I'd like to share a few scriptures with you from Luke chapter 17, verses 5 and 6. We're going to look at this concept today because I think there's a very practical dimension to living the Christian life that we sometimes miss and get it a little complicated by theological considerations as opposed to practical ones. So let's see if we can remove some of the mystery from this whole concept.

Luke 17, verse 5, says, "The apostles said unto the Lord, increase our faith." Increase our faith. Now this is in the context of the Lord teaching them that if a brother trespasses against them 490 times in one day and keeps coming back and saying, "I repent, thou shalt forgive him." Do you think you could forgive someone for 490 trespasses in one day or in one week or one month or one lifetime? Well, when the Lord taught his disciples that they should forgive 490 times, 70 times 7, why did they immediately say, "Lord, increase our faith"? How many of you know you need faith to cope with life?

The practical considerations of life. The tensions, the pressures, the things that hurt you. And sometimes it doesn't seem like people who have hurt you saying, "Forgive me" is enough, does it? But the Lord said, "Forgive." And the apostles said, increase our faith.

Well, the Lord responded to their request for more faith to forgive more in words that have unfortunately been grossly misunderstood and misapplied. In fact, we've almost created a false doctrine out of these words.

And if any of you have ever heard of Dr. Weymouth, he did a translation of the New Testament some years ago, and a very godly man, a man who really had insights into what the Lord was speaking through the Scriptures, and he did an excellent translation. And I don't know that it's very popular these days, but I've had a copy of Amos' translation for about 40 years.

And he gives verse 6 this interesting translation: "The Lord said, 'If you had faith that grows as a grain of mustard seed, you might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea, and it should obey you.'" If you had faith that grows, as a grain of mustard seed. Now that critical two words, "that grows" has been left out, but it is implied in the text.

And so Weymouth rightly picks up the implication of Jesus' statement and puts the words in to really say what he was trying to teach them. That is, that what they needed was growing faith. Growing faith.

Brother Hagin, I believe it was, wrote a book called Ever-Increasing Faith, and he was dealing undoubtedly with this same concept, though I've not read that book.

Coming over to Matthew chapter 17, we have another situation that I'd like to share with you that will also help us look into this concept of faith that we want to talk about a little bit today. Matthew chapter 17, verse 14 says:

"The disciples, Peter, James, and John, had just come off the mount of transfiguration with Jesus, where they had seen him transfigured before them. They saw his face shining as the sun. They saw his raiment white as light. They saw Elijah and Moses talking with him."

I mean, they really had a spiritual high, if you want to use something of our colloquial language of today.

Up there on the Mount of Transfiguration, they really had one of those supercharged events in their life. In fact, Peter writes about it in his epistle and refers to what took place there on the mountain. It's obvious that it made a mighty, mighty impact upon them.

But when they came down off of that mount, having just seen all those mighty, mighty glories and splendors of Christ transfigured, when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man kneeling down to him and saying:

"Lord, have mercy on my son. For he is epileptic and greatly vexed. For often he falleth into the fire and often into the water."

And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.

What was Jesus' response to this? He said and answered: "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to me."

And Jesus rebuked the demon, and he departed out of him, and the child was cured from that very hour.

Then came the disciples to Jesus privately and said: "Why could not we cast him out?"

And Jesus said unto them: "Because of your little faith. Little faith is the literal word. Unbelief suggests a negative posture."

Now, they were not unbelieving. You know, there's an element out there in the world that's unbelieving. They just plain refused to believe.

That isn't what Jesus was dealing with. These fellows were believing. They were trying to cast the demon out. They made an attempt to stab at it, but it didn't happen.

And what Jesus' response to their question was: why could not we cast them out? It wasn't because of your unbelief you don't believe. He wasn't saying that. He was saying because of your little faith.

You had a dollar problem and five-cent faith, or a dollar problem and 50-cent faith because of your little faith. They had faith, but it wasn't developed.

For verily I say unto you: if you have faith... Now here again is Weymouth's translation, and again it's proper because of the implications of the Greek structure:

"If you have faith that grows as a grain of mustard seed, you could say unto this mountain, move from here to yonder, and it shall move, and nothing shall be impossible unto you."

Howbeit this kind goeth not out except by prayer and fasting, which implies prayer and fasting is one of the ways you can increase your faith.

Amen?

If you've got a problem, your faith doesn't move it. And Jesus said, it's the reason that you couldn't solve the problem is because of your little faith.

And then he turns around and says: "Prayer and fasting will help that." That implies that prayer and fasting can be one of the means by which faith is increased.

And you say amen. That's why we're praying and fasting today. We want more what?

Let's look for a moment at Matthew's gospel again, chapter 13, because what Jesus used here in these passages, and when he spoke about a grain of mustard seed, if you had faith that grows as a grain of mustard seed, you could speak to mountains and trees and so on.

We need to understand how the mustard seed grows.

When you come over to Matthew 13, verse 31, 32, we have the parable of the mustard seed. And another parable put he forth unto them, saying:

"The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is what?"

The least of all seeds. Meaning it's very small, very tiny.

It is indeed the least of all seeds. But when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches of it.

Now, here's, you know, what we've been taught most of our life. Most of us have. I was.

If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you can move mountains and relocate trees, and nothing's impossible to you.

And so what we've been told is the seed of mustard is the least of all seeds, so it just takes tiny little faith to move great big mountains. Standard application, right?

We've been encouraged to use tiny faith to move big mountains, five-cent faith to solve dollar problems.

Now there's only one problem with our application. One, it's wrong, and two, it doesn't work. Because that is not what Jesus was talking about.

One, that we just need tiny faith. What he said we need is what?

Growing faith. Living, growing faith. Faith that starts small, but what happens? It grows.

And when a mustard seed grows, it becomes what?

It becomes a tree. It becomes the greatest among herbs.

And Jesus made it very plain that, yes, it is indeed the least of all seeds, but when it is grown, it's the greatest among herbs.

It becomes a tree.

