Jim Van Gelderen: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. This is Jim Van Gelderen, and I am podcasting from Corrieville, Pennsylvania, where I'm finishing a revival meeting tonight here at the Calvary Independent Baptist Church with Pastor Daniel Chrisman. We've certainly had a great time here. I've been here three times. This is my third time, and certainly grateful for God's people here. I've been an encouraging time.

Thankful for what the Lord’s done in the past as well. And I’m looking forward to the summer, and we have some wonderful meetings started up. And in August, we will be starting up a little earlier with our War of Special Forces tour, and we’ll be out west. Our first meeting will be in Colorado, and of course, I’ll keep you posted on that.

Of course, you can always check our itinerary on warsf.org. So if you’re listening to this and you’re in California or Arizona particularly, maybe Colorado, you can check and see if the War of Special Forces will be close to you, and we’ll be in those states primarily. Looking forward to God doing great work in some Christian schools out there, as well as a couple revival meetings in local churches.

Well, I want to just challenge you about something. Several years ago at Baptist College of Ministry, where I served as vice president, our vice president of administration, Stephen Zemple, came up with the theme. And I’ll never forget the theme because it makes you think. The theme was, believing is seeing. And many times we obviously are familiar with that terminology. if it’s flipped, seeing is believing.

We live in a culture that that’s their mantra, seeing is believing. If I can see it, I’ll believe it. But the Bible is not, that’s not the way the Bible works. While we look not at the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen, and really for a Christian, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

And so the reason the Bible deals with that is because the spiritual realm, the eternal realm, the realm where there is no time, the realm of God is an unseen realm. And every young person out there that I’m speaking to right now, and even older people, you either have made the decision or are going to make the decision of what realm you’re going to live for.

Either you’ll live for the seen realm or the unseen realm. If you live for the seen realm, you will leave it all here because it’s temporal. You live for the unseen realm, then obviously that will be eternal. But our culture, of course, right now is just hung up with the sensory or the seen realm, the temporary realm. And so they say seeing is believing.

In other words, if I can see it, handle it, my senses can assimilate it, then it is real, then I’ll believe it’s real. And Thomas, one of the disciples, fell into that. He, of course, was not there when the Lord Jesus to the disciples after the resurrection, and he basically said, I’m not going to believe until I see his wounds.

And of course, Jesus confronted him with that when he did show himself, and of course, he was deeply confronted by that. It was life-changing for him, but the Lord Jesus said, it would have been better for you to have not seen and believed than just you have to see in order to believe. And so we get our culture that is completely about assimilating reality through our senses, primarily sight, seeing is believing.

So what did our vice president of administration, Stephen Zemple, mean when he said believing is seeing? Well, believing is the eyesight of the realm that you cannot see. And so believing, in other words, brings into your experience or into your reality that which you can’t see. You know, sometimes I like the song that says, and he walks with me and talks with me and tells me I am his own and the joy we share as we tarry there.

None other has ever known. Do you know what that means? That’s talking about fellowship with the Lord Jesus. When you spend time with the Lord Jesus, you know what? You don’t see him and you don’t hear his voice audibly, But your experience with the Lord Jesus is spiritual. That doesn’t mean it’s not real. It is real. It’s actually more real.

It’s in the realm of the unseen. And that’s the realm of God. God is a spirit, John 4, 24, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit. The only way to connect with God is in the unseen realm. It’s in the spiritual realm. It reminds me several years ago, I sat down at Baptist College of Ministry for lunch and a little sophomore girl, a freshman girl, were at that table and said, oh, Dr.

Jim, we’re so glad you sat down here. We want to tell you something that happened to us last night. I said, well, that’s great. Let’s do that. So we got our drinks. We sat down, had prayer. And they began to tell me that the night before that they had a prayer meeting. I think it started at 1030, room devotions.

And they said we had a three-hour prayer meeting. They were all burdened for siblings who were away from God and they got burdened about them. Had a three-hour prayer meeting, But as I remember, as they were telling me, it was like it didn’t seem like three hours. It seemed minutes when it was just three hours. And I remember the little girl looking at me with awe and wonder in her face.

And she said, you know, Dr. Jim, in the middle of that prayer meeting, I felt like if I opened my eyes, I would have seen him. Now, she actually wouldn’t have seen him physically because what she was experienced was real. But it was a spiritual reality of the presence of God. And God does want to fellowship with us. First John chapter number one, the spiritual realm is real.

We can interact with God. We can know his friendship. You’ve sung the song, what a friend we have in Jesus. You’ve sung the song. How do we know he lives? He lives within my heart. There’s a spiritual reality of the presence of God. And believing is seeing, if we can say that in a spiritual sense, the unseen realm.

And so it’s important for us to start not with, well, I got to see it, as Thomas said, I’ve got to see the wounds. It’s another word saying, no, I’m going to believe it because God said it. And the Bible tells us a lot of things about the spiritual realm. And if you ever see those little words in Christ, they are particularly helpful because who we are in Christ is something you can’t see.

The Bible tells us about it. In Romans 6, it talks about in Christ, we’re dead to sin. In Christ, we’re alive unto God. Why? Because he’s dead to sin. He’s alive unto God. And we’re in Jesus. Ephesians talks about being accepted in the beloved, verse number 6. We’re accepted because we’re in the accepted one. We’re chosen in him. We’re chosen because we’re in the chosen one.

