Faith's Secret Revealed
THE CASE STATED
Unanswered prayers stand between the individual and a faith life.
Some have lost faith altogether. Many have turned to philosophical and metaphysical cults because their prayer lives were failures.
If we should ask the individual what he/she believes to be his/her greatest difficulty in his/her Christian walk, I believe invariably the answer would be, "I haven't enough faith. I know it is not God's fault. I know the promises are there in the Word. I have simply failed to get faith. I have prayed for it; I have fasted for it; but I don't know how to get it."
This little conversation took place between a husband and wife over the breakfast table:
"No, I am not losing my confidence in the Bible, but it does seem to me that after the years we have attended church we should have gotten somewhere.
"Today in the office the question of faith came up and I found that I had none. That is, I didn't have any positive, clear-cut faith in the Word as I have in business.
"I have faith in the things that we manufacture. I know that they will do the things we advertise they will do.
"I don't know that God's Word will do the thing that it is advertised to do.
I would like to know where the difficulty is.
"Down at the office, when we face a problem we solve it, but in our church we just cover it up. We ignore it. I have ignored it as long as I can. I must know!"
This is the reason for this book. We have written it to answer the faith problem for thinking men and women.
Chapter I, THE BASIS FOR FAITH
HIS faith business has me whipped", said a young man the other day.
"The pastor preached on it Sunday. He didn't tell me how to get faith, but he told me the necessity of it, told what it could do.
"He quoted those wonderful sentences from the lips of the Master, 'All things are possible to him that believeth.' 'If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed . . . . '
"I have tried to get it. I have done everything that I knew or anyone else could tell me, but it seems to be so elusive. Can you tell me where the difficulty lies?"
I liked him. He was so frank, so genuine. The distress in his eyes challenged me.
I said to him, "Faith comes through the Word of God.
"You have faith in the man for whom you work ; if he promises you a raise in your salary, you wouldn't question it.
"You have faith in the bank where you do business. If they told you that your account was overdrawn, you wouldn't question it.
"You know that you and your word are one. You are back of your word, back of every word that you promise.
"God and His Word are one. God is back of every Word that He promises. Not only is He back of it, but His throne is back of His Word.
"He said, 'I watch over my Word to perform it.'
"He is a business man. He knows that His Word is the foundation of everything, so He stands back of it.
"Jesus said, 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall never pass away.'
"This is the thing that gives faith . . . the integrity of this Word."
"Faith comes by hearing the Word, understanding it, by it becoming a part of us.
"I am going to say a hard thing. I am sure you will understand me. Lying and deceit and dishonesty are the badges of the world.
"We see it in international relationship between nations.
"They have their secret service men listening in everywhere, robbing each other of blueprints of warships, fighter planes, etc., until there is no chance of security anywhere.
"This is the reason for our unbelief. The air is pregnant with it. When we come up against the Word of God which cannot lie and cannot be challenged, somehow or other we are unprepared to accept it.
"Satan is a liar and he is the god of this world.
"Jesus came as a Revelation of Truth. He is the only one who ever made men become honest, when to tell the truth meant that they would be burned at the stake.
"Here we see the foundation of this Faith. You come to know Jesus through the Word. He introduces you to the Father.
"Then you begin to act on the Word, to test it out, as it were.
"After a bit you will find that acting on what Jesus said, or the Father said, becomes as natural as acting on the word of the man for whom you are working."
He said after careful thought, "Thank you. I believe I have learned something I have never seen before."
One Foundation
There is but one foundation for Faith, the Living Word.
As we become one with the Word in our actions, then faith becomes an unconscious reality.
You never think of your Faith, you only think of the need and His ability to meet it.
If you wish faith to grow and become robust and strong, soak in the Word, feed on it, meditate on it, until you become one with it in the sense that you are one with your business.
Find out what you are in Christ, what your privileges are, what He thinks of you, what He says of you.
You will find all this in the Word.
Chapter II, WHAT FAITH IS
FAITH is giving substance to things hoped for."
Faith is grasping the unrealities of hope and bringing them into the realm of reality.
Faith grows out of the Word of God.
It is the warranty deed that the thing for which you have fondly hoped is at last yours.
It is the "evidence of things not seen."
You hope for finances to meet that obligation ; faith gives assurance that you will have the money when you need it.
You hope for physical strength to do the work that you know you must do.
Faith says, "God is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?"
