The Just Shall Live by Faith

His name? Ming Wang. He was born in China. His parents were atheists. They also happen to be doctors. Of course, unlike doctors here, they did not make much money. Being 50 years ago, it was a 40-50 years ago. It was a very strict communist-run state. But they wanted their son, Ming Wang, to study as they had studied. They wanted him to learn. They were atheists, so they taught him what atheists believe. There's no God. He said everything was about scholarship, learning, and science in our family. And education was the most important thing to his family. But the dictator at the time reached 14 years of age as he was in school in classes, and he was near the top of his class. A very sharp young man at 14. The dictator running the country said, we do not need highly educated people. And so they took the top of the classes, most of the classes, and they put them to work being like peasants in a field harvesting to stop the intellectual growth of the country at the time. They were afraid it would pose a threat to their government. So Ming Wang had no chance to further his education past 15 years of age. So when he would finish his work, his parents decided it was very important for him to continue to learn. So they would take him to the hospital and the clinics that they worked at. And he would sit and watch them operate, diagnose people, work on people. And he did that along with learning to play an instrument so that he would be well versed in education, science, and music that his parents wanted him to learn. And he was blessed enough that when he reached around 16-17 years of age, after spending so much time with his parents, a visiting teacher from the University of Maryland came to China and offered this young man, sharp young man, a teaching assistant position at the University of Maryland, even though he had not even finished high school. He had to take tests, which he crammed and passed. And so with little more than $50 in his pocket, he came to America. He came to the University of Maryland because the University had paid his airline ticket. And he studied, and he studied, and Ming ended up going to Harvard Medical School. He graduated with honors and was one of the first surgeons in the U.S. to perform laser cataract surgery. He holds a degree from MIT and a doctorate in laser physics. While he was at Harvard, there was a college exchange program that Ming came to a school here in Florida. And he was taught by a professor who was not like the other professors he had ever had. And so he took Ming to lunch one day, and Ming had been studying all about the brain, the complexity of the human brain. And the teacher asked him this question, said, you see the car sitting there? Ming said yes. He said, which is more complex? The car or the brain? At which Ming said, it's the brain. At which the teacher said, give me the odds that that car just came together by itself.

At which that was a turning point for this intellectual genius. One who had been taught, there was no God. And he actually says, and I quote here, I learned that the number of neuronal synapse in one person's brain is more than all the stars that we have ever discovered in the entire universe. I calculated that mathematically, it would take trillions of trillions of trillions of years to randomly evolve into the structure as complex as the human eye. But yet the universe was presumably to have existed only 13 billion years. Science convinced Ming Wang that it required a greater amount of blind faith to believe in evolution than it took to believe and have faith in an intelligent designer and a super superior creator.

Because facts backed, science backed creation and not evolution. Today, Dr. Ming Wang has the Dr. Ming Wang Institute in Nashville, Tennessee. He has known around the world his philanthropic adventures have included going around the world trying to find people who are blind and believing that there's something he can do to help them. His amazing studies have been brought out but yet not proclaimed everywhere. As he knew the amazing wonders of stem cell research, but he believed in God and he believed life was sacred.

So it was he who decided that God was such a superior God and knew everything about the human body. And the wonders of it all pointed to him that we need to look deeper into that instead of into the universe for our answers.

At which time he understood the placenta as being like a blanket around a child. When he would study this, he found that the things, the elements and everything in the placenta, which our nurses can probably tell us here, helped to regenerate. They empower the child. It's almost as if it's life itself in there. At which time some women donated the placenta to him. At which time he cut the placenta and made contact lenses of the placenta. And he healed eyes that were so degenerated and even total blindness. He was able to regenerate cells.

He has been able to heal people, he said, because of believing in God and putting his hands in God's hands. He has total faith. And he's an interesting person. If you want to look him up on the internet, you can see his various commercials. I would always see them. As I had LASIK surgery 10-12 years ago, 15 years ago, I guess now, he had a office there in Nashville, but I couldn't afford him.

