Volume 1.1

Praise ye the Lord. I’m going to borrow this title from the late Evangelist Frisby. He said “faith with action is believing”, Amen. That is what I’m going to talk about today: the action part of it, Amen.

Let’s just go through the scriptures and see all of those men and women of faith, how they acted that brought the result. I’m going to point to some actions, and as you see those things, think about yourself, situations where, maybe it was the action that you didn’t implement, that didn’t allow you to get the result you were expecting, Amen.

We’re going to talk on different testimonies of the men of old even the Lord Jesus Christ himself, and I’m going to divide it into two.: The action of those men and women who received the miracles; the steps they took to get the miracle. That is the action we’re talking about. When we say, faith without works is dead. That is the work we’re talking about. The action part of it is the work. I also want to talk about the action of those prophets and ministers that gave miracles, because there are two kinds of actions. Now, if you are the one to receive a miracle for yourself, there are some actions you have to take with your faith. But, if you are the minister, or all of us wanting to be potential ministers, we want to go forth and raise the dead, make the lame to walk, make the blind to see, there are some actions you, as the minister, have to take. You want to use your faith to help somebody: there must be some steps you have to take. God is going to look at your actions, Amen. So, those are the works of faith, I’m talking about.

I’ll go through each individual example of faith-heroes in the Bible and analyze their actions. So that you can say, “hey I should do that also if I’m looking for something like this”. Take for example Abraham. You know the story of Abraham, I always like to give this even though we didn’t see it written down like that. You know Abraham was promised by God that he was going to have a child even though he was already old. I always try to imagine it: God said you are going to have a child when you are already old, what are the steps you should take to show that you really believe?

Just like anyone that is expecting a baby, maybe Abraham should begin to look for a crib. Well it took 25 years before the baby came. But to show in his heart that he is preparing for a baby, maybe he should go and look for a crib and baby clothes and so on. That is an action that I always imagine. In that case if I’m expecting something from the Lord and I have prayed and I have believed it, maybe I should begin to do something.

So, actions of faith like that, is what I’m going to talk about.

Take an example first from the Bible. (Mark 5). Let me start from the Lord Jesus himself, praise the Lord. Now this is the story of how the Lord Jesus Christ was called by somebody, like I said, I’m going to divide it into the faith of those who received the miracle, and the faith of the ministers who gave the miracle. Let’s start from the faith of those who receive the miracle. (Mark 5:39), let’s start from the faith of the woman who came to the Lord Jesus Christ (Mark 5:27). You know the story so, it is not going to be something new, I’m going to read a little part of it, then jump to the verse that I really want to zero on. Here is the story of the woman that came behind the Lord Jesus Christ when he was in the crowd. (Mark 5:25)

“And a certain woman which had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many thing of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, when she heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment.”

You know the story of this woman. Just imagine a crowd following one called rabbi. And they had heard stories that this man was so great that people were even touching his clothes, and they were getting miracles. Now she believed that if she touched but the hem of his garment: Here is what it said: (5:27) “when she heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment. For she said, if I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.” Well, she believed what she heard. Like all of us were hearing testimonies, we were hearing miracles in the Bible. So, she heard, and she believed. Okay now she had to act. She said, if I can just touch the hem of his garment, I also will be made whole. That is a good step of faith. But you have to do something more than just believe in your heart, because she had to take some steps. One of the steps you can imagine is, here is the rabbi coming, first of all she had to stand in the street and look for him. This is the crowd coming with the rabbi. Which of them is Jesus? She has to first identify him. So she found out that the man in the white flowing garment with the long hair, so she knew who she was going to touch. Now she saw a crowd; now remember that the Lord Jesus Christ was followed by twelve hefty men. Along with the crowd of curious onlookers, people who just wanted to know who this man was, and then the others. So, there was a crowd and this woman had to take steps of faith. That is what we’re talking about. Faith with action is believing. So think about that! She has to push herself through the crowd. Those are steps. She could have said, “Gee too much crowd”, and give up. If she had given up, she wouldn’t have received any miracle, but she pressed through. That is action! Then she touched, that is also action. So, you have to remember when we are talking of the action of faith, these are the things God is looking for. Look at what the Lord Jesus Christ said, he stopped and said who touched my clothes, because he wanted to teach us something. He wanted to teach the crowd and generations to come something about what faith really is.

That’s why He said who touched my clothes. Now, the woman had already received her miracle. The bible says, “For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole. And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague.”