Sense-Knowledge has given to the church Mental Assent, which looks so much like faith that many people cannot see the difference.
Mental Assent is seeing it, admiring it, saying "it is true, but not in my case."
Mental Assent agrees that the Bible is a Revelation, that it came from God, and that every Word is true, and yet when the crisis comes it does not work.
It simply recognizes the truthfulness of that wonderful Book, but it does not act upon it.
Hope says, "I will get it sometime."
Faith says, "I have it now."
Mental Assent says, "It is beautiful. I know I should have it. For some reason I don't get it. I cannot understand it."
Sense-Knowledge faith says, "When I see it, when I feel it, I will know I
have it."
Real faith in the Word says, "If God says it is true, it is. If He says that 'By His stripes, I am healed', I am. If He says that God shall supply every need of mine, He will do it. If God says He is the strength of my life, He is. So I go about doing my work because He is what He says He is, and I am what He says I am."
"If He says that I am strong, I am.
"If He says that I am healed, I am.
"If He says that He cares for me, I know that He does.
"So quietly I rest on His Word, irrespective of evidences that would satisfy the Senses."
Real Faith is built on the Word.
It is untarnished by Sense-Knowledge.
It is as unconscious of itself as is the faith of a little child in its mother.
The child never says, "Now Mother, I believe your word. I know that if I ask you for a piece of bread you will give it to me." If it said such things it would frighten the mother. She would wonder what had happened to her child.
We have built around faith a strange wordology that is like a barb-wire entanglement.
You hear men and women cry "Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief."
You hear them pray for faith.
You hear men tell God that they know that what He says is true, that every Word He has spoken is true.
All that indicates the dominion of Sense- Knowledge over their spirits, that the Word has not yet gained the supremacy in their lives.
Faith is the result of the Word dwelling in us, I don't mean the Word committed to memory.
I mean the Word lived, practiced, until it has become a part of ourselves.
We meditate in it. We think deeply in it. We feed upon it. The Word becomes a very part of ourselves; this word of Faith builds into us confidence and assurance.
Sense-Knowledge will fight every step of the way to hold us in the realm of things seen, felt and heard, but we persistently drive ourselves into the Word until the Word is a part of our being, the Word is real.
Chapter III, KINDS OF FAITH
GAVE an address on the New Creation in which I stated, without giving any Scriptural proof, that the disciples were not Born Again until the day of Pentecost, that salvation came as the result of faith in Jesus as our Substitute.
After the meeting a man said to me, "Wasn't Martha saved? She believed in Jesus. Wasn't Peter's declaration one that brought salvation?"
What kind of faith did men have in Jesus before His Death and Resurrection?
John 20:9 "For as yet they knew not the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead."
This is a part of the dramatic story connected with the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
We know that salvation is dependent upon our faith in Jesus as a Substitute for us, that He died for our sins, and that He arose for our justification.
So Martha's faith in Jesus is described in John 11:27, "She saith unto him, Yea Lord: I have believed that thou art the Christ the Son of God, even He that cometh into the world."
She did not have faith in Jesus as the One who had died and risen as her personal Substitute and Savior.
She had faith in Him as God's Son, as the Messiah that had been promised.
Apostle Peter made another confession of Jesus which is recorded in Matthew16:16.
"And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."
That was not a confession that Christ had died for his sins and had risen for his justification, but simply a confession of His Messiah-ship and His being the Son of God.
There is still another type of confession in the Four Gospels that is striking.
John 6:30 "They said therefore unto him, What then doest thou for a sign, that we may see, and believe thee? what workest thou?"
Notice the expression "that we may see and believe."
Perhaps we should turn to John 20:25 and read Thomas' declaration.
Jesus had appeared to the disciples after His Resurrection. Thomas was not present. They told him what had taken place.
He said, "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe."
He was willing to believe if He could have the evidence.
Jesus met him. 27-29 verses "Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and see my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and put it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing. Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.
Jesus saith unto him, "Because thou hast seen me, thou has believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."
Here are two kinds of faith in contrast.
One is Sense-Knowledge Faith, which is based upon physical evidence.
We see and believe. We hear and believe.
Jesus speaks of another kind of faith where they do not see, nor feel, nor hear, yet they believe.
The Faith that men had in Jesus during His earth walk was Sense-Knowledge Faith.
This is one of the most startling discoveries we have ever made in this faith walk.
It clears up so many issues.
