Living Hope Fellowship Church

FAITH

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

FAITH

Preface

 (believe God)

Whenever the Lord speaks the Word, it is a done deal.  You can count on it!  There are many examples in the Bible where God healed people.  Sometimes it was just because they believed the Word that He spoke. 

Mark 11:23 says, “For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.”  You are a whosoever, and so am I.

Psalm 27:14 says, “Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.”  As you believe God, you will run into obstacles, but continue to believe God, and He will strengthen you.  Your heart is what you believe with.  Waiting on the Lord, when you are holding on to your faith, strengthens your heart. 

FAITH

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

Jesus said in John 11:40, “. . . Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?”  I believe that there is going to be revival for this area and in the earth!  There is nothing the devil can say or do that will stop it!  Hallelujah! 

John 4:46 says, “So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum.”

Jesus was in Cana, and the nobleman’s sick son was over in another town.  Verse 47 says, “When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judaea into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of death.”  Jesus had a great campaign going on in Judaea, but God led Him to Cana. 

Verse 48-49 says, “Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.  The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die.”

This is where Jesus was trying to break the man free from having to see it done by the laying on of hands.   He wanted the man to graduate to faith in Jesus just speaking the Word and it being done.  Jesus was in Cana to preach to the people there.  God didn’t want Him to go into Capernaum at that time.

Jesus was trying to get it across to the nobleman that He didn’t have to physically come there.  Just His Word spoken under the anointing would do the work!  Jesus wanted him to have faith even at a distance, so He said in Verse 50, “Go thy way; thy son liveth.”  I don’t know how long it took to get from one place to the other, but the latter part of Verse 50 says, “. . . And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way.” 

When the man left his boy he was sick, but Jesus told him that he was well.  Jesus wasn’t in denial, and He wasn’t claiming one thing and doing something else.  He let him know that something had happened.  Whenever the Lord speaks the Word, it is a done deal.  You can count on it!  The man wasn’t at his son’s side when Jesus spoke to him that he was healed, but it was done.

These things are written for our admonition that we might know how to treat our own situation.  We pray for people who aren’t in the service through intercessory prayer.  This is prayer of agreement.  The blessing and anointing are with us as we pray here, and God said that He would answer there.  We have heard testimonies of victories!

God can still heal and deliver.  God is trying to direct people into a rock solid faith that will not be denied.  We need to ignore all of the outside circumstances and look to God’s Word and believe it.

The man believed the words Jesus had spoken to him, and he went his way.  He did NOT sit around and fret.  He did not sit around and hope that maybe he would get a tingle or another word from somebody else.  He went his way, because he believed the Word. 

Verse 51 says, “And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth.”  When he left home his son was dying, but he knew that he couldn’t do anything just being at his bedside.  There are times when you have to get away and find Jesus.  Jesus spoke the Word to him that his son was alive.  The last thing that he had seen was a dying son, but he believed the report that he heard from Jesus!  He hung on to what Jesus said, not what he had seen! 

When his servants met him, and told him that his son lived, they weren’t talking in faith.  They had come to give a report!  When God tells you that your problem is fixed, it is done!  The Bible says in the latter part of Mark 16:18, “. . . they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”  They shall recover!

The nobleman wanted to know when it happened, though I think he already knew.  Verse 52-53 says, “Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.  So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house.”

When He spoke to him, “Thy son liveth,” it was at that same moment God was healing the boy of a life threatening illness.  He was dying.  When Jesus said that he was alive, the man had a choice.  Jesus didn’t even pray for him; He just made a declaration.  I don’t see anywhere in this passage where anybody prayed for the boy.  I believe that this was a direct attack of the devil against this nobleman, who was a godly man.  He spent at least a day’s journey trying to reach Jesus, and we find that he got a hold of Him. 

Isaiah 46:11 says, “. . . yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.”  At the very time Jesus said the son lived, the Bible says that the nobleman believed it!  He had faith in God that when Jesus spoke the Word it was done! 

We read about the Centurion who had a sick servant sick.  Matthew 8:13 says, “And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.”  He went home, and his servant was healed. 

As soon as we believe the Word, it takes hold and begins to work.  It has already been spoken.  God likes to take the very least things and heal the greatest misery and get the greatest victories for people who believe Him. 

No prayer was made over the Centurion’s servant.  God moved in that nobleman’s heart.  The boy was waiting on his dad for help, who was waiting on his Father to give healing.  He heard the Word, believed it, and headed back home. 

In Mark, Chapter 11, Jesus and His disciples were walking past the fig tree that Jesus had cursed the day before.  Mark 11:20 says, “And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots.  And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.”  Peter was astounded.

Verse 22 says, “And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.”  He didn’t say to have faith in yourself or in mankind.  He said to have faith in God! 

