the Devil. People are afraid to be saved because the Devil puts fear in their hearts and causes them to gamble with their souls and be separated from Jesus Christ forever.
The unbelieving say, "I'm going to believe sometimes, but I'll believe when I get ready." You don't know that you can believe when you get ready. The Bible warns, "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near" (ISAIAH 55:6). You never know but that, when you do want Him, it might be too late.
# 30 _This actually took place in England years ago. The fire department received a POSTCARD from a man (unthinkable), saying, "My house is on fire!" They went to address and saw the smoldering embers and the house gone. You say, "What a fool he was to delay such a critical thing by sending a postcard! That's unbelieveable!" Yes, and it is just as unbelievable that a man, a woman, a boy, a gril would gamble with his or her soul that is as eternal as God! Why do people wait until it is too late and they are burning in HELL?? I believe in a second death. "I believed therefore have I spoken. . . ." As a preacher I use the word Hell because the Bible teaches that "the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God" (PSALM 9:17).
"I believed, therefore have I spoken. . . ."
"We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believed, and therefore speak."
# 31 _I BELIEVE IN A SECOND COMING:__I am looking for the Lord Jesus to come. When I said to a man the other day, "I'll see you tomorrow if the Lord tarries," the most puzzled look came on his face. That good, sweet man knows nothing about "if the Lord tarries." I said, "The Lord who came the first time is coming a second time." Two messengers came from Heaven when He walked that invisble, golden stairway back into Glory. They said, "This same Jesus, which is taken up from yu into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven" (ACTS 1:11). Jesus said, "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receiveyou unto myself" (JOHN 14:3). 
# 32 _The second coming makes you a soul winner. There are those here tonight who do not really believe that the Lord is coming. To some in this house tonight the second coming is nothing but a doctrine__an obscure, impersonal doctrine of the Bible! But the coming of Jesus is a reality. The Lord is coming. He said He would. Angels from Heaven said He would. Those who really believe in the coming of the Lord want to get people saved.
# 33 _I shall never cease to thank God for what the reality of His coming did for me. God laid it upon my heart when I was in Ohio some years ago. For two days and nights I could do nothing bur read the Bible, pray and search my soul. Then the next few days after that, I led to Christ some of the most important people in my life.
# 34 _Believing in the second coming makes one a soul winner. It does something else. It separates people. The second coming of the Lord Christ is a separatist doctrine. You can't possibly believe in the coming of Christ and not be a separated Christian. Read (TITUS 2:12__13):
"Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." ___John put it this way:
"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. . .Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."__(1 JOHN 3:1__2).
# 35 _I ask you a question tonight: "Are you ready for the second coming of Jesus Christ?" Yes, I know you are saved, but are you ready for the Lord to come? "And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming" (1 JOHN 2:28). Would you be embarrassed if the Lord came tonight__if you were caught up, raptured away to stand in His presence at the marriage supper of the Lamb? Would you have confidence at His coming? I ask again, "Are you ready for the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ?"
# 36 _WE BELIEVE IN A SANCTIFYING SPIRIT
It would take many pages to thoroughly define the word sanctification as used in the Bible. One of the difficulties is that the word must be viewed scripturally as being past, present and future in its divine operation. The definition becomes even more difficult when we are clearly taught in Scripture that all three members of the blessed Holy Trinity are credited with being the source of the believer's sanctification. However, the Scriptures teach that the Holy Spirit is the one most effective in the experimental phase of sanctification. The word and its New Testament synonyms came from the root Greek word hagiasmis and other New Testament Greek woeds taken from the same root word. It means "to render or declare sacred," "to be set apart as holy," "to be purified and dedicated to God."
# 37 _God the Father is said to be the Source and Author of sanctification: "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly: and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 THESSALONIANS 5:23).
# 38 _God the Son is also said to be the author of our sanctification: "Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours" (1 CORINTHIANS 1:2).
# 39 _The Holy Spirit is given great prominence in the New Testament as the Sanctifier of the saints: "But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sancification of the Spirit and belief of the truth" (2 THESSALONIANS 2:13). Paul makes reference to "the Gentiles. . .being sanctified by the Holy Ghost
(ROMANS 15:16).
# 40 _Peter makes reference to the saints of God as being "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit. . ." (1 PETER 1:2). Sanctification is immediate, progressive and ultimately consummated to perfection. It can be truthfully said that we are immediately sanctified or set apart when we are born again and saved by the Lord Jesus Christ. We are continuing to be sanctified by the constant work of His indwelling Spirit, and we shall ultimately be rid of this fleshly body and be sanctified holy as He is holy. We believe that every believer has the Holy Spirit: "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" (1 CORINTHIANS 6:19).
