Ron Dunn Podcast - Kind Of Faith God Requires
Episode Date: March 4, 2020From the sermon series on Romans...
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Romans chapter 4, verses 16 through 25.
Last Sunday morning, I preached to you a message on why God requires faith.
This morning the message is the kind of faith that God requires,
the quality of faith that God requires in our lives.
Romans chapter 4, verses 16 through 25.
Therefore it is a faith, in order that it might be by grace.
To the end the promise might be sure to all the seed,
not to that only which is of the law,
but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham,
who is the father of us all.
As it is written,
I have made thee a father of many nations.
Before him whom he believed,
even God,
who quickeneth the dead
and calleth those things which be not
as though they were, who against hope believe in hope, He said, he considered not his own body now dead when he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the
deadness of Sarah's womb. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong
in faith, giving glory to God. And being fully persuaded that what he had promised he was also
able to perform, and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.
Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him,
but for us also to whom it shall be imputed
if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead,
who was delivered for our offenses
and was raised again for our justification.
Salvation is like a house with many rooms.
And the only way that you can unlock the door that leads inside that house is with a key
named faith.
For by grace are you saved through faith. It is
grace that saves us. It is God who saves us. Grace makes salvation available, and faith
merely accepts what grace makes available. So I come to that place where I am willing
to submit myself to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and I am ready to receive the salvation that he so graciously offers,
I must walk through that door by faith.
Faith is the key that unlocks the door of salvation.
Nothing else.
I merely accept, I merely take by faith what Jesus Christ has done for me on the cross.
And so God places in my hand the key of faith.
I insert it in the lock.
I turn it.
I walk in.
I'm saved.
Not by faith.
I'm saved by Jesus.
But faith, you see, accepted what Jesus has for me.
Well, I get inside that house
and I see a lot of rooms.
There's more to being saved
than just being saved.
Salvation is like a house
with many rooms.
I don't want to simply
be on the threshold.
That's not a place to live.
None of us like to come into a house
and just made to sit
right there on the threshold. We want to go into the other rooms. A lot of rooms we want to come into a house and just made to sit right there on the threshold.
We want to go into the other rooms.
A lot of rooms we want to go into.
Want to go into the kitchen.
Oh, I'd hate to go into a house and not have a key to the kitchen.
Don't want to just stand there on the threshold.
When I get tired, I want the key to the bedroom.
Salvation's like that.
Once you get inside, you realize there's so much more
to being saved than you ever dreamed
there's a door over there
there's a room over there
called victory over temptation
boy I'd like to have that
because I've realized
that even though I've been saved
I still have problem with sin
I thought after I was saved
I would sprout wings and a halo would
rest upon my head, and I would never anymore be bothered with sin and temptation. But I
find that I'm still weak, and I still yield to temptation. And there's a room over there
marked Victory over Temptation. What if I could just get a key to that door? I go over
there and it's locked, and so I fumble through all my keys I've got all kinds of keys
there's the key of self-effort
and I try that
and it just won't work
there's the key of struggle
I think well if I go to church more
that'll get me inside that room of victory
and so I put in the key of church attendance
and that doesn't work
or maybe if I were to start tithing
oh that's desperate
you've really got to be desperate to try that
but I really want victory over temptation so maybe if I'll just start tithing that'll, that's desperate. You've really got to be desperate to try that. But I really want victory over temptation.
So maybe if I'll just start tithing, that'll give me victory over sin.
And so I take that key, Mark tithing, but none of the keys work.
I would love to get inside that room of victory, but I can't do it.
There's another room over there marked witnessing.
Oh, I'd like to do that.
I hear the Bible says that I'm supposed to witness,
and Jesus said that if I'm saved, I'll be a witness for him. And I would love to witness,
but I just can't do it. If I could get inside that door, and I go and I try the door, and it's
locked. And so I reach in, and I pull out a bunch of keys, and I'll try the key of study course.
