Active Faith

Good afternoon, brethren, as has already been noted from the pulpit. And as all of us woke up this morning and seeing, it's a beautiful Sabbath day. The weather forecast looks like about four or five more days just like it. So if you can put up with the higher 20-degree temperatures at night, the daytime is going to be absolutely delightful. It was nice hearing Mr. Reeves read the announcement regarding assistance and help that will be given to those who have suffered loss in the Los Angeles fire. It's been an apprehensive last two weeks for our family. We have, Diane and I, two family members that live in the Eaton Canyon fire area. And the frustration of watching the news and not knowing how far it's going, what direction it's going, and trying to find more comprehensive news has created a degree of apprehension. I have a nephew that lives on Keniola Flats, or plateau, which at the beginning was one of the highlighted areas in the Eaton Canyon. And thankfully, the fire ran all the way around the plateau, literally all the way around, came in from the north, all the way around, and joined on the south, and ran down New York Avenue, but didn't touch anything on the plateau. And Diane was telling me this morning that she had gotten information from our older son's wife, whose parents live in North Altadena. And they were ten houses below the burn line and were allowed to go back home this morning. So they went back home to check in to see how things were and to get clothes for Sabbath services. And grateful to have a home, but looking up the street seeing utter and complete desolation a block and a half north of them. So it's nice to see things beginning to clear. And as I said, I'm glad to see that the church, both locally and internationally, is offering assistance to those in need. I'd like to talk to you this afternoon about faith. Anytime any of us stand up here to speak, we're looking out at an audience that we understand. And the longer we think about it, the more we appreciate our people of faith. That it's a given any time a pastor stands in front of a congregation and knows what it has taken for them to be here, to be here faithfully and consistently, that it has taken faith to do that. So I am addressing a people of faith. The question I have today, though, is what kind of faith do you have? And I think by time we probed the topic today, we hopefully will have a much richer understanding of the subject. When we ask about faith, I think it's almost a given that when we want to start defining and identifying what it is, to use it as a mirror and a reflector for ourselves, the go-to location is always Hebrews 11 and verse 1. So let's go back there, Hebrews 11 and verse 1.

As I'm telling you to do that, I'm almost thinking I made a mistake and I should have told you just to sit and listen. For this reason, I don't know about you, but I have had problems with Hebrews 11 verse 1 for the majority of my life. The problem is in trying to wrap my head around what exactly, and I underline the word exactly, what exactly is it saying? And I finally, over time, and looking at every single modern translation of the Bible, came to the place where I found one translation that for me made Hebrews 11.1 clear, and that was the international standard version. So I'd like to read to you Hebrews 11.1 from the international standard version. Now, faith is the assurance that what we hope for will come about, and the certainty that what we cannot see exists. As I said, that does so much more for me than the old King James, the New King James, the Revised Standard, the English Standard, and on and on it goes. It is the assurance that what we hope for will come about, and the certainty that what we cannot see exists.

What's interesting is when you look at that definition, and that definition is carried on in verse 3, where it says, by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. So verse 3 actually carries on the substance of verse 1. And if you look at those two verses, verse 1 and verse 3, because like I said, this is the go-to place that people go to when you ask about faith, you say, well, faith is defined in Hebrews 11. And indeed it certainly is. But if you look at the definition in Hebrews 11.1, and if you add to that Hebrews 11.3, that definition is passive. It's intellectual. Let me illustrate, because what it deals with here is assurances and certainties. Are you certain in your mind that what God says will happen will happen?

And the answer we give is yes, we do. Do you believe that Jesus Christ will return? Yes, you do. Do you believe that the Kingdom of God will be established on this earth? Again, I can say yes for all of you, because I know what you believe. Believing these and other things like them with certainty equals faith according to Hebrews 11.1. Are you certain that God exists?