So I went to the cheap version and come to find out he had trained hundreds and hundreds of people to do the job. But he had a total awakening about God. And he made the statement, as he said, he quoted the Bible, the just shall live by faith and not by chance, because he had been taught that everything was by chance.

We just happen to be sitting here today by chance. We happen to have the hand that we have, the eye, this amazing eye by chance, according to the way he had been raised and what he had been taught. I bring that up today because that is the title of the sermon. The just shall live by faith. I actually quoted from Habakkuk 2 and verse 4. But it's mentioned actually three times in the New Testament. The just shall live by faith.

Obviously, to Paul, it was very important words, as I believe he wrote the book of Hebrews and is quoted in Hebrews 10 and verse 38, Romans 1, verse 17, Galatians 3 and verse 11. I'll quote this Old Testament verse. The New Living Translation, as we were quoted earlier from, actually says, the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God. The righteous will live by their faithfulness to God. Does that describe you?

Just or justified means being right before God. And there's only one way to be right, righteous, and cleansed before God. I read from Romans 5, from the New Living Translation, because I like the way it's phrased. Romans 5 and verse 1, it said, therefore, since we have been made right in God's sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ, our Lord, has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us to this place of undeserved privilege, where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory, toward tomorrow's going to picture part of God's glory.

How do we, or how do you know that you are made right with God? You're cleansed, purified, and healed. It comes from our belief, our faith that Christ is who he said he was, unlike 1.4 roughly billion people in China today. He is who he said he was, as we looked at last week from Hebrews 11, verse 6, where he says, it is impossible to please God without faith. Right? And then it says, he is who he said he was. Right? Or he challenges us to believe what this book says. For it says, for he who comes to God must first believe that he is, that means Jesus Christ is God, right? Part of that faith process. The just shall live by faith, or what? What if you don't? What if you have no faith? No faith in a God. No faith in Jesus Christ that he ever lived, that he died. He was resurrected. Well, you have no justification, no sacrifice, no redemption, no salvation. My faith is enhanced by reading a book. My faith is enhanced by reading this book.

And the reason is, I know how the book ends. You should know how the book ends, and God wins. God wins, and when he wins, and we're his, we win. If God wins, and we're not his, we won't win. It's just as plain as that.

I know when I read this book what it tells me, and that's why the words are so important. I know that no aliens from the planet Kukar are going to land here and enslave us all. Okay? It tells me it does. I also know that no zombies will rise and take over the world of the living. And yet, the latest poll says 14% of Americans believe there is at least a small chance of a zombie apocalypse. That's people walking the street. One of my wife's favorite shows, she doesn't watch much TV. I don't either, but she does watch one. Whenever I'm out and come back in, I know what's going to be on. House Hunters International, or House Hunters Miami, or House Hunters Miramar, whatever it is. Somebody's going to be hunting for a house, and she's going to be able to tell me all about it. But I thought it was funny, because the other day, it showed a preview of one of the upcoming houses. I guess most of you know what that show is, where they go around looking at houses, and I think most people do. And here it showed two guys going looking for a house, and they come to a house that has vinyl siding on it. And the one guy says to the real estate agent, oh no, we could never have that, because that's so thin. My partner thinks a zombie could just reach in and grab us out of that. These are grown adults.

According to the poll done by Mark Morford, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and the Huffington Post on March 13, 2013, found that 6% of Americans believe in unicorns. I haven't seen a unicorn, have you? Except on TV, so we made a, stuck a horn on a white horse. That 36% of people believe in UFOs, 24% of people believe in dinosaurs, and man hung out together, 45% of people in America believe in angels.

I found something as depressing as some of those statistics are. One just came across the internet yesterday. That actually gives me a little hope of why we do what we do, why we proclaim this gospel into all the world.

