[Ron Barker] I'd like to start this afternoon with a question that Christ asked in the book of Luke 18:8. Luke 18:8, Christ says, "I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on earth? When the Son of Man returns, will He really find faith on earth?”

This was a fair question for Christ to ask when you think about it. Here He was in the middle of Israel, among God's people, you know, who were very proud of their heritage and would say many times, "We're of Abraham seed, we're God's special chosen people." His very existence, His birth, and all the things up to this point in time had been prophesied, fulfilled many prophecies, prophecies that the people of God should have known.

He performed so many miracles in front of these people and to these people. He gave sight to the blind. He helped those who were infirmed to get up and walk. He raised people from the dead. Yet so many people in His time had no faith in Him, in who He was. In fact, when He was in His hometown, Matthew 13:58 says, "He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief." They didn't believe who He was. Even His disciples, who were with them at times, had problems with unbelief. Matthew 17:14, if you'll turn over there.

Matthew 17 starting in verse 14, "And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, 'Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffered severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to Your disciples, and they could not cure him.' Then Jesus answered and said, 'O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.' And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour."

"Then disciples came privately and said, 'Why could we not cast it out?' And Jesus said to them, 'Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain ‘Move from here to there, and it would move; and nothing would be impossible for you.'" This reminds me of a story that my minister used to love to tell when I was a kid. It's about an elderly man who lived away from a village a little bit. There was a very large mountain or a hill between him and this village. And he had two ways to get there and he had to go there fairly often. And now, he could go straight up and over the hill and take care of business and come back home, but that would wear him out.

And for two days or so he'd be just completely useless, couldn't do anything. And by then, it was time he had to go back to town again. The other way to go to town was to walk around the mountain. But that took a long time and he often ended up walking back home in the dark. And there was always the danger of tripping and falling or wild animals or anything like that. One day the old man was reading his Bible and he came across the scripture there in Matthew 17:20. And he read that if he had the faith of a mustard seed, that he could make a mountain move. So he thought, "I'm going to do this. I need that mountain to move."

So the man went and he prayed. He prayed very hard and he asked God, "Please move this. Now you don't have to make it disappear. You don't have to move it far away. Just move it halfway so I can just walk around and go to town and get back." And the man went to bed. The next morning when he woke up, he remembered his prayer and he was so excited and he ran back and he flung the back door open. And there was the mountain, never moved. The man said, "Ugh, I knew it." It's just what he expected, right? He didn't have that faith of the size of a mustard seed. He knew in his mind it wasn't going to happen.

Is that how we are sometimes? Do we have the faith that we need? What is faith? Let's turn back to Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11:1 is commonly known as the faith chapter. Great examples of faith here in Hebrews 11. We'll read some of them. We won't go through the whole thing, but certainly, something for you to read on your own sometimes when you're considering the fact will Christ find faith when He returns? Hebrews 11:1-3, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understood 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."

Faith is like a foundation. You can't see it but you know it's there. You have trust in it. When you look at a very large building, you know that there's a foundation there and sometimes that foundation will go… well, I don't even know why I started that sentence because I don't know how deep they go, but they go deep. Those foundations go way down until they hit some solid ground. That's why we can make buildings so tall. That's what faith is like. It's a foundation that you can build on. Faith is being sure of what we hope for, certain of what we do not see. We know it's there. We know God's going to do what He says.

Another variation might be in faith, things hoped for become a reality. We have to have this evidence and things not seen. Because without it, we're told it's impossible to please God. Do you want to please God? Then you have to have this faith. Hebrews 11:6, "But without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." So there's some effort there, right. You have to diligently seek Him. Let's look at an example of someone diligently seeking God. Matthew 15:21.

Matthew 15:21, "Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him saying, 'Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.' But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, 'Send her away, for she cries out after us.' And He answered and said, 'I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, 'Lord, help me!’ And He answered her and said, 'It's not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs.' And she said, 'Yes, Lord, even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.' Then Jesus answered and said to her, 'O woman, great is your faith! Let it be as you desire.' And her daughter was healed from that very hour." “Let it be as you desire because you had great faith.” There are some tremendous rewards for having faith. She didn't give up. Even though Christ was kind of sending her away, she did not give up. She kept on until she got what she wanted. And she had a tremendous benefit of having her daughter healed from that very hour.

We have stories of people with great faith in the Bible. Again, back to the book of Hebrews, Hebrews 11:17-19, we read of Abraham. Hebrews 11:17 says, "By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, ‘In Isaac your seed shall be called,’ concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.” Abraham had faith, God had made him a promise, and Abraham had faith that God was going to do it.