And so he came to his disciples and said: "Your problem is this. You've got little faith. It's like a seed. But if you had faith that grows as a grain of mustard seed, when it's grown and becomes a tree,

A tree-sized faith can move what?

Another tree.

Now, you say, Brother Ralph, this contradicts all I've ever been taught. Well, that's probably true. But it happens to be right.

Turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and see if this is Paul's understanding of faith.

Look with me at verse 2 of 1 Corinthians 13:

"Though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge."

And then listen to this next statement.

"And though I have all faith. Big faith, large faith, all faith, so that I can move mountains."

Paul recognized that it took all faith, large faith, big faith, to move mountains.

It wasn't seed faith that moved mountains. It was developed, enlarged, grown faith that moved mountains.

And he recognized that simple principle.

Though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not love, I am nothing.

Without agape, all that faith that can move mountains would be nothing.

Now, with all due respect, I don't see many Christians rearranging the topography of the mountains. Do you? Even the mountains of their own life, in their own life.

We have a lot of speaking and commanding and all those things, and I would encourage you to keep that up. But the point is, we need to be taught what the Bible teaches, and that is that our faith needs to grow.

Faith needs to grow.

And if we go all our lifetime thinking that the little seed of faith that God gives us is all we need and it never grows, we end up at the end of our life where we started our life, without any growth.

God wants growing, increasing faith. You see, these disciples didn't say we don't have any faith. They said: "Lord, do what?"

What was their prayer? Increase our faith. Increase it.

Now Jesus' response to their prayer for increased faith wasn't: you don't need it increased. All you need is a seed.

And keep that seed small all your life and you're going to make out quite well.

He said: no, you want increased faith? Okay. If you have faith that grows, then you're going to have the kind of faith you need.

Growing faith.

And this concept of growing faith is one, as I say, in which we need considerable teaching and understanding because the misapplication of Scripture to say that seed faith moves mountains is not to discourage you and suggest that because you only have a seed, then you're helpless and you can't do anything. That's not the point at all.

The point is that there are certain activities that we engage in in life that either cause growth or death. You're growing or you're dying. There's no sort of middle ground in this whole thing.

But let's start in Romans 12 for a moment. I'd like for you to notice in chapter 12 of Romans, verse 3, something that's very interesting about faith.

Paul says: "I say, through the divine enablement given unto me."

The divine enablement would be probably the best translation for this word grace here in verse 3 of Romans 12.

"I say through the divine enablement given unto me to every man that is among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought, but to think soberly according as God hath dealt to every man what?"

The measure of faith.

Now that says God's given every one of us a measure, a seed of faith. We've all received it. God has given it to us.

How did we get it? Well, when we turn over to Ephesians 2, verses 8 and 9, Paul tells us how we received it.

In chapter 2 of Ephesians, verse 8: "By grace are you saved through what?"

Through faith.

Now, where did you get that faith? That faith is not of yourselves. It is what?

The gift of God. It's not of works, lest what?

Any man should boast.

So even the faith that we have given us is a gift of God to us. It is a measure. It is a seed.

Once given to us, what we do with it determines on whether it grows or whether it doesn't grow.

Some of you may remember back about 60 years ago. You may not have been alive then, but you may have read of it as I did. I wasn't alive either.

But back in the teens and 20s of this century,

They had made a discovery in Egypt that had the archaeologists quite excited, and that was King Tut's tomb.

Most of the tombs of the ancient Egyptians had been discovered centuries ago, and grave robbers had stripped them and stolen everything out of them.

But King Tut's tomb survived over 3,000 years without the grave robbers finding it in modern archaeologists.

Finally found it and went in.

And in the process of going in that tomb that had been sealed for 3,000 years, they found seed in that tomb, wheat, corn, maize, other seed that had been there 3,000 years and had not, in fact, changed in 3,000 years.

To see what would happen with it, they took some of it out and put it in the fertile, moist soil of the Nile Delta.

Cared for it, and in the normal time that wheat and corn and these modern crops normally maturate, sure enough, it sprung and brought forth fruit, and they raised a crop from seed 3,000 years old.

Now, what was wrong? There was nothing wrong with that seed for 3,000 years. But why didn't it bring forth fruit? Why did it have to wait 3,000 years?

Well, it was in the wrong environment for 3,000 years.

How many of you know the seed of faith has to be in the right environment too?

And there are certain things that we have to do with that seed for it to grow.

Now, I like to put things in a practical dimension of life. I don't know that I'm practical. I think I am. Others might not think I am.

For me, if the Lord says it, that means it can be done. We just do it.

Now, some say that isn't very practical because there's too many giants. But we feel that if the Lord says it, you know, then it can be done. We should find a way to do it. I believe that's faith.

Faith that believes, it can be done. That's one expression of faith.

But when we get into this realm of living out our practical life, there's been a fair amount of emphasis here this morning and some of the previous services about finance and economics, and that's become quite an issue in our society, I suppose, to some extent, because there's this tension between the prayer of King Lemuel, where he prays back in Psalm 101:1-3.

Perhaps this would be worth taking a moment to consider. He has a prayer that Daddy Fraudsham used to recommend to us. Daddy Fraudsham was a man like Brother Upton who had walked with the Lord many years, a godly, God-fearing man who had lived a life of sacrifice and worked as editor of the Pentecostal Evangel for some 30 years.

He was editor of that publication.

And when they started that publication way back in the 20s, they didn't have any money. They just trusted God for the supplies and the provision and got it started, and eventually it became the official organ of the Assemblies of God USA.

But even up until the 1950s, when he retired from that position, he was only receiving a salary of $25, $30 a week for his services, and he took half of that.

$25 or $30 a week and gave it to missions. All of his life, from the time that he found the Lord, he started giving half of his income to spread the gospel to people that never had the gospel.

Lived a very modest, sacrificial lifestyle, and it didn't fit too well with the later trends in the development of the Pentecostal movement because as the people... matured, and so on, and as they got their lives straightened up, you know, when people get their lives straightened up, what happens?

Usually they start to prosper. They get better off.

You know, a drunkard never prospers. A dope addict never prospers. People that are out there in the depths of sin, the devil just strips them of everything. They don't prosper.