# 41 _Every believer has the baptism of the Holy Spirit: "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into Spirit" (1 CORINTHIANS 12:13). No believer yet has reached sinless perfection, which is impossible while living in a body of enfeebled flesh. Every believer is being progressively sanctified (2 CORINTHIANS 3:18) and will experience entire and complete sanctification at the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. "And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body" (ROMANS 8:23). Every believer may now have the power of the Spirit (EPHESIANS 5:18). Yes, we believe in the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.
# 42 _BELIEVE IN A SECOND HEAVEN AND A SECOND EARTH __"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."__(REVELATION 21:1__2).
# 43 __A brief and outlined history and future of the heavens and the earth is given in 2 Peter, chapter 3.
1 _The earth that was: "Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water perished" (verse 6).
2 _The heavens and earth which are now: "But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store. . ." (verse 7).
3 _The heavens and earth which shall be: "Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (verse 13).
# 44 _The "earth that was" was destroyed. It was the world of mankind. The earth that "now is" will be renovated by fire, and God will make a new earth and new heavens. This will be the heavens and earth of the millennial reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. That reign will last a thousand years. The term "thousand years" is found six times in Revelation 20. That thousand-year reign of Christ on earth will be characterized by five great things: 
1 _Satan is bound in the bottomless pit (verses 1__3).
2 _The saints of God will reign with Christ for a thousand years (verse 6).
3 _The longevity of man is restored (ISAIAH 65:20).
4 _Jerusalem will be the capital of the world in which God will rejoice with His people Israel.
5 _The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord (ISAIAH 11:9).
# 45 _We are on the winning side, and some glad day we shall help the Saviour rule the world. Oh, happy day when we fixed our choice upon Him! Oh, happy day when we He teaches us completely what a wise choice that was!
# 46 _I BELIEVE IN A SECOND CHANCE
I do not believe, as the universalists, that in the finality of things God is going to save everybody. The Bible does not teach that. I didn't get saved the first time I heard the Gospel. If there were no second chance, I would not be saved today because I missed out on my first chance. It is not the same with everyone. Some don't get to hear the Gospel for the first time, and I am sure there are some who have heard or will hear the Gospel only one time. Others have heard it many times. However, God is the God of the second chance.
# 47 _Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews, says John 3:1. The Pharisees had the Old Testament Scriptures which spoke again and again of the coming of Christ as the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world. Nicodemus had the truth; in fact, he was supposed to be a guardian of the truth, but he failed to see Christ in the Old Testament Scriptures. Many had been saved before Nicodemus, but he had missed out on his first chance. God gave him a second chance when the Lord Jesus talked to him one night. It was to Nicodemus that John 3:16 was spoken: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life." Nicodemus believed and was saved and became a friend of Jesus. 
# 48 _John Mark had a second chance. He was already a believer when he went on the first missionary journey with Barnabas and Paul, but he failed. "And when they were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews: and they had also John to their minister" (ACTS 13:5).
# 49 _However, John did not finish the journey. He gave up the mission and left two great men of God and went back home: "Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia: and John departing from them returned to Jerusalem" (verse 13).
# 50 _What a beautiful thing is seen in Paul's last words before he died! He wanted John Mark to come to him in prison. Paul had refused to take Mark with him on a second missionary journey. John Mark's failure at Perga was a matter of conflict between Paul and Barnabas. The contention was so sharp that it separated the two; then Paul and Silas went on the second missionary journey.
# 51 _Now Paul's ministry has come to its closing days; soon he is to be martyred for Christ, and he wants to see John Mark. Read about it in 2 Timothy 4:11: "Only Luke is with me. Take Mark and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry." God gave John Mark another chance. Peter had a second chance after so emphatically denying the Lord on the night of His trial and betrayal.
"And after a while came unto him they that stood by, and said to Peter, Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee. Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew. And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly." __MATTHEW 26:73__75.
# 52 _Never did anyone deny Christ more emphatically, but never did one repent so completely. Peter was one of the first to the empty tomb and one of the last to whom Jesus spoke before His ascension. Peter was the preacher on the day of Pentecost and the first to officially preach the Gospel to the Gentiles. God gave Peter a second chance to be a man of God and a witness to the saving power and grace of our Lord Jesus. God gave Thomas a second chance, and he cried, "My Lord and my God" (JOHN 20:28). 
