John Bradshaw

It Is Written

How to Have Faith

Coming up next, please stay tuned for It Is Written, presented by Pastor John Bradshaw.

The Bible says that people are saved by grace through faith.

Underscoring that faith is really important.

According to the Bible, you can't be saved without it.

I heard recently from a woman who shared the experience of her friend.

She said she doesn't understand faith and she doesn't know how to get it.

She's let me know that she doesn't trust God with her life.

There are people who aren't sure how to exercise faith or want to have more faith.

And what if you weren't raised to accept the Bible as the Word of God and then you hear about a man being swallowed by a great fish, maybe a whale, who then spent 3 days and nights on the most incredible submarine voyage in history?

Or of a time when there'd never been rain and Noah builds an ark because God tells him the world is going to be flooded and only 8 people get on the boat and are saved.

Or the idea that our earliest ancestors lived for almost a thousand years.

But you can understand why someone would find that hard to believe.

And there are people who believe creation and the flood and the virgin birth and the story of Jonah and water from a rock and manna on the ground, and they struggle with having faith.

And that can be for a variety of reasons.

Your friends challenge your beliefs, or a science teacher tells you you're unwise for believing creation.

Remember, we are saved by faith, by grace through faith.

Jesus once asked this searching question, When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?

He knew that in our secular world, faith might be a challenge due to people being bombarded or overwhelmed by opposing secular ideas.

Romans says that we are justified, made right with God, by faith.

So, we want to know what faith is, and we want to know how to have faith.

In fact, the book of Romans says, whatsoever is not of faith is sin.

I want you to know that you can have faith, and that your faith can grow, that you can have strong faith.

The Bible says, "...faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." That's Hebrews 11 verse 1.

Faith is believing you have what you hope for.

It's having evidence for something that you can't see.

We talk about God, but we've never seen Him.

I can tell you God exists, but I can't claim to have spoken with him face to face.

I couldn't tell you what his voice sounds like.

Now, I will tell you that God makes impressions on my mind through a variety of means.

But someone might think that I'm just imagining things.

So, Is faith simply an excuse for being able to believe in a God that we cannot see?

Is faith a convenient excuse for believing in a God we don't have any evidence for?

The Bible writers were so confident that they said, faith is believing you have it, even when you don't see that you have it.

Well, yes, absolutely, especially when you consider that some Bible writers communicated directly with God.

Moses, who most likely wrote 6 books of the Bible, spoke with God, spent time with God on Mount Sinai.

The prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit.

If that's the case, if the Bible writers interacted personally with God, then faith in God doesn't sound irrational.

Paul is discussing a story that took place back in the book of Genesis.

Here's what he says, Romans 4, starting in verse 13, "...for the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith." We're talking about the man known as the Father of Faith.

Paul is in the midst of explaining that salvation comes by faith and not by the works of the law.

He's already said the law is good and he'll say so again, but his point here is that salvation is obtained by faith.

Speaking of Abraham, we read, "...who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be." Now, what's going on here?

Abraham, who was not a young man, was told that he would be a father, even though his wife Sarah was close to 90 years old.

If I told Abraham his wife was going to have a baby at 90, he should not have believed me because I cannot guarantee something like that.

He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform.

As huge as this was, Abraham was fully persuaded that God could do what He promised.

And verse 22 says, "...and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness." Why is this such a stirring example of faith?

Because, humanly speaking, this was impossible.

Yet, in spite of appearances, Abraham believed God.

Even though he believed against hope, he believed.

Abraham expected the Word of God to do what it said it would do, simply because it said so.

Well, when God says, I will provide for your needs, faith says, I believe you will.

I know folks who are missionaries and they never, ever ask anyone for money.

They're in the mission field and they've chosen to say, God, you have promised to provide for us and so we believe you will, just like George Mueller did in England in the 1800s.

Oh, I'm not saying everybody should do that, but they choose to, and God is providing for them.