Maybe if I just have a study course, I'll be able to witness, but that won't work. I'll try the key of study course. Maybe if I just have a study course,
I'll be able to witness, but that won't work. I'll have the key of Glorietta where they
had a conference on reaching others, and that's what I need. I need to go to a conference
on how to reach others. And I try that key, and that doesn't work, so I'm locked out of
that. There's the door of service. There's the door of teaching. There's the door of
self-control. There's the door of joy. There's the door of self-control. There's the door of joy. There's the door of peace.
All of these magnificent rules in salvation, and I can't get in a single one of them.
I might as well be lost outside of the fact that when I die, I'll go to heaven.
But as far as any practical living, salvation's not done anything for me because the Lord
only gave me one key, and that was just the key to get in.
He didn't give me all these other keys.
Boy, you know what the greatest
discovery of my life is when I discovered that key of faith is a master key. And it
unlocks every door in the house. I'm saved by the means of faith. And I live the Christian life by the same means.
For by grace are you saved.
Ephesians 2, 8 and 9.
For by grace are you saved.
And that little Greek word saved is in a perfect tense which reads like this. For by grace have you been saved and are you being saved.
Salvation is not merely a point in time. Salvation is a process. I have been
saved, that's right, but I am being saved today. Jesus is saving me today. And the Bible
says in Romans chapter 5, in the Amplified Translation, I will be daily delivered from
sin's dominion. That's what it means, by being
saved. I have already been saved. When I was nine years old, I took Jesus Christ as my
Lord and Savior. I was saved. That was a point in time, but that's not all there is to it.
For by grace, I was saved back yonder. By grace, I am being saved. So Ephesians 2,
8, and 9 reads like this, For by grace have you been saved,
and are you being saved? Through faith. By grace are you saved? Through faith. It is
through faith that I am saved, and it is through faith that I live my Christian life. Faith is the master key that unlocks every door in the house.
I have victory over temptation the same way I was saved,
by grace through faith, not by effort, not by struggle,
not by rules and regulations.
When I was a junior or senior in college,
I nearly will forget one night I sat in the living room with my wife.
We were discussing things of the Christian life.
And I cut my spiritual teeth
on hellfire and damnation preaching,
as many of you did.
I remember my first sermon,
if I didn't have something in there
about the movies and dancing and moking
and dipping snuff and all this sort of stuff, it wasn't preaching to me, you know.
I remember my earlier revivals, I used to have a youth night.
Saturday night, youth night.
And I'd ask all the young people to come and give up sins of the youth.
Not going to do any more petting, no more dancing, no more drinking, no more going to picture shows.
And, you know, of course, anybody was afraid to stay back because if they stayed back, boy, that put a label on them.
So every young person in the congregation would come.
But after a week or two, you know, they'd be right back where they were.
I remember one night I said to my wife, I said, you know, I'm not even able to live up to my own preaching.
And I was so tired of struggling and striving to keep rules and regulations, I thought that
victory and joy and the abundance of the Christian life kept changing through rules and regulations.
And it was a startling and depressing failure when I realized I couldn't even do what I
was asking other people to do. Faith is
the master key that unlocks the door. God has only one way of my being right with him.
That is by grace through faith. There is only one way that I today can be right with God,
not by anything that I am doing,
but by simply resting in what he has done.
The same way I was saved is the same way I live today.
Now, the kind of faith that God requires from every one of us is the same kind of faith that Abraham had.
Same kind of faith that Abraham had.
You know, four different times in the Bible you will find this same verse, the just shall
live by faith.
Now why did God say that four times?
Is it because he was running short of material?
No, God isn't redundant.
God never wastes words.
God is always brief, concise, and to the point.