Let's turn back to Genesis 15. See this promise that God made to Abraham. Genesis 15:1, "Sometime later, the Lord spoke to Abraham in a vision, and said to him, 'Do not be afraid, for I will protect you, and your reward will be great.' But Abraham replied, 'O Sovereign Lord, what good are all Your blessings when I don't even have a son? Since You've given me no children, Eliezer of Damascus, a servant in my household will inherit all my wealth. You have given me no descendants of my own. So one of my servants will be my heir.' Then the Lord said to him, 'No, your servant will not be your heir.'"

"Then the Lord took Abraham outside and said to him, 'Look up into the sky, count the stars if you can. That's how many descendants you will have.' And Abraham believed the Lord and the Lord counted him as righteousness because of his faith." Abraham believed God, even though at the time it seemed like an impossible thing that he would have a child of his own. God told him that he would and that he would have many descendants. Abraham had to wait many years before the promise of God was performed.

However, he continued to trust God, knowing that God was going to give him what He said He was going to do. Sometimes we have to wait on God to give us what He promises us, don't we? We have to have that faith that He's going to give it to us. So God then performed what He promised, and He gave Abraham his son. And then God tested him with his son. Would Abraham continue to believe God? Genesis 22:1. This must have been a very hard time for Abraham. And this story, sometimes we get lost in it because we don't have these things, the sacrifices and it's not in our society like it was back then. Not that sacrificing a person was right with God. But there's things here that we have a hard time understanding but this was known in Abraham's time.

Genesis 22:1 says, "Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, ‘Abraham!' And he said, 'Here I am.' Then He said, 'Take now your son, your only son Isaac.'" I like how God throws that in there. "This is your only son." Think about that for a minute. "Whom you love and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I shall tell you."

How hard would that have been at that point? Do you think Abraham had issues with his faith at that point? We aren't told that he did. In fact, verse 3 says, "Abraham rose early in the morning saddled his donkey, took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place which God had told him."

We don't have any indication of questioning or any second thoughts about this. Abraham simply did what God told him to do. Verse 4, "Then on the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said to his young man," pay attention to this, "Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you.” Do you think Abraham lacked any faith at that point? He knew he was coming back with his son, because God had made him a promise that his son had to be a part of, and he trusted God.

Abraham had faith that God would do what He said. God promised him many descendants through Isaac and He knew that for that to happen, Isaac's life could not end at that time. So he did what he was told, and that's why he's mentioned in the book of Hebrews along with his wife and his children. Let's get back to the book of Hebrews 11. We'll pick up verse 13.

Hebrews 11:13, "These all died in faith not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confess that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had the opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, and He has prepared a city for them."

If we read on, we read of other people who had a great deal of faith, I won't go through all of them. You can read these on your own sometimes, but we read about Noah and Moses. Moses who gave up all the riches of Egypt, because he knew that what God had for him was much better than what he could have in Egypt. Hebrews 11:27 says, "By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible." Moses had a lot of faith to do what he did, to go through what he went through. And if we drop on down Hebrews 11:32-40, there's a lot of things going on here that people overcame by having faith.

Hebrews 11 starting in verse 32, "And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead again raised to life. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might attain a better resurrection. Still others had trials of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented— of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having attained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise. God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.”

Faith has helped so many people through so much. We need to develop that faith, a faith that will take us through anything. It's quite an impressive list of things that people overcame there when you think about it. They overcame it because they had faith. They had faith in Him who they could not see. Because they knew that He was working in their lives. Verse 40 tells us that the reward is there for us also. What can make us lose faith? Certainly we don't want to lose faith, right?

You see, we see these stories of these people here in Hebrews and they had great things that happened to them, the mouths of the lions being shut, crossing the Red Sea, and incredible things happening to them over and over and over. There are stories of these people who had incredible things happening for them. What's in it for us? Why don't we have these incredible things happening in our lives? Do we lose faith because we don't see these wonderful things happening in our lives? Do we have to have events of biblical proportions happen in our lives to have faith in God? Do we not see the everyday benefits to living a life of faith? Let's turn over to the book of Luke 15.

Luke 15, a well-known story here of the prodigal son, verse 11, then he said, "A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.' So he divided to them his livelihood. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. But when he had spent all there was, there was a severe famine in the land, and he began to be in want. Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and sent them into his fields to feed his swine. And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything."

"But when he came to himself, he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough to eat and to spare, yet I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and say to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.' And he arose and he came to his father. When he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran to him and fell on his neck and kissed him."

"And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Bring out the best robe and put it on him, put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. Bring the fatted calf and kill it, let us eat and be merry; for this is my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and he is found.' And they began to be merry."

"Now his older son was in the field. And he came and drew near to the house, and he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked, 'What do these things mean? What's going on?' And the servant said to him, 'Your brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf.' But he was angry, would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. So he answered and said to his father, 'Lo, these many years I've been serving you; I have never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots came home you killed the fatted calf for him.'"