But as the Pentecostal movement attracted in its early beginnings the very, very poor people, they got their lives in order and according to divine principles.

The natural product or byproduct of that is God blesses. You prosper. You increase.

And so the second generation of the 50s and 60s, many of the... Pentecostal people began to get quite well to do financially, and some of them had quite a bit of guilt, I guess, about that blessing.

And, of course, most of them had not been taught anything about the reason for God's blessings, which is, of course, as Brother Marvin has been telling us, so that we can exercise the gift of giving and share with those who don't have.

If God's given us more than we need, it's so that we can give it away. Amen?

And, of course, what you need is open to question, isn't it?

But King Lemuel had an interesting prayer. Daddy Frodsham used to teach us. He used to say:

"I think we all ought to pray what King Lemuel prayed."

It's in Proverbs 30:8.

He said: "Remove far from me vanity and lies. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord?"

Or lest I be poor and steal and take the name of my God in vain."

Don't give me poverty because I might be poor and steal and take the name of the Lord in vain.

But don't give me riches because I might be full and deny the Lord.

And this wise king recognized there were pressures and problems on both sides of poverty and riches, didn't he?

And Daddy said, Daddy Franchum used to tell us, let's just be content with what the Lord provides. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and... All these things shall be added unto you.

And don't worry too much about it. He'll take care of the things if we take care of the kingdom. Amen?

I think that's wisdom.

On the other hand,

Here is the cleaned-up sermon transcription:

We recognize, as the Lord does from time to time, there are sovereign appointments of the Lord over the lives of people. I remember years ago, in fact, it was 1965, in a camp meeting in New York. Where we were ministering with a brother. And as we were ministering to him, it's the only time in my life the Lord ever gave me this for someone, but the Lord gave me a passage of Scripture out of the Old Testament for this brother. And the Scripture was this: "It is the Lord thy God that giveth thee power to get wealth." And so I said, Brother, the Lord has really called you to a special ministry of accumulating wealth. And I presume that you understand that it's not just so that you will be personally enriched, but that you will become a channel of supply for the kingdom of God.

So his response to my saying that to him was, "You're right, Brother Ralph." The Lord has done that and has given me that gift. In fact, that scripture you just gave me is taped right on my mirror in my bathroom, and every morning when I get up, I look at it: "It is the Lord thy God who giveth thee power to get wealth."

And as it turned out, he worked in the stock market in Toronto. He got up early every morning before stock markets in the United States and Canada were open and with his computer tied in to Switzerland and to the Hong Kong market and to the London market to see what was happening in international finance. And what he was able to do is get a jump on everybody and get his trading started at 3:30 in the morning and 2:30 in the morning.

And in the process of doing that, he was making a lot of money for investors who put millions and millions of dollars in his hands to invest, and he would make 20%, 30% better return off of the money than the average investors were making. And so the Lord had given him that special gift of getting wealth.

Unfortunately, as I followed that brother's life, seven, eight, nine years, just keeping in touch with friends who knew him. He lost out with the Lord and died a drunkard. His wealth and his power to get it cursed him. And I must say with all due respect that wealth is a very dangerous thing.

I've worked with a fair number of rich people, and most of them have sorrows, grave, grave sorrows come upon their life. Come from a family of people who, like myself, we were very, very poor when I was a child. The year I was born, my father had $200 in income with a family of six children. I was the sixth and a wife, of course. And living on $200 a year with six children is not the easiest thing. That's kind of poor, I guess, by today's standards.

Now, we didn't know we were below the poverty line in those years. But we were poor by any standard of our nation, the United States, even for those depression years. But out of that poverty in my own family, I have part of the family served the Lord, part of them didn't. I'm the part that did.

But of those that didn't, most of them went on to become millionaires. There were seven children in the family, very rich, in this world's goods. In the process, I've watched those riches destroy them. And I've seen very hurt, broken, empty lives as they got on up to the age that I am and kind of frightens you when you see people destroyed by money.

The love of money, folks, is still the root of all evil, believe me. And if you covet after it, it's got a lot of snares and a lot of hooks and a lot of hurts in it, as Paul says. So two of my brothers are corporate presidents. They command vast resources. One has 15,000 people in his chain of command. They can command the jets, the limousines, the whole life of the multimillionaire.

But what is a life like that? Apart from total dedication to the Lord, it's empty. My oldest brother, who is a corporate president and just retired, is cynical. Bitter, old, and a drunkard. No happiness. Nothing in his life but emptiness.

And I look at what wealth does to people and it scares me a little bit when people want to get a lot of it. How hardly shall they that have riches enter the kingdom? They very seldom do.

You work with the very rich of this world, and we've lived in the homes of multi-millionaires. We had a fellow in Singapore who was Chinese, and he had a mansion that cost about five, seven million dollars to build and almost solid marble. His offices were in a 65-story building he owned in Singapore.

He commanded a vast multinational empire of multiplied hundreds of millions of dollars in wealth. And after seminar meetings in Singapore, it wasn't unusual for him to invite 20 or 30 of us out for fellowship. He had just found the Lord a year or two before, but my, what a life filled with sorrow. He still had to reap a lot of what he had sowed, even though he had found the Lord.

And what emptiness and brokenness filled his life. And he was so hungry for fellowship. He'd invite 20 or 30 of us out after a meeting and drop $3,000 or $4,000 just on a little after-meeting get-together of people. I mean, he just lived in a whole world that most of us would never know anything about.

But working with those kinds of people who hold these vast resources and having them pour out their heart and share them with you, you realize that those things bring with them tremendous problems, tremendous difficulties.

Now, that's not to discourage you. It is to say to you that a life lived... A life of faith that is lived almost always has to have in it areas where we need faith. The Bible says in Habakkuk, and it's repeated in Hebrews twice, and it says the just shall what? Live by faith.

I remember when we were starting out years ago, a brother gave me this word of wisdom. He said, you know, Brother Ralph, what your problem is? I said, no. He says, you want to exercise faith today. In such a way that you don't need any tomorrow.

