2024 – Resolution on Conference Theme: “The Just Shall Live by Faith”

Faith is one of the major themes of the entire Scriptural record. Faith is not a figment of one’s imagination, but rather the assurance of that for which we have hope. The faith which the Scripture identifies is a faith drawing men and women to the “Author and Finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2), the Lord Jesus Christ. Those mentioned, by name or unnamed, in Hebrews 11, are people who, though not perfect, lived by faith.

We recognize by faith that God spoke the world, and all that is in it, above it, beneath it, and around it, into existence, as Genesis 1:1 says: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. Hebrews 11:3 tells us we accept that fact by faith. His creation was without any evolutionary process.

Hebrews 11:6 reminds us that “without faith” it is not possible to please Almighty God and that men who come to Him by faith accept the reality that He is indeed God. When we come to Him by faith we accept the many illustrations in Scripture showing that God rewards those who come to Him by faith. Sometimes those rewards are not what one might humanly imagine, or even anticipate as being rewards, but they are always what God has chosen for each of His own. He never makes a mistake but always does what brings Himself honor and glory.

Hebrews 11 lists various Biblical characters who lived by faith. Those who honestly consider these named and unnamed characters quickly realize that these people were not perfect, but sinners as all men are, though saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8, 9). All those mentioned in Hebrews 11 were tried and tested as they lived by faith and their faith caused them to lean harder on the Almighty.

Having, THEREFORE, Hebrews 11 as part of the Divine Record, with its reminders and challenges that we should live by faith, regardless of those challenges we face as believers, we recognize that we are to still “please Him” as we live in these challenging days.

We, the members of the Independent Baptist Fellowship of North America, meeting in annual conference at Vernon Forest Baptist Church in Winston Salem, North Carolina, June 18 – 20, 2024, RESOLVE to live our lives by faith. Like those listed and unlisted people in Hebrews 11, we have not yet “received the promise” (Hebrews 11:39) of the “heavenly country” (Hebrews 11:15,16), the “recompense of reward” (Hebrews 11:26), nor “the better resurrection” (Hebrews 11:35). May we “walk (live) by faith and not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7) until we see Him face to face. That reality could be even today.