She already got the miracle. So the whole scenario of “who touched my clothes” was because the Lord Jesus Christ wanted to show to the rest of the crowd what faith really is, and to us that are going to read later how to exercise our faith with action. Amen. So the title of this sermon is what? The actions of faith. Faith with action is believing. That is the first example of faith and now you know the rest of the story how the woman came forward and confessed that this is why she did it, and she got the miracle. And the Lord Jesus Christ said in verse 34, “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.” Praise ye the Lord! That is what the action of faith is. Amen. Now I’m going to jump to another action of faith here.

Let’s talk about Naaman the Leper in 2 Kings chapter 5. When we talk about action of faith, think of what is the action I should take if I want something like this. What steps should I take that God will recognize that this man really believes this thing. (2 Kings 5) Many of us know the story of Naaman. He was a General in the army of Syria, and he was leprous. And one young lady that was a servant said “If this my master could go and meet the prophet in Samaria, he would be cleansed of his leprosy”. Naaman and all these people believed that there was a prophet somewhere in that place called Samaria. The king of Syria also believed and said let’s send him over there and go see. So the action of faith is that he had to go. He had to take the steps to go and meet this prophet. So your action may be a trip to somewhere. If you heard that something is going to happen, take some steps. And the action of Naaman is that he went, even brought some money, and he went to this place. You all remember the story. He went to the king of Israel. The king said no, no, no, I don’t do miracles. And the prophet said, tell him to come over to me. So we know about the actions in that he had to go many miles. Then the last part of it, he went there and the prophet gave him some ridiculous things to do. He almost got mad, but his servants (Thank God for those that believe with you!). Sometimes it may be your help is in those that are around you. Suppose he went with some unbelievers that would have said, “I told you this is crazy, traveling this far, we wasted our time”. And he would have gone back. There is a proverb that says “birds of the same feather flock together”. You better choose your friends wisely. But that’s just by-the-way. This man wanted to go back in anger but his men said, hey if the prophet of God had told you to do something worse than this or mightier than this such as climb this mountain, you would do it. Why not just go into the water? Well, the water is muddy. Just do it. Now he acted; the action of faith; and the Lord performed the miracle. Praise ye the Lord! Those little, little steps are what I’m talking about, and I’m going to give some real-life examples.

You may say those men of the bible, it looked like they were different. That was how I was thinking when I was little. We read about those men and we said, “Oh, God did wonders in those days!” and then we said “well, there were no sinners then, but we are so sinful nowadays. God does not listen to us.” Well, God still listens to us, and don’t imagine in your mind that we are so sinful and that God does not listen to us as in the days of Abraham, David, and all those prophets. You may say Elisha was there so that’s why it happened. No, it’s not because Elisha was there that it happened. It is because God is good then, and He is still good now. So what happened then, can still happen now. Praise the Lord! So that is the part that you have to know, but you have to act with your faith.

Let me give another example. Let’s come back again to the New Testament and talk of the story about this woman that died in the Acts of the Apostles. Open with me to Acts of the Apostles Chapter 9. This was the story of Peter. Apostle Peter went around visiting the brethren in some different towns, and in another town called Joppa there was a believer that passed away—a woman called Dorcas. So she died, and they were ready to bury her, washed her up, and then they heard almost as if in good timing that Peter was in another city not too far away. Jerusalem was far away. Since Apostle Peter was around they said, Let’s not bury her yet. Somehow faith was going to work, but faith has to do some work. These elders, in burying the dead, would have taken the woman and washed her up, then they heard this news. Because they had faith, they said, Let’s not bury her yet. So they sent to Lydda in Acts chapter 9. These men had to take some action. If they had said, “Well, I don’t know; since Christ left, this raising of the dead has never happened—let’s just bury her anyway”. No, they wanted to give one more chance to God. Bear in mind, all the while this woman was sick these brethren would have been praying for her healing and it did not happen. Now she died. Then they heard apostle Peter was in a town nearby. They wanted to give one more chance to God. Chapter 9, verse 36:

“Now there was at Joppa a certain disciple named Tabitha, which by interpretation is Dorcas: this woman was full of good works and almsdeeds which she did. And it came to pass in those days, that she was sick, and died: whom when they had washed, they laid her in an upper chamber. And forasmuch as Lydda was nigh to Joppa, and the disciples had heard that Peter was there, they sent unto him two men, desiring him that he would not delay to come to them.” So what are we saying? These brethren stopped from burying this woman and said let’s call for Peter. We don’t know what God will do, but let’s call for him. And that is action. So they had to go to the next town, call Peter, told him about this sudden death that happened in their midst, and Peter came with them. God is looking for action. There must be actions of faith. Someone may say I remember there was something like that in those days when we prayed and prayed, nothing happened, and we finally just gave up. I can tell you this; if we shall come before the Lord in the end and say ‘Lord, we prayed, we exercised our faith, why, Lord?’, then the Lord will still point to something you missed. There is no unrighteousness with God—I can tell you that. The Lord will point to something that you did or didn’t: “but hey, look at that”. And we’ll all be dumbfounded before Him. Why? Because He’s just in everything He does. But we have to analyze this thing and search ourselves and see what is missing in any step that we are taking. Like this man, Naaman, could have said I believed, I went there but this man told me a ridiculous thing and that’s why I went back. And he would have lost that miracle. Step by step we should come back and analyze these things and how the Lord performs these miracles, and if there is any failure, what could be the cause of that failure. We know the whole story of this Acts of the Apostles. Apostle Peter came, and sent everybody out. Peter knelt down and prayed and prayed, and when he got it through in the spirit, he rose up and said “Tabitha,” because the Lord had told him to call her. And the woman opened her eyes, and that is how she was raised back to life. Praise the Lord! And then the glory was for the Lord Jesus. That is action. What are the actions there? Just think about it: it takes some steps to go to the next town and call Peter. Those are actions of faith. There will be many oppositions to those actions. There could be a voice of reasoning and a voice of doubt. Remember the story of Lazarus. I will get to that in a few minutes for there is also the action of the man that wants to perform the wonders also. The voice of faith is what made them send for Peter. But there will also be voice of doubt that could say, ‘Wait a minute, why are we going to waste our time to send for Peter? This woman has been dead two days now, let’s just go ahead and bury her.’ The voice of reasoning may come in or the voice of doubt which we must shut down immediately, and give God all the room He needs. I’m going to give an example where voice of reasoning may come in, or voice of doubt, but we just have to shut down all those voices and act. Faith with action is believing! And that’s what James was saying when he said “you believe, show me your faith without your works.” That is the works that I’m talking about now, and I will show you my faith by my works. Let me give a quick example that we can relate to, situations that you and I may have that perhaps when you see this, you can say that is how my actions should be.

Many years ago, I went to a place where I had to drive a distance and then stop my car and go by foot at least a mile. And I got to this place; as I was parking my car (this occurred in Nigeria), I saw the wind was blowing and the clouds were very heavy. It was going to rain. But I was like, “Gee, I have to walk one mile because the car can’t get that far.” Well, the voice of faith will tell you one thing that “hey, you are a believer, just command the rain not to fall”. So I prayed as I was stopping my car, “No falling of this rain until I go and come back”. That is the voice of faith. And as I removed the key and was about to get out of the car, the voice of reasoning just told me, “Bro. Julius, you have an umbrella”. I always had an umbrella under my seat, but I had forgotten about it as I was doing all those prayer & commands. As I was stepping out of the car, the voice of reasoning just said, “By the way, your umbrella is under the seat.” I remembered and was about to pick it up, then the Lord tried to help my faith. He spoke to me and said, “If you take that umbrella, you just nullified the prayer.” Now I was in a strait between two. So I just had to drop the umbrella and use bold faith that I call “Damn the Consequence” faith. So I dropped the umbrella and said: “if I’m going to be drenched, I’m going to be drenched, but I have said no rain”. So I kept walking, and the wind was still blowing and the clouds were heavy, but I went, came back, and there was no rain. It marked something in my heart because there are very few occasions where the Lord spoke like that. But why did the Lord allow that? It was to make me understand what doubt is. But what is my action there? The action of faith says, “pray and decree what you want!”. I was about to step out but the voice of doubt said there was another alternative—the umbrella. And I took it, but the Lord wanted to help my faith, reminded me that if I take the umbrella, I would nullify the faith. What is your action going to be? My action that day was that I said: “no, I will not take the umbrella”, and was ready to walk or be drenched in the rain if it disobeyed. Faith with action is believing. The believing part is a continuous tense. Suppose the rain fell? It could have fallen, and I would be drenched. Many have done that, and that is the faith of men in the bible. Go and read the book of Hebrews chapter 11. “Some laid down their lives for the faith. They were killed, they were beheaded, they were sawn asunder”, but God still called them men of faith. But if we are trying to save our lives, and if I was trying to save my clothes from the rain, I become not a man of faith. God is saying that there are some that He may not even show up, but they laid down their lives “preferring a better resurrection”. That is what He is telling us. But faith must be followed with that action, whether or not God will show up.

(to be continued….)

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