Did anybody hear what I just said? You want to exercise faith today in such a way that you don't need any tomorrow. And I said, well, what do you mean? He said, well, here you are praying for God to give you enough money for your work and your ministry and your calling so that you know that tomorrow you don't need God.

You won't need Him tomorrow if you get enough today, right? And I thought as I reflected on that, he's right. I'm trying to reach out not for today. Today's taken care of. Today doesn't bother me, but what bothers me? Tomorrow. I mean, right now I'm all right standing right here in front of you, but what about tomorrow as there's going to be enough then?

And I was wanting to use my faith today to cover my tomorrows as a young person. And, of course, that gets to be a terrific exercise in frustration because the Lord gave us pretty clear instructions about tomorrow. He said, don't be anxious about it. And I was being anxious. Don't get worried about that, you know. That day has got its own problems, and you're going to need faith for it when it comes.

But don't worry about it. All your faith needs to operate in is not in the sweet by and by, but your faith only has to operate in the present, nasty, now and now. Amen? That's all you need faith for is today. Today. This is the day the Lord has made.

Now, let me put all this into practical context. There are many folk here who would like the Lord to make them a channel of blessing and giving, and I believe many of you will no doubt come into that. But how are you going to come into that? How's God going to do that?

You see, the thing that we often think of is that you come into enlargement in some sort of a miracle where, bang, overnight, it happens. And you wake up in the morning and suddenly you're a millionaire or suddenly you're, you know, some great ministry or suddenly you're something.

But Jesus said that you need faith that what? Grows what? As? A grain of mustard seed. Now, how many of you have ever planted and grown crops?

Let me just see your hand. Any, ever grown a plant of some kind? I remember when I was a little kid, they were teaching us how to plant seeds and grow them in school, and we used to have these little projects that involved planting seed.

Well, my problem was I'd plant the seed, then I wanted to dig it up the next day to see how, you know, how it was doing. How many of you know if you dig it up, you mess up the process?

In a sense, I think many of us examine our growth, our faith that way. We're constantly pulling it out to see if the seed's growing and examining it instead of just letting it naturally mature.

But where does everything in life start? You see, whenever the Lord challenged us, for example, about starting this ministry called World Map, we had less than $10 in assets, cash assets. We had nothing with which to start.

But as I prayed and I said, well, now, Lord, you're asking me to do this. How in the world do you expect me to do it? And the Lord always has a very simple answer for anybody that wants to know where to start and how.

He asks us the same question that he asked Moses when Moses, or how he responded to Moses when Moses said that to the Lord. Go with me to the book of Exodus a moment, and here's a good study in the growth of faith.

This is in Exodus chapter 4. Exodus chapter 4 and verse 1. Moses answered and said, But behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice, for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee.

Now here was Moses trying to figure out how he was going to do what the Lord had just told him in the previous chapter. The Lord had appeared to him in the burning fiery bush, and Moses had all kinds of objections. They were all valid. They were all logical.

But finally he agrees to go and do what the Lord said, and the Lord had told him to go into Egypt and deliver the people. But he said, who do I start with? And he said, well, you start with the elders.

Well, how am I ever going to get... before Pharaoh. And, you know, he has all these questions. And so the Lord says, Lord, they're not going to believe me. They're not going to listen to me. They're not going to believe that you've appeared to me.

So how in the world do I start? And what was the Lord's response in verse 2? The Lord said unto him, and what's the question? What is that in what? Thine hand.

And he said, a what? A rod. Now that's the question the Lord is asking you today. You say, well, I'd like to be a channel of supply for the kingdom of God. So the Lord says, okay, if you really want to be that, if you want to be one who is blessed and upon whom I can pour a lot of resource to fund the kingdom of God, what do you have in your hand right now?

You might ask yourself that question today, and your answer might be, well, it was for me when the Lord asked me that, well, less than $10.

But how many of you know how you multiply your wheat? How do you multiply it? You do what? You plant it. You plant it. If you want to multiply it, you plant it. You must sow it in the ground as good seed.

And then what do you have to do? You've got to wait for the harvest. You've got to wait for it.

Unfortunately, we think, bang, plant my seed today, tomorrow I go out and reap my harvest. No, it doesn't happen that quick, usually. Sometimes the Lord will respond very quickly, but usually there's a process of time.

You see, the book of Hebrews talks about those who with faith and what else? Patience inherit the promise.

Now, a good study in the contrast between faith and patience is Abraham and Sarah. God had spoken to Abraham. He had gone out by faith into a land he was to after receive for an inheritance.

But when he got out there and the years kept passing and he was getting older and Sarah was getting older and every prospect of God's promise ever being fulfilled was getting less and less and less with every passing year.

Finally, one day, Sarah comes to Abraham and says, Abraham, I've got a good idea how we can help God out. What was her good idea? Take my handmaiden.

Now, we're still living with the results of that good idea. The fruit of that good idea was the birth of who? Ishmael.

And all of his descendants today live right across North Africa, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan. How many of you know that's kind of a hot spot, Saudi Arabia?

Difficult times because of Ishmael. Ishmael's presence is really being felt in the world these days with Libya and all of these Ishmaelites that sprang from Sarah's good idea.

Now, what was her problem? She had faith, but she didn't have what? Absence of patience.

With faith and patience, we inherit the promise. And the point is, when you sow your seed, then you have to wait for your harvest.

And that sometimes in the purposes of God may be a few days, a few months, a few years, or a long time, just depending on what God is working out in your life in the process of testing your faith, trying your faith.

Because any time you set out in God to obtain something, you're always, as we've been told many times this week already, the Lord sets before you an open door, and there are many what? Adversaries.

Anytime you start down the path of possessing God's promises, there's always giants in the land, always adversaries in the open door, always problems and trials.

Now, I know that most of us have the feeling that all test trials and problems come from the devil, but David didn't believe that. He said, the Lord trieth the righteous. Psalm 11, I believe it is, about verse 5. The Lord trieth the righteous.

Peter says, don't think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened unto you. But rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings that when he shall appear ye will have exceeding joy.