"And he said to him, 'Son, you are always with me. All that I have is yours. And it was right that we should make merry and be glad for your brother, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and has lost all and all that was lost is found.'" So there's a tremendous meaning here in this story. And that is, you know if you stray in your life and you start going off, God's always willing to take you back. God's a very forgiving God. But there's another lesson in here I want to look at.

I want to talk to young people for a minute. You put yourself in that category if you want to, but young people, especially those who haven't made the commitment of how you're going to live your life yet. We talk a lot about retaining our youth, keeping our young people in the Church, we have special programs just for you. We have camps, preteen camps, teen camps, we have special publications, websites. We do a lot to keep you here in this church. Why is that? Do we need you? Do you think we're afraid the Church is going to dry up and go away if we don't keep our youth?

No, God will provide for His Church. He's always going to have a church. His Church will be here when He returns. We love you. We want you to follow God's way of life because we love you. We want you to experience a good way of life. Do you know what the prodigal son would make if he were alive today? He'd be a great motivational speaker. I don't know if you've seen this or not. But every now and then, on Facebook, someone will put the story and is like, "You got to hear this guy's story. It's amazing." And I think, "Well, if I got to hear it, and it's amazing, I'll listen to it." So you listen to these people, and they're all pretty much the same thing.

They start out with this, "I knew right from wrong. I was raised up in a good house. My dad was a preacher. My mom was a Sunday school teacher. But I didn't want to live that way of life. So as soon as I was able to, I skied right out of there and went. I was going to live life the way I want to live life, it was going to be fun." Well, sometimes their stories end up with, "I woke up from a drug and alcohol-induced coma in the hospital, looking at my fourth wife, who's the mother of two of seven of my kids. And the doctor said to me, 'Son, you keep living your life this way. You won't live another three months.'" And that's when they say, "I woke up. I remembered what my father said, I remembered the way I was supposed to go."

"And I turned my life around. And now things are going good. And I'm here to tell you, you don't have to live your life like I did." And everybody starts clapping and they show the audience, they're all wiping tears. Why is that motivational to anybody? Do you know who'd be a good motivational speaker? Is someone who says, "I grew up in a stable family and my mom and dad, they told me the right way to go. And when I got older, I went that way. And I got a good education and a good job, and a sweet wife and two lovely kids. And it's been great. And you can go that way too."

That's a much more positive message, I think. That's the prodigal son's brother, right? He goes to his dad and he says, "Dad, what in the world is going on? You never killed the fatted calf for me. You never threw parties for me. Where's my reward? I have been faithful and obedient and have followed everything you have told me to do. Where's my reward for that?" His dad's response, Luke 15:31. “And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours." He says, "I never had to kill a fatted calf for you. You ate the fatted calf every day. I never had to throw a party to get you reacquainted with your family and your friends because you never became disconnected from them."

You see, there were great rewards for being faithful to the father, and for following his way of life. And the prodigal son's brother was able to experience that. Now he didn't see the big party and the big fatted calf killing in his honor. Because these things just happened to him every day. Do you recognize the benefits of living God's way of life? You know, God's way produces blessings. It has to because it's God's way, and it's the right way to live. So sometimes I'm wondering, do we spend our life looking for the parting of the Red Sea when we're sitting in a boat?

When you come up against a problem sometime, and you're like, "Oh, this is going to be an epic battle. I got to get over there. Wow, that was easy." Maybe you've been in a situation like at work where the boss comes out and says, "Absolutely no exceptions, everyone needs to work this Saturday, we are getting behind on some projects. Absolutely no exception." Maybe you think to yourself, "I can't believe I got to go through this battle again. Here we go." Maybe you're going through your mind, "Ah, this place over here might be hiring. Maybe I can get a job over there. I don't know." You go into the boss and you open the door and he goes, "Oh, yeah, no, I know you don't work on Saturdays. Have a good Sabbath."

Right, you're waiting on that Red Sea to part and you just rode across the river. Those are benefits to living God's way of life, to being faithful to God every day in your life. We want to live life like the prodigal son's brother, faithfully following God and having a good life but we also want to recognize that that's what we're doing. We want to know that God is working in our lives. So for you young people, I'm just going to tell you, you know, we push this at camp so hard. God's way works. I'm here to tell you God's way works. Follow God's way. Your life will be much easier. It'll be the way you would want it to be.

Another thing that can cause us to lose faith is fear. Let's turn over to Matthew 8:23. Matthew 8:23-26, "Now He had gotten to a boat, His disciples followed Him. And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep. Then His disciples came to Him and woke Him up, saying, 'Lord, save us! We're perishing.' But he said to them, 'Why are you fearful, oh, you of little faith?' Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm."