One of the grievances I have in life, because I study a lot, is when I go to sources, especially more modern sources, it literally grieves me profoundly to watch what is becoming almost the universal attitude that there is no such thing as God, and that the God of the Hebrews, as it is called, is nothing more than an adaptation of the God of the Canaanites and the Phoenicians and the Philistines. And the people were really no different, and most of their heroes never existed. And everything, and on and on and on, it goes to the place where you say, you know, if a person isn't totally anchored in true substantial faith, the way those things are presented any more in any form of media, from encyclopedias down to simply comments on Google.

They tear every bit of the fabric of belief and certainty apart.

I can understand clearly why God asked the rhetorical question, when the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on the earth? And the answer is not much. Not much. But I'm talking to a people of faith, and I'm asking a rhetorical question, because I know the answer. Are you certain that God does exist? And the answer is yes. You've never seen him. You've never heard him. You've never talked with him. He's never spoken to you audibly. But you're not ambivalent about it. We asked earlier, do you believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, will return from heaven? Do you believe that he rose from the grave after three days and three nights and went to heaven? And I could go on from there, and all of the answers to those that I can give on your behalf is yes, you do. And you're certain. You're not wavering. But all of this is academic. And I don't mean that in a demeaning sense. It's an intellectual position. Oven by itself, if we go no further than that, it requires nothing of you but to stand firmly, plant your feet and set your jaw and say, this is what I believe and you can't take it from me. If we went to the rest of the book, the rest of the chapter of Hebrews 11, we would see there are two sides to faith, a passive, cerebral side, and a very dynamic, active side. Today we need to explore the active side of faith.

If there's a banner carrier for active faith, it's James. I appreciate not too many weeks ago a sermon that was given by one of our speakers on trust. And as he was speaking, I was smiling to myself, saying, we're going to be plowing some of the same ground, and this ground is so important and valuable. Plowing it twice is not going to do any harm at all. James is the master teacher of active faith. So much so that at the beginning of the Reformation, he gave some of the most prominent early reformers absolute fits because they were bound and determined to pit faith against works, and James said, no way, no way. And so the only way you can do that as a reformer is simply disparage James or rip him out of the Bible altogether. James makes the case that faith without actions is useless. It's the coupling of action with certainty of belief that makes faith authentic, that makes it genuine. So in the book of James, faith requires supportive actions, consistent with what one says he or she believes. Let's just dip into James. We won't spend a lot of time there because you know the book of James, and you know how clear he is and what he has to say, but let's just dip in to make that point that James is the banner carrier for active faith. Just as Hebrews 11, 1 is where you go to get a definition. If you want to talk about active faith, you go to the book of James. And so James says in chapter 2 in verse 17, he says very simply, thus also faith by itself. If it does not have works, it is dead. So if you want to stand it over here, all by itself, all by its lonesome, and extol the virtues of it, James says don't waste your time. It's not worth anything. If you can't put the two together and show them together, faith is worthless. He goes on to say in the next verse, he says, someone will say you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith without your works, and I'll show you my faith by my works. By my works. So simple, yet so powerful.

Edgar Guest, who wrote volumes and volumes and volumes of poems, wrote one poem that was entitled, I'd Rather See a Sermon Any Day. And his poems are simple. They're basic, but they're down to earth. And he makes a very good case for the fact that I'd rather see a sermon than hear a sermon any day. James 2.20. He says, but do you want to know, oh foolish man? And now he gets rather blunt. He starts finger pointing at people that say faith stands by itself. Do you want to know, oh foolish man, that faith without works is dead? And he says again, as he closes this thought and closes this chapter, as he wraps it up and puts the bow ribbon on it, he says in the last verse of the chapter, verse 26, for as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

