Faith--The Key to God's Smokehouse

This is an article taken from a little booklet entitled Food, Fasting, and Faith written by whom I have esteemed in the past as one of the greatest preachers that has lived in our time, Evangelist Lestor Roloff. He was a man full of faith, also he was an humble man. He provided the basis for a great spiritual growth spurt in my life when I was in my late twenties. Brother Lestor Roloff has been with the Lord now for many years, but his preaching still remains...

Four times--in Habakkuk, Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews, we are told that "Now the just shall live by faith." Please read Hebrews 10:32 - 12:4 for this is the Pike's Peak of the book. As I sit here and write this chapter, it looks to me like every door is closing and this is the most unusual experience in my twenty-six years of preaching and yet, inside there is a calm and a peace and an assurance and my confidence in Jesus grows stronger every day. His grace is sufficient to lead me in His way. Therefore, I cannot live under the circumstances or on what it looks like or seems like. That song keeps coming to me even in this trying time and testing time~"The thing that you have prayed for is on its way and paid for." Oh, may God bless this chapter to my own soul as well as yours for the sake of the cause and the many ministries God has given us.

Faith lives in the high tower. Paul said to the Ephesian Church, "Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." That old four star general who could prove his faith by his scars said, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." Faith was his crowning virtue. Even though he lost his head, he kept his faith.
In the first place, let me say that faith is not wishing, wanting, trying, hoping, striving, or even waiting. Most of these are enemies of real Bible faith. Let me give you some thirty things that came to me this afternoon concerning faith.

1. Faith is real. It is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Spiritual substance is the evidence of the only things that are real.
2. Faith is a gift. Romans 12:3, "As God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith." Ephesians 2, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast."
3. Faith is the life of Christ. Galatians 2:20, "The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Philippians 3:9, "And be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." Romans 3:22, "Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all thm that believe."
4. Faith is the rope tied to the bucket of reality, dipping itself into the fullness of God.
5. Faith is stepping when there is no place to step, like Moses at the Red Sea when commanded of the Lord to go forward. Like the colored man who was chided because of his great faith in God and someone said, "I guess if God told you to jump through that brick wall, you'd jump." He said, "Yes sir; it's my responsibility to jump and God's to make a hole in the wall."
6. Faith is victory. "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith."
7. Faith is living the overcoming life.
8. Faith is more forceful than fire. Jesus became the fourth man in the fire for the Hebrew children and they came out without the smell of smoke.
9. Faith is the key to the lion's jaws. It delivered Daniel without a scratch.
10. Faith is the power that destroyed the walls of Jericho.
11. Faith is the road to the city not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Abraham must have become the laughing stock of his neighbors and friends and business associates and yet, faith justified him as we see Lazarus in Abraham's bosom. He certainly had found that city.
12. Faith became deliverance for the millions of Israelites without a shot being fired and with only one casualty, and that cost Moses a sentence of forty years in the wilderness. You know, faith never uses force or the flesh or pressure~it works altogether by spiritual laws and principles. That's the reason it is so despised and misunderstood by the world. Faith scarcely makes the headlines with man, but it makes the Who's Who of heaven.
13. Faith is seeing the unseen~the invisible. Moses, by faith, saw Him who is invisible. It looks like everything is in the very grip of the picture show hour and the seeing time now. The thing that got Eve~when she SAW. The thing that precipitated the flood~when the sons of God SAW. The thing that wrecked Acham~when he SAW, lusted, and took. The thing that knocked David from the pinnacle of power~when he SAW Bathsheba. The thing that brought about a broken-hearted Moses~when the people cried to Aaron for a god they could SEE. Oh, how could so much junk crawl up in our homes and churches to blind the eye of faith and dishonor God.
14. Faith is endurance. "He endured as seeing Him who is invisible."
15. Faith is the opposite of fear. The parents of Moses were not afraid because they had faith, Hebrews 11:23.
16. Faith is pleasing God. "Without faith, it is impossible to please Him." "He that cometh to God must believe that He is." "Now faith is." Faith makes Jesus current with your problems. Faith makes Him a today's Saviour and Helper.
17. Faith is Bible living. "The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach," Romans 10:8.
18. Faith is salvation. "By grace are ye saved through faith."
19. Faith is the Christian's keeping power. "Who are kept through  the power of God through faith."
20. Faith is the hand and arm that is reaching after the garment of God for certain healing. The woman for twelve years had exhausted money, strength, and every hope and yet, when by faith she touched Him, she felt that she was made whole and she was and even though she had an element of fear, she was still made whole and Jesus commended her.
21. Faith is man's extremity and God's opportunity. Faith works better when the last straw of human help has been exhausted. When Jacob was shut up to faith at Jabbok, he came out with the victory.
22. Faith is life's extension cord. Hezekiah prayed after the undertaker had knocked on the door and God gave him fifteen more years.
23. Faith is the authority of God. The centurion cried out, "Speak the word only and he shall be healed"
24. Faith is the mixture that makes the Gospel effective, Hebrews 4:2.
25. Faith is the storm-stopper. Jesus said, "Peace, be still," and the waves laid down like obedient dogs. After fourteen days of abstinence, Paul stood on the wind and rain swept deck and said it would be all right, "For I believe God."
26. Faith is man resting and God working.
27. Faith is receiving. Mark 11:24.
28. Faith is giving all. The little boy who came to hear Jesus and brought his lunch of five loaves and two fishes~I don't believe he would have given his whole lunch away or maybe any of it before he heard Jesus, but after he heard the Saviour speak, he gladly offered it all. And that's Scriptural~faith somes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
29. Faith is God in action on the battlefield winning every battle and making real what Christ made possible.
30. Faith is complete surrender demonstrated by Jesus on the cross, denied by Peter, forsaken by His own, betrayed by Judas, with heaven's gates closed in His face, with the angels silent, his telephone line to the Father's house clipped, deserted by the Spirit, and yet, he said, "It is finished, Father, into thy hands I commend My spirit."

AMEN!!