Living Hope Fellowship Church .... Sermons From the Pastor

ANTI- FAITH

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

 


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ANTI- FAIT

Preface

(anti-faith is antichrist)

          God allows you to be afflicted, and when things get rough, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak.  God has ways of making you talk about that which is in you that is keeping you from His blessing.

A lot of people don’t see things done like they want, because they have a problem with unbelief.  Jesus Christ is the author and finisher of our faith.  An anti-faith spirit is an antichrist spirit.  If you can’t believe God, you are calling Him a liar.

          God wants every particle of you for His glory.  He doesn’t want just part of your faith.  He wants ALL of your faith, and He demands that you have no unbelief in your life.  He will put you through trials to show you where your unbelief is.  When you come through victorious, you have defeated the devil in that area. 

You have placed your eternal soul in God’s Word.  Why don’t you trust Him with the rest of you – your finances, your home, everything?  Let’s walk upright in the Lord and be totally free to walk in His anointing.  Let’s believe God! 


ANTI- FAITH

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

          Everything we have is by faith in God, not by chance or coincidence.  Many think Job was unreasonably afflicted by God.  They think He did nothing more than challenge Satan and give Job a hard time to prove a point, but God is not unrighteous or mean.  The reason for Job’s affliction is found in the last two verses of Job, Chapter 3. 

God said Job was a perfect and upright man.  Yet, Job had one problem that God wanted to see corrected.  God is never satisfied with where we are.  He has a higher, deeper, and more anointed place for you.  He said He was going to go to prepare a place for you.  You may feel you have gone as far as you can go, but God wants to take you further than you can imagine. 

After Job got under great affliction, it came out of his mouth what the problem was.  That is why God allows you to be afflicted and under the hammer.  When He puts the squeeze on you, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak.  When things get rough, you start talking about it.  God has ways of making you talk about that which is in you that is keeping you from the blessing of God. 

Job 3:25 says, “For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.”  Two things were wrong with him, and the devil was allowed to come against him.  He destroyed his property, his children, and all that he could call his.  His wife got in his face and told him to curse God.  Then the devil destroyed his health.  He was in pitiful shape, sitting in an ash heap and scraping himself with a piece of pottery. 

Job feared losing what he had, and he was afraid of losing his health.  Even though God was mightily blessing him, and he was following the way of the Lord perfectly, he still had fear in his heart.  That was unbelief, and all unbelief is sin.  Romans 14:23 says, “. . . for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.”  Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death. . . .”

Fear can kill you through a heart attack.  Fear can make you fearful, worrisome and melancholy to where you kill yourself.  Fear is like a fretting leprosy.  It spreads all over and gets on other people; it is contagious.  Have you ever been around somebody who didn’t believe anything, and they were worried all of the time?  Did it feel like a devil jumped on you?

James 2:17 says, “. . . Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead. . . .”  If you get around somebody who has great faith, someone foolish enough to believe God for just about anything, you can feel the glory of God.  Jesus is looking for people like that.  John 20:27 says, “. . . be not faithless, but believing.”  Faithful is the opposite of fearful.  You can be faithful in all things, but still have fear, and you will not be full of faith. 

Job did everything according to the law of the Lord, yet he had two problems connected to anti-faith, unbelief, and it opened the door to the devil.  Since he did everything right according to the outward appearance, even Satan had trouble finding that door.  Satan can’t read your mind unless he owns it. 

Satan complained to God that He had a hedge around Job, and he couldn’t get to him to try him, but God showed him the gap in the hedge where he could get through.  God wanted Job straightened out.  God would not afflict him without a reason.  Lamentations 3:33 says, “For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.”  If somebody needs to be dealt with, God does it or he allows it. 

Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Faith is the substance and the evidence you have until you know it has come to pass. Job shows us what the opposite is.  Anti-faith is unbelief. 

Job 3:25 says, “For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.”  Unbelief is many times caused by fear. 

Everybody has a measure of faith.  Romans 12:3 says, “. . . God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.”  2 Thessalonians 3:2 says, “. . . for all men have not faith.”  That means we have faith and we have NOT faith (doubt) working in the same vessel.  You can have faith in God and believe His promises even though you have nothing else to go on but that faith, or you can choose to be melancholy and have unbelief. 

Deuteronomy 30:19 says, “. . . I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:”  Choose blessing by faith or cursing by unbelief, melancholy and doubt.  Because you make a willful choice for blessing, God will bless.  You may have to fight to get there, but you will be blessed.  God cannot lie, and He will not fail.  If you choose cursing you will get melancholy.  You will quit trying, and you will let the devil run over the top of you.  Your power in the Lord will wither up and die. 

A lot of people cannot get delivered or see things done like they want, because they have a problem with unbelief.  Beloved, Jesus Christ is the author and finisher of our faith.  An anti-faith spirit is an antichrist spirit.  It is against that which you could possibly believe God for in His Word.  If you can’t believe God, you are calling Him a liar.