Last week, Mr. Sexton and I went to the funeral of a dear friend, Marino Boal. Marino was gone. There was a casket there. There was a body there. But Marino wasn't there. And so you sit and you look and you ponder at a time like that when respect is being paid to someone who is dear to you and someone you have enjoyed and you realize you have a box and you have a fleshly body, but the person is not there. And so, as James said, the body without the spirit is dead. And faith without works, you might as well put it in a coffin also because it's dead. There's nothing there. In our modern era, we have had a church leader who lived by James's definition and had a special way of describing active faith. I remember spending my teenage years in the Pasadena-Altadena area and attending the Shakespeare Club, which was our church at that time. Mr. Armstrong would stand up and he would share a formula. And it was a formula that he acted upon and that he lived by. And he said, my formula is, I work as if everything depends upon me and I pray as if everything depends upon God. First time I heard that definition, I was probably 13 years old, at the very latest 14 years old. And as a teenager, you're sitting there trying to wrap your head around what appears to be a dichotomy. How can you work as if everything depends upon you, if everything doesn't depend upon you, and pray as if everything depends upon God and you're working feverishly at the same time?

Everyone who grows in faith over time eventually reaches a place somewhere within their life that an event occurs where they have done everything that is physically possible to do to make something happen that is spiritually good and right and proper, and something they have prayed to God to accomplish. And they reach a place as they progress that they come to a point that they are aware in their mind with everything I have put into it, this will not succeed.

And then it does. And it leaves a person at that point in time forever aware of that formula.

When you never know if you put everything into it, you can, you always live in doubt. When you know you have put everything that you have to the very last degree into something, and you say, it's not going to happen. I've given it 100% of what I have, and it's not enough. And it does happen. Then you know who made it happen.

And you're not ambivalent about it. You know exactly who made it happen. God made promises to ancient Israel that were built upon active faith. As He introduced Himself to them, and as He walked with them, He was requiring of them active faith. I think it's sad, the way our society has gone, that the family farm has disappeared, and agribusiness is about all that's left. Those who are older, or those who have had more unique experiences, or have decided to go back to a lifestyle that's been basically abandoned by society, have no reference to agricultural life. But every one of you who has lived on a farm, grown up on a farm, started a farm, had parents or grandparents who were farmers, and therefore, somewhere in your childhood you spent time on the farm, you had the opportunity to see a style of life that demanded every single solitary year the practice of active faith.

Let's go back to what God promised Israel in Deuteronomy 11.

You know, God made all sorts of promises of abundance, of prosperity, of goodness, all the blessings He wanted to give them. And in Deuteronomy 11, He makes a promise, and He talks about, I'm going to take you to a place where the lifestyle is very different than what you've had all of your life, and probably all the life of your parents and your grandparents and so on. Deuteronomy 11, verse 10. For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot as a vegetable garden.

I've always enjoyed that verse because my family grew up on an Egyptian farm by this definition. I grew up in southwestern Idaho where all the land was watered by foot. You had all your irrigation canals.

You took your spade, you put it in the edge of the canal, you open it up, and you let the water flow down the furrows. And when it was watered, you took your spade and you filled that hole up and you tamped it back in, and you went somewhere else in the system, and you put your foot on the spade and you opened it up and the water flowed down those furrows. He said, this is what you grew up on.

I said, yeah, I grew up in Egypt. I know what I know what irrigating by foot is all about. But he said, I'm taking you to something different. But the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys which drink water from the rain of heaven. Now, we're not totally there in the Willamette Valley Western Oregon, but we're close.

We're close. My grandfather left the Dust Bowl in Nebraska and moved to Dallas, Oregon. He then left Dallas, Oregon and moved back to Caldwell, Idaho because Oregon was too green. And I thought, Grandpa, why in the world did you leave the Willamette Valley to go to southwestern Idaho? But over time, I came to understand that he understood the farming, the watering, quote-unquote, by foot of Idaho. He didn't understand the farming that much in the Willamette Valley.

Moses goes on to say, a land for which the Lord your God cares. So he said, it's not like Egypt. It's hills and valleys. But God cares for this land, and the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year.

And it shall be that if you diligently obey my commandments, which I command you today to love the Lord your God, serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, then I will give you rain and I will give you the rain for your land in its seasons, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain your new wine and your oil, and I will send grass in your fields for your livestock that you may eat and be filled.