Well, it could, I guess, and we'll talk about that in a moment.

But in Abraham's case, God pledged that Abraham and Sarah would have a baby.

Abraham had a choice, believe God or not believe God.

In other words, Abraham chose to have faith.

This example of faith was so powerful that Jesus said He'd never seen anything like it.

And because we're in Matthew 8, well let's look at another faith story, right at the beginning of the chapter.

ASI 2025 Conference: Investing in Eternity

Plenary

Andi Hunsaker

The Power of Words

First of all, I want to thank my dear friend Pastor Mark for that undeserved introduction.

Ancient words ever true, changing you and changing me.

Thank you, Fountainview, for that very appropriate song for what we're going to be discussing tonight.

Before I begin, I want us to pray together.

Kind Father in heaven, Lord, I thank you for the ancient words that we find in the ancient book, the book of life.

I pray that those words tonight will change me and change those that hear.

I pray that your word will speak tonight.

In the precious and holy name of Jesus, I pray.

On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland starting World War II, the deadliest war in history.

2 days later on September 3, Britain and France declared war on Nazi Germany.

On May 10, 1940, Germany invaded the Netherlands, leading to the resignation of Sir Neville Chamberlain and the election of Sir Winston Churchill as Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Churchill is facing the collapse of Western Europe as the Luftwaffe controlled the skies with daily bombings in Europe.

He's facing the collapse of Western Europe.

France is about to be lost and has no plans to survive the onslaught of the German military, the vastest in the world at that time.

Churchill is determined that Great Britain would never enter into peace talks with Hitler, but on May 25, 1940, a crisis arose.

The British expeditionary forces, along with the remains of the Belgian forces and 3 French armies, were in full retreat to Dunkirk on the northern coast of France, chased out of France by the victorious Nazi war machine.

Their sole line of retreat was to a single port and to its neighboring beaches.

They were being pushed into the Atlantic Sea ahead of them by Hitler's forces, which surrounded them in the air, on the land, and they had no apparent way of escape and no hope of rescue.

They were devastated militarily and were facing utter annihilation.

The British Department of War and House of Commons were deeply divided as to how to end this seemingly hopeless situation at Dunkirk.

Those on the side of Lord Halifax and Sir Neville Chamberlain wanted to negotiate a peace settlement with Hitler, while Churchill and his supporters believed that going to war was the only option and were determined not to enter into any peace negotiations with this tyrannical regime, which would no doubt result in the German flag flying over Buckingham Palace and No.

They were even more determined to bring home the nearly 400, 000 men trapped on Dunkirk.

Back and forth the 2 sides went, and Churchill's initial attempt to convince both the War Department and the House of Commons to support his views failed.

Time was running out and the trapped men were declared to be in dire peril in France.

Churchill appealed to the United States to send Navy destroyers and warships, but they could not help.

The peril facing the British nation was now Suddenly and universally perceived as Churchill took to the airways to speak to the British people words that would galvanize them into action.

In desperation he sent out a call to every civilian who owned pleasure crafts, merchant marine boats, and small fishing boats to take to the seas on the urgent mission to rescue those men.

Over 400 small pleasure craft answered the call and as a result nearly 350, 000 men were rescued and thus on May 28 1940 Operation Dynamo often called Miracle of Dunkirk was launched.

It was deemed 1 of the greatest rescue missions of all time.

The initial goal was to save only about 45, 000 men, but Churchill thought otherwise.

Prior to this, Great Britain was not fully engaged in the war, as it was called the Phony War.

But encouraged With this rescue success, Churchill went back to the House of Commons on June 4, 1940 and gave his most notable rallying speech.

We shall fight on the hills and in the streets.

And even if this island or a large part of it was subjugated or starving, Then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British fleet, would carry on the struggle until in God's good time, the new world with all its power and might would step forth to the rescue.

With these words, it was said that he reached into the oldest parts of the English language to make his point and was able to garner immediate and enthusiastic support from the House of Commons to go to war.

Someone at that meeting sitting near Vice Count Halifax said what just happened?

Halifax replied he mobilized the English language and sent it to battle or my version he used words and sent them to war.

Brothers and sisters, ASI family, we have a word and in it we meet the Word.

That Word became flesh and dwelt among us and thus began the greatest rescue mission of all time.

The word said, let us make man in our image after our likeness.

And on the sixth day, after looking over all their created works, declared it to be very good.

However, in creating man, they took a great risk.

They created man a thinking, self-willed man with the ability to choose, choose to rebel against them and choose to reject them.

But in wisdom, they planned for this possibility described for us in Proverbs 8 verses 22 to 30, where the scene is the dawn of creation.

1 of them would step down to a new role, that of Savior.

The greatest rescue mission of all time was not an afterthought.

It was planned from the dawn of creation.

The word that created everything will become flesh and dwell among us.

Because 1 day up in heaven war broke out between 2 forces.

Michael and the dragon that serpent of old, the devil.

And since there was found no place for him up there, he was cast to earth, falling like lightning.

He appears in that beautiful garden of Eden where God created Adam and Eve in his own image in his likeness to dwell in even in perfect harmony forever communing with him.

Right away he gave them a warning, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.

1 day that very cunning serpent who was more cunning than any beast of the field, preyed on the woman and the man God created.

The serpent met Eve at the tree, twisting and misrepresenting the words that God spoke to them at creation.

She then met Adam, and for some reason, Adam and Eve believed the serpent's words, that God was not truthful in telling them they would die if they ate the fruit and insinuated that God was a jealous, severe, arbitrary, selfish being who wanted to keep power and knowledge away from them.

So the serpent enticed them to eat, and at once they believed the lie, and they by their own choice sinned, sentencing the world to death.

They who were made in his image, his character, are now afraid of their creator and friend because their perceptions of him will radically change that day.

The Lord God, the covenant-keeping God, called to them as he walked towards them, inquiring as to their location, not just physically, but spiritually.

"'Adam, where are you?' "'The stunning replies comes back.

"'We are hiding from you "'because we heard your voice in the garden and we were afraid.

They heard his voice, He was walking and talking to them, longing for old times, but everything was now changed.

Soon they and the onlooking angels and universe watched a peculiar ceremony that they had never witnessed before.

The Lord God clothed them with skin from a little lamb which had to be killed.

That animal's skin is now their clothing instead of his provision of a robe of light, his righteousness covering their darkness of soul.

An innocent lamb that died that day and gave up his skin.

Then God goes on his last walk with them on earth, as he escorts them out of the garden, away from any face-to-face communion with him, never more to see him face-to-face on this earth.

Sin has now separated them from God and their beautiful Edenic home, the place of intimate fellowship and communion with God.

The heart of God was grieved that day as he escorted them out of the garden and locked the gates.

Previously he had walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day in face-to-face communion.

Now he walked alone, grieved, with a terrible weight on his mind.

He remembered back in eternity past to the council of peace that was between them both.

He would now have to give up his only beloved son, because his son was in fact the lamb slain from the foundation of the world for such a time as this.

God walked back alone, but not before making a promise which we see in Genesis 3.15.

Speaking to the serpent, he said, and I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

This was a promise but is also a declaration of war.

The Council of Peace resumes in heaven, but that council now becomes a war room.

Tactical maneuvers were discussed, and those plans immediately put into action.

The greatest rescue mission was now operational, and God reveals his war plan in contrast to Satan's.

Satan's strategy included exalting his throne above the stars of God, ascending to heaven, sitting in the mount of the congregation, ascending to the heights of the clouds, even threatening to be like the Most High.

Erton C. Köhler

A Call for Urgency

Thank you, Fletcher Academy Choir, for this beautiful music.

It's always nice to see our young people singing Christian songs.

And I know that the music is at the DNA of the Fletcher Academy.

And it's always a blessing to hear them singing in a choir, in a different kind of music groups.

What a privilege we have to worship together today as the ASI family in the last day of this convention.

Walking among you, I like to see the diversity of the ASI family.

We are here representing not only those who are on site participating in this worship, but we are also representing those who are watching us through 3ABN, on the internet.

We are the same family here, there, or everywhere.

We are here representing different local churches, different states of the United States, but we are the ASI family.

We are here representing different countries Or different supporting ministries, but we are the ASI family.

And you know, as a church, we also are a family.

More than a denomination, I like to see ourselves as a family.

We are a family more than a denomination.

We have the same hope, the same message, the same mission.

We are a family with 23 plus million brothers and sisters around the world, gathering in 175, 000 churches and companies in 212 different countries and territories.

And let us move forward, always remembering or reminding that we were called to be more than a denomination.

We are a prophetic movement, but we are a family, and a family that can move forward together, integrated.

We have problems, we have challenges, we have differences, But we are still a family.

May the Lord bless the ASI family and our worldwide church family as well.

But before we open the Bible this morning, I'd like to share with you a word of gratitude.

At least 3 specific gratitudes that I have in my heart this morning.

The number 1 is a gratitude for all of you who are here today and those who are watching us on 3ABN or on the internet.

Gratitude for your commitment to the Lord.

Because I know if you are here, if you paid the ticket to come here, if you are living in the Orlando area and you decide to watch or to participate with us this morning, it's Because you are committed to the Lord, you are committed to the mission.

Your church, our church, needs you and needs this kind of commitment that you have.

Invest in eternity, accepting the call, consecrating yourself, and be committed to share the message to others.

As the organization, As the Seventh-day Adventist Church, we can organize the work, we can strategize, we can identify our challenge around the world, but we can't move forward alone as the structure of the church.

It's not the structure that can do the work, it's the members of the church, it's the lay people.

You are the protagonists, you are the heart of our mission.

That's the reason why I'm saying thank you to you for everything that you are doing to the Lord.

Please let us move forward in an integrated way.

And yesterday, I repeated at least 2 or 3 times this word in different meetings.

Integration, you can say unity, collaboration, and all kinds of words, but you know what it means?

We need your resources to support different ministries and projects in the church around the world.

We need your influence every day, witnessing to the Lord in every place where you are.

The second word of gratitude is for the ASI leadership.

I don't know if I can see Andy, you are there.

My gratitude for you and for all the leaders of ASI, all of those who are daily working to keep this organization strong.

Every time when I meet the leaders of ASI, they repeat 2 or 3 things.

Number 1, we are here to support our church, the remnant church.

Number 2, we are here to be faithful to the word of God.

And number 3, you can count on us to move forward and accomplish the mission that the Lord entrusted to us.

Thank you very much, Andy, and all the leaders.

And I know that they are not alone on that.

They represent you and your commitment as well.

And thank you for organizing this amazing convention that is and will be a blessing for all of us.

In my third word of gratitude for you, for those who are watching online now, on 3ABN as well, my gratitude for your words of affirmation and for your prayers for me and for my family.

You know that our life changed a lot in the last 3 weeks.

We need your prayers to be faithful to the Word of God.

These times are not easy, but the Lord is calling each of us to be faithful and we'll move forward not because we are strong or because we know the way, but because the Lord is guiding us.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

How to Have Faith

28m

The Power of Words

46m

A Call for Urgency

39m

Pass-over: Divine Judgment Passes Over You

48m

06 Through the Red Sea

28m

06 Through the Red Sea

28m

Faith-Driven Business: Blending Ministry with Entrepreneurship

1h 4m

To a Land I will Show You

55m

Pressure Points

1h 12m

Light as Medicine

1h 18m

Give Them Something to Chew: Backyard Missionary Gardening

1h 15m

Like Cats and Dogs: Navigating Differences of Opinion in the Remnant Church

1h 19m

Sound Doctrine