This Lord's day opens with a disconcerting question and many consider this topic unsavory. Scripture as the Gospel is preached however as life unto life but also of death unto death. Faith is the gift of God alone, not having its beginnings or origin in man...and only those engraphted into Christ have faith and receive all the blessings of salvation and all the blessings of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are engraphted into our Lord Jesus Christ and afterwards press those very things to our bosom and believe them by faith and accept them as God's Word as TRUTH!

Character: We must in this day define our terms. There is a term of faith as far as God's work, but also a distinction of faith as what we know as truth. Faith can be talked about as a bond or union that unites us with Christ. This is regeneration. It is a binding of a new and spiritual life a we are engraphted into Christ and after being ingraphted we have an aptitude to believe. Faith is the work of the Lord engraphting us and then we can see the work of faith in us and others. The preaching of the Gospel then is EFFECTIVE as it speaks to us and draws us unto Him. Not something that man can listen to and "take it or leave it." It is a spiritual knowledge as these things are for me, speak to me, and sustain me!

Elements: First it is the work of God that bears fruit in our life and living. Are we to preach that all men might be saved? Not so and history (read the old testament with patriarchs and God's people. A small handful in all of Egypt?!) Scripture itself shows this not to be the case. The Lord always preaches the Gospel where He has His people. We too believe that the Gospel is used among us and our children that they may be brought to Him. We do NOT believe that our children are born to us in our very homes by chance. Does not God determine who a person will be at the moment of conception? This is NOT just a matter of biology. He separates them as He makes them teachable. Can you and I make our children believe? No...we only have the responsibility to teach them faithfully His Word and the teaching and preaching of it that God Himself uses to turn them and let them take hold of! Make sure you are faithfully under that Word preached with your children! There are two elements: Knowledge and Confidence. Not just a knowledge as there are those with more knowledge than us no where close to salvation....but among His saints, young children have confidence in His Word and believe spiritual truths that are beyond intellect and we take hold of them and believe ALL of Scripture, the Word of God, as truth!

Content: The truth of the Word of God shows me things beyond what we could believe. Those things that speak to us in the knowledge and confidence of faith! We were conceived in sin, but know that He (for me) redeemed us and principally sit with Him in glory.