Now that was what God said I will provide. Now every one of you who has lived a farming life understands that faith without works is dead. And if you're looking at that promise and you're saying, hallelujah, look what God is going to do. And you get out your lawn chair and sit on the front step and you wait for God to dump it in your lap.

Now a farmer understood active faith. He first of all plowed the ground, and that is work. Anyone who's plowed ground, realize you can't plant seed on plowed ground. You have to harrow it or disc it. You have to. break up the clods. And so he plows the ground. He harrows the ground. Then he sows the seed, and after the seeds are sown, then he tends the crops from spring to fall. My grandfather grew sugar beets. We'd drive into his front yard. We'd get out of the car. I'd look out at 30 acres of sugar beets. This is a nine or ten year old boy, and my dad looks at me and he says, you know you could really help your grandpa out by going to thin the sugar beets.

At ten years old, with a thinning hole, looking at 30 acres of sugar beets so that you thin them out where they're not crowding one another. I couldn't run the other direction fast enough.

But somebody had to thin those beets. God wasn't doing any of these things for the ancient Israelites. God did not one single solitary bit of grunt work.

And so to use Mr. Armstrong's formula, if you were a farmer living on Deuteronomy's promise, you had to work as if everything depended upon you. Because everything up to rain in its season did depend totally on you.

But when you had done every bit of that, if you didn't get rain in due season, you ended up with nothing. And so the formula he understood of working as if everything depends upon me and praying as if everything depends upon God is not a foreign concept. It's foreign in a world where you punch a clock at eight in the morning and you punch back out at five in the evening. It's totally foreign when you draw a paycheck once a week or every two weeks. It's not foreign at all when you live on the land and Israel lived on the land.

So God very simply said, this is the way it is. I'll take you to a place you're not familiar with, and here's the way we're going to do it. My end of the bargain is to give you rain at that critical point where if you don't get it, you don't have a crop. The rest is on you.

I talked to a Canadian farmer this year at the feast in Kelowna, and he reminded me of something that I had seen before. We used to have—our Bible studies back in the 60s were quite different than they are today. It was divided into reading the news of the world from headquarters, news bureau. Then we had question-and-answer slips that anyone in the congregation could write down a question, and they were all brought up and placed on the lectern.

Then we had the Bible study portion, so it was actually broken down into three different parts. I remember in some of those news from the news bureau, which include not just world news, but comments from people who had written into us. The farmers talking about devastating weather coming right up to their fence line and stopping, looking across the fence and seeing a crop totally devastated by hail and their side of the field just as beautiful as always. The farmer I was talking to, or the member I was talking to at Kelowna, came from the prairie provinces, endless, endless miles and miles of grain, and had seen exactly the same thing. Had seen those times where people around them had lost everything and their crops had not been touched at all.

As I said, God told ancient Israel, you do all the work. I will give you the reign at the time necessary for abundance, and in that you will learn active faith. I reflect also back at that point in time. For those of you that go back far enough, you're familiar with booklets when they once looked like this.

I'll read you a couple of paragraphs from this one. The title of the book is What is Faith? Mr. Armstrong had a hero, a very justified hero. His name was George Mueller.