# 53 _God gave Jonah and Samson and Demas and many others a second chance to surrender to His will for their lives. One Sunday morning after I had preached in Emmanuel Baptist Church, a man, weeping, said to me, "Will God give a fifty-five-year-old man a second chance to preach the Gospel?" I said, "Yes, He will. God gave people a second chance. I believe in the God of a second chance." I believed, therefore have I spoken. . . ." PSALM 116:10.
"We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak." 2 CORINTHIANS 4:13.  

WHAT CONSTITUTES A GREAT FAITH - CHAPTER - # 1

This was last preached 
January 19, 1966
By Dr. Tom Malone
"Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour,"
      (MATTHEW 15:28)
I want to condense our text to just four words, tremendous words that fell from the lips of our Lord Jesus Christ, the blessed Son of God: ". . .great is thy faith. . . ." I speak to you on "What Constitutes a great Faith." What does it mean for a Christian, a believer, young or old, new convert or mature Christian, to have a great faith? What constitutes a great faith? Jesus saw here a woman who had great faith.
It is interested to see a great contrast in the Bible, in this book of Matthew especially, between unbelief and faith, two opposites described in the in the Bible. It is interesting in the Bible to see the various types of unbelief. There is more unbelief than just the unsaved man or woman, boy or girl, who does not believe in Jesus Christ as his or her personal Saviour. In fact, Jesus talked more to Christians about unbelief than He did to unsaved people about unbelief. There are great verses in the Bible, such as Matthew 13:58,   "And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief." You will see in the Bible that unbelief was one of the most damaging sins in the hearts and lives of the people of God in both the Old and New Testaments. Unbelief kept Israel out of Canaan for forty years. Unbelief is a damaging sin. And Jesus talked about it often.
Now in chapter 16 of Matthew, unbelief expresses itself in a strange way. Jesus said to these religious people, "A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas," or the sign or miracles of the resurrection (VERSE 4). Jesus is saying to these people , "It is wicked of you to ask Me to perform a miracle, something tangible, visible and physical, that you can see, in order to make you believe."
A type of unbelief found in the hearts and lives of many of God's people demands tangible evidence.
That is what Thomas wanted. He said to the other disciples after the resurrection, "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe" (JOHN 20:25). But Jesus said to him, ". . . blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed" (VERSE 29). Wicked unbelief demands tangible evidence before trusting the promises of God. There are many other types of unbelief in the Bible. There is indifference to God's past blessing. It is so easy to forget what God has done for us before.
I read in chapter 16 of Matthew a strange thing. Jesus was talking to the disciples about some spiritual matters,  but they didn't understand Him at all. They got in a boat and started across the sea and forgot to take bread. When Jesus said, ". . .beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees," they reasoned, "It is because we have taken no bread." But that was not what Jesus was talking about. When Jesus perceived their attitude, He said, "O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread? "He said, 'Don't you remember how I performed one miracle by feeding five thousand men, beside women and children, with just a little bit of bread? 'Don't you remember another mircale where I fed four thousand and provided bread for everyone?' They had already forgotten about that. Isn't that strange?
Many times, when a Christian at a crucial moment ought to believe, he forgets all the past victories, all the answers to prayer, all the evidence of the reality of God in his life.
Many times unbelief lays hold on the heart of the Christian. Unbelief manifests itself in so many different ways. Unbelief manifests itself in indifference to the Person of Jesus Christ. Then there is unbelief in His atoning work. John 3:18 says, "He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." Keep this one picture in your mind for a moment.
Then there is this other wonderful contrast__faith, that faith that lays hold upon God against all odds and believes and trusts God to do miraculous. There is what I call the "scale of faith" in the Bible. It is very plain and evident.
In Mark 4:40 we read, ". . .how is it that ye have no faith?" Most people have "no faith"_that is, no real Bible saving faith. In Matthew 6:30 He said, "O ye of little faith." There is the scale. You start at the bottom_"no faith"; then move up just a little bit to "little faith." But of the woman I speak about, Jesus said, ". . .great is thy faith. . . ." That is what people need in this difficult hour_"great" faith.This woman had a great faith. Why? It was great for five reasons. It was great, in the first place,
BECAUSE OF WHO SHE WAS !!!!!!!!!!!
