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FAITH VERSUS FEELING

INTRODUCTION:

    1. My message from God's Word this evening is designed to be a very narrowly focused attempt to deal with you few lost people who insist on feelings, and who are not content to come to Jesus by simple faith.
    2. Understand, please, that you are not being picked on tonight. Recognize that I am not at all angry with you. Remember that I only seek your genuine conversion.
    3. But you need to recognize that your insistence on getting some kind of feeling when you get saved, rather than seeking conversion God's way, is a great sin. It's a soul damning sin. And it's a blasphemous sin.
    4. I've titled this sermon "Faith Versus Feeling" because, distilled down to its essence, this is the struggle that you are engaged in. This is the rebellion that you persist in. This is a point of stubbornness for you.
    5. Before we go any farther, let me define two terms for you. The first word I want to define is the word "faith." Hebrews 11.1, please. See for yourself that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Now look at verse 3: "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."
    6. Two things about faith from these two verses are key to your understanding: First, faith has to do with things you do not see. And you might as easily conclude that faith also has to do with things you do not taste or feel or smell or hear. Second, from verse 3, faith leads us to understand things we would have no other way of knowing anything about. Now let me read to you what the dictionary says about "feeling:" "Feeling is a general term for a subjective point of view as well as for specific sensations."
    7. Now let me tell you what the essential difference between faith and feeling is. Faith is what you know because God's Word says it's so. Feeling is what you think as the result of you checking something out and deciding for yourself that it's so. With faith the final authority for the truthfulness of something, the reality of something, the accuracy of something, is God's Word. With feelings, however, you insist on being the final judge of what is true, what is real, what is accurate, or what has happened.
    8. Some of you are insisting that you want to be converted. You may even think you want to be converted. But what you are actually after is not conversion, but something else, because what you want is conversion verified by a feeling, not conversion verified by faith. You want to be the one to decide you have been converted, rather than letting God decide. Let me illustrate how a person can want something that is actually different from what you say you want:
    9. Let's say a little boy is asked by his father, "Son, what do you want for your birthday?" And the son says, "I want a bicycle." Well, that sounds reasonable. And it's well within the scope of what the boy's father wants him to have, so he purchases for him a nice Huffy bicycle.
    10. Then comes his birthday, and he's very excited in anticipation of his daddy's present. After the candles on the cake are blown out and the piñata is beaten up in the back yard, the dad says, "Your present is out front. Go get it."
    11. So, the boy runs through the house and leaps out the front door, and runs up to the Harley Davidson motorcycle in the drive way, and jumps up and down and says, "Thank you, daddy. Thank you. Thank you." But the dad says, "Son, that's not your bicycle. Here's your bicycle over here on the sidewalk. That's your uncle's new motorcycle."
    12. So, what was the little boy's problem? The little boy indicated that he wanted a bicycle. And he had his heart set on what he said was a bicycle. But what he said was a bicycle was actually a motorcycle. His dad never had any intentions of giving that boy a motorcycle, but had every intention of giving him a bike. And so long as the boy was determined to get what he wanted he didn't get what his dad was willing to give him.
    13. The same is true of some of you. God has demonstrated His willingness, down through the centuries, to provide for you a salvation full and free, called justification by faith. But what you want is something other than what He is willing to give you, something other than what He has provided, through His Son, Jesus.
    14. You can have salvation through faith in Jesus Christ tonight. The provision has been made and the invitation has been extended. But if you think you are going to get salvation through feeling in Jesus Christ, I am here to tell you that you will go home tonight lost.
    15. Let me, for the next few minutes, contrast the differences and the distinctions between what you want and what is actually offered to you, in the hopes that you will see what the difference is between what you want and what you actually need to be saved.

1A. FIRST, THERE IS THE ILLUSTRATION OF ABRAHAM
    1B. Abraham, as you may know, is the prototype of how a person gets saved. He wasn't the first person in the Bible to get saved. But his conversion experience was the most important, in that it was used even by the apostle Paul as a model for all others to follow who want to be justified in God's sight.
    2B. "And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness," Genesis 15.5-6. That is the record of Abraham's conversion.
    3B. God told Abraham something. Abraham believed in the LORD. God then counted it to Abraham for righteousness. In other words, God gave to Abraham the standing before Him of a righteous man. And by what means was this accomplished? Abraham believed. Faith.
    4B. Was there any feeling associated with this transaction between God and Abraham? Did God give him any proof, so that Abraham could believe God? No. Proof would eliminate the need for faith, would it not? Just as your desire for a feeling is actually a desire to be saved without faith.
    5B. Before we move on, let me bring something to your attention. Did God do anything to Abraham here? No. What we find here is that God did not do anything to him. Rather something was done for Abraham. That's an important point to remember as we continue.

