Faith is a substance; therefore, it can be measured. Hope desires an outcome, but faith is how we attain the outcome. The Bible says, faith can waver, or even become shipwrecked, if we’re not careful. In this broadcast Carl shares the story of Charles Blondin, the famous French trapeze artist who, in the fall of 1860, traversed Niagara Falls on a tight rope. His monumental feat, serves as a powerful illustration for trusting God, as he challenged onlookers to join him in a wheelbarrow! Join Carl now, for this second broadcast in the series…
Here is a complete transcript of the broadcast (below)…
This is part two of my message on, Faith, Hope and Love, live in session. Now, during this session, I gave people homework. I don’t do that very often, but this is so important, friend. The actual homework was based on an article that we have on our website called Your Bountiful Inheritance. Now, this describes who we are in Christ and what Christ purchased for us on the cross. It is so important that we know these things, friend.
We have an identity crisis in Christianity. We need to know the very things that Jesus purchased and apply them in our lives. Friend, if you want a copy of these, go to our website, click on that, and you will see the very homework that I gave the class. We have 39 things that Christ purchased on the cross. And you can copy those, and you can download them, and do whatever you want with them. But most of all, friend, I want you to meditate upon them. And in this session, I talk about the great Charles Blondin, who walked a tightrope across Niagara Falls, and this man was highly skilled. But I also use his skills for an illustration that I wanted to make in this session. So, let’s join me now in Part 2 of Faith, Hope, and Love. Treat people as God says so in his Word. Don’t give up on people just because of what has happened in the past. You may have had some betrayal.
You may have had some bad experiences. But don’t give up on people just because of your experience. We don’t turn to first experience chapter 3, right? We turn to first, right? Amen. Michael got it. Everybody else will get it later. Working hard tonight. Let’s go back here. Trust God. He is trustworthy. How many trust God? You don’t have to say you do. You are safe in the wheelbarrow. Does everybody understand that? Good.
We’re going to explain that. Charles Blondin, he was French. He existed in 1860. True story. September 14th, Blondin’s greatest fame came when he was the first person to cross a tightrope which stretched over a quarter of a mile across Niagara Falls. People from both Canada and America came from miles away to see this feat. This guy was walking across Niagara Falls, 160 feet in the air. He walked across on stilts, on a bicycle, in the dark and blindfolded. This guy knew what he was doing. He once carried a stove and cooked an omelet in the middle of the rope. A large crowd gathered. The buzz of excitement ran along both sides of the riverbank.
The crowd ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ as Blondin carefully walked across, one dangerous step at a time, pushing a wheelbarrow, holding a sack of potatoes. Then he stopped and asked the crowd, do you believe I can carry any person across in this wheelbarrow? Everybody said, yes, of course. You’re the greatest tightrope walker in the world. Okay, who wants to get in the wheelbarrow? Now they’ve just seen, right? They’ve seen all this happen, right? They’ve seen the sack of potatoes. They’ve seen the guy cook the omelet in the middle of the rope. When they said that statement right there, they’re like, of course you can do that, no problem.
When it becomes personal, friends, are you going to get in the wheelbarrow? Serious question. All joking aside, we need to be in the wheelbarrow. We only rely on ‘plan A,’ by the way. We don’t have plan B and plan C lined up. Engineers like to have 15 plans just in case this one doesn’t work out. What I found with the Lord is he tells you what to do, and then all these other plans burn up. He’s like, oh yeah, that bailout plan you had, that’s not going to happen. The more you’re in, you’re like, man, this has got to work, because if it doesn’t, I’m in serious trouble here. That’s what the Lord does. Then he burns those idols up, he burns those escape routes out, and he has you right here in the wheelbarrow, and you’re walking that tightrope. You’ve got to stay centered in him, amen? There is no plan B, folks. Now, depending on the complicated life that we live, not everybody is obedient.
You could be obedient in your life, but God has called other people around you in your life, and they’re not necessarily being obedient. In fact, they’re taking their time. Now, God, in some instances, can move you in certain other directions based on the response of others, but I truly believe that his destination is always the best, even if you take a slight detour, amen? Ooh, that was hard, no one received that one. Ultimately, God has the right destination. It’s up to us to obey, and even if others don’t, we have this wonderful thing called prayer, and we can intercede for others, amen? What happens is when we intercede, God turns the hearts of those people towards him, and then their desires become his desires. Ooh, come on.
Who wants to be in the wheelbarrow? God is trustworthy. You need to kill your bailout plans tonight. You need to get rid of plan B and say, Lord, I want you to forge me in your hand. I want you to take me in your perfect will. Not your acceptable, not your good. I want to go all the way with you. That can be scary sometimes, as it is sitting in a wheelbarrow going across a tightrope on the Niagara. If you just take a peek over, you’re like, man, this is pretty high up, but you know what, friend? You are as safe as houses. You’re as safe as if you were just going across the sidewalk, because God has your back.
Well, you know what? I’ve had some past issues. I’ve had some real issues with people and trust and all of these things that I really don’t feel like God has got my back. You need to go back into the Scripture and get hope, amen? Because hope comes from the Scripture, and we’re going to talk about that as well. Amen? Let’s talk about doubt versus unbelief. Unbelief is ‘knowing the truth, but choosing not to believe it.’ Now, we’re defining terms tonight.