It's said over time how people who deserve to be perpetual heroes grow old and they disappear and bringing their name up. People give a blank look like they don't know what that means and never heard. When it came to the subject of faith, Mr. Armstrong's personal hero, and justifiably so, was a German who ended up building orphanages in Bristol, England named George Mueller. This is what he says about him in the little booklet What is Faith. Now let me give you George Mueller's definition of faith. George Mueller is dead now, but he probably was the greatest modern apostle of faith. I would remove the word probable. He founded five great orphanages and other charitable institutions in Bristol, England. He started out, as faith always does, with a very small work without any financial backing and absolutely no means of support except to get down on his knees and send up a believing prayer to God. For nearly 70 years, George Mueller continued that great work and it grew into a tremendous institution until it housed thousands. Every dime for feeding, clothing, sheltering, and schooling, these thousands of orphans came in only one way as a result of believing prayer. Although he received more than a million four hundred thousand pounds, that was sent to him in answer to his prayers. And so when George Mueller gives us his definition of faith, we may well listen, for he spoke from a rich experience and his definition is a practical one because it worked. And here is his definition of faith. And incidentally, ever since I read it, some 24 years ago, it has been mine. And this work of God has been built by putting it into actual practice. Listen, quote, faith is the assurance that the things which God said in his word are true and that God will act according to what he has said in his word. This assurance, this reliance on God's words, this confidence is faith. That's George Mueller's definition. I would encourage you to take time to Google George Mueller. Last name is spelled M-U-L-L-E-R. He may also be listed by M-I-L-L-E-R, but his German is M and an Umlauded U-L-L-E-R. George Mueller was involved in ministry of different kinds, education, the dispersing of Bibles and religious material in his earlier years. He came to the place after marriage that he and his wife looked at ways to serve and ways to help, and he said, we need to care for orphans. And they moved to Bristol, England, and they took in 30 young women.

Now, those of you who have watched and are familiar with Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, it is in Oliver Twist that you get a true and accurate picture of what it was like to be an orphan in that day and time. Many orphans died of starvation, many died of disease. There were no institutions to care for them. They were simply street thieves and urchins trying to find some way to survive. It was interesting that Charles Dickens actually came out to Mueller's orphanage because he had heard that Mueller was starving the children, and he wanted to see for himself. When he left, he wrote an article for a prominent publication of that day and time, debunking any comments about Mueller doing anything other than caring in the utmost about those children. But you see, when Charles Dickens wrote Oliver Twist, he didn't write it as an academic exercise. Charles Dickens' father was put in debtors' prison when he was a boy of somewhere around seven, eight, or nine. Charles Dickens had the opportunity to learn what it was like personally. And so he was invested in that regard in seeing that Mueller was doing things correctly.

Mueller kept young boys and young girls. He educated them, he clothed them, he fed them. He brought the young boys to the place of age 14, and by education in England at that day and time at age 14, going into 15, they were at the age where they could then go into an apprenticeship. So it wasn't 14 and you're out on the street. It wasn't, you are now capable of serving as an apprentice. Two young women, they were kept a little longer and then became au pairs. They became maids. They became people who, young women who worked in residences and houses. When they left, he put a Bible in their right hand and he put money in their left hand. Every one of them left with two changes of clothing and a suitcase. And he said, if you will pay attention to what is in your right hand, God will always see that you have something in your left. Mueller in all those years never asked for one single penny. He did not accept patronage, meaning a wealthy person that said, well, I'll simply bankroll you. If he felt the contributor was misguided in their giving and that they had needs and obligations that they were avoiding in order to give, he gave the money back to them. A widow that gave a sizable contribution, he said, you have debtors that you have not paid off. You can't afford to give me this money. You have a moral obligation. Care for your obligation.

It's always a little bit dicey trying to extrapolate what something is worth. Those 30 young ladies that were brought into his home, the activity annoyed his neighbors. And so Mueller said, well, I need to move out of here. And he moved to Ashley Downs, and he built an orphanage. Ashley Downs was in the country, so this was not going to disturb anyone. As I said, he never asked for a donation, and he never went in debt. And so he waited two years before he actually built the orphanage. I have forgotten the story of whether it was the landowner or the architect was so impressed with what he was doing that he cut his costs drastically in order to make it possible for him to succeed. From that orphanage, he built a second, and then a third, and then a fourth, and a fifth. In his lifetime, he took in, cared for, educated, and graduated as a successful young man and young woman, 10,024 orphans.

At his funeral, the city of Bristol virtually shut down. There were 1,200 orphans. That had graduated from his institutions that were there to pay homage. As I said, it's a rich experience, building upon what I've read to you from the faith booklet by Mr. Armstrong, to simply go online and ask for pictures of George Mueller's funeral services. To Google Ashley Downs and look at the five stately buildings that housed the orphans. And the man simply said, I will never ask for a penny, and I will never go in debt to accomplish any of this. I took the figure that everyone agreed upon was the amount of money contributed to George Mueller during his life.