What is it the trial of? The trial of your faith.

The moment by faith you set out to possess something, what's going to happen? It's going to be tried. It's going to be tested.

When people give... these tremendous prophecies at times over me. And I, you know, I praise the Lord for the people's obedience and that the Lord is talking to me.

But, you know, I used to, when I was very young, when I'd hear those tremendous prophecies about what the Lord wanted to do, I'd say, Hallelujah! Glory to God! Man, let's go get it, you know.

And, of course, in going and getting it, I had a bunch of giants that I wasn't expecting that sprung out of the trees and the bushes. And by the time I'd gotten it, why, boy, I was staggered and bruised and beating and, whew, I don't think I want any more of the promised land.

Anyway, what happens is after a few of those, you know, battles that you go out and fight for the Lord and you come back kind of beat up and bruised at times from the battles, why, you hear these tremendous prophecies.

And boy, you just think, oh, brother, here we go again. Because that's what's getting ready to happen.

Every word of God is pure, says in Proverbs 28. The Hebrew is every word of God is purified. Meaning that when God speaks, that word is tested and purified by tests and trials, the trial of your faith.

So if you want faith to grow, first of all, there has to be a planting of the seed. Secondly, there's going to be testings and trials that come to that. You're going to have to start where you are with what you have now.

People say, well, I'd like to be a channel of supply for the kingdom of God. If the Lord had just given me a million dollars, I'd put $950,000 of it back into his work.

So I say, well, how much are you doing now? Well, I don't have any money, so I'm not doing anything. Well, what's that in your hand? Well, I only have five dollars, only making a dollar an hour, just started out.

Well, the point is, folks, that faith, when it begins to operate, begins to operate where you are with what you have now. Always. It doesn't operate on some distant, far thing that's going to be down the road. It starts where you are with what you have now.

Let me put this into practical context for you because I'm trying to give you something practical that'll help you in the growth of faith.

Now, you can go through all your life thinking that someday God's just going to drop, you know, a whole dump truck load of faith on you and you're going to suddenly be God's man of faith and power for the hour. It won't happen that way.

If you come to strong faith, it's going to be from faith to what? To faith, from glory to glory, from victory to victory. You're going to take it in stepping stones.

It's very rare, it sometimes happens, but it's very rare that God comes along and dumps a dump truck full of faith on you and you go out the rest of your life with all this great faith running out of your ears.

You come from a seed that God gives you and by what you do with that seed, faith starts growing and as the years go by, your faith keeps increasing. Ever-increasing faith. Faith that grows as a grain of mustard seed.

The seed's planted, it begins to come up, and if it's continued to water, get water and nutrients and sunshine, it becomes a great tree. And when it becomes great, you have all faith. Mountain faith will move mountains. Seed faith will move seeds.

But you see, it starts that way, and if you don't exercise and use the faith you've got today, you won't have more tomorrow.

Years ago when my wife and I were pioneering churches, we were dealt with by the Lord, and I often wonder if we don't do a great disservice to people by not being more frank and candid about what it costs to serve the Lord

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Rave him, it usually doesn't work that way. If you're going to come after him, there's a self-denial involved. There is a price to pay. There's a forsaking all. And then you follow him. And when you have given up houses, and lands, and father, and mother for his sake in the gospel, what does he promise he'll do for you later on in life? He promises that he'll give you back houses, and lands, and fathers, and mothers, and all that you've forsaken.

Now, in plain terms, what is that simple principle? The simple principle is everything you forsake, God will what? Give back, right? But the problem is we want to get without the forsaking. We want to get the return, the harvest, without the planting. And I've often told folks who want to go on with the Lord, you know, you seek the Lord about it, but I only know what it costs me, and I don't say that everyone patterns their life after mine.

Obviously, they shouldn't. But when we were starting out... Early 20s, well, actually, back before that, the Lord had dealt with us too, but I won't go into that. But after I was married, now I have a wife to consider and a family to establish and all this business that goes on.

And while I believe that it's every minister of the gospel's first obligation to make sure their family and their wife and children are cared for, we can also make an idolatry out of the family. And it's possible to bow down and worship at that altar and not do the will of God because it's going to cost you something with regard to the family and the wife and the kids.

And so the family can become an idol that prevents us from doing the will of God. But in our case, the Lord just simply said, get rid of everything. Get rid of everything. Well, Lord, I've been working, saved up all this money, and we got this, that, and the other thing, and I was prospering, and I was right on the track that my family members had been on of, you know, starting out in business and making a lot of money and so on.

And that led them on to, you know, they all went on to become rich people. I went on to become richer in the Lord's work, not economically, but spiritually. But the point is that when we started out on that track, the Lord says, divest yourself of everything, give it all away, and start with nothing. Nothing.

Oh, my Lord. Well, we were back to one suitcase, one $70 car, and less than $20. We had sent quite a few thousands of dollars off to missionary purposes to get rid of what we had saved to that point in our marriage and back down to one suitcase between my wife and I, one old car that I was able to pick up for $70 and less than $20 in cash, and we were going off to Pioneer Church out in the country.

And that's where we started, and it was out of that context of the Lord taking what we didn't have. He said, get rid of it, plant it, sow it, and I'm going to teach you a life of faith. Now, you see, we think faith operates in the arena of having a lot. No, faith operates when you don't have very much because you have to believe that the Lord can take a little manna and make a whole lot out of it if that's all you're able to gather is a little.

Is that the way it worked in the wilderness? Is that the way it worked in the wilderness? They that gathered a little manna, what does the Bible say? They didn't have any lack. Those who gathered a lot of manna, what does it say? Had none over. Some that kept it over, those that kept over and gathered more manna than they needed and didn't use it, what happened to it?

Breadworms and stunk, the Bible says. Now, in that whole exercise, the Lord was trying to show a simple principle. If you're obeying the Lord and you gather a little, the Lord can take the little and with his blessings on it, a little can be and do the work of much, right?