But four different times in the book of Habakkuk, in the book of Romans, in the book of Galatians,
in the book of Hebrews, the Bible says the just shall live by faith. Obviously, God was
trying to teach us that the just, those who are saved, those who are justified, live by
faith. We don't live by any other means except by faith. Not by struggle, not by self-effort,
not by anything that I do. We live by faith. And so Paul says the quality of faith that
God wants to find in every person's life is the same quality he found in that man called
Abraham. Notice what it says in verse 16, that the promise is to all of us, notice,
but to that also which has faith like Abraham
is what it means.
The kind of faith that God looks for when he looks at my life and when he looks at your
life is the kind of faith that Abraham had.
Abraham is the perfect illustration of the quality of faith that God requires in my life.
Saving faith, the kind of faith that takes salvation, the kind of faith
that brings victory in our daily life is the quality of faith that we found in the life of
Abraham. So he says he is the father of us all. He is the example of every one of us. If I want to
know how to face it in my daily life, I need to go back and look and see how Abraham did it.
So, there are three things that Abraham was characterized,
Abraham's faith.
And there are three qualities of your faith that must be present in your faith
if you're going to be saved, first of all.
If you're going to be saved.
You can't be saved without this kind of faith. First of all, if you're going to be saved, you must have this kind of faith.
Secondly, if you're going to be spiritual after you are saved, you have to have this
kind of faith. Three things. First of all, the kind of faith that God requires, that
quality of faith, is faith that centers in a person. Faith that focuses on a person.
Notice what he says in verse 17.
To whom he believed even God.
Where did Abraham place his faith?
He placed it in a person.
He placed it in God.
Now, there is a common mistake about faith.
Faith is a very popular subject. Everybody talks about faith. Even the unshaved mistake about faith. Faith is a very popular subject. Everybody talks about
faith. Even the unshaved talk about faith. There have been some famous men who have written
famous books on the power of positive thinking and the power of positive believing and such
as this. And I was reading some time ago one of the greatest authors on this thing. Here is the statement that he made.
He said,
You have to have faith in faith.
Just believe in believing.
You've got to have faith in faith.
All things are possible to him that believes.
Just believe.
Just believe.
Just believe.
Just have faith.
And everything will work out all right.
The Bible doesn't teach that, and that's not true.
Once in a while I'll talk to someone about their salvation, and they say, oh, I'm saved.
I said, how do you know?
Oh, I'm just believing.
I just believe it.
I just, you know, if you have enough faith, you can be saved.
I just believe that God's going to save me.
No, that's not what he's
talking about. A lot of people have faith in faith and gain enough faith and faith,
believe hard enough and believe long enough and believe strong enough that it'll come
to pass. No, sir. Some of us, the problem with us this morning in this place is
you have faith
in your faith
that's why you're not
doing anything
that's why there's no
evidence of spiritual life
in your life
that's why there's no
victory in your life
because you're placing
your faith
in your faith
and you say
oh if I just had the faith
of brother so and so
if the Lord would just
give me a stronger faith
Jesus Christ didn't say
if you have a certain amount of faith if you have a lot of faith you can move Jesus Christ didn't say, if you have a certain amount of faith,
if you have a lot of faith, you can move mountains. He didn't say that. He said, if you have any
faith at all, you can move mountains. Now, I want to make a statement. I hope you'll
write it down or remember it if you have a good memory. Faith is only as valid as its object. Faith is only as valid, only as worthy as its object.
The most important thing in faith is not the subject of faith, it's the object of faith. I make
a statement, I believe in. I am the subject of faith. What I believe in is the object
of my faith. Now, the important thing is not the subject of my faith, it's not how strong
my faith is, or it's not how weak my faith is. The important thing is that object in
which my weak faith is placed.
Now, let me illustrate.
Back in the spring when I was in Colorado, the creek at Ponderosa, it was cold up there.
And we were doing a little sightseeing one day and we came to some lakes that were iced over. And somebody told me you could just, you know, they skate on that ice.
You could just walk out across that lake there.
That ice is solid enough.