The great body of the church has Sense- Knowledge Faith, rather than faith in the Revelation that God has given to us. Revelation-Knowledge Faith from heaven.
During the earth walk of Christ the Jews were under the First Covenant.
They were under the blood of bulls and goats.
They did not have Eternal Life until Christ died and rose again, for none of them believed in Christ as a Saviour.
They did not believe in His Substitutionary work. They knew nothing of it.
Luke 24:10-3 gives a vivid picture of the condition of the disciples after the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
He had appeared to Mary and to the others.
They rushed to the place where the disciples were gathered.
"Now they were Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James; and the other women with them told these things unto the apostles, And these words appeared in their sight as idle talk ; and they disbelieved them."
There was no saving faith on the part of the disciples at that time.
They did not hail Him as their Savior.
They were mystified, staggered by His appearance.
They recognized Him for they saw the evidence of the crucifixion in His body. They knew it was He.
The disciples had faith in Jesus as a Messiah, as the Son of God, but not as a Substitute, not as a Savior from sin. They saw Him as their Deliverer from Rome.
The knowledge of Christ's substitutionary work did not come to them clearly until God gave it to apostle Paul.
We have it in His Revelation to apostle Paul in the Epistles.
Faith, as Seen in the Book of Acts
Let us notice the faith that the disciples had as recorded in the first fifteen chapters of the book of Acts before the Pauline Revelation became known.
Acts 1, The disciples met the Master. They touched Him. They ate with Him. They heard his voice. Their faith in Him was based upon Sense Evidence.
It is not the kind of faith that you have. You have never seen Jesus physically. You have never heard His voice. You have never touched His body, yet you believe He arose from the dead.
They had lived with Him before His death.
They had lived with Him again for forty days after His Resurrection.
Read carefully Acts 2:1-4.
"And when the day of Pentecost was now come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them tongues parting asunder, like as of fire: and it sat upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance."
They heard the sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind.
They saw the tongues like as of fire parting asunder upon the brow of each one.
They heard them speak in tongues and glorify God.
There was no Revelation faith; it was purely Sense Knowledge Faith.
They believed in tongues because they heard them.
They believed the Spirit had come because they had seen the evidences.
The mighty miracles that followed, which are recorded in Acts, 5, gave the multitudes great faith in the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
It was not the kind of faith that you have today, because you have no such physical evidences as they had in Jerusalem.
1 John 1:1-4 "That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life (and the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us) ; that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his son Jesus Christ."
There were apostle Peter and others who had seen Jesus with their own eyes after the Resurrection, and with their own hands then had handled Him.
Jesus had given them the right to use His Name and to lay hands upon the sick.
They manifested this authority.
Acts. 3:6 Apostles Peter and John used the Name to heal the impotent man at the Beautiful gate of the temple.
The multitude could see the man whom they had known as a helpless cripple, healed before their eyes.
The Sanhedrin could say nothing when they arrested them.
Acts 4:14 "And seeing the man that was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it." It closed their mouths.
Apostle Peter did not say on the day of Pentecost when they asked, "Men and brethren, what must we do to be saved," that they were to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
He simply said, "Repent, and be baptized everyone of you in the Name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins."
The Revelation of faith had not yet come. God was dealing with them as children.
Apostle Peter did not ask them to believe anything they could not see, hear or feel.
It may be interesting to note that many times believers have said to us,
"We want a primitive type of Christianity such as the early church had in the first few years of its existence."
They did not know that by attempting to get that type of Christianity they were repudiating real faith, and the Word. Repudiate is a formal verb that means to strongly reject, refuse to accept, or disown something or someone.
They declare that no one ever received the Holy Spirit unless he has received a physical manifestation.
They do not believe God is in the midst of people unless there is Sense evidence.
That is not faith in the Word of God. That is faith in the five Senses.
I "saw it"; I "heard it"; I "felt it". Therefore, I believe that I have it.
Galatians 3:2-3 "This only would I learn from you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now perfected in the flesh?' (or senses).
You can see that God has dealt in great grace with us as children, when by reason of time we should have grown up and learned to walk by faith and not by sight.
If you will study carefully the first fifteen chapters of the book of Acts, you will notice there is not the slightest evidence that any of them understood the teaching of Substitution.
There is not one hint of the great teaching of Righteousness.
There is no indication they understood what the New Birth meant.
They enjoyed it; they walked in the fullness of it; but they did not understand it.
That was to come later through the Revelation the Father was to give to the Apostle Paul.