It talks about where we’re seated in the heavenlies, far above all principality and power. We’re seated. We’ve been raised up together with him, Ephesians chapter number 2. So we’re in the throne room in Jesus, where he blesses us with all spiritual blessings. There in 2 Corinthians, it says he always causes us to triumph in Christ. In Jesus, there’s always victory.

In Jesus, old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. We’ve been made the righteousness of God in him. First, our 2 Corinthians 5, 21. And the list could go on. Every time you find those words in Christ, the Bible is telling you that’s what’s real in the unseen realm. So how do you see it, quote unquote, because I’m not talking about physically see it, but spiritually see it?

And the answer is by believing, believing what God says. Now, the little word God uses to help us understand that step of faith is the word reckon. You find it, of course, in Romans 6, for those that are familiar with that passage, Verse number 11, likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed into sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

That word through has the same idea of in. In other words, because we’re in union with Jesus Christ, we have the reality of being in the one who’s dead to sin. Jesus is dead to sin and being in the one who’s alive unto God. Why? Because he’s been resurrected. And Romans 6 explains all that. I won’t go through that right now, but it’s right there.

It’s a great chapter to memorize, particularly if you’re growing your Christian life and want to understand this great truth of who we are in Christ. But what is reckon? Reckon’s a great word. It’s a faith word. There’s several faith words in the Bible. Of course, believe is one, and hope is one, and reckon is one. Now, reckon is a word that does not deal with our emotions.

It’s an accounting term. When you do math, it might affect your emotions, or when you balance it, checkbook, it might affect your emotions, but the numbers are not affected by your emotions. If you went down to the bank, of course, years ago, we did our banking at the bank to deposit a $500 check. And you got the deposit slip back after you had signed the check over and put it into your account.

And the teller gives you a deposit slip. This is how we used to do it. We’d open up a checkbook, hard copy checkbook, and I’d write the date. I’d put in capital letters deposit because I always liked deposits. And then I would write $500. Why? Because that’s what is. I could write $5,000, but that’s wishful thinking, and that is not accounting.

And it won’t work. Accounting is not affected by your emotions. You could be discouraged. You could be depressed. It could be raining. It could be 40 degrees. It could be, you know, you have a pet that just died. You could be just miserable. But it wouldn’t affect the fact when you reckoned, when you counted it, you’d write $500. Why?

Because that’s what is. and that’s what reckon means and so reckon is a faith word uh we open up the ledger of life and we say in christ dead to sin in christ alive unto god in christ accepted i’m not accepted because what i do or don’t do jesus doesn’t accept me because of my performance or because i don’t do certain things he accepts me because i’m

in the accepted one jesus christ i’m accepted in the beloved and uh i am uh i am right now seated at the right hand in jesus spiritually not physically spiritually, and that’s where he blesses me with all spiritual blessings, Ephesians chapter number one, and the list could go on.

And I know that for some of you, this might be the first time you’re really hearing the understanding of what reckon is, and I’ve done a whole podcast on Romans 6 and things and done a series, but I just wanted to remind you that believing is seeing in the spiritual realm. It’s experiencing a spiritual reality, which is not assimilated through physical eyesight, but through spiritual eyesight.

Maybe this illustration will help. On Monday, the pastor here took my wife and I to Longwood Gardens, which I guess is one of the top horticulture-type gardens in the country. And we certainly enjoyed beautiful flowers, a lot of tulips. Of course, I’m half Dutch, so certainly enjoyed just multitudes of tulips. And beauty of God’s creation was everywhere. Saw flowers I’ve never seen before and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Now, if I had gone to those gardens and had my eyes closed, everybody around me could have been talking about how great and beautiful the gardens were, but I wouldn’t have been benefited at all by the beauty of the garden. Now, the garden would have still been beautiful. That would have been reality. But I would have not realized the beauty because my eyes were closed.

What would I have to do in the physical realm to make what is real become beneficial to my experience? In other words, realize the beauty of the garden. And the answer is simple. Open my eyes and physically assimilate the beauty of what is there, what’s real. So it is in the spiritual realm. That’s why believing is seen, spiritually speaking.

When you believe God, say, God, this is what I believe. In Jesus, I’m dead to sin. In Jesus, I’m alive unto God. In Jesus, I’m accepted. In Jesus, you love me in an everlasting love. In Jesus, old things have passed away. All things have become new. In Jesus, I’m complete. In Jesus. Colossians chapter number two, when you get a hold of these things, they don’t become real.

You begin to spiritually experience the reality that they are real. You are now seeing spiritually because believing. So I guess my podcast is this, believing is seeing. And obviously it’s the spiritual reality. But in that spirituality, many times we begin to see the reality of God in our lives. And sometimes it’s an answer to prayer. Sometimes it might be victory that has been so elusive.

Sometimes it might be unspeakable joy. Sometimes it might be an hour of prayer where you sense the reality of God in your life. And so believing is seeing. That’s where you start, and taking the Word of God. That’s why your time in the Word is so important because faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. So my encouragement to each one of you is spend some time in the Word of God believing because that’s when you begin to see.

And first you see it spiritually, then you can see the manifestation of it as it affects your own life. Faith becomes substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. We begin to see the reality of those things in our lives. through the working of God in so many different scenarios. So be encouraged, friend. And I hope that you’ll continue to see the reality of God.

And that’s what surrender is all about. Total surrender, total dependence. It’s surrendering yourself to the will of God and then depending. That’s where the faith comes in, depending on the reality of who God says you are in Jesus Christ and experiencing the reality of the unseen realm.