This woman was not religious. She was not one of the chosen ones, not of the elect of the house of Israel. She lived over in Tyre and Sidon. She is a Canaanite, a Syrophenician woman. She was outside the race of people to whom God had said would come the blessing, the word, the truth. She, a heathen, had absolutely no right__none whatsoever__to ask God for anything. God had declared in Romans 1:16, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the JEW FIRST, and also to the Greek." Here is this woman, even before Calvary, before the age of grace, demanding something of Jesus Christ. Oh, you don't realize what faith that took!! She had great faith because of who she was.
# 8 _She had great faith because of who she was. The Samaritan woman at the well even said to Jesus, "How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans" (JOHN 4:9). In the thinking of the people, it could not be reconciled that one other than a Jew would ever come to God for anything.
# 9 _But here comes a mother, a heathen Syrophenician woman, saying, "Jesus, I want something from You." Not one who stood around that day ever believed she would get it.
Because of who she was, it took great faith. Jesus talked so plainly to her. "It is not meet to take the children's bread, and cast it to dogs [ the Gentiles]." This woman readily admitted she was a dog, so to speak: "Yet the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters table." She was saying, "I am going to believe that I can get the mercy of God until I get it."
It was a great faith because of who she was.
# 10 _One great thing has to happen before God honors faith, and that is an absolute unbelief and distrust in one's self. You can't believe in yourself and believe in God and have faith at the same time. You have to believe that it is "not I, but Christ." There must be an absolute resignation from self. This woman admitted she was just a dog, but 'yet dogs get the crumbs.
I read a little story years ago of a German prince who visited the prison of Toulon. When he came to the outer gate, he said to the keepers, "I am going to release one prisoner today." "Prince, whom will you release?" they asked. "I do not know yet," he replied.
# 11 _It is said that the German prince walked up and down and talked to the prisoners as they came up to the bars. He asked one, "Why are you here? He answered, "I have been wronged and mistreated. I didn't do anything wrong, and I don't deserve this punishment." He waked on. He asked another prisoner, "Why are you here?" "The trial was rigged. There were false witnesses, and I don't deserve this. He walked on. He asked another prisoner, "Why are you here?" 
"I am here because I deserve to be here. I am guilty. I am far more wicked than any of them know. And I am here because I deserve to be here."
# 12 _The German prince called the keepers and sais, "Unlock this door. Here is the man who is fit to go free." No one can have his faith honored until there is an absolute distrust in self, and a trust and faith in the power of God alone. And so, her faith was great because of who she was.
Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour."
   Notice a little further. Her faith was great.
# 13 _BECAUSE IT CAME FROM THE RIGHT SOURCE !!!!
Faith is not something you work up. There is only one definition of faith that I know of in all the Bible. In Hebrews, chapter 11, "faith" is mentioned exactly two dozen times. The chapter begins with a definition: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
Mrs. Malone said to me the other day, "I believe we need faith to help some of our seminary students who are going throug trials and whose faith is weak and who sometimes surrender to situations and circumstances." Like one Christian asked another, "How are you?" "Fairly well, under the circumstances," he answered. I say, no Christian ought ever be under the circumstances. Faith does not live under circumstance. Faith lives on a higher plane. And faith can come from only one source__from the Word of God. We see it right here. Her faith was great because it came from the right source.
# 14 _Not in this account in Matthew, but in the account of the same thing in Mark 7:25 we read, "For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, HEARD of him, and came and fell at his feet." She "heard of him." That goes right along with Romans 10:17: "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."
# 15 _You will never have a strong faith apart from this Sermon. Make light of it, leave it out of your life, disregared it, do not emphasize it__and you will be weak in faith. But you meditate on it and, like Mary of old, sit at His feet and hear His Word__and you will have a strong faith. It won't come any other way. I know by experience. WhenI needed a strong faith and didn't have it, I knew I could come to the Bible. As I read the promises of God, everything became brighter. Yes, "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." JOHN 5:24 says that, too: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed fromdeath unto life."
Her faith was great because it came from the right source. In the third instance, her faith was great.
BECAUSE IT DEMANDED THE SALVATION OF ONE OF HER CHILDREN !!!!!!
# 16 _Here is a woman who came asking for something for one of her children. I am amazed at the emphasis in the Bible placed on what I call "household salvation." I hear a lot in this day about various types of evamgelism: mass evangelism, personal evangelism, child evangelism, church evangelism, etc. But the Bible metions household evangelism more than any other kind. When the Philippian jailor said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" Paul answered, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, AND THY HOUSE" (ACTS 16:30, 31).
A man said to me only a few days ago, "I don't believe that promise that your family is going to be saved." I do. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, AND THY HOUSE." There is a faith that not only leads to your salvation but a faith that reaches out and embraces every member of your household.