Well, part of the country I've always lived in, we never had ice like that.
And so I thought I would just kind of skirt around the edges And I walked out there on that lake
Just right on the edge
So that if it broke through
I'd be able to get to shore
Before too much time elapsed
And I think, well, I'll walk out just a little bit farther
But I just didn't have enough faith to walk out any farther
I wasn't about to get out there in the middle
And have that thing break on me
And go under in freezing water Not on your life I just wasn't going to trust it I wasn't about to get out there in the middle and have that thing break on me and go under in freezing water.
Not on your life.
I just wasn't going to trust it.
I wasn't certain about it.
So I just stepped back.
Well, as I got in the car and we left, I saw a fellow.
There was another little lake right next by.
And right out in the smack dab center of that lake, there was a fellow sitting there fishing.
He had a little box.
He had cut a hole in the ice.
He was sitting there on that box, fishing.
I don't know, boy, that guy's got faith in that ice.
Tremendous faith in that ice.
I had weak faith in thick ice. Tremendous faith in that ice. I had weak faith in thick ice, and it held me up. What held me up when I walked out there on that lake wasn't my faith. It was the ice. My faith, if it had only been as valid as the subject,
if I had had faith in my faith,
if the strength of my faith determined whether or not that ice held me up,
I would have plunged into the water.
But the strength of my faith didn't have anything to do with it.
What made my weak faith valid was that
it was faith in strong ice, even though I wasn't aware of it. Faith is only as valid
as its object, and weak faith in strong ice will hold you up every time. Now, I could
have had strong faith in weak ice, and I would have gone under. I could come
back to Texas in January and a little sheet of ice hovers the lake and I say, well, now
I was up in Colorado and I saw a fellow sitting out yonder in the middle of a lake fishing
on that ice. If he can do it, I can do it. I just believe that I can do it. I just believe
that I can do it. And so I proceed to walk out there on ice. I haven't taken five steps
until I'm in the water. Strong faith in weak ice is not worth anything. Weak faith in strong
ice is tremendous. Faith is only as valid as its object. Now, you want to know how to
increase your faith and get stronger faith? Well, I've been thinking today about that
fellow I saw sitting there in the middle of the lake fishing. Now, where did his faith come from? How come
he had so much more faith than I had? He wasn't a tourist, that's why. He was a native. He
knew the land. He knew the temperature. He knew the characteristics of that lake. He
knew that ice. His faith
in an ice grew stronger and stronger as his knowledge of the object of his faith increased.
I want to tell you this morning how you can have tremendous faith and strong faith and
growing faith. You'll learn more about the object of your faith even so. Look at what
it says. Abraham placed his faith in a person, and it says he believed in God.
And it says two things about the God he believed in.
First of all, who quickened up the dead.
Now, that's mighty powerful.
He believed in a person.
What about that person?
That person had enough power to raise the dead.
Not only that, but he called us those things which be not as though they were.
That means that the Lord's feet and non-existent things come into existence.
Boy, that's power.
That's power.
Abraham wasn't believing in a little weak God.
He was believing in a God that he knew had the power to raise the dead and had the power to just speak a word and nonexistent things would come into existence.
And he placed his faith in that kind of God.
That's why I love to read the Psalms.
If you read the Psalms, then you'll notice the Psalms are full of the majesty and the greatness of God.
Then you know why David was such a man of faith.
God is our refuge and our very present help in time of God. Then you know why David was such a man of faith. God is our refuge and our very present help
in time of trouble.
He maketh wars to see.
He puts those asunder.
Come and behold the works of the Lord.
See what desolation he hath wrought
in the ends of the earth.
David is constantly magnifying the greatness
and the power of God.
That's why he was a man of faith.
I look over here and I see John was a man of faith.
No wonder because he opened his gospel with the majesty of Jesus.