I said, what is this amount of money in 1860 worth in buying value today in 2025?

Over that span of time, given to George Mueller was a quarter of a billion dollars.

None of it ever solicited. None of it ever asked for.

So the example of faith is indeed a profound example, a worthy example. And as Mr. Armstrong said, ever since I came to know and understand George Mueller's formula, it's been my formula. For the remainder of the sermon, I'd like to transition to one example, spend the remainder of it on one example, because it is a tremendous example of active faith. And at the same time, that example has been reduced almost to the level of mythology and the children's Bible story. And it's always sad when a great example in the Bible has over time simply been reduced to the place where it's a nice story to tell children, but it's not worth anything. It's a great little myth, but meh. You count as David and Goliath.

And I think a quotation from Britannica.com article entitled Goliath demonstrates what I just said to you. This is what the article says, quote, The Philistines had come up to make war against Saul and his warrior, came forth day by day to challenge to single combat. Only David ventured to respond and armed with a sling and pebbles, he overcame Goliath. That is about as nonsensical as nonsensical can be. We have painted the picture of a little boy with his sling shot and a few pebbles in his hand, and he's taking down a giant. David's was a profound act of faith, active faith that has been reduced in value, sadly.

As I said, the example of David's encounter with Goliath is when you understand it, a classical example of working faith. David came onto that field prepared to do mortal combat. He wasn't whistling in the dark. It was a hope but a prayer. It wasn't youthful bravado. He came to do mortal combat, trusting that God would give him the victory.

I think we need to look at a couple of snippets in 1 Samuel just to get a sense of where things were. 1 Samuel 15. Some of these I'll simply cite. There's no need to read them because you're well aware of them.

We are aware that it is in 1 Samuel 15 that God rejects Saul from being king any longer. King comes back from the slaughter of the Amalekites, and Samuel goes to Saul and informs Saul that he is no longer in God's eyes the king. So chapter 15, Saul is rejected. Chapter 16, Samuel is sent out by God to anoint his replacement, and it is in 1 Samuel 16 that David is anointed as the next king. I want you to look at a couple of verses in 1 Samuel 16. In 1 Samuel 16, beginning in verse 14.

But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the Lord troubled him. And Saul's servants said to him, Surely a distressing spirit from God is troubling you. Let our Master now command your servants, who are before you, to seek out a man who is a skillful player on the harp, and it shall be that he will play it with his hand when the distressing spirit from God is upon you, and you shall be well. So Saul said to a servant, Provide me now a man who can play well and bring him to me. Then one of the servants answered and said, Look, I have seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, who is skilled in playing one thing, a mighty man of valor, a second thing, a prudent, or a man of war, a third thing, prudent in speech, and a handsome person.

This is not a wet behind the ears ten-year-old going out with his beanie flipper to take on a nine-foot tall armored Philistine.

Now, some commentators will argue with that last verse that I read and say, Well, he couldn't have been there then. But they will concede that even if he wasn't there then, that the potential could be seen. It's almost like looking at a high school kid who's going to one day be in the NBA or in the NFL, and you see all the qualities that are there, and you say, it's just a matter of getting older, and it's a shoe, and that's where he's going to end up. Any way you want to look at it, they looked at David as having either already or the potential to be highly skilled and capable in combat. That brings us to the other half of the story, the sling. You know, we're all familiar with Judges—we don't need to turn there—we're all familiar with Judges chapter 20 and verse 16, where it talks about a group of Benjamites who were slingers of stones, and they could hit a hare at a certain distance. You know, that kind of thing people look at, and it's almost like the boasting and the bragging that always goes on when it comes to marksmanship. Yeah, well, I can hit a bull's-eye at so many feet. Well, I can do this, I can do that. To see the Bible say in Judges 20-16, they can do that, it almost gets an eye roll.