The most important miracle that will ever take place in your life is when He takes His Word, and puts it in your heart, and you believe it in your soul.  There is nothing impossible to a person who will have the miracle of salvation. 

You hear the preaching of the Word, and the Spirit of the Lord draws you.  When you say yes to Jesus, you are born again.  It is the same thing when the preacher preaches to you about healing.  God says that He will heal you.  Exodus 15:26 says, “. . . I am the LORD that healeth thee.”

There are all kinds of miracles in the Word of God as examples of where God healed people.   Sometimes it was just because they believed the Word that He spoke.  The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 10:11, “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.”  He said that He wrote these things so you would know about it and believe for it. 

Romans 10:17 says, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”  If you can hear the Word of God, and you search for the Lord with all your heart, the Bible says faith can rise in your heart.  When a sinner hears the Word and it comes into his heart, faith pops up, but that faith didn’t come from the sinner.  It came from God!

God wants to impart something more important to you than anything else you can have.  He wants to give you faith.  Jesus preached the shortest sermon and the greatest sermon when He said, “Have faith in God.”  People who have faith in God can be saved and healed.  They can be filled with the Holy Ghost, and people with faith in God can be translated to heaven and back.  People with faith in God can deliver others.  Faith can heal, deliver, and set free.  All things are possible to him that believeth! 

Jesus told the centurion in Matthew 8:13, “. . . Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.”  God delights in putting His faith in your heart to where you will believe and act on it.  Mark 11:23 says, “For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.” 

You are a whosoever, and I am a whosoever.  Some people think that it is just the preacher, the deacon, or the elder, but Jesus didn’t make any distinction.  I am a whosoever, and I do know on whom I believe! 

He said, “. . . whosoever shall say unto this mountain. . . .”  He could have taken something a little bit smaller, but He took one of the biggest objects we can see.  Mountains are big, and you don’t normally go around moving mountains.

Way back in 1980, Mt. Saint Helen’s in the Pacific Northwest blew up.  They said that explosion took off two miles of dirt in just a few seconds, and ashes blew all the way into the state of Kansas. 

Jesus wasn’t talking about just taking the top off of a mountain.  He cursed the fig tree from the roots up.  He meant you could remove all of the mountain from the bottom up!  The point is that it doesn’t matter how big it is, or how long standing it is, or how impossible it is.  God can move it.

Maybe you are facing a mountain right now.  If so, say, I’m a whosoever, and I have a few mountains.  Look at what Jesus said to make sure that you are taken care of!  He said whosoever shall say to the mountain, “Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea.” It will happen if that whosoever shall not doubt in his heart!  So, why do you doubt?  Most people know God can, but they don’t know if He will. 

The Word of God is the will of God.  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?”  God does not speak idle chatter or kid around with this.  His Word is His will.

Some people use their words rather recklessly.  We need to be discreet.  1 Peter 4:11 says, “If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ. . . .”

I believe that the last day church is going to talk differently from any previous church except the first church in Jerusalem.  I don’t believe that we are going to be caught up in conversation about trivial things of the world.  Even if the country is going flat broke, that will be trivial compared to the great things that God is doing in the earth in the last moments of the last days. 

Always our speech should be seasoned with salt, and I believe we should be talking about the kingdom of God.  I read that you would never find the prophet, Smith Wigglesworth, talking about anything but God, and when he spoke, an anointing came.  They said that his house was like walking into the throne room of God.  Many years after Wigglesworth had gone to be with the Lord, a young man reached out and grabbed the doorknob of his old house, and the power of God knocked him to the ground! 

Let me tell you another story about the bones of Elisha.  They lowered a dead man on the bones of Elisha, and the dead man came alive and stood upright!  There was something in Elisha’s life that could not be killed by physical death!  It was the anointing of God. 

It behooves us to speak according to the Word of God.  We need to quit all the worldly worrying, fear, and doubt.  If we have something to say, let’s say, Praise the Lord.  Hallelujah!  I believe God, and it shall be unto me according as the Word has said.

After you say something you may say, “Well, I was just kidding.”  However, God wants to get you to the place where anything you say - comes to pass.  You need to realize that when you speak, the Word of God is coming forth in miraculous power, so much so, that if you command the mountain to go, it will go!

Consider that in both of these instances, Jesus took it past human nature.  A fig tree and a mountain are both inanimate objects.  They can’t hear, they can’t think, they can’t see.  We preach to people, but it doesn’t get any harder than trying to preach to a fig tree or talk to a mountain.  What you speak to may not respond, or who you are talking to may not be saved yet, but if you will believe the Word, God says that He will do it.