We would naturally expect that in the book of Acts there would be an opening of the great subjects: Redemption, Substitution, the New Creation, the ministry of Jesus at the right hand of the Father, but there is not an inkling of them.
The nearest of anything like that in the books is found in Acts. 15 :10-11, at the council at Jerusalem.
Apostle Paul laid before the apostles the message he had preached.
Then apostle Peter said, "Now therefore why make ye trial of God, that ye should put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in like manner as they."
He had reference to the keeping of the law under the First Covenant. The last statement is in regard to the Gentile believers.
Before we take up Revelation faith, we should notice the different kinds of faith that men have in Lord Jesus Christ today.
Christian Science, Unity, and the other Metaphysical and philosophical teachers of today do not believe that God is a person.
They will tell you that He is a perfect mind, but He has no location.
It is just a great universal mind which finds its home in every individual.
He has no headquarters.
It is a mind without a brain, without a personality.
They do not believe in sin as apostle Paul taught it in the Revelation given tohim.
They do not believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins, but that He died as a martyr.
They do not believe He had a literal Resurrection, a physical Resurrection, but as one puts it, "a metaphysical resurrection." (whatever that means)
If God is not a person and Jesus did not put sin away, then who is Jesus and what is the value of our faith in Him?
One of them calls Him "The way-shower". He is not a way-shower. HE IS THE WAY!
Their faith in Jesus and their faith in God is, after all, faith in themselves and what they inherently have within themselves.
It has caused mighty changes in them, but it has never produced a New Creation, nor brought them into real fellowship with the Father God, nor given them Righteousness.
What is the faith that the modernists have today?
It is not faith in Jesus Christ as a Substitute, for they do not believe in the Substitutionary Sacrifice of Christ.
It is not faith in God the Father as unveiled to us by Jesus Christ.
It is faith in man's conception of Jesus. It does not produce a New Creation.
It does not save the lost.
Man has faith in science and loudly proclaims science as the modern god of the human.
But science is but the fragments of knowledge that man has gathered out of the great body of hidden truth in the universe.
Mankind has gained this knowledge through the Five Senses.
These Five Senses have been unable to find the reason for Creation or the cause of Creation.
They have not discovered the source of Life or Motion, or the Authority or Power that holds the Universe together.
They do not know the Reason for man, nor the end of man. As Sense Knowledge is limited, so Sense Knowledge Faith is limited.
Chapter IV, THE DIFFERENT PHASES OF FAITH
FAITH has never been given a "square deal" by the Church, yet it has given birth to all of man's greatest achievements.
Woolworth had faith in five and ten cent pieces and left behind him a fortune of $60,000,000 and stores at every crossroad.
Henry Ford had faith in a low-priced automobile that every man could afford to buy.
Faith is the greatest element in advanced civilization.
As human faith gives birth to such achievements in the natural realm, so the believer's faith in the Father and His Word gives birth to spiritual achievements.
The preacher who has faith in the message that he is giving, finds that the Word produces faith results in the hearts of the men/women who hear him.
He has faith in the Word, that God is in it and back of it.
He has faith in humanity, that it will respond to the thing he is giving.
He has faith in Love, the Jesus kind of Love. He believes it is the solution of every human problem, and the family that practices love produces the highest type of Christian character.
It was a great day in my own life when I discovered that God was a Faith God.
I knew He was a Love God. I Knew He was a Righteous God, an Omnipotent God, an Omniscient God; when I found He was primarily the Faith God I saw that it was natural for us, as His children, to walk by faith.
Creative Faith
Hebrews 11:3 "By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the Word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear."
It was a fresh, new creation . . . not a revamped creation made out of worn out worlds.
I discovered that it was ruled by Words. Hebrews 1:3 "Who being the effulgence* of his glory, and the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high."
*Effulgence is a noun that means radiant splendor, brilliance, or extreme shining brightness.
There are three great words used again and again in the first chapter of Genesis. They are "Let there be."
Faith-filled words brought the universe into being, and faith-filled words are ruling that universe today.
Jesus Christ gave us some illustrations of creative faith.
Matthew 15:30-31 records that the maimed were made whole.
"And there came unto him great multitudes having with them the lame, blind, dumb, maimed and many others, and they cast them down at his feet; and he healed them; insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb speaking, the maimed whole, and the lame walking, and the blind seeing; and they glorified the God of Israel."