How did Jesus fulfill his ministry when he was here on earth? Let's get it into perspective a little bit. How did he feed the multitudes? With all due respects, he didn't find the local millionaire. What did he find? He found a little guy with a lunch whose mother had the forethought to prepare him a lunch since he was going out to a wilderness place to listen to Jesus.

And he took that little boy's lunch of five loaves and two fishes. And what did he do with it? Well, the Bible says that he blessed it first of all, and then he what? He broke it, and then a multitude was fed. What is the Lord asking of you today?

What you have where you are now. You say, well, all I've got is five loaves and two fishes. How many of you know with his blessing, five loaves and two fishes can feed a multitude and you beside? Is that right? With his blessings. Can it?

Sure, it can feed a multitude and you decide if you'll surrender what you've got to the Lord. Now, did that little boy need faith to give up his lunch to Jesus? He did if he thought he was going to eat. It took faith to surrender it to Jesus. Give him the five loaves and two fishes because he was just as hungry as the rest.

But in giving it up, then the Lord's miracle of multiplication comes on it, and what happens? Not only is the multitude fed, how many of you know there were quite a few baskets left over?

I don't know what the Lord did with that. The Scripture doesn't say, but I rather suspect He might have given one of the boy to take home with him, or maybe two or three. And the young lad ended up with far more than he gave.

Now, was that young lad operating in the gift of giving? Sure he was. Was he operating with a whole lot of resource? No, he wasn't. But when he gave what he had, surrendered what he had, and started where he was, then the Lord was able to take that and multiply it to where his need was met.

Permit me to go on and take that a little bit further. In the Old Testament, there's a very interesting story back in 1 Kings, I believe it's chapter 17, or 1 Samuel 17. Let's check that out, see which one it is.

It's in the story of Elijah and the little widow of Zarephath. And I think that's 1 Kings 17. Here's this little widow of Zarephath. I was in that city in Israel a few years ago. Interesting little town.

Now, whenever the Lord sent the prophet to her, He sent the prophet with this word, I've got a widow down here and I've commanded her, the widow, to sustain thee. Now what was the prophet's problem at this point? One, he had obeyed the Lord. He had gone up by a brook and he had camped out there for some weeks or months.

The scripture doesn't give us the precise time frames. But eventually what happened to this brook he was camping by? Dried up. For what reason? No rain. Why wasn't there any rain? The prophet's prophecy was coming to pass. There won't be any rain except at my word.

And his own prophecy dried up his own brook. And he was there with no water and no food. And then what happens? The Lord says, get up from here and go to Zarephath. I've commanded a widow there to sustain thee.

Now, when he comes on the scene, the widow is gathering a few sticks, and she's got what does her total resource consist of? A little oil and what? And a little meal in a barrel. A little oil and a little meal.

Now what does the prophet tell her? He says to this little woman, fear not. Fear not. Why do you think he said fear not? Well, she was getting ready to cook her last meal and die. I mean, this was not exactly the woman of faith and power that we would think of, you know, that was going to sustain the prophet.

She was facing the reality that her time was short. She had one meal left, and she was getting ready to fix it for herself and her son and die. And yet the Lord, as she has spoken of in the New Testament, Jesus, in fact, said of this little widow, there was no one in Israel that had the faith she had.

Is that right? And yet she is fixing her last meal to die. Doesn't sound like she had great faith? Doesn't sound like it, does it? But that's because we don't understand faith.

And let me just explain in one simple word what faith is. It is no big complicated deal, folks. It's so simple. As they say down south, it's just like eating cabbage. Faith is simply this. And you can write this down, and this will stand every test of faith.

Faith is obedient action in response to what God has said. Faith is obedient action in response to what God has said. That is it. That's faith. Faith is obedient action in response to what God has said. Now, we think of faith as some great emotion that fills us and overwhelms us, and, you know, we feel it, and it comes surging out of us like 2,000 volts of electricity striking people everywhere.

No, that's not faith. No, I'm not suggesting that's, you know, if you've got those kind of emotions, well, go ahead and enjoy them. But that isn't faith. Faith is obedient action in response to what God has said, period. Faith, number one, always acts. It always acts in obedience. And it always acts in obedience to what God has said, what God has spoken.

Now, what was the test of this little lady's faith? It wasn't that she was a woman supercharged with faith and standing out there in the face of this famine and drought and saying, glory to God, you know, she was out there gathering the sticks to build the fire, to cook the little patty to feed her son herself, and what was her expectation?

To die. But what was the proof of her faith? The proof of her faith was that when the prophet spoke to her and said, little widow, What I want you to do is make me of it a little what? What does it say in verse 13? But make me of it what? A little what? Cake what? First and bring it unto me and afterwards make for thee and for thy son. Take care of me first.

Now was that because this prophet was selfish and... I tell you, if I had been Elijah, I would have choked on those words. Telling a poor widow that was fixing her last meal before dying to, you know, cook for me first. That would have killed me to have to tell her that.

I don't know about you, but it kills me to just take an offering, much less tell people to fix me something when they're going to fix their last meal and die. Make me a little cake first. Now, what was her response to that? What was it?

Obedient action based on what God had said. She heard the voice of the Lord and the voice of the prophet, and what did she do? She did what the prophet said. And immediately the promise comes, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not be used up, neither shall the crucible fail until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth.

And verse 16 says that's exactly what happened. Now the point of this story is, folks, this. Obedient action to what God has said. That's the essence of faith. Obedient response to what God has said. And if you're wanting the Lord to bless your life, he gives you some very simple little things to do.

He says, give and what? It shall be given unto you. All right? So what's the problem? The problem is we don't have faith. To act on that. We don't act in obedience to what he has said. And so we don't give. And we don't get blessed.

And then we come and we want somebody to pray for us because we've got a need. Now the fact is this. I'm just talking about now the church worldwide. Right in the United States, I don't know anything about the church up here in Canada. I suspect it's analogous to the U.S.

But you know that in the United States, for example, that among all the born-again believers, we're not talking now about just the nominal Christians, among the born-again believers, less than 20% of them even tithe, even give 10% of their income to the Lord's work, less than 20%. They're just, you know, they give God tips when they go to church. Offerings taken, oh, here's a tip.