I think it’s important that we define some of the terms that we use in Christianity. Unbelief is knowing the truth, but choosing not to believe it, or choosing not to act upon it. This is different from doubt. Doubt is ‘simply not knowing or a lack of knowledge.’ Doubt dissipates pretty quickly when you read the Word, because if you look up an area of finances or health or whatever you’re believing God for, the more you read His Word, the more doubt will dissipate, because you have knowledge about the situation, right? If you got into a plane, you said, yeah, I believe this plane’s going to take off. If I told you there’s no pilot, you’re like, man, I’m not sure this plane’s going to take off anymore.
Because the information that came caused you to doubt, right? It was new information. That’s the circumstances of life. You’re believing God for something, a circumstance comes and tries to rob you of what you’re believing God for. That’s what happened in Numbers 13. They’d gone through the Red Sea. They were fed for many years in the wilderness. They had manna. They saw water come out of the rock. They got to Kardesh Barnea. They were about to enter the south side of the promised land. And what did they do? They started saying the things they saw, the things they heard, the things they smelt, instead of what God said. That is the typology of the circumstance.
We got to focus on what He said, not the circumstance. The more we speak about the circumstance, the more we’re heading into that wall. I think it was two weeks ago I talked about words. How we’re steering the course of our life. It talks about it in James chapters 1 and 3. That the rudder of the ship is what’s guiding people. So when we keep saying we’re not getting any better, we’re not getting healed, we’re not getting out of this situation, we’re reinforcing that in your life.
You’re building unbelief. It’s possible to have faith and doubt at the same time. Do you believe that? It’s scripture. Matthew 21:21, “Jesus answered and said to them, Verily I say unto you, if you have faith and doubt not, you shall not only do this, which is done to the fig tree, but also if you shall say unto this mountain, etc., etc.,. Faith and doubt not.”
Okay? Can you have faith and doubt? The law of inference shows us in the scripture that it’s possible to have both. But the determining factor is faith and belief. Unbelief is looking at the circumstances and saying, God, these are the circumstances, what are you going to do about it? Faith is saying, Lord, this is what your word says and you speak to the circumstances and there’s a difference. Unbelief grows when we look at those circumstances. You cannot have faith and unbelief at the same time. Either you believe or you don’t. Either you believe or you don’t. Okay, so let’s define hope. Hebrews 11:1 says, “faith is the substance of things hoped for.”
So again, we’ve got to start with hope, right? What are we hoping for in our lives? Each and every one of you has something you’re hoping for, hoping that the Lord will do for me personally, making it personal. If you do, then look in the word and find out the scriptures to back up what you’re hoping for and then put substance to it and that is faith, right? You’re putting substance behind it. You cannot have faith without hope.
Faith is tied to hope. So it starts with hope, you put faith behind it. Hope is believing Jesus can do it. Faith is believing Jesus will do it for you. It’s always going to be personal, see? Some people believe God generically. Yeah, I believe God can do anything. Oh really? Okay, so where do you how can you back that up in the word? Show me where he can do that. One of the teachings I did on the radio is about 30 things that God cannot do. God has actually bound himself by his word.
He cannot lie, for example. He will not be party to evil, for example. So there’s several things that he has restricted himself in and we need to know what those restrictions are and that’s our part. Romans 15:13, says “the God of hope will fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.” Friends, he’s a God of hope. The trouble is, in this world, we have the God of this world, little g, the prince and ruler of this world, who has come in and he has made things tragic and he has brought in sin through temptation.
And so people are beat down in life and they don’t believe there’s a real God who loves them and has hope for them. That’s a fact. Amen? It’s the truth. It’s hard sometimes to break away from the shackles and go, you know what, I really believe there’s a God who loves me and I’m gonna stand on him and he’s to be trusted. I’m gonna get in that wheelbarrow. Let us now define hope according to the Bible. Romans 15:4 says, “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning that we, through patience and comfort of the scriptures, might have hope.”
Friend, it’s written right there. Hope comes from the scriptures. Patience comes from the scriptures. Comfort comes from the scriptures. How many people have been comforted by the word? Come on. We don’t need to know that necessarily. We already know that in our heart. When we meditate upon God’s word, hope rises. The scripture comforts us. It’s gonna be okay. This is what I’m standing on. We cannot believe further than knowledge.
If you don’t have knowledge about a situation in the word, you cannot stand on it because you simply don’t know. Is it God’s will for you to get out of debt? I’m not sure. I’m not sure. Thank you for your honesty. That’s doubt. I’m just not sure. I don’t have the knowledge to tell you whether or not it’s God’s will for me to get out of debt. Fair enough. But you need to transfer that doubt into faith.
How do we do that? We start going into the areas where we’re gonna stand on what he said about the situation. When you leave this room today, you’re gonna have handouts. You’re gonna have homework as well. Oh, no. Homework and handouts. Friends, this homework is fun because the homework is gonna be about telling you who you are in Christ.
And the work is already done. I’m gonna list for you on a piece of paper every one of the aspects that God sees you as. It comes back to righteousness consciousness. Okay? And your homework is to go home, look at the verse I’ve given you and underline it in the Bible and make it personal for yourself. I am redeemed. Right? You’re a pastor, of course you’re redeemed. No! It’s got nothing to do with me or the ordination or the office. Everybody’s redeemed, right? Faith is always now. Hope is always future tense.
Faith is now. What action and words are you putting behind what you believe? That is faith. Hope is the sweet by and by. Oh, I’m really hoping this is gonna happen. But we cannot mock hope because it all starts with hope. But some people have already hoped that they’re gonna get healed and some people have already hoped they’re gonna get out of debt and they find that they’re not actually doing it.
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