He says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And all things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. A great God. And all things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that
was made. A great God. I read over in Colossians where he says he is the image of invisible
things, and he has created all things, and by him all things hold together. The omnipotent
power of the Lord Jesus Christ not only created this universe, but he holds it together. Now, you can take the weakest, the sickest faith around
and place it in the magnificent, omnipotent God,
and it will work miracles.
The kind of faith that God requires is faith that doesn't believe in what you can do
and doesn't believe in faith, but it believes in a person.
It centers all of that faith in Jesus Christ.
I'm counting on his power.
That's what faith means.
If you want a definition of faith, it simply means to rely, to count on God's power.
That's what it is.
All right, secondly, this quality of faith is not only faith that centers in a person,
it is also faith that contradicts the problem.
Now, God came to Abraham and said, Abraham, you're going to have a child.
He was a boy.
Boy, I'd like to have been there when God told Abraham that.
Abraham was at least 99 years old. He was way past the age of childbearing.
Sarah had never been able to bear children. Even when Abraham was able to have children,
Sarah was unable because she was barren. Can you imagine what God, when God told Abraham, Abraham, I know you're nearly 100 years old
and you're past the ability to have children, and Sarah's never been able to have children,
but listen, I have news for you, you're going to have a child.
More, I would like to have been there when Abraham told Sarah.
Now, I don't know about you, but normally it's the woman who's the first to know.
But this time, the man was the first to know.
Can you imagine that?
You know what?
If God had come to some of us, we'd be in a neighbor's house,
you know what we'd have said?
Oh, Lord, no, you've made a mistake because I'm a hundred years old
and there's no possibility of my having a child.
And Sarah has never been able to have children,
even if I were a young man again.
Sarah could never have any children.
Lord, no, no.
It's not practical, Lord.
It's not reasonable.
Every law of logic argues against what you say.
Notice what it says in verse 19.
And being not weak in faith,
he considered not his own body now dead when
he was a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. I want to say to
you that Abraham's physical condition had not absolutely one thing to do with faith.
Faith is that quality of believing in God that contradicts the problem and ignores the circumstances.
Now, when it says he considered not his own body, it doesn't mean that Abraham disclosed his eyes to reality.
Because the truth of the matter is, he did consider his own body.
If you'll turn back over there in Genesis, you'll find that Abraham did say,
Well, Lord, I'm so old that I can't.
And Sarah, Abraham did consider his own body, but when he matched that over against the Word of God, he didn't consider it.
It was not to be taken into account.
He didn't take a piece of paper and a pen and say, all right, now I'm going to write
down all the reasons why I cannot have a child and all the reasons why I cannot.
He didn't even consider his own physical inadequacy.
And you ought not either when you're coming up against what God wants you to be and what God wants you to be.
As you go through the Bible, and I wish we had time this morning just to go through the Word of God,
you'll find that there is a monotonous repetition
of this complete disregard for circumstances.
That's what faith is.
Faith is a complete disregard for circumstances.
It had never rained on the earth,
but Noah still built an 18,000-ton ship.
Why?
Outward circumstances said, Noah, you're crazy.
God said, no, I'm going to send a rain.
All right.
He built an 18,000-ton ship.
Had never rained.
Nobody had ever seen anything like that before.
That's crazy.
That's crazy.
Gideon started out with an army of 32,000 men to go against people that he was outnumbered to begin with.
And God reduced that army to 300 men.
Outward circumstances contradicted Gideon's mark.
But God said the victory is ours.
Abraham was faced with an impossible situation.
You know what God did?
God shut him up to faith.
The only way that
Abraham could have any children had to be by faith. Now, I want to apply this, and I
want to say to you that your physical ability or inability to do anything has nothing at
all whatsoever to do with your Christian life.
I thank God for that.
Somebody said, Preacher, if I would witness,
and I would be a witness if I just had your ability to speak.
That doesn't have anything to do with it.
If God says, I want you to be a witness,
I want you to tell someone about Jesus, I don't care what your problem is.