I have known of several women who have had organs restored that surgeons had removed through operations.
Creative faith is just as real today as it was when Jesus Christ walked in Galilee.
Dominating Faith
This is faith that rules circumstances.
In Hebrews 1:3 we see a picture of Jesus.
"Who being the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high."
Here He is not only a creator, but He also dominates what He has created.
He rules the universe by the Word of His power.
Here is an illustration of His dominating the forces of nature.
Matthew 8:26 "Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm."
Jesus Christ ruled the wind and the sea.
How His authority staggered those who observed it.
They said, "What manner of man is this that commandeth the winds and the waves and they obey him ?"
In Luke 5:1-11 we see Him ruling the fish of the sea.
He had used Peter's boat for a little while as a pulpit. Then He paid for the use of it.
He said, "Peter did you catch anything last night?"
Peter answered, "No, Master."
Jesus Christ said, "Put out into the deep and let down your nets."
Peter said, "I know Master there are no fish here, but at thy word I will let down the nets."
The nets were filled instantly.
That is dominating faith.
Mark 1:32-34 "And at even, when the sun did set, they brought unto him all that were sick, and them that were possessed with demons. And all the city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many that were sick with divers diseases, and cast out many demons; and he suffered not the demons to speak, because they knew him."
Jesus Christ ruled demons and they recognized His dominion over them.
John 11:39-44; At the raising of Lazarus, Jesus Christ was Master over death.
He said, "Roll away the stone." Then He commanded Lazarus to come forth.
Jesus Christ had dominating faith.
He ruled demoniacal forces. He ruled the works of the Devil. He was Master.
He commanded a tree to die and it died from the roots up.
He was absolute Monarch of the laws that govern the Universe.
Religious Faith
Few of us realize what a mighty force religious faith is today.
Men have faith in Creeds, in Organizations, in their Church, in Medicine, in Doctors, in Medical Science and Surgical Science, in good works, kindly deeds, giving money, in repentance and penance.
It is amazing the faith the average person has in something that he/she or someone else can do.
Faith in Experiences
Perhaps the most delusive of all the different kinds of faith is faith in Experiences.
Men tell what they have felt, what they have heard or seen.
Someone said to me recently, "I am not healed, I have not been able to demonstrate my faith."
Such people have Sense Knowledge Faith.
They must have physical evidence or they do not believe.
No delusion that has grasped the modern church is more deadly than this.
Some do not believe that they have received the Holy Spirit until they have had a physical manifestation.
They do not believe they are healed until the pain has left their body.
They do not believe God has heard their prayer until they can see some physical evidence of it.
We have seen in this type of faith that Sense Knowledge and Sense Evidence hold the place that the Word of God should hold.
In Revelation Faith the Word holds the first place. It is not dependent upon physical evidence. Revelation Faith believes that no Word from God is void of power, and rests in quiet confidence in what God has stated.
It accepts the Word as final without any other evidence.
If the Word declares it, that is enough.
The sick one reads, "Surely he hath borne my sicknesses and carried my diseases," and the believer cries, "Thank you, Father. Then I am healed." Isaiah 53:4.
This is New Covenant or Revelation Faith.
Chapter V, REVELATION FAITH
HERE are three great scriptures in the Old Testament on which the Pauline Revelation is based.
The first one is Genesis 15:6 "And Abraham believed God and He reckoned it unto him for righteousness."
This means that Abraham had made an "unqualified committal" unto Jehovah and He reckoned it unto him for righteousness.
This "unqualified committal" is identical with the thought in Romans 10:9-10, "Because if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved ; for with the heart man believeth unto Righteousness ; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be put to shame."
Revelation Faith as given to apostle Paul demands a confession with our lips 👄 of the Lordship of Jesus. This means an "unqualified committal" to the Word, because the Word takes the place of the absent Christ.
The second Scripture, Isaiah 28:16, "Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation; he that believeth shall not make haste."
There are two other translations: "Whosoever believeth on him shall not wander about distractedly seeking another foundation," or, "Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be put to shame."
It says that whosoever does this shall not be put to shame. Regardless of circumstances, of appearances, or sense evidences, he/she rests his/her case absolutely on the Word.
The third Scripture is Habakkuk 2:4. "My righteous one shall live by faith." It carries us a step further.
"My righteous one" has been made Righteous by a New Creation. He is to walk, not by sight or by feeling, he is to walk by faith. In other words, he is to walk by the Word.