Job had two little things that were not right before God.  He did everything else right, and God called him perfect, yet he had fear and unbelief.  He had an anti-faith spirit working against him.  God knows all about us, and the only way we can get anything from God is by faith. 

When you walk into the presence of Almighty God, and His anointing is in your life, you can look Satan right in the face and tell him he is a liar. 

The church has failed, because they have taken an antichrist spirit of doubt and unbelief and worthlessness.  They have become vagabonds; the antichrist spirit of religion has a hold of them.  Many people who once had the power and glory of God in their lives have been sucked up to that spirit, and they don’t know it.  They got in melancholy and unbelief and quit going ON for God.   

You can believe for God’s best according to His promises, or you can believe for the worst thing that can happen to you.  Some think, Oh, God, if I go out according to your Word or what you have been telling me in prayer, I am going to be stranded, or the devil will overcome me, and I won’t be able to make it.  THAT is unbelief. 

Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” 

There are no exceptions to God’s Word.  Job had some excuses, but finally he ran up against Elihu, a man of God, who told him the way it was.  The anointing and power of God came down in a whirlwind, and God talked to him.

We will behave what we believe.  We talk what we believe, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks again and again.  You may have kept it well hidden, but it will slip out under pressure.  Things got tough for Job.  He held on for three chapters, but then his excuses came out, and he had to deal with it. 

Unbelief is sin.  John 9:31 says, “Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.”  If you have unbelief, God won’t hear you.  A Christian who is living in unbelief can’t help but get discouraged.  The very thing that keeps you believing in salvation is being taken away from you.  The only way you get to heaven is by faith in Jesus Christ. 

If you quit believing God for something else, sooner or later that spirit will chip away at your salvation faith just as well.  You won’t try any more or pray anymore.  You won’t read the Word and cry before God except to complain.  You will spend more chapters like Job did giving excuses than dealing with the things that are wrong with you.

I was up all night with this sermon and I am going to preach it!  God says you will do according to what you believe!  If you walk it and talk it, you must believe it.  If you don’t really mean it, then shut up and quit being a hypocrite, and pray through.  If you say one thing and you actually believe another, that is hypocrisy.  Luke 12:46 says, “The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.”

As long as you live in faith, eventually you will obtain the thing if you believe God and hold fast and obey His commandments.  I’m not talking about being presumptuous, but knowing what the will of the Lord is in a given situation.  You have to seek God and get out every obstacle that stands between you and the promise of God.  Get the sin out.  Having got sin out, you will have confidence in God that He has heard your prayer.  (See 1 John 3:21 and 1 John 5:14.)

You will obtain that which God has promised.  If you don’t believe it, why are you serving God?  Job obtained a horrible judgment because of fear and unbelief.  What are you afraid of?  Do you have faith to believe God’s Word, or do you believe the devil? 

The further in the Lord you have been, the more anointing and blessing of God you have had in your life, the greater the power of unbelief can be in your life if you choose to have it.  If you trip over your lower lip, God have mercy on you, you are about to die.  It is time to get it fixed. 

Faith doesn’t ask questions.  You know what He told you.  Then it dawns on you . . . ding . . . wait a minute.  This is impossible!  How am I going to . . . .  Oh, no.  I was a little zealous, but you still heard from God, and He told you what to do.  His commission is still there.  Romans 11:29 says, “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.”

Numbers 23:19 says, “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?”

You had better fulfill your commission from God before you go to hell.  What you believe you will live.  What you believe you will live.  What you believe you will live. 

You will make preparation for the biggest and the best God has, or you will prepare for the worst.  You won’t venture out because God might not support you.  Why would God call you to do anything if He wasn’t going to go with you? 

Moses was against the wall.  Pharaoh and his army were breathing down his neck, and he and a large group of defenseless people were facing the Red Sea.  Pharaoh was on his back, complaining people were on his back, and the sea was in front of him, but he called on God, and God delivered them.

There are times God says He has already told you all He needs to tell you, and He quits talking.   Christians need calluses on their knees, not their posteriors. 

Romans 6:19 says, “. . . as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.”  God wants every particle of you for the glory of God.  He doesn’t want part of your faith.  He wants ALL of your faith, and he demands that you have no unbelief in your life.  He will put you through trials to show you where your unbelief is.  When you come through victorious, you have defeated the devil in that area. 

1 John 4:16 says, “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”  What does He mean by BELIEVED THE LOVE? 

Go to 1 John 5:3 which says, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.”  That’s the love of God.  If you love God, you will obey God!  Jesus said in John 14:15, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”

YOU CAN OBEY GOD, because He gives you power to do it.  If you think His commandments are too hard, you won’t do all of them.  Grievous is the devil that comes when you disobey God. 

1 John 4:16 again says, “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. . . .”  That means you have obeyed the commandments!  1 John 4:16 continued says, “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”  That is how you dwell in love of God - you live and do what He says, because you believe Him enough to obey Him. 

2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 

In Mark 9:23 Jesus said, “. . . If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”  That is because you are abiding in the love of God. 