# 17 _What a sweet and mighty heavenly revival would come to our churches if our families would become burdened about the members of their own household who are lost!!
Here is a woman whose faith was great because it demanded the salvation of her child. How many times household salvation is taught in the Scriptures! In Acts 16:15 we read about Lydia, a seller of purple, who was holding a prayer meeting down by the riverside. But she was untaught in pure salvation. The Lord opened her heart as she heard Paul. "And when she was baptized, AND HER HOUSEHOLD. . ." Not a thing is said about her husband. Whether he was dead or alive, we don't know. But one thing we do know: another woman got every member of her household saved and baptized.
# 18 _Think about Cornelius. One who chapter (ACTS 10) is about the salvation of a man's family. I took the Bible today and underscored some things it said about Cornelius, this man who sent for Simon Peter to come to his home and preach to his family and get them saved. "A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house . . . ."
If you have the kind of religion that makes you happy and lets you come to church while your family is going to HELL, you do not have the kind that I have. The Bible says, ". . . with all his house."
# 19 _Notice again. When the messenger came to Peter, they said, "Cornelius the centurion, a just man, and one that feareth God, and of good report among all the nation of the Jews, was warned from God by an holy angel to send for thee INTO HIS HOUSE, and to hear words of thee." If you do not press your Christianty across the threshold of your home, you haven't gone far enough.
Notice again. "Cornelius waited for them, and had called together his kinsmen. . . . "He wanted his kinfolk saved. Some folks say, "I can't be bothered with the kinfolks. "Bible converts didn't say that. "Corelius waited for them, and had called together his kinsmen and near friends. " He said, 'I want my kinfolks and close associates saved.'
Now notice verse 30: "I pray in my house. . . ." What do you do in yours??? A house without prayer is apt to be a home where some of the children lose their souls.
# 20 _I will never forget hearing a preacher friend tell about a man who was a sot drunkard in his town. His name was often mentioned. People had said, "If we can get So-and-so saved, we will have done the greatest piece of work we could have ever done." One day while he was preaching, this alcoholic rose to his feet, marched down that aisle like a soldier, fell on that alter, wept, opened his heart and took Jesus as his Saviour. A few days later when the preacher was arranging baptism and church membership for him, he asked him, "Fred, what is it about this church, its ministry and its preaching that brought you to the Lord?"
# 21 _Fred Hall replied, "I don't want to hurt your feelings, preacher. You are a great preacher, and you preach the truth. I have confidence in you and love you. But I'll tell you. The other morning about three o' clock, I rose from a gambling table and staggered on my way home. As I walked across the living room, I heard a groan. I stumbled around in the darkness until I found on the floor my sobbing, brokenhearted, gray-haired mother." He sais to that preacher these exact words: "I could have gone to Hell over your church, I could have gone to Hell over your preaching__but I couldn't go to Hell over a praying mother!" The kind of faith that this woman had is household salvation. She came to God saying, "O God, my child is being destroyed. Help him to turn from his wicked way."
"O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour."
# 22 _HER FAITH DID NOT LEAVE HER IN THE FACE OF DIFFICULTIES !!!!!!!
It is very easy to trust God right now, isn't it? We are sitting in church, we are in good health, our needs are supplied, the sun shines in our life. But wait until the tempestuous winds blow, wait until the trials come__then where is your faith?? The faith of the Syrophenician woman did not waver in the face of difficulties. Let's look at some of the difficulties. First, one statement would have thrown most of us: "But he answered her not a word" (Verse 23). He didn't even speak to her when she spoke to Him. That would have sent most of us on the run. Not this woman. She just kept hanging on. Something else, and we will always have it. The disciples said, "Send her away . . . ." That would have been it for most of us. But if you keep your eyes on people, you will not have any faith, and you don't deserve any. There will always be people who will not encourage your faith. These disciples said, "Send her away."
They didn't care what she wanted__"get rid of her."
# 23 _The silence of Christ, the attitude of the disciples; now notice the Lord's words: "It is not meet to take the children's bread, and cast it to dogs." Even these words of the Lord sounded discouraging.
Three things discouraged her faith: (1) _the silence of Christ; (2) _the stoicism of the disciples; (3) ) _the selection of the Jews to be blessed before the Gentiles.