Will fear cause you to lose your faith? What do we have to fear? You know, it's interesting. This was brought up several times today already. This is the Feast of Trumpets. There's an S on the end. Although we're, of course, looking forward to that final trumpet blast when Christ is returning, there's a lot of things that's going to happen before Christ returns. What kind of things will cause you to lack faith? We know things are going to get very bad before they get worse. The Bible has a lot to say about fear. Let me tell you, it's against it because fear is the killer of faith.

We know things are going to happen but we don't have to fear them. Think back to 9/11. Was your faith shaken that day? That was a very fearful day. I mean, we all know things are going to happen. We've all heard things are going to happen, but then things happen. And we're like, "Whoa, that was huge. I never expected anything like that." We must not let fear run our lives.

Yesterday at work, somebody came in my office, and he's like, "I heard an earthquake just hit Japan." And I was like, "Oh, man, that's awful." You know, I was thinking of the people over there. They're very compact over there, and I thought that's terrible. And he's like, "Well, you know, we just had earthquakes in Mexico and California." I said, "Yeah, I know. Those were terrible." And he says, "We got hurricanes. We've got hurricanes coming every day." I said, "Yeah, yeah, there's a lot going on." He says, "And there's a meteorite heading for the earth." I said, "Well, I hadn't heard about that one. I don't know." And he says, "Do you think Jesus is coming?" I said, "Well, yeah, I do. I don't think He's that meteorite if that's what you're asking."

But there is a lot to fear. Because we, of course, want to look out for our lives. John 14:27 Christ says, "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives you do I give you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid." Fear is a killer of faith so we need to be careful not to let fear reign in our body. Another enemy of our faith is doubt. Do we believe God? Do we believe Him? Think of Peter walking on the water. Let's go back to Matthew 14:27. Matthew 14:27, the story of the disciples out on a boat, and they look up and they see Christ walking out to them.

Verse 27, "But immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, 'Be of good cheer! It is I, do not be afraid.' And Peter answered Him and said, 'Lord if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.’ So He said, 'Come.' And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus." Do you ever wonder what that was like?

I remember as a kid, I used to think, "Man, I believe God, let me do it." Sometimes I thought maybe if I went faster, I could get out there a little bit. But it's hard to get your footing after that first step because if that one didn't work, none of them were going to. But I think of the story sometimes, Christ's walk… I mean, this was a sea, this wasn't a pool. So there's probably up and down and up and down, and riding these waves, and it's probably pretty neat.

Let's pick up the story here in verse 30. "But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying 'Lord, save me!’ Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him and said to him, 'O you of little faith, why do you doubt?'" Why do you doubt you were doing it? You were halfway there. I think it's interesting. Peter took his eyes off what he couldn't see and started looking at what he could see. And all of a sudden his brain started telling him, "You can't do this." Interestingly, though, you know, Christ was also human and was walking on the water, yet he was cognizant enough to yell out to Christ, "Save me." But he was chastised for doubting. Christ says, "Why do you doubt?"

So we have to be careful to avoid these enemies of faith. We can't let these reign in our life because, as I said, without faith, it is impossible to please God. And certainly, we want to please God. So how do we increase our faith? We don't want to let it slip away and we need to increase it and make it stronger every day. We increase our faith by developing a closer relationship with God. That's the only way we can increase our faith, is to develop that closer relationship with God. We can ask God for faith.

Mark 9:23, "Jesus said to him, 'If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.' Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, 'Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!’" If you remember, this was a story of someone who wanted Christ to heal his son. Christ said, "It's possible, just believe." He said, "I do believe but help my unbelief," because he knew he was a little bit short in his belief. He knew he needed help. But he really wanted what he was asking for. He really wanted his son to be better. "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief." We need to do that on a daily basis. We need to be having a communication with God through prayer and Bible study.

You know, there's many scriptures in the Bible that refer to prayer three times a day. You get to know someone when you talk to them three times a day. When you study their word, listen to what they have to say, you get to know somebody, you develop a relationship. God's Word is there to increase our faith. That's why we have so many stories about people with faith, so many things that people have gone through. Daniel and the lion den, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fire. All the things that Moses went through when he had to rely on faith. We too have things we need to rely on faith to get through.

We have to believe God. We have to believe that God's going to do what He says. He says He's going to return. Do we believe that? Are we developing a relationship with God, like He will return soon? Romans 10:17 says, "By faith comes hearing, and by hearing the word of God." If we want to increase our faith, we need to dig into the Word of God. We need to develop faith like those listed in Hebrews 11. And although we might not have to go through some of the things that they went through, hopefully, prayerfully, we don't have to go through things like what they went through. We need to recognize the benefits every day of the faith that we have and what it does for us. We need to develop that faith like those listed in Hebrews 11 have. So in the future on this day, when the Son of Man returns, yes, He will find faith on this earth.