Jude 1:20-21 says, “But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, Keep yourselves in the love of God. . . .

Where does it say I have to pray all the time?  1 Thessalonians 5:17 says, “Pray without ceasing.”  What are you doing in your spare time?  Are you just doing what you want to do?  That time belongs to me!  We demand our rights!  Don’t blame God for your unanswered prayers, when you do get around to praying for a need. 

1 John 4:17 says, “Herein is our love made perfect. . . .”  It is made perfect by obeying God.  “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. . . .”

1 Corinthians 13:10 says, “But when that which is perfect is come. . . .”  He is talking about the perfect love of God, the charity, the place where we are working the works of God.  The whole verse says, “But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.”  You won’t be half baked anymore.  You prayed and made a living sacrifice, and a part of you has come into the things of God, but He wants us perfect.  

1 John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”

Worry and doubt can torment you to death.  Anti-faith is of fear.  Eventually you could have a heart attack and die, or you may blow your brains out.  If you don’t go forward, you will go backwards. 

There is no fear in love.  Perfect love casts out the devil!  Fear is from the devil.  I’m not talking about the fear of the Lord.  That tormenting fear which you are experiencing is from the devil.  If a thief walks into your house and says he is going to take all you’ve got, what are you going to do?  He’d have to kill me to get it.  I had to work for it; I earned it.  Why don’t we do that in the spirit, beloved? 

          The devil walks right in and says, Well, you say you believe God for thus and so, but, no, it is not going to be that way.  I am going to take that belief.  Just bring it to me.  You believe God is going to heal you.  No.  You are not going to get healed.  He sends you a replacement, a melancholy devil and an infirm devil.  You can’t get well, because you don’t believe God any more. 

          Don’t be like the servant who did not use his talent.  Luke 19:21-22 says, “For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow.  And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. . . .” 

          John 14:21 says, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”

Hebrews 12:2 says, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Pride will keep you from believing God.  You think if God let you down, you would look like a fool, but you look like a fool now because your back is too stiff.  Pride does not want to look naive.  Jeremiah 1:8 says, “Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.” 

Faith believes God even when it doesn’t make good sense.  Noah is standing with Jesus, because he had faith even when it didn’t make any sense. 

Galatians 5:6 says, “For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.”  That love of God is the love that obeys His commandments.  If you don’t obey Him, you can’t have faith.  You begin with a measure of faith God gives.  By that faith you come into God, and as you start obeying His Word, it becomes more alive, and you receive more faith and more anointing.  By the washing of the water by the Word you continue to believe God and grow.  That faith works in power by the love of God. 

When you have trouble getting God to answer, praise Him for what He is about to do.  What God used to do, He still does.  Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” 

Malachi 3:6 says, “For I am the LORD, I change not. . . .”  Same God, same faith, same Word, same anointing and Holy Ghost power of God.  He is the one that parted the Red Sea and then caused the flood to crush the enemies that pursued the children of God.  That is the same God I serve.  He caused the earth to be covered in a flood and only eight were saved.  He took Dagon and smacked his face on the floor and broke off his hands and head.  He is my Lord, my rock, my shield, defender and high tower. 

God got in Pharaoh’s face and said, Let my people go.  God is standing in the face of the principality over this area that is bound.  Watch God set it free.  Every stripe laid on the back of people by bondage of religion God will lift off if they will trust Him. 

We didn’t know we had so much unbelief, but God still blesses us as He tries to move us along.  It doesn’t mean you have the answer; you are just blessed along the way to the answer.  You haven’t arrived yet; you are traveling the road.  People should thank God for that.

The Lord opened the window of heaven in 1991, and everyone was shouting and dancing.  It was supernatural, and it was encouragement along the way.  God does not stop moving; He keeps on calling us. 

God told Moses to tell Israel to go forward.  Moses saw Egyptians behind them and the Red Sea in front of them.  God asked him what he had in his hand.  Moses had a rod, and God told him to use it.

Why is it that you can’t go forward?  Why do you need another touch from God?  Maybe He is waiting on you to move forward so He can bless you again.  When you believe Him, you have already made the first step.  You cannot have more faith than God can meet.  If it is in the Bible, you can trust it with your life. 

You have placed your eternal soul in God’s Word.  Why don’t you trust Him with the rest of you – your finances, your home, everything?  Let’s walk upright in the Lord and be totally free to walk in His anointing.  Sure the devil fights, but he will do that anyway.  We may as well be going forward; I don’t like fighting behind my back.  I can hit harder front ways.  Let’s believe God! 


 

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

LIVING HOPE FELLOWSHIP, P. O. BOX 111, GRAND CHAIN, IL  62941

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

E-mail  livinghopefellowship@lazernetwireless.net

These condensed Bible studies have been published to help new Christians in their new walk with the Lord.  Kevin Badgley, the author, is the pastor of Living Hope Fellowship Church.

This is a Living Hope Fellowship publication.

© Living Hope Fellowship, Inc.