If you're a stammerer or a stutterer, it doesn't make any difference.
Your physical condition has nothing whatsoever to do with your believing in God.
I got a silly little illustration here.
You know, sometimes you think that after you've been preaching for a number of years
and you're a seminary graduate that these things ought to be easy to you
and just be cool about everything.
But I want to tell you a ridiculous little thing that happened to me some time ago.
I pulled into a filling station, and normally I'll carry some little track, you know, with
me, and I get a chance to say a word of witness to the man, and I leave him a track.
And so I pulled into the info station down here, and while he was gashing up, I got my
track out, and all of a sudden, I was afraid.
All of a sudden, I was nervous. All of a sudden, I was nervous.
All of a sudden, I was intimidated.
All of a sudden, I had butterflies in my stomach.
Now, I know none of you know anything about what I'm saying now, but all of a sudden,
oh, I just didn't want to do it.
What a relief if that fellow, you know, just wouldn't even come back.
And I sat down and said, now, listen, here I am, grown man, preacher, and yet I couldn't deny it. I didn't want to witness
him. I was nervous. I was scared, just flat out afraid. And I sat down and I said, now
wait just a minute. The Lord has promised, the Lord has promised that he has not given to me the spirit of fear,
the spirit of intimidation.
The Bible says when the Holy Spirit fills you and anoints you that he gives you boldness and courage.
I said, now, Lord, I know that this fear and this apprehension that I feel is of the devil,
not from you, because you don't give me the spirit of fear.
This comes from some other source.
And I said, right now, I feel scared of that,
but I'm going to trust you and I'm just going to face it
and I'm going to head and witness to this fellow
because you said that you're going to give me the power and the ability to do it.
And if I listen to what my body says
and if I go by how I feel, I won't witness.
And I'm just going to face it, Lord.
I'm trusting you to give me the grace and the courage and the ability
and whatever else it takes to witness to this fellow.
And I did.
Now listen.
If I had let physical ability or inability, if I had let outward circumstances dictate to me how I was to live my Christian life,
I would not have witnessed to that man.
I would have sinned against God.
But you face it. It contradicts
all problems. Somebody says, well, I wish I could tithe, but I can't afford it. If I
can get a raise this fall and the things get better, well, then I'll be able to tithe.
No, sir. No, sir. Obeying the Word of God has absolutely nothing to do with outward circumstances.
You face it.
Nobody that's ever put his faith in God like that has ever been disappointed.
The Bible says,
He that believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
I like that.
He that believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
I want to say to you,
I am not ashamed and God has never put me to shame when I've trusted him. The kind of faith that God requires is a faith that contradicts the problem. You just don't even consider the problem. It doesn't make any difference what
the problems are. God says this, his word, you do it. You say, Lord, I just trust you to do it. You have that kind of faith?
You have to have that kind of faith to be saved.
I know some people, they try to be saved,
but they never really believe God was going to save them when they ask him.
I want to say this to you, that it won't do any good for you to get out on your knees
and ask God to save if you don't believe he's going to do it.
Do you understand what I mean?
Just merely saying the words and praying a prayer and going through a formality, Lord Jesus saved
me, but if you don't believe he's going to save you, then he's not going to save you.
He's saved by grace through faith, not by grace through praying. By grace through faith.
When a man, I always ask him I said do you believe you were asked
by the Savior
he'd do it right now
when they say yes
I say alright you ask
just expect him to do it
I don't feel anything
faith contradicts the problem
I'm not crying
I don't feel
goosebumps all over me
I don't hear angels singing
I don't see the flash of lightning
like somebody else did
when they were saved
just faithless outward circumstances have nothing at all to do with it I don't hear angels singing. I don't see the flash of lightning like somebody else did when they were saved.
Just faith.
Outward circumstances have nothing at all to do with it.
All right, the last thing is this.