If you understood the days and the times, it wasn't unique. There are a series of islands to the south and the east of the Straits of Gibraltar called the Balearic Isles. Mallorca is one of those. The young men on that island from the time they were old enough to pick up a sling.

I won't untangle the end that goes around a finger.

On the other end, you hold the stone and the pouch.

Young boys in the Balearic Islands had their breakfast put on a pole. The breakfast was probably bread. And mom and dad said, you eat when you knock it off. Get out your sling. And as a result, Balearic young men were recruited all over the Mediterranean world by the militaries of Rome, by the militaries of Carthage, by the militaries in the Middle East, by the Gauls. It didn't matter who it was. They were recruited. The Rhodians, off Greece, had a similar culture. All of them, by the time they were young men, were capable of doing what you read in Judges about the left-handed sons of Benjamin.

If you take the time to read historic accounts, the Carthaginians and the Romans had not just a few. In some of the Carthaginian and Roman armies, there were 1,500 slingers at the forefront of the army. Modern men who enjoy just the nerdy sport of trying to duplicate the past, they can sling a stone today, well over 200 yards. And at the same time, admit that if I had been trained from the time I was five and six years old to use the sling and coordinate, that you can sling a stone that size 400 yards.

You know, when you sit out every day, all day, taking care of sheep, you've got an awful lot of time, discretionary time. Doesn't surprise me he was a skilled musician, and it doesn't surprise me that he was also a skilled slinger.

1 Samuel 17, verse 34. 1 Samuel 17, verse 34. David said to Saul, Your servant used to keep his father's sheep, and when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, I went out after it and struck it, and delivered the lamb from its mouth, and when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard and struck and killed it. I have no reason to believe anything other than David, first of all, immobilized bear or lion as a slinger.

You know, the very way he worded it was, I killed it, and when it rose up, it's not hard to see a stunned animal that when it starts recovering, David doesn't give it time to recover, and he completes the task. David never claims to have done this with his bare hands. He simply says what he did. He didn't say how he did it. But a young man that says, I will take a sling, and I will go out against a nine-foot giant, and I will deliver the armies of Israel, is very confident about what he can do with a sling. You know, it's interesting if you study a Roman surgeon's satchel, all the tools that a Roman surgeon had, he had a dedicated tool for extracting an embedded stone from a human body that had been slung with such force that it was embedded to the place it had to be surgically removed. So it wasn't, well, what have I got here that I can use? No, he had a tool specifically for that purpose. Verse 35, or excuse me, verse 36, Your servant has killed both lion and bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, seeing that he has defiled the armies of the living God. He said, there's already nothing different between a Philistine and a bear and a lion in terms of what it's like to get hit at a vulnerable spot by a stone that size. You know, it talks about David going down to the brook and picking up five stones and putting it in his shepherd's bag. I didn't find a stone exactly the shape that I wanted, but that's approaching the shape. The slingers of stone knew everything that an NFL quarterback knows today, and that is that a football-shaped stone flies truer and farther than just any old rock you picked up out of the creek.

And so they chose their stones carefully because they were concerned about accuracy.

Let's go on and read the remainder of the report, the actual battle itself. When it came time for David to actually go down and face Goliath, what was the actual picture like? Verse 40 begins to give us the picture. Then he took his staff in his hand, and he chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook and put them in his shepherd's bag in a pouch, which he had. And his sling was in his hand, and he drew near to the Philistine.

How many of you are aware that I have my sling in my hand?

No, you aren't. I have it, but you aren't aware of it.

It doesn't say that David unlaced everything, put on his finger, had his stone, and walked out like the gunslinger in a Western and saying, okay, draw.

Instead, he had his stones in his pouch, and his sling in his hand, and he had his shepherd's staff.

Verse 43.

This is what it looked like from the other side. So the Philistine said to David, am I a dog that you come to me with sticks? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.

Now, if you take what it says for what it says, Goliath saw David with a shepherd's pouch and a shepherd's staff.