2 Corinthians 5:7 "For we walk by faith, and not by sight."
Hebrews 10:38 "My Righteous one shall live by faith: And if he shrink back, my soul bath no pleasure in him."
You notice in each one of these scriptures a challenge for our confidence.
You are His Righteous one. You are to live by faith.
You are not to draw back to Sense evidences and to Sense Knowledge, but you are to walk on with Him in the light of the Word.
You will do as Abraham did.
You are looking at the Word and you wax strong through faith, giving glory to God, for you reckon that God is able to make good in you all that He has promised in His Word.
You can see how these great Scriptures become the foundation of the Revelation of Righteousness by faith in the Word as it is found in the Pauline Epistles.
You will find at the beginning of his great argument in the book of Romans that apostle Paul uses Abraham's faith as a type.
Romans 4:3-5 "For what saith the scripture? And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh, the reward is not reckoned as of grace, but as of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness."
Righteousness means the ability to stand in God's presence without the sense of sin, guilt, or inferiority.
You will notice that after God reckoned Righteousness to Abraham that
he made his great appeal for the salvation of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Read carefully Genesis 18 and see the fearless faith of Abraham.
He was not Righteous as we are Righteous. His Righteousness was
merely reckoned to him.
It was set to his account. It gave him credit with God.
The Scripture we just read from Romans 4 tells us that Righteousness is
not reckoned on the ground of works.
This Righteousness is granted on the ground of faith. One does not work
for it. He accepts a gift.
Ephesians 2:8-9 "For by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, that no man should glory."
Salvation, Redemption, Eternal Life, the New Creation, the Indwelling presence of the Spirit, the legal right to use the Name of Jesus, and all of our privileges as sons and daughters of God, are based upon grace through faith.
No one earns them. No one has a better position than another.
Every person has the same Righteousness, the same privileges, the same standing, for it is all of grace.
Abraham's faith is described in Romans 4:18-21. "Who in hope believed against hope, to the end that he might become a father of many nations."
This is a startling statement. Faith had a combat with hope, and faith won.
Hope is always future. Faith is always now.
Hope would have robbed Abraham of a son, but faith combatted with hope, defeated it, and received as the reward, Isaac.
19th verse, "Without being weakened in faith he considered his own body now as good as dead (he being a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb; yet, looking unto the promise of God, he wavered not through unbelief, but waxed strong through faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what He had promised, He was able also to perform."
This is a beautiful picture of faith.
Abraham had nothing to rest upon except the Word of an angel.
Yet he believed that Word; he looked upon his own body and said to himself, "I am ninety-nine years old. I have passed the age where I can be the father of a child."
He thought of Sarah, ninety years of age. He knew that she was too old to bear a child.
Yet, turning away from the evidence of his Senses, he looked at the Word that God had spoken through the angel, and he waxed strong through faith, giving glory to God. For he said without doubt or fear, "God is able to make good what He has promised."
This is not Sense Knowledge faith. This is Revelation Faith. This is the kind of faith which apostle Paul has given to us in his Revelation.
Notice the twenty-second verse: "²²Wherefore also it was reckoned unto him for Righteousness.
He did not have the Righteousness we have. He had it set to his credit.
Romans 4:23-25 "Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was reckoned unto him : but for our sake also, unto whom it shall be reckoned, who believe on Him that raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised because we stand right with God." (Literal translation)
The Pauline Revelation shows that God wrought a perfect Redemption in Christ.
Colossians 1:13-14 "Who delivered us out of the authority of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love; in whom we have our Redemption, the remission of our sins."
Ephesians 1:7 "In whom we have our Redemption through His blood, the remission of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace."
Romans 3:26 "For the showing, I say, of His righteousness at this present season: that He might Himself be righteous, and the righteousness of him that hath faith in Jesus."
That Redemption was a redemption from Satan's dominion. It was a redemption from the guilt and penalty of sin.
It was a Redemption of our physical body from the dominion of disease.
It was a Revelation of a New Creation created in Christ Jesus.
That becomes a reality when we accept Christ as our Saviour and confess Him as our Lord.
God gives to natural man His Zoey life and divine nature.
2 Corinthians 5:17 "Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old things are passed away ; behold, they are become new. But all these things are of God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ."
Ephesians 4:23-24 "And put on the new man, that after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth."
This Revelation of a New Creation is the most amazing fact of the grace of God.