2A. NEXT, THE EXAMPLE OF THE THIEF ON THE CROSS
    1B. The thief's example is well known to us all. Justly condemned to die with another thief, the thief turned to Jesus, Who was hanging between them, and said "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." Jesus responded by saying, "Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise."
    2B. One person I talked to in the inquiry room, when I mentioned this thief, said something like, "But he had Jesus to give him assurance." But hold on, just a minute. This thief on the cross had exactly what you and I have, and nothing more. He had faith in Christ. He had no feeling.
    3B. Hanging there on the cross, what independent verification did he have that he was saved through faith? What feelings and conclusions did he have that when he died, which would be very soon for him, much sooner than even he might have thought? The only thing the thief had to go on was the word of the Savior.
    4B. But isn't that what you have do go on? Isn't that what I have to go on? Isn't that what every truly converted person has to go on, and nothing more? We have God's Word, and that's enough. Amen?
    5B. One other thing: When Jesus saved that thief next to Him, what did Jesus do to save him? Did Jesus do anything to the thief? Or did Jesus do something for the thief? If you think about it you will realize that Jesus didn't do anything to that thief hanging there next to Him. What He did He did for that thief hanging next to him.

3A. THIRD, THE INSIDE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE OUTSIDE WORK OF JESUS
    1B. You know that the Holy Spirit of God and the Son of God are different Persons. And you know that the Holy Spirit and the Lord Jesus Christ do different things. Jesus is the One Who died on the cross to pay for your sins. And it's the Holy Spirit Who is the One Who convicts sinners of their sins.
    2B. So, Jesus is the One Who does things for you, isn't He? Think about it. What Jesus did He did for you, thousands of years ago and thousands of miles away. Isn't that right? 2000 years ago He died on the cross. And He died on the cross half way around the world. So, what He did to provide for your salvation He did not do to you, did He? No, what Jesus did He did for you, outside you.
    3B. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, is that person of the trinity Who does things to people, inside them. He convicts sinners. He indwells believers. What He does He does to people. Now, consider this question: Does the Holy Spirit of God save people? No. But you need to get saved, don't you? You need to be converted, don't you? So, Who do you need, the Holy Spirit to do something to you, or the Lord Jesus Christ to do something for you?
    4B. The Holy Spirit comes to people to do things to them. He comes to sinners to convict them. He comes to Christians to indwell them. But the Lord Jesus Christ insists that you come to Him to receive the benefit of what He has done for you. Therefore, so long as you want to be personally convinced, so long as you want proof about being converted, so long as you want to know that Jesus will do what He says He will do, you are actually insisting that Jesus Christ act like the Holy Spirit.

4A. I CLOSE WITH TWO TESTIMONIES OF CONVERSION
    1B. When Dr. Hymers was converted he was sitting down, listening to Dr. Woodbridge. He wasn't convicted of his sins. How did he get converted? He looked to Jesus. Simple. That's actually the same thing as coming to Jesus, or to believing on Him. Did Jesus do anything to him, at that moment in time? No. What Jesus did He did for Dr. Hymers, thousands of miles away, thousands of years ago.
    2B. When I was converted I was in my apartment. There was no pastor to counsel me, such as you have here. After reading the Bible and realizing that I was lost I got up and went into my bedroom and looked out the window. It was while looking out that window that I was converted. Only, I didn't know I was converted.
    3B. I knew that I had placed by faith in Jesus Christ, but I did not know that that would result in me being converted. When I woke up the next day I had no idea what had happened, with any certainty. But as I look back over the years I realize that on March 31, 1974 I was converted. By faith I had come to Christ and had received the benefit of what Jesus does for sinners. And that's what you need to do.

CONCLUSION:
    1. You don't need proof that Jesus will save you when you come to Him when you have His promise that He will save you when you come to Him.
    2. You don't need anything other than the Savior's personal assurance that if you will come to you He will in no wise cast you out.
    3. So, how will you know which it is you have, faith or feeling? With faith you get converted when you come to Christ. With feeling you won't actually come to Christ, so how can you be converted?
    4. Thank God you have a pastor who is committed to guiding you to Christ, rather than allowing you to be tricked into thinking you are converted when you're not.