You know, and that's kind of their attitude toward giving. You know, it's like tip God. No plan of giving, no faith in their giving. And that's a statement to God, I don't need you. I can get along without you.

You know, I'd far rather have God's, the 90% with God's blessings than the 100% without it. Wouldn't you? See, but it takes faith to deprive yourself of that first 10%.

It takes faith. It's a statement of faith. Lord, I believe your blessing on the 90% will make it go further than if I kept the whole or 98% for myself and just give you 1% or 2%. And how many of you know that that principle of faith does work?

That when you tithe, when you give consistently, set aside the first fruits, which is what the Bible says, the Lord doesn't say, pay all your bills if you've got anything left. You know, we were told down in the Washington camp about the fellow who wanted to give to God, so he brought his paycheck home after he'd cashed it, and he took all the bills out, and he would throw it up in the air, and he'd say, now, Lord, anything you want, you take, and what comes down, I keep.

That was his giving program. Well, that isn't the way to do it. How many of you know that? The way to do it is to start out doing what the Bible says, obedient response to what God has said.

If you're not tithing, don't go and pray, God, bless me so I can tithe. Start tithing so God can bless you. You understand? I mean, that's simple. I mean, just do it. I mean, what most Christians are involved in is tithing to the bank and the finance companies and the credit card companies and, you know, up to their ears in debt when the Bible says, oh, no man anything but to love one another.

It isn't hard to be successful. Just don't borrow money. Save what you got and give what you save. Do it God's way and you'll be blessed. Give consistently. Set aside a percentage and tithing is where all faith starts.

I mean, that's the irreducible minimum. You set aside 10%. Now, if God's blessing on 90% can expand that 90% to go further than... the 100% without His blessings, and I believe it can, and in fact I know it can because we've proved it all our life.

If God blesses the 90% because of the 10% you planted into the work of the Lord, and that 90% goes further than the 100% without His blessing, could the same thing work if you gave 20% to the Lord?

Would the same principle work if you did it in faith? Can the Lord make 80 cents go as far as a dollar if His blessing is on the 80 cents? Can he? Can he make it go further than a dollar if his blessing is on it? Sure he can.

People often come to me and they say, Brother Ralph, I'm in this terrible dilemma. I don't know what to do. I attend a local church and I want to support it, but I want to give to missions. Where does my tithe belong?

Well, let me tell you, we don't ever tell people where to give. You know, if they feel the Lord wants them to help the ministry, we say, praise God, we appreciate it, and we'll receive it with thankfulness.

But I said, look, it's no big deal. It's simple. We solved it 34 years ago. Well, not 34. What's 1952? Okay. We resolved that problem 34 years ago. We just give a tithe to the local church and tithe to missions. Simple. No tension, no problem.

Local church gets its support. Missions get its support, right? How many of you know that's a simple solution? No tension left, and you just give to both.

And if the pastor says, the tithe belongs in the local church, well, praise the Lord, here it is, pastor. Someone comes along and says, we need to spread the gospel around, Lord. Glory to God, I believe that. Here it is, Lord. Spread the gospel around the world, support the local church.

Well, the point is, every believer could easily do that. Now, not very many do. There are some, and some right here in this room that do more than that, and God has blessed them, and they are blessed for doing it.

But, see, we talk about faith, but we always talk about it in the abstract. How many of you know faith works right down where you live every day? It works in simple things like a tithe, like a second tithe, like giving offerings above that, in all those areas.

And the Lord usually makes those challenges to you when you have the least, just like this little widow of Zarephath. Her faith was challenged at the point in her life when she probably had less than any other time.

But how many of you know that when she obeyed, it opened the windows of heaven? She received a blessing there wasn't room enough to receive.

Now, if you're in a difficult time financially, you need to look back and say, did I do what the Lord said? If you did, then you have the right to go before the Lord and say to him, now look, Lord, I did this thing the way you told me. What's the problem?

And the Lord can show you what the problem is.

I reached that point in 1957. where I had faithfully supported the Lord's work and had practiced what I'm talking to you about. We'd been practicing for several years at that time, double tithing, a tithe of the Lord's work, a tithe of missions, and giving offerings beyond

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The Lord spoke to me about getting out of debt and staying out. Get out and stay out. We had a bunch of bills, time payments. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and what? All these things will be added unto you.

We were in debt for a washing machine and a dryer and furniture, and we were making these payments, and there was high interest on them, as there usually is. And we were just following the typical pattern of the average American family. And here we are now facing bills with no money to pay.

So I said, "All right, Lord, I'll get out and I'll stay out if you'll show me how." And I asked, "Why do you want me out of that?" The Lord says, "If you're going to be one of my soldiers, you've got to be available to me."

And he who wears himself out in the affairs of this life will not have God's pleasure. This is a quote from 2 Timothy. He who wears himself out entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who calls him.

Solomon says, "He who borrows is a slave to him who lends." So if you're in debt today, you're in slavery. You've got masters that control your life and you're not fully available to the Lord. So get out. Get out of debt. It's just that simple.

Be available to the Lord. Be the Lord's man. I'm not talking about some of you who are businessmen and who might have to manage lending and resources and assets. That's a whole different ballgame from private individuals who live down where most of us do.

In management and administration of huge corporate conglomerates, you have to manage multi-million, multi-billion dollar debts, and it's just one of the resources you work with, like raw materials. That's a whole different ballgame I'm talking about that. I'm talking about personal responsibility before the Lord and before others.

You see, the problem is we don't want to exercise patience with faith. Patience will wait for God's provision to buy what we need. But we can't wait. We've got to have it today. And so we mortgage our future and we reduce our spendable income by 15, 20, 30 percent by all the interest that we load on.

And all that does is get you into a downward spiral where it becomes self-defeating. If you discipline yourself to not spend what you don't have and to put the Lord's work first, you'll prosper. There's no way but you can help but prosper.

But anyway, the Lord says, "Get out of debt and stay out." So I said, "All right, Lord, with your help I will." What else? I've got $180. I'm facing $300 in bills. Lord, what am I going to do?