And it's the latest Gallup poll. And I quote here, it said, in all, 42% of those polled said that God made man in his present form sometime around or after 8000 BC. Another 31% believe that humans did evolve from less advanced forms of life, but God had a hand in the process. And finally, 19% believe that humans evolved on their own without any help from a higher power. The number who believe in the creationist visions of humanity's origin has held very steady in the 32 years that Gallup has asked the question. In 1982, the first year the question was posed, 44% said they believed God created humans in their present form. The number of people who believe in Darwinism version of evolution with no input from God, however, has been on a slow and steady increase over the last 15 years. In late 1999, Gallup found 9% of people believed humans evolved without any help from God. That number now stands at 19%, which to me is astounding, being evolution has been taught for the last 50 years in all of our schools. And that actually 76% of the people, 73% of the people polled by Gallup believe that God, there is a God, and he has been involved in our lives. Maybe there is still hope. Maybe there is still some faith out there. Because Jesus Christ asked the question, when the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on the earth? Which makes you wonder whether there will be. So I asked the question, do you know what that you know that you know? Do you know that you know what you know? Are you totally convinced? Anonymous quote said, it is never a question with any of us of faith or no faith. The question is, in what or in whom do we put our faith? Is our faith in God? Is our faith in evolution? Is our faith in either God or us? As so many people make the decision that they know how to live, and they become a God to themselves. See, faith is in the spiritual realm what money is in the commercial realm. Can we understand that? It is fuel. It is energy. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the famous poet, said, all I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen. It's kind of like the scripture. Things seen are proof of things unseen. Do we have faith enough to die tomorrow and know that we will be taken care of? Is the kingdom of God a sure thing with you? Are you confident, positive of your position in the kingdom of God? Do we have faith in our faithfulness? Because it says it is impossible to please God without faith. So, do we have faith in our faithfulness? You know, the book of Romans and Hebrews dwell a great deal on faith, and both books are considered two of the most detailed and difficult to comprehend. It's easy to talk about faith. It is hard to practice and to live by faith for every one of us.

There's a little creature called a glow worm many of us have seen. They can travel at night. And the amazing thing about this glow worm as it crawls is it shines a little light in front of itself. But it only shines enough light in front of itself for the next step. Kind of how God is with us and increasing our faith. See, we may pray and ask for a lot of things. We may have faith that He will answer those, but He knows that we're not ready to handle that yet. He needs to see that we have more faith in Him.

Perhaps you grew up, as I did. I remembered this statement this week. That's why I added it to my notes. I remember how crushing it was to hear that I do not have faith in you. I was told that by my parents, told that by my father at one time because I was on the farm. He had given me things to do at 15 years of age. Things that needed to be accomplished on the farm, work that needed to be done before the rains came. My heart, my mind was on sports. So how fast and how quickly could I get those things done just well enough that He wouldn't have a hissy fit? And how fast could I get to the basketball courts where the rest of my friends who didn't have all these chores I had were waiting on me?

We lost a large crop of hay that year because my father's son didn't do his job. And it rained the afternoon when everything should have been done. And my father said, I don't really have faith in you to do, to leave you in charge anymore. That was crushing to me. But he was right. My heart, my mind, what was first in my mind was not doing something for the family, was not doing something that my father asked. It was about me, what I wanted to do.

How does God feel when we do not have faith in Him? How does God feel when He knows we do not have that faith that He asked us to have because of us, not Him? How must He feel? Probably worse than I felt when my father said, I don't have faith in you.

Matthew, the tax collector, wrote, with God all things are possible.

All things, everything with God is possible. Do we have that kind of faith? He wants us to. The amazing thing is, for most of us, God has more faith in us than we have in ourselves. He does. He has more faith in you than you have in yourself.

Because, see, He is a creator, and He knows what we can do, what we cannot do, and what He is going to lead us to do.

In the Gospel, the first mention of faith by Christ is on the Sermon on the Mount. Like to go there, if you will, with me today. Like you turn to Matthew 6. Matthew 6, as he talks about faith, Matthew 6 and verse 25.