God can take a Satan-ruled man/woman, one who is called "sin" (because he/she is identified with Satan, he/she is a child of Satan), God can redeem him/her, take him/her out of this condition and impart to him/her His own divine nature, making him/her His own child.
1John 5:12-13 tells us what he/she has received.
"He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life. These things have I written unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, even unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God."
John 6:47 "He that believeth hath Eternal Life."
A believer is a possessor. There is no believing without possession.
If I believe that God laid my sins upon Jesus Christ and that Jesus Christ was my Substitute, that He died in my stead, that He arose because He had put my sin away and had obtained justification for me, the moment I believe I receive Eternal Life and become God's child.
Believing is having.
Next, He gives to us Righteousness. It is a Revelation of the Righteousness of God that becomes available to the person who has faith in Jesus Christ. (Romans 3:21-26)
God becomes the Righteousness of the sinner who takes Christ as his/her Saviour and crowns Him as Lord of his/her life.
2 Corinthians 5:21 "Him (Jesus Christ) who knew no sin, He (Father) made him to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the Righteousness of God in Him (Christ)."
He not only becomes our Righteousness, but by the impartation of His nature we become His Righteousness, His sons and daughters.
Hebrews 10:38 "My Righteous one shall live by faith."
We are God's children and are called His Righteous ones.
Not only are we the Righteousness of God, but we have become the sons and daughters of God.
The climax of the Revelation that God gave to apostle Paul, recorded in Romans 8:14-17 states this clearly.
"For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ."
This is sonship with all its glorious privileges.
Apostle Paul does not stop there. These sons and daughters are partakers not only of God's nature, but of Holy God Himself in the efficacy of His Holy Spirit.
Romans 8:11 "But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you. He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwelleth in you."
1Corinthians 6:19 "Know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit which is in you?"
You body now is the living temple of the Living God.
This all comes to the believer by faith.
There is no Sense Knowledge faith required.
You do not need to have any feelings to prove that you are Born Again.
All that is necessary is the Word of God.
I am who God says I am.
I have what God says I have.
I can do what God says I can do.
Romans 10:9 declares: "Because if thou shalt confess with thy mouth that Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."
You do not need Sense Knowledge evidence to prove that you have received the Holy Spirit.
Luke 11:13 "How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him."
Your confidence is not in any physical manifestation or physical evidence. It is always in the simple Word of God.
Luke 1:37, "No Word from God is void of power" (or ability to make good).
These mighty Scriptures give one ground for Faith.
We have confidence when we know what we are in Christ.
Unbelief is largely the result of ignorance of what we are in Christ.
When I saw what God had done for me in Christ, my whole being was thrilled, faith was an unconscious fact, it was mine, He did it for me, I said "Thank you Father" and I began to enjoy my rights in Christ.
Chapter VI, SOME ENEMIES OF FAITH
The message would not be complete unless we revealed to you some of the beautiful enemies of faith.
The first one is "Hope".
Hope
Hope is always in the future.
"I hope that I will be healed."
"I hope that I will have money to meet my bills."
"I hope that I will have strength to do my work."
It is an enemy of faith. It stands in the way of faith.
I say to you, "Will you be healed when I pray for you?"
And you reply, "I hope so."
That means you will not be healed.
There is no healing in hope; as far as faith is concerned, hope is a delusion.
Faith is always present-tense. Therefore, because Hope is always future, it is a hindrance to Faith.
We have a hope of Heaven. When we reach Heaven we shall hope no longer.
Mental Assent
Mental Assent is another enemy, an adroit, dangerous enemy.
Mental Assent claims the whole Bible to be true. Mental Assenters say
they believe every word of it, but they do not act upon it.
They simply assent to the fact that it is true.
I was called to pray for a woman with cancer. Both she and her husband had been outstanding Bible teachers for years.
As I sat by the bedside and opened the Word, she kept saying, "I have always believed that. I have known that Scripture since I was a child."
I went away from the house baffled, defeated. I could not understand where the difficulty lay.
When I arrived home, I walked up and down my room saying, "Lord, why is she not healed? She is a good woman. She says she believes your Word
and has been a teacher of it for many years."
Then the Spirit made me see that she only mentally assented to the Word.
She didn't believe it! Believing is acting on the Word. She had never acted on the
Word for her healing.
A few days later I went to the house again. This time I understood her case.
As I began to open the Word she said, "I have believed that all my life." I told her, "No, you have never believed it, for if you had you would be out of bed doing your work. You only mentally assent to it."