# 24 _My faith is not what I wish it were. People have said to me, "Preacher, I wish I had the faith you do." My wife has said, "I wish I could have the faith that you have." I would give anything if it were ten thousand times more than it is. But here is a woman with great faith. Here is a woman that, in spite of all obstacles, said, "I'll not quit believing." Right at the very time when most would have quit, she hung on. She said, "Lord, help me" (Verse 25). Not very oratorical, is it? But it got results. Try it yourself sometime!!!!!!
# 25 _What did Simon Peter say when he was about to go down? He didn't say, 'Oh, Thou great God, who sitteth upon the realm of the universe. . . .' He just said, "Lord, save me," coming right to the point and coming to the right place. Such gets results. "Lord, help me" will always move the Master. I read of a woman some years ago, a Mrs. Carter. She had a boy named Tom. She was saved but had an unsaved husband. The boy went the way of the father for years. He finally wound up in prison. (I preached a week in Jackson Prison. You wouldn't believe the type people who are there. I met every kind you could think of. Some came to me and said, "Preacher, I'm a member of suchand-such a foundamental church." Some said, "I'm saved and know it." One young man came to me and said, "I was saved in Emmanuel Baptist Church [our church] and baptized. I'm a member there. I'm ashamed for you to find me in prison.")
# 26 _Tom Carter wound up in prison. The aged mother would take the Bible every day and go yonder to the secret place__like godly mothers will do when their children are on their way to HELL__and stain it with her tears. She stayed upon her face before God and prayed, "O God, somehow or another, in that prison bring my boy to Christ."
One day she got a telegram. It was not good news: 
TOM CARTER WAS FOUND DEAD IN HIS BUNK THIS MORNING.
# 27 _She took that telegram, went back to the secret place, took this good old Book filled with promise after promise, and again prayed: "Lord, I don't believe it. I have prayed, believe Your Word and stained it with ny tears. I have waited upon You. I wanted my boy saved. This telegram say's he's dead. I don't believe it. I am still going to claim Your Word and still believe You will answer my prayer. I will never waver in my faith." In about twenty-four hours she got another telegram, which read:
WE MADE A TRAGIC ERROR. ANOTHER TOM CARTER IN THE PRISON WAS FOUND DEAD IN HIS BUNK. YOUR TOM IS ALIVE AND WELL.
# 28 _Not long after that, the story in the Sunday School Times magazine said that Tom Carter had been gloiously saved. Now, listen! That is faith. Faith cries, "It shall be done." Jesus sais to this woman, "O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt." Jesus told her, 'It will be just like you want it. Write your own ticket.' That kind of faith God wants us to have__a faith that laughs at impossibilities and cries out, "It shall be done."
The faith of the Syrophenician was great because it did not waver in the face of difficulties. "And her daughter was made whole from that very hour." There is always a good "quitting place" for Christians. Perhaps God made it that way. He wants us to have some trials that will make us believe. Her faith was great in the fifth place,
# 29 _BECAUSE IT WAS REWARDED !!!!!!
Jesus walked fifty miles from the early part of this chapter to where He met that woman. And can you show me any other reason why He went there? He knew what was going to happen all the time. When He said, 'I can't give the bread to the dogs, ' I think Jesus said, "I hope she won't take Me at face value right now. I've come fifty miles to meet this poor soul." And He rewarded her. He complimented her. Compliments may not mean much, and they are as passing as time itself. But Jesus said, "O woman, great is thy faith . . . " She was rewarded by Him because she got her girl saved and cured. That is reward enough, isn't it?
I would like to have seen that mother and that little girl going home!! No doubt that child walked, maybe for the first time, normally. Mother kept looking at her and squeezing her hands as they both wept. I think they vowed, "When we get home we'll get on our knees and thank Jesus." As the mother walked along, surely her thought was, I got what I went after. It takes faith to get what you go after.
# 30 _Years ago I knew a great man of faith and prayer, but he still had two unsaved brothers. For many years he prayed for God to save them. One was saved before he died, and one was not. When he died and left an unsaved brother, the old Devil might have said, "See, God does not honor his faith." But shortly after he went to Heaven, the other brother was gloriously saved. Let me encourage you with two verses. Hebrews 10:35: "Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward." Don't quit believing, dear people. And then Hebrews 11:6: "But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."
Sometimes your faith will be tried, just as surely as you are sitting here right now. Sorrow comes to everyone. Remember the story of the man whose son had died. He said to the preacher, this unblieving man, "You talk so much about God. Where was He when my son died?" The preacher wisely answered, "The same place He was when His Son died." 
God loves you. Let that encourage your faith. You are in the hollow of His hand.
"Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour." __MATTHEW 15:28.