And he said, are you going to come out here and beat me to death with that stick? If he had saw David's sling, his reaction would have been a very different reaction than seeing his shepherd's staff. As I said, the slingers of stones were not an oddity. They were not a curiosity. They weren't a circus or carnival novelty. They were a major portion of a military body. Even as late here on this side of the world, as the time of the Spanish conquest of Central and South America, the Spanish records were records of Aztecs being able to dispatch a Spaniard's horse with a sling, which they recorded.

Nothing was any different back then. So Goliath saw someone quite small compared to him with a shepherd's staff and began calling him every name you can imagine for being so totally foolish to come out with a stick.

You say, you're going to try to beat me to death like a dog?

Point being, it wasn't going to happen. Verse 48, And it was so when the Philistine arose and came to draw near to meet David, that David hastened and rammed toward the army to meet the Philistine.

David was one of Saul's armor bearers. The indication is Saul probably had five, six, or seven different armor bearers. Goliath went out to battle with an armor bearer. That meant there was a smaller individual, probably a teenager, that carried his shield. At that day and time in history, it is understood that helmet armor did not contain a nosepiece or a visor. And so he had a bowl-shaped helmet on his head, and this portion and this portion was opened. If he was doing combat, he simply had his armor bearer hand him his shield, and his shield went up, and then he went to combat with a weapon in his right arm. But he had his shield to protect him. When these challenges and taunts went back and forth, the custom was for someone like Goliath to simply be sitting on a chair or sitting on a stool. And they're back talking one another, cursing one another, but it says here that he drew toward him. And it was so when the Philistine arose and came. And so Goliath got up off his stool and made his initial moves toward David, his armor bearer with his shield. And David ran. David simply, the minute he stood up and started his direction, ran full bore toward the Philistine. You have no trouble understanding that a man in full run toward a man who has just gotten up and started lumbering toward him, and at nine-some feet lumbering is probably how he moved. All he had to do was drop his sling, add a pebble, as Britannica called it. I don't know if that's a 50-caliber pebble or a 60-caliber pebble or, you know, hardly a pebble. Verse 49.

So David is running. Saul has just gotten up off his stool, armor bearer proceeding in front of him. David, in full run, verse 49, puts his hand in his bag, takes out a stone, and he slings it at the Philistine. And it buries in his forehead.

Struck the Philistine in the forehead so that the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the earth.

As I mentioned with the Roman tool, not uncommon for an accomplished slinger to have such velocity with a sling that you literally buried the stone in someone's skull.

Saul fell to the earth. David took his head, and that story was over.

It never was a children's Bible story.

It was the account of a young man who spent his life shepherding, caring for his sheep, learning skills, music, slinging, and who was capable of taking out a lion and a bear. And the confidence that he developed by doing that said a Philistine is no different target than a bear target or a lion target.

And he was skillful enough to realize, I am not going to expose what my weapon is until I'm in full run toward you. And you won't have time to have your armor bearer give you your shield and raise your shield before I have dispatched you.

In terms of ability, David had all the ability. In terms of his position, all you have to do is go back and read. David never credits himself and his skill as the determining factor.

With the help of my God, I will dispatch this Philistine. God will not be blasphemed by this individual.

It is a tremendous example of active faith.

The beauty of active faith, brethren, is that it builds further faith.

Mueller realized, as he reflected upon faith, that the more he exercised faith, the more faith he had. The more faith that he took the opportunity to use, the more faith he had. Acting upon faith builds more faith. When we have, or when we put all that we have into a godly goal, pray like David, like George Mueller, like the formula that Mr. Armstrong gave, asking that God would provide the success and that he would provide that extra part that would make possible what we cannot assure will happen.

When it does happen, the product is a deeper trust, greater confidence, and a closer bond with God.

As we saw when we began, James knew that. As we proceeded, we could see that George Mueller knew that. And as we ended, we could see that David knew that. As we practice those things in our own life, living active faith, it allows us to know it also.