Then I opened the Word again. She said, "That's the truth. I don't believe it. I can see now how I have never believed it. I have always assented to it."
You will find that in many cases where men and women have mental assent instead of faith, their creed or dogma has taken the place of the Word's reality.
Sense Knowledge Faith
Sense Knowledge faith requires Sense evidence.
This is the kind of faith Thomas had when he said, (John 20:24-29): "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe."
Then Jesus suddenly appeared to him and said, "Reach hither thy finger, and see my hands ; and reach hither thy hand, and put it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."
Here we see these two kinds of faith in contrast.
There is a Bible faith, and Sense Knowledge faith.
The faith that Mary and Martha and the others had in Jesus during His earth walk was Sense Knowledge faith. They believed in Jesus because they saw the miracles He performed.
The Jews said, "What doest thou for a sign that we may see and believe?"
This Sense Knowledge faith has almost driven real faith out of the churches.
This kind of faith does not give the Word its rightful place. Men and women carry the Word to Church, but they do not trust it. They trust in their feelings, trust in their emotions, trust in what they can see and hear, or taste, or smell.
Real faith is acting on the Word independently of any Sense evidence.
There are two kinds of unbelief.
The first kind of unbelief is based on lack of knowledge. The man does not believe the Word because he knows nothing about it. So, he does not believe in the Father's Revelation to him.
A great number of unbelievers are ignorant of the things to believe. They do not know, so they cannot believe.
The second kind of unbelief is mentioned in Hebrews 4:11. It is "unpersuadableness."
"Let us therefore give diligence to enter into that rest, that no man fall after the same example of disobedience." (The Greek word is translated "unbelief" in the King James version. It is "disobedience" in the American Revised version , and means "unpersuadableness.")
This means that the man is unwilling to allow the Word to govern him.
It is a refusal to act on knowledge.
He knows what the Word teaches, but he refuses to act on it.
Believing is an act of the will.
He can act on the Word if he will.
"Believing" is "willing" to do His will.
Disobedience is an unpersuadable attitude toward the Word.
Then unbelief is either ignorance of the Word or unpersuadableness to act upon it.
Chapter VII, FAITH IN YOUR FAITH
FAITH in your own faith is the law of success in the realm of the spirit.
You live in the Word and the Word lives in you.
The Word is a living thing.
When you let it loose in you, it is letting God loose in you.
When you dare to act the Word and speak the Word God will be in the words that you speak.
As the Word gains the ascendancy, there will be an unconscious faith in your own ability to trust Him. You will trust Him utterly, you will go the limit of His Word.
It is a beautiful thing when a man abandons himself to the Word, swings utterly free, and lets God loose in him until "Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world" becomes a thrilling reality.
1 Corinthians 2:12 tells us that we have received the Spirit, that we may know the things that have been freely given to us of God.
"But we received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is from God; that we might know the things that were freely given to us of God."
Get to know your place, your rights, your privileges, and your authority.
There will be no problem about faith then.
Faith is a problem only when we do not know the Lord and we do not know the Word.
Give place to the God inside of you.
Reckon on the God inside of you.
In the morning before you arise say, "I can do that because He is inside of me. He will enable me to meet these people. He will enable me to speak the Word. He will enable me to walk in love because, greater is love within me than jealousy and hatred around me."
Just reckon on the God inside of you.
Plan your work with the consciousness of His ability in you to put it over.
He has become a living reality.
He is in there now.
He awaits your demands upon Him.
He unveils Himself as your need demands it.
You are expecting Him to guide you into all truth or reality.
Whenever you take up the Word for a few minutes, you know that the light inside of you will open the Word and make it a living thing.
You know John 16:13 is absolutely true.
"Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come He shall guide you into all the truth."
He will take the Father's things and unveil them to you.
You have unconscious confidence in the Name when spoken through your lips.
You know that if you say, "In the Name of Jesus, demon come out of that man or woman" that he will come out.
You know when you command that disease to stop being that it will stop being.
You know when you take the Name of Jesus Christ for finances to meet an obligation that as sure as the Father sits on His throne, the money will come.
You know His Word in your lips will save the lost, heal the sick, give courage and strength to the weak and victory to the defeated.
Once it was God's Word in Jesus' lips.
Now it is God's Word in your lips.
Jesus believed in God's Word in His lips.
Your confidence in that Word makes it a living thing in your lips.
How rich and