It wasn’t a case of conflicting opinions.  It wasn’t the case where you had to get them pumped up, or sing a certain kind of music, or get it going a certain way.  Whenever Jesus spoke, it was done.  Jesus looked at the fig tree and said in Mark 11:14, “. . . No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. . . .” and it died!

It is the same thing if you want to curse cancer, diabetes, or any affliction or torment.  There are many devils, but they are all defeated by the blood of the Lamb.  It doesn’t matter if it is Satan, any of his generals, or all the way down to peons that are so small that it takes a microscope to see them.  God is not intimidated by the ways of the devil!  The God of heaven still heals people of colds, influenza, cancer, and diabetes!  He still opens blind eyes and deaf ears.  He still casts out devils! 

The greatest miracle is when we believe God with no other evidence.  Salvation was our first step.  The redemption of the soul is the greatest of miracles.  Acting on faith that you didn’t have five minutes before is a miracle. 

Romans 10:10 says, “For with the heart man believeth. . . .”  Matthew 12:34 says, “. . . out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.”  When you SAY that you believe God, but you don’t believe God, you are talking from your head.  However, when you say that you believe God when all hell is breaking loose, and you hold fast to it, and you depend on God for it, then you are talking out of your heart.  In your soul you know that you know that God is going to do something!

Proverbs 4:23 says, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”  If you line up your life with His life according to His Word, you will find life.  It doesn’t matter how forlorn, how desperate, or how diagnosed things are.  However, you will be tried.

James 1:3-4 says, “Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.  But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”

I pray that God will instill in your heart how to keep your faith.  God’s Word is true, and it is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  The embodiment of the Word is the Lord Jesus Christ. 

King David said in Psalm 27:13, “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.”  Folks, I believe that I’m going to see everything the Word of God says is possible to man.  Jesus said in John 14:12, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also. . . .”  I am believing to see every bit of that in my life, and it keeps me going.  Just like David, I would faint except that I know and believe that God is going to do something in my life!

You are going to faint if you don’t have faith in God.  Jesus said in Mark 9:23, “. . . If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”

If you believe God’s Word, it doesn’t matter what else goes on; all things are possible to you.  It is not possible to those who just look at the circumstances.  No case has worse circumstances than on the day that Christ died.  Every sin, degradation, and bondage was heaped upon Him, and then He died!  Because Jesus resurrected, we have life.  

No matter how hard the enemy comes against you, if you hold on to Jesus, God will vindicate you.  He will bring you out, and He’ll bring His words to pass, if you will hold on! 

Psalm 27:14 says, “Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.”  As you believe God, you will run into obstacles that the devil, your own carnality, or what well meaning Christians throw your way.  Continue to believe God, and He will strengthen you.

Your heart is what you believe with.  Waiting on the Lord, when you are holding on to your faith, strengthens your heart. 

As you wait upon the Lord, there is a process going on.  Eleanor, a woman in our church, had terminal pancreatic cancer.  Her faith would not be so quickened if she had been healed immediately.  When it took months, and she got worse, and death stood her in face, she still looked right back and said, “Thus saith the Lord.”  God healed her (and that has been years ago, glory to God)! 

When you wait on the Lord for something to come to pass, there is a renewing in you.  Isaiah 40:31 says, “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

You will have physical strength, strength in your faith, strength in your soul, and strength in your mind!  Sometimes you have to wrestle with the devil.  Then you begin to know your power and your strength in the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Daniel was greatly loved by God, but He didn’t love him any more than he does you and me.  Daniel 10:11-12 says, “And he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright: for unto thee am I now sent. And when he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling.” 

The angel said that when Daniel first started praying his words were heard, and God sent the answer.  Verse 12 says, “Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.”

God heard them the first time he said the words.  God is not deaf, and He doesn’t have a hearing problem.  Isaiah 59:1 says, “Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:”  Verse 2 says, “But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.”

You need to get everything under the blood of Jesus.  You can say, Lord, I don’t know what it is, but if something has place, Lord, I renounce it in the name of Jesus.  I read in your Word that if I speak unto the mountain and tell it to get hence, then it has to go.  Lord, I believe the Word that you said, and I’m standing on your promises.  By the blessedness of God and by the name of Jesus it shall come to pass.

Romans 10:13 says, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  I read that “whosoever”, and I can say, God, that is me!

Revival is the move of God needed to solve all our difficulties!  When you pray, pray big!  Take the limit off of God, read His Word, and take it seriously.  It may involve some waiting.  It took about a hundred years for Noah to build the ark.   When it seems that God is taking His time about something, believe that He knows when to do things!

I ask that Jesus breaks every fetter and chain at the roots for God’s people’s sake, in the name of Jesus.  Amen.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

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

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

E-mail  livinghope@hughes.net

www.livinghopefellowshipchurch.org

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.