Faith is not only that kind of faith that centers in a person who contradicts the problems, but it's also a faith that goes ahead and claims the promise.
Now, I want you to notice this.
In verse 20, Abraham staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief,
but was strong in faith, giving glory to God,
and being fully persuaded that what he had promised he was also able to perform.
Abraham gave God the glory.
That means Abraham praised God for Isaac before he ever saw Isaac. Abraham
thanked God before Abraham ever saw any evidence that God was going to do it. God said he was
going to do it. He just claimed it by faith. He said, Lord, you promised a son. I look
at my body, it is dead. I look at Sarah. She is barren. There
is no physical, human possibility of our having a child. But you say you're going to give
us a child. Thank you, Lord, for my son. And the Bible says that he lived the rest of his
days in the assurance of that son, even before he saw it. That's faith. Just claiming the promise.
That's how everybody's saved.
Just claiming the promise.
Just claiming the promise.
I talked to a fellow one day
doubting his salvation.
I said, listen,
if God were to send you a note,
if God were to write you a letter
saying if you were saved,
would you believe that?
He said, oh yeah, I'd believe that.
And so I turned to Romans 10, 13.
I said, there it is. There it is. You say, I need a sign. You don't need
a sign. A sign is not a faith. The only sign I need is this book. Oh, I have a struggle
with this sometimes. Sometimes I know what God wants me to do. I know what the Bible
teaches. And I just say, Lord, if you just somehow show me that you're going to do this.
And every time I pray like that,
well, the spirit of God
convicts me.
I say, Lord, I'm sorry.
You said it in your word.
That's the only sign I need.
That's the only evidence in me.
Three stages to faith.
Some people believe that God can,
but that's not faith.
Faith is not believing that God can.
It's believing that God will.
But real faith is believing that God has already.
That's real faith.
That's what Abraham had.
Abraham believed that God could.
He believed that God would.
And he believed that God already had.
And he thanked him for it.
That's what it means in Mark 11, 24, when Jesus said,
And what things, whoever you desire when you pray, believe that you've already got them, and you'll have them.
That's why God wrote the book of Revelation in the past tense, because as far as God's concerned, it's already done.
That's why in Romans chapter 8, verse 29, it says that you and I are already glorified well I'm not glorified
yes you are in the mind of God
as far as God is concerned it's already done
it's already come
just claim it
you know it's an insult to God when you don't believe
his word
just claim it Lord I don't feel it
I don't see any outward evidence.
But you said it.
I believe it.
Thank you.
Let's suppose one of my children
is deathly ill in the hospital.
And I discover that it's going to take
thousands and thousands of dollars
in order to minister to the physical needs of that child.
No way that I could ever do that.
No way that I could ever in a million years ever pay for that.
Let's suppose that you're quite wealthy.
And you come to me and you say,
Now, Ron, I don't want you to worry about a thing.
I have deposited $10,000 in your account.
And you just draw on it as you need it.
I'd turn to you and I'd say,
I'll believe that when I see it.
That's not what I'd say, is it?
I'd put my hand in yours and I'd say,
oh, thank you, thank you.
I know it's there.
I've got no doubt it's there.
Because I believe this friend of mine.
I believe it.
I haven't seen it.
I haven't drawn upon it.
I haven't spent a dime on it.
But I have no doubt it's there.
I believe it's there.
Because he told me to.
And I thank you for it.
I looked at him and said,
you bring to me the deposit slip.
When I see it, then I'll believe.
That'd be an insult to him.
I'd be calling him a liar,
and that's what some of you are saying about God.
Oh, and God said it back there.
I know a man who used to pray
that God would give him a lot of money
so he'd never have to worry about things.
You know what he said?
He said, God gave me something better.
He gave me the faith to trust him to supply my needs.
He's claiming the promise.
Claiming the promise.
Lord, you said it.
I believe it.
That's it.
The Ron Dunn Podcast is available only for personal edification,
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