Therefore, I read from the New King James Version, and therefore, I say to you, God says to you. That's what's so powerful about these verses. That's why, when you read the Sermon on the Mount, when you read the letters in red, when you read Christ's words, that's not just words on a page. It is words of a God, words of a Creator, words of the One who can answer all of your prayers, your wishes, your dreams.

And He says, therefore, I say to you, do not worry about your life. Here He is talking to His disciples, talking to those people who gathered for this sermon. As I believe, it was on a Sabbath. They pretty much like it is here today. Very nice and beautiful. He says, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on it. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? You know, we have people today that just, they are who they are because of the way they dress. What they drive. Did they go eat out at this certain restaurant? Where they see? Obviously, it was the same way then. People were concerned with clothing. You read just a few verses earlier. And He actually said, do not lay up for yourself treasures on earth. Wear moths! What was He talking about? Clothes. Clothes. See, because even at that time, people who had money or felt they were wealthy wore, what? Nice clothes. And people would actually, it was like money, they would save up and have these nice garments. They were able to sell it. That's why He told one time, told the disciples, don't wear an extra coat. Wear one so you didn't have to sell it, because I'm going to take care of you. Because people used to wear extra clothing, because then they would sell the outer garments and continue to wear the inner garments.

So obviously, He had people there worried about clothing, food. He says in verse 26, look at the birds of the air! For they neither sown or reap or gather into barns. Yet your heavenly Father, He does what? He feeds them all. And people have taken this and said, oh well, God's going to feed me. I don't even have to have a job. Well, He tells you other places, yes, you do. Just work. Just don't make work your God. Just work hard and rely on me until I do the rest. And no, probably not going to let you be a millionaire, or a billionaire, or anything else, because what I've got planned for you is going to be more of a truth in my kingdom.

He said, which one, which of you, by worrying, can add one cubit or 18 inches to his stature? But if you really go back to the original Greek, what this actually means, the New Living Translation actually translates it correctly. He says, can all your worries add a single moment to your life? All that worry, can it add a single moment? God's in charge. He's got it. Verse 28. So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field. How they grow. They do what? They neither toil nor spin. And look at their beauty. Look at their beauty. Not even Solomon. And all of his room was clothed like them, or it's beautiful, the field of lilies. But how many of us toil when we spin?

And we turn and we go in circles and we go in circles and we run up and down the highway and we do go this and we go this way. We do this. Oh, I've got to have this because I don't know. I don't know. Right? And we worry. And that's exactly what he tells us not to do. And it's so hard. But the answer is faith. When you have faith, you don't worry. You have faith in God. He's in charge.

And like that, try to always put it in perspective when Mary and I were out somewhere by an ocean. Beautiful night. Wasn't a full moon, but the stars were out so bright. It was just so bright that the stars even seemed like they were right on top of us. Looked at Mary and I said, God's just showing off for us tonight. You see, God's everywhere all the time. And it's about us. It's about us. That's what the first fruits are about tomorrow. It is about us. That's who he's working with right now. The first fruits. That's why he's the first of the first fruits that took place at Passover when they just showed the barley. God ties it to agriculture because he created agriculture.

Now, if God so closed the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow it's going to be thrown in the oven, this whole earth's going to be burned up someday. The stars are going to be heavenly Jerusalem.

