Hope a Partner to Faith by Ed Pruitt

2 Corinthians 4:13-13

Hope a Partner to Faith
Sunday December 16, 2001
Pastor Ed Pruitt
Amarillo Church of God

Natural things reflect Spiritual things.

We are capable of conceiving God’s Word in our spirit, bringing forth production of what God said in His Word.

Let’s read it in,

2 Corinthians 4:13
13 We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak;

Remember that Hope, is a goal setter.

Sometimes, when we see these things in the Bible, we tend to take them completely out of there natural setting.

When Jesus talked about sowing seed, He didn’t take it away from the soil and say, this is a spiritual thing.

We make a serious mistake when we totally separate the natural from the spiritual.

God’s Word is spiritual, but it works like a natural seed.

The heart of man is spiritual but it works like natural soil.

Let me give you an illustration of how the heart is designed to produce.

Let’s bring it down to the natural level where we can all understand it.

And by that I want to use an illustration that I hope will make it easier for you to understand.

There probably is a piece of equipment at your house called a heating and air conditioning unit.

It is the heart of the heating and cooling system.

The unit has been designed by an engineer to control the temperature of your house.

That’s all it was designed to do.

It is designed to produce whatever you dial into that little thermostat on the wall, which we are going to call a goal setter.

The heart of that unit was designed to produce whatever temperature you dial into that thermostat.

The numbers on that thermostat represent degrees of temperature.

Let’s say is it 100 degrees outside and you want the temperature to be 70 degrees inside the house.
Your job would be to turn that goal setter to 70 degrees.

As long as it is kept on 70 degrees, that unit will work day and night to see that the goal is reached.

You wouldn’t have to fast and pray that it would get cool in your house.

The unit knows how to do it.

That is what it was designed to do.

You would simply dial the goal-setter, and it would send an impulse to the heart of that unit and say get some cold air in here.

It’s hot!

With the thermostat on 70 degrees when it’s 100 degrees outside, you have created a problem for the heart of that unit.

But it can handle it!

That is all it knows to do, and it can do it well!

That unit won’t wash your clothes, it won’t cook your dinner, and it won’t clean your house!

It wasn’t designed to do those things.

It was designed for one purpose, to produce what you have dialed into the goal-setter.

Now let’s relate this to the heart of man.

The heart of the heating-cooling unit is like the heart of man.

You must set the goal for the thing you want produced.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and hope is the goal-setter.

Hope works in the head.

What you continue to speak becomes your goal!

Your head is the goal-setter!

When there is no hope, there is no goal set for the better, although no hope, sets negative goals.

Like the thermostat on the wall, your spoken words send an impulse into your spirit!

By saying, In the Name of Jesus, by His stripes I am healed.

I am redeemed from the curse of the Law and I forbid sickness and disease in this body!

You set you goal on healing!
What are you doing by that action?

Someone may say, you are lying, because you are sick.

You may be sick all right, but the purpose of speaking God’s Word is to set your goal and to plant seed!

Some people don’t understand how you can say your are healed by the stripes of Jesus when you are hurting.

But you must decide to establish that goal regardless of present circumstances.

Let’s relate this concept to the way that a thermostat works.

Let’s say that is 90 degrees in your house and you come in and turn the thermostat to 70 degrees.

Someone might say, Hey! You can’t do that!

That’s a lie.

It’s not 70 degrees in here!

But it’s not a lie.

That’s the way to make the heating-cooling unit work the way that it was designed to work!

That’s the reason you set it on 70!
You are calling for that temperature.

You are calling for the temperature that is not manifest!
That is the way that the system is designed, and that is the only way that it will work.

If you set 90 degrees in the thermostat when it is 90 degrees already, there will be no change.

The unit will remain inactive, producing nothing!

Likewise our heart is true to the demands that are placed on it!

Surely no one would be foolish enough to argue with you when you turned the thermostat to 70 degrees.

But they will when you set your goal on God’s promises!

Some will argue that you are lying.

You have to give some time and meditation to these things to fully understand the design of the heart or spirit of man!

It’s easy to understand the way that goal-setter (thermostat) works!

By looking at this example, it’s easier to understand that faith and confession work that way on your heart.

You may not believe it works that way.
You may not like it, but that’s the way it works!

No one would argue with you about turning that thermostat to achieve that desired temperature, and no one would call you a liar!

They understand that it will be 70 degrees in the room in just a few minutes!

The heart or spirit of man is like the heart of that heating-cooling unit!

It is designed by God to produce the very thing that you plant in it!

You plant it or set the goal by speaking the word!

When you first hear your voice on a tape recorder, you usually think it is someone else.

You can’t believe it is you, because you have been hearing your voice mostly with your inner ear.

Your voice is picked up by the inner ear and fed directly into your spirit.