The Lord says, "Well, take the $180 and send it to a missionary by the name of Esther Osborne in India." Dear Lord, did I just hear you? I mean, I'm then down to zero facing $300 in bills. But in obedience to the Lord, I sealed it up, put the money into American Express, which is the way we transferred funds in those years, sent it off to this missionary in India.

Now, we literally were down to zero. Nothing. And a few days away from needing quite a few hundreds of dollars, at least by where we were at in that point in our life. It's back about 1957.

What do you think happened on that day? I go to the mailbox to pick up our mail, and here's an envelope. Come from way across the country, mailed the same day I put that American Express thing in the mail to India. Here was a check mailed from way across the country from people we hadn't heard from in years.

And what do you think was inside? More than $300. $380. So we had everything to pay all the bills and $80 left over, which was in those years a week's salary.

How many of you know the Lord is faithful? Now, what was involved in that little transaction? What was involved? Faith, obedience. Faith is an obedient response to what God has said.

Obedient response. Faith was involved. And what did the Lord do? Because of that obedience, He did provide. He supplied. And I learned a lesson that day.

And I took the other $80 that was left over and I applied that toward payments that weren't due yet. Because that was also obedient response. God said, "Get out of debt." So I started taking every dime I could lay my hands on above what was absolutely needed for the irreducible minimums of life and started paying off the debt quick ahead of schedule.

And got out of debt and apart from the payment on our home, which we make every month as most of the rest of you, I haven't had faith for that. But apart from that, we've never had a payment since. Never had a payment.

Now I have a whole pocket full of credit cards. Why do I carry them? To defer payment? No. For the convenience so I don't have to carry so much cash around.

But every one of them are paid before there's a nickel's interest due on them. And it's a convenience for me. It might not be for you. And if credit cards are a snare to you, burn them up, tear them up, get rid of them. I don't use them to go in debt. I just use them as a convenience, as a substitute for cash, so I don't have to carry around a pocket full of cash to meet the obligations that I've run into traveling and so on.

But the point of that story is that we've never gone in debt a day from that day till this. And the Lord has indeed, as we've sought first, the kingdom of God and His righteousness added all these things to us. Houses, furnishings, cars, clothes, everything needed, children's education. It's all come by the Lord's provision.

But where does it start? It starts, folks, with acts of obedience to what God says. That's where it all starts. In giving in every area of our life and lining them up with the simple teachings of God's Word. Now, that's how faith grows.

As the Lord was challenging us back in 1953 in one of our pioneer pastoral ministries to double our giving, to double tithe, He was challenging us at a time in our life when our average income was running about $10 a week.

I'd left a real good high-paying job to step down to $10 a week, giving everything away and gone into that Pioneer Church situation. But when we were making $10 a week, the Lord says, "Double tithe." And that's when the Lord was starting to teach me some of these simple principles I'm trying to share with you today.

So out of $10 a week, we were taking two, one for the local church, one for the work of the Lord overseas, and setting it aside before anything else. That left us $8 on an average to live on.

And the Lord took that $8 and multiplied it to meet our needs. Now, I'd left a job at that time that was paying $500, $600 a month, and was on the way on up to a whole lot more money.

And, of course, you know that... In 1952 or three, five or six hundred a month in would probably be twenty-five hundred, three thousand a month now, in equivalent to purchasing power. But we were on the way up when the Lord says, no, the other way that I want you to go is the way down, and then I want to take you up.

And the point is that the Lord took that little bit of eight dollars a week, multiplied it, His blessing was on the manna, and you can see I've never gone hungry when I wanted to eat. And we never missed a meal we wanted to eat. We always have had the Lord's provision constant in our life based on the fact that we've tried to obey Him.

We've tried to practice the principles of faith. Now let me just give you this one little thing to reinforce it. You remember I said that until you have faith to abandon it and to give it up, you don't have faith to receive it.

We talk in terms of prosperity these days, and it's true. God does love to prosper His people, but on the basis of His principles and of His Word. And so we look at Moses' life, and what's the first thing we read about faith operating in his life? When you read the early verses of Hebrews 11, it says, By faith Moses forsook Egypt.

What does that mean? Well, it means he was in line to become the next Pharaoh, or at least the prime minister, and he turned his back on that. As the Pharaoh or prime minister, he would have had command of Egypt's entire national treasury. He would have had the equivalent of millions at his command. He would have had an army at his command. He would have had a high position at his command.

But by faith he didn't get it. By faith he walked away from it. By faith he forsook it. Not fearing the wrath of the king because he esteemed the reproach of Christ's greater riches. The reproach of Christ was greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.

How many of you esteemed the reproach of Christ's greater riches than the treasures of this world? Moses did. By faith he forsook the riches of this world, esteeming the reproach of Christ's greater riches. He had faith to forsake it.

Now you know some years later, 40 some years later, He walked out of Egypt, and how many of you know that the Israelis took all the gold and silver with them? That's right. The Bible clearly shows us that they took it all with them.

He didn't have faith to possess it until he had faith to forsake it. And if you want to be an instrument of provision to the kingdom of God today, why, start planting what you've got, where you are, with what you have now.

And the Lord will honor it, and your faith will grow. If you've got faith to give a double tithe when God's blessing you with $10 a week, how many of you know you'll have faith to give a double tithe when He's blessing you with $500 a week?

Or faith to give a double tithe when he might be giving you a whole lot more than that. But the point is it starts where you are with what you've got now. Obedient response.

And then faith will grow as you continue to give obedient response to the Lord. How many of you would like faith that grows as a grain of mustard seed? Hallelujah.

And you can have it if you just continue to obey what the Lord says to you. Begin where you are with what you have now, and then watch God add to you.

And if He does in His time pour millions into your hands, I trust you'll have the faith to let it flow to the kingdom, because that's what it takes. It always takes faith to release it. If you don't have the faith, it'll destroy you. It will absolutely destroy you.

But if you have the faith and let it just keep on flowing through the kingdom, there's no question God could pour all kinds of resources through the hands of his children, and he does and he will.