Will he not much more clothe you? And then he says those incredible words, O you of little faith. O you of little faith. See, he's teaching just how to say this. Just the few verses here. Just have so much. Just read them. Every time you want to have more faith, just read these verses. It's so powerful. That's all Christ is trying to teach us. Stop worrying. I'm here. Have faith in me. He said, O you of little faith. Therefore, do not worry. How many times did he say that down there? I say to you, God said it. Do not worry. Saying, what will she'll eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? He brings a clothes back in the game. Right? He says, for after these things, the Gentiles, the heathen seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. He knows it. You don't even have to tell him. He wants you to tell him. He wants you to talk to him like a good family father would. But he says, I know all these things. But then he tells us what we should worry about. What we should be first. What should be first in our minds? What should be first out of our mouths? What should be first in our hearts? And it's my favorite verses of the Bible. Matthew 6 and verse 33. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And then what's going to happen? He says, seek first the kingdom. Make the kingdom first and foremost in your mind. And his righteousness. He's trying to live righteously. We're not always righteous, but we're forgiven. We start over every time we repent. Seek first. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And now if you do that, what's going to happen? That's right. All these things shall be added to you. The ultimate in faith. Ultimate in faith. And he says in 34, therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry by its own things sufficient for the day itself. Right? What an incredible 9 or 10 verses there.

Then Jesus Christ, he finishes a sermon on the Mount. And all these people following him, as you can imagine, hundreds is not thousands. One of the greatest sermons ever given, faced the earth. And so he comes down off the little mound here near Capernaum. And he starts walking down. And in verse chapter 8, verse 1, said, when he had come down from the mountain, a great multitude followed him. And behold, a leper came and worshiped him, saying, Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean. Well, you weren't even supposed to touch a leper. They weren't even supposed to be around you. They even hired people to go in front of lepers, going, unclean, unclean, coming. There was a death sentence. This is a walking dead. It's close to a zombie, as you could get, I guess. Dead man walking. And he came. And look what he said. Lord, obviously he knew. Was he standing far off and heard those words that had just been given the greatest sermon ever? He says, Lord, if you are willing, make, you can make me clean. No doubt, no wavering. Total faith. Maybe you say he didn't have any other choice. How many times have we gone to God and we've done it? There weren't a whole lot of choices.

If you haven't, you will. Put your faith in him. And Jesus, because I like it, he said, you can make me clean. You can make me clean. Then Jesus put out his hand and touched him, saying, I am willing, be cleansed. And immediately the leprosy was cleansed. And then he just gets done with his leper. And what happens? There was an example of this leper. Didn't say where he's from. Anything about him. But here he was outcast to society and he had faith. And then Jesus, it's like he just moved another few steps and all of a sudden, in verse five, now, when Jesus had entered Capernaum, that just Capernaum is right at the base of the Mount. When he had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him pleading with him, saying, Lord! Wow. And people doubt. And people, all the Jews, so many of the leaders, they never called him Lord. They had no faith in him. And yet this centurion, yet this Roman general, said, Lord, he knew who he was. He had faith. Said, Lord, my servant is at home, paralyzed, dreadfully tormented. And Jesus said to him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, Lord, Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only speak a word and my servant will be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me, and I say, go here, and they go. I say, come, and they come. I say, do this, and he does that. When Jesus heard it, he marveled. One of the few times God marveled. He marveled. So, wouldn't you love for God to marvel at your faith? Isn't it about time that he did? I want him to marvel at my faith. I need more faith. He marveled and said to those who followed, to all those, see, he's not just talking to this centurion. He saw it. Here you had hundreds or thousands of people who followed you into the city, and he turned around to them. And he said, what? Surely, I say unto you, I have not found such great faith in all of Israel, the entire world. They should have faith. They had read books, the Old Testament, telling about a Messiah come, and they had no faith. This man, he didn't know anything like Ming Wang. Except he probably had multiple gods he was raised with, as the Romans did. But yet he realized a real God and had faith in a true Lord. I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel. And I say to you that many will come from east and west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out. He was saying to this large group of people that, guess what? There's going to be people, there's going to be Gentiles, there's going to be people who are not of you that are going to be in the kingdom, and you who think you have a maid, you're going to be cast out.

Because of faith, because of faith. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness, and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then Jesus said to the center, and go your way. As you have believed, so let it be done for you. And his servant was healed that same hour. You need healing? You want healing? You need an answered prayer? How about taking this before you, God, on your knees and read and say, God, as I believe, let it be done. Increase my faith.