When you heard your voice on the tape recorder, you heard it for the first time totally with the outer ear and could not believe it was you!

God designed you that way, so your voice would feed the impulse of what you desired right down into the garden spot.
The heart, which is the soil, Luke 13:18-19
18 Then said he, Unto what is the kingdom of God like? and whereunto shall I resemble it?

19 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it.

There it will produce what you are speaking.
It is also renewing your mind as you are confessing God’s Word!

Suppose someone turns the thermostat to 70 degrees and then, in a little while they turn it to 95.

Then turn it back to 60.

It will not work that way!

It will probably blow a fuse!

It’s not designed to be flipped from one extreme to the other all at once!

It will blow a circuit!

Someone might say, who would be dumb enough to do that?

Christians do that all the time!

They start making faith confessions, Glory to God.

My needs are met according to His riches in Glory by Christ Jesus.

They say that for a few days, then they look at circumstances and say, Dear God, it’s never going to happen.

We will never get these debts paid.

I don’t know what we are going to do!

Well, they have just changed the thermostat!

You have to set it where you want it and leave it there!

That unit will work day and night to produce what you have dialed into it.

It will never argue with you!

The unit does not make decisions!

Have you ever heard a heating-cooling unit say, No, I am not sending cold air, you need hot air, so I am lighting up the fire to send you some heat!

If it did that, we would have to say, well you never know what that unit is going to do.

It has a mind of it’s own!

But it doesn’t work that way!

It is consistent.

It always produces the very thing you call for, and that is how the heart or spirit of man is designed!

Proverbs 20:27
27 The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly.

Job 22:28
28 Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee: and the light shall shine upon thy ways.

Mark 4:26 tells you the way it works.

Mark 4:26-32
26 And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;

27 And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.

28 For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.

29 But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.

30 And he said, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare it?

31 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth:

32 But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it.

It is as if a man cast the seed into the ground.

That is setting the goal.

A seed to a farmer is a goal setter.

If you want to know what goal you have set for your garden, just look and see what seed you have planted!

You plant the seed and it works!

You go to bed and you get up.

You don’t have to hope to God that it will work.
It will work that way because it is designed to work that way.

The substance is in the seed itself!

Thermostats have no substance.

Suppose someone who never had seen a thermostat or a heating-cooling unit saw you turn the thermostat to 70 degrees when the room was 90 degrees.

When it began to get cool, he would wonder why it was getting so cool.

He would want to know what you did!

What is that little box on the wall?

You say, that is a thermostat.

A thermostat.

Where can I get one?

You see what he has in mind.

He goes down to the hardware store and buys a thermostat and then he puts in on the wall of his house.

Then he turns it to 70 degrees and sits down to wait

He is going to have a long wait, because the goal-setter does not have the ability to cool his house.

The thermostat is only a goal-setter.

There is no substance in the goal-setter or I should say the thermostat to cool a room.

Yet it establishes a goal to be met.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for.

Let’s say it another way.

Faith is the substance of everything needed to accomplish the goal hoped for.

That cooling unit has electricity connected to it and is available at any time the thermostat makes a demand on it!

That heating-cooling unit won’t produce anything by itself.

There must be a goal setter, and you must dial the goal.

Hope is the goal-setter for you.

Always speak your hope!

Your goals for your heart are set by speaking those things in faith.
Whether the unit feels like it or not.

When that thermostat’s impulse goes to that unit, it releases the energy that is available, and it immediately starts producing the thing that you just dialed into it!

Your hope makes demands by being spoken.

That is the way the heart or spirit of man works.

You take the Word of God, and you speak it!

You set the goal.

The divine energy is in God’s Word to cause the heart to produce.

Even in the summertime, the energy that is bringing forth cool air in a building is the same energy that brings hot air in the wintertime.

The goal-setter (your hope) is the thing that determines whether it is hot air or cool air.

If you’re not satisfied with the harvest that you are getting, then you had better check up on the goal that you are setting and the seed that you are sowing.

That unit won’t argue with you.

It’s not designed to decide whether it’s right or wrong.

It’s only designed to produce whatever you call for.

The heart of man works that way.

Speaking the word sets the goal!

We have so separated natural things from spiritual things until most people believe there is no relationship between them.

But Jesus brings them back together when he says, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say… Luke 17:6.

Then in Genesis chapter eight, God says,
Genesis 8:22
22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

The Bible keeps referring to sowing.

You sow the seed, you reap the harvest.

Whatsoever a man soweth, he shall reap.

That is the way that it works!

The soil in your garden doesn’t decide whether or not what you plant is right or wrong.
The soil will only produce what you plant in it!

Some believe that the human spirit, or the heart, of a born-again person would not produce anything bad.

But ask yourself this question!

Why do some people backslide and go back into sin?

Jesus said it this way, Matthew 12:33-37
33 Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.

34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.

36 But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.

37 For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

I am convinced from what Jesus taught that even a person that is born-again can put evil things in his heart.
God considers anything that is contrary to His Word to be evil.
Numbers 13:32

James said it this way, James 1:26
26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.

In other words your tongue can deceive your heart!

One thing for sure, the soil never argues with the planter.

Have you ever planted anything in the ground and had the soil tell you that it wasn’t going to raise what you planted in it!

Of course not, because the soil has no choice but to produce what is planted in it.

Hope causes you to speak your faith.

But some have gotten the idea that it doesn’t matter what they sow and it doesn’t matter what they say!

Well, God knows what I meant, they say!

Would you say, I planted radishes, but the soil knew what I meant; I meant to plant tomatoes?

Certainly not.

No one would be that foolish in the natural.

You would know you were not going to raise tomatoes, because the soil doesn’t produce what you meant but what you planted!

The soil of your heart does not decide whether what you plant or (say) is right or wrong.

It’s job, is to produce the information needed to cause what you are saying (planting) to come to pass, whether it is right, wrong, or indifferent.

Mark 11:23 is not a one way street.

But Jesus only told us how to operate faith on the positive side.

He didn’t want us to operate the principal on the negative side.

Let’s take a minute and read Mark 11:23, no let’s back up just a little and start with Mark 11:22 and read through 26.

Mark 11:22-26
22 And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.

23 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.

24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

25 And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

26 But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.

Another way to say it would be to believe that those things you sow will come to pass, because the saying is the sowing.

The goal is to be set on removing the mountain or the tremendous problems you face.

Your hope then will cause you to speak your faith.

On the other hand, it will work just as fast on the negative side.

Some say, this mountain is getting bigger every day.

I’ll never get over it.

They are right, because they are working confession of faith on the negative side.

It will work just a quickly and sometimes even quicker on the negative side.
Some prophesy that, things are getting worse.

We will never make it.

We will never get this church going.

We will never be able to pay our debts off, and on and on we go.

They have no hope, so there is nothing to which faith can give substance.

They are speaking that into their heart or soil.

It will cause their spirit to search the avenues of God’s wisdom to find a way to bring it to pass.

Remember, the unit won’t decide whether you need heat or cold, it only responds to the signal sent to it from the goal-setter.

Hope is the thermostat for your heart.

If you have no hope, no impulse is sent to the heart, and there will be no positive production.

Even though there is substance in the heart (faith), without hope there is no positive goal.

Hope causes you to speak the promise.
Fear causes you to speak the worst of everything.

Remember it is not going to work just because you say it, but saying it is involved in working God’s principal, and it will eventually produce the results God promised.

I am learning how to operate in these principles through trial and error but I continue to confess that I am redeemed from the curse of satan and his ways.

Like I said earlier this is not going to happen over night.

So don’t get your self all down in the dumps when it doesn’t take place instantly.

It takes time to conceive the Word in your heart and cause faith to come.

Faith in the heart gives it the ability to conceive God’s promise.

Once it is conceived, you will eventually have a manifestation of that promise.

The corresponding action that you have toward what you believe will be the fact that you are continuing to confess God’s Word and believing it.

We all need to confess God’s Word and to just keep saying I am redeemed from the curse, according to Galatians 3:13
13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:

Now let me read that again in the New Living Translation it might make it a little easier to understand.
Galatians 3:13
13 But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing.

For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”

Remember, God’s Word is over all matter.

Some people say, that is mind over matter!

But it’s not.

It’s faith in God and His Word over all matter.

These things are not going to happen overnight.

But they will happen, if we are diligent to agree with God and confess what He said about us.

Confession is a process.

Confession of God’s Word is a process of renewing the mind.
It causes faith to come.

It is an expression of your hope.

The heart conceives the promise you are speaking and brings the manifestation.

This is the way it works in your physical body, in your finances, and other situations of life.

But it takes time.

It is a process.

This is not a fad.

This needs to be your new way of thinking.

This is not something that you try.

If you are just going to try it, it won’t work for you.

Think about it.

Jesus said it, and that should be good enough for all of us.

Practice increases production, once you have found these Bible principals, study them and practice them.

Don’t back off from them when things appear to get worse.
Just stay with it and confess it until it develops inside of you.

In closing I just want to add this.

Don’t allow satan to condemn you if you are taking medicine.

So many allow the enemy to condemn them for that reason.

Don’t let anyone force you into trying to operate on their level of faith if you are not developed to that level.

Let’s say it this way.

Medicine won’t heal you, and it won’t keep you from being healed.

Remember; Faith and Hope are partners and you need them both.

Start where you are.

Use some common sense.

Operate on your level.

Confess God’s promises daily.

Your faith will grow and your productivity will increase.


3 John 2
2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.
 

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