When we consider how the just are to live by faith, we need to examine the great cloud of witnesses from Heb. 11 to see examples that we can follow of how to live by faith. Many of the men and women in the hall of fame of faith were in situations where it did not make sense, they were perplexed, but they trusted God in faith anyway. We need to follow their example and trust God in faith regardless of how confusing things might look to our natural sight.
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From September to November 2025, Pastor David preached through the Book of Habakkuk. One of the major themes of the New Testament is how the just are to live by faith (Rom. 1:17). For us to properly understand how to live by faith and trust God even when it doesn’t make sense and even when the circumstances around us look bleak and dark, we must study the original setting of this verse in Habakkuk’s life, where he was called to live by faith in a culture that was wicked and going to get even worse. We must learn to trust God and live by faith, even when things don’t make sense to us and walk by faith, not by sight.
When we understand the fall of Adam into death in trespasses in sins in the garden, then the rest of the doctrines of grace should be pretty easy to understand. Man is not sick, injured, or drowning. All of mankind by nature is dead in sins. Dead men cannot do anything. Therefore, since dead man can never commit any action that might be required of them to be saved to heaven, then the only answer must be that men are saved by God’s sovereign grace alone.
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It is a very common struggle in this world for God’s children to wonder “am I really saved?” Let me first say before we dig into this lesson, that is never a question that a person will ever ask that is unregenerate, so just your desire to ask that question is evidence that you are already born again and the Spirit inside you is stirring for you to ask that question. God gave us the scriptures and the gospel that we would have “assurance” of our salvation; that we would “know” we have eternal life. That language of “I know” I am saved has got a lot of attention in Christian circles. Some might even say that you cannot “know” you are saved. This thought runs in direct contradiction to the assurances to “know” you are saved that we will study in 1st John. It is not prideful or presumptuous to use Biblical language that we can “know” we have eternal life. God does not intend for his children to be constantly doubting if they are his child or not and if he really loves them or not. To put it another way, I want my children to “know” I love them and never to doubt that. I want to verbally tell them I love them, but there are other ways they can see through my actions that I love them, and I want them to be assured to have total confidence of how much I love them. In a much greater sense, it’s obvious that God wants us to “know” he loves us, and he has given us great assurances to examine to “know” how much God truly loves us. We will study some specific language from the epistle of 1st John of actions where we can “know” we have eternal life.
In Jer. 29, a few years after Habakkuk, there are still 57 years left of the Babylonian captivity. The encouragement to those in Babylon is to build houses, plant vineyards, marry your children, and to grow so that they would increase in Babylon. Many of those encouraged to be faithful in captivity would never see the return to Jerusalem, but they needed to remain faithful for the benefit of the next generation. We need to commit to teach the next generation so they will have a blessed kingdom to inherit when we are gone.
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We look at the example of the resurrection of the dead Shunammite’s son to learn spiritual lessons about our salvation. He was not resurrected by the staff (the word of God), but he was resurrected by Elisha taking the form of the child, stretching himself over him, showing us a picture of imputation and Christ taking our form as a man to give us eternal life.
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Congregational Singing – Saturday Morning
Congregational Singing – Saturday Afternoon
The King of Glory Coming Down – Elder Tim McCool
A Tale of Two Kings – Elder Tim McCool
Sealed With the Holy Spirit of Promise – Elder Morgan Sims
The Unbelieving Wayside Child of God – Elder Buddy Abernathy
In the concluding chapter of Habakkuk, we see this man’s personal revival of faith. He goes from burden, complaining, perplexity, to prayer for revival, then ends up at faith, joy, and praising the Lord by singing. In like manner, we can have our faith revived and end up at joy despite what circumstances we are in when we trust God in the midst of trials.
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Elder Tim McCool contrasts the king of Sodom who makes of think of the devil and the world with Melchizedek, the king of Salem, the king of righteousness, who points us towards Jesus Christ. Which king do you want to serve? We should seek to serve Jesus Christ, the king of righteousness who loves his children and walks among them.
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Elder Buddy Abernathy considers two types of believers and two types of unbelievers, particularly the children of God who have been blinded by the devil lest they should believe the glorious gospel of Christ. Many children of God can get distracted by the temptations of Satan to not believe the true gospel as they ought to.
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