Like turn over as we close now. Like turn over Matthew 9. Matthew 9. Verse 18. Matthew 9 and verse 18. He said, now, when he spoke these things, behold, a ruler came and worshiped him. His name was Darius. He was a ruler of the synagogue, either a Pharisee or a Sadducee. Chances are a Sadducee. At that time. And he came and his daughter. He says, he just died.

It was thought she was a 12 or 13 year old girl. Can you imagine? Well, father wouldn't do anything for his daughter. And maybe he was a believer. We never saw his name listed after this. But when he'd run all out of everything else, perhaps it's the only place to turn. Perhaps he and his mind had been hearing about this crazy teacher who was healing. Who raised people from the dead. Because it said he came and worshiped him. And by that means, this leader of the synagogue came and fell down on his knees before him. That's what those verses mean, worshiped. He came and fell at his knees. Cheer tears rolling down his face. As the only thing in his mind was the last picture of his little girl. Laying dead on a bed. And saying, my daughter has just died, but come and lay your hands on her and she will live. So Jesus arose and followed him, and so did his disciples. And suddenly a woman had a flow of blood. For 12 years, came from behind and touched the hem of his garment. And she said to herself, if only I may touch his garment, I will be made well. Faith! But Jesus turned around, and when he saw her, he said, be a good cheer, daughter. Your faith has made you well. And the woman was made well from that hour on. And when Jesus came into the ruler's house, saw the flute players playing, and the noisy crowd, and the wailers, as they would... When someone died, they actually hire mourners to go around, and people would be in there wailing, and...

And he said to them, make room for the girls not dead, but sleeping, and they laughed him to scorn. And Luke 8, the same story, says, only believe, and she will be made well. But when the crowd was put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose. It was by faith. And down in verse 27, when Jesus departed from there, it's just like, he's going, and going, and everywhere he goes. You see all these examples of faith.

Well, he goes today, where two or more are gathered together in his name. And he needs to see the faith. And he wants us to have that kind of faith. When Jesus departed from there, two blind men followed him, crying out, son of David! Why'd they say that? They knew who he was. They knew all the prophecies said that the Messiah, the one to come, would come from the house of David. They knew. And they said, son of David, have mercy on us. And when he had come into the house, the blind men came to him, and Jesus said to them, do you believe that I am able to do this? And they said, yes! Yes, Lord. They didn't waver. He then touched their eyes, saying, according to your faith, let it be done to you. According to your faith, let it be done to you. And their eyes were open. The just shall live by faith. Are we willing, brethren, to live by faith and not by sight?

How are these miracles done? And they were done by the Holy Spirit, power of the Holy Spirit that we will celebrate tomorrow. Nineteen hundred and eighty-three years ago. Tomorrow, the Holy Spirit was poured out in mass.

As Orlando touched on today, amazing power. All this was done. Because you have to remember, Jesus Christ said, I can of myself do nothing.

But it is of the Father. Jesus Christ had so much faith in His Father. He had the Holy Spirit from birth.

Romans, Paul said that whatever is not of faith is of sin. Can we understand that now? See, if we live by faith and not by sight, if we live by faith and count on Him the entire time, everything in our lives are wrapped around Him. His kingdom is what we seek. His righteousness is what we seek. Even though we fall down, we get back up. And He grants us more of His Holy Spirit so that we can live more righteously.

Whatever is not of faith is of sin. It's the ultimate. The just shall live by faith. Because brethren, faith is our life. That's what it should be. Dr. Ming Wang, he says it's just logical. It's just logical. When you look at the creation, you look at the scene, it has to tell you it's controlled by the unseen. A very real God, a creator, to look out that window right there. It's all His. Even the concrete that He allowed man to make. Every tree, every bug, every bird, everything. He is God. For us, the just, that's us. We shall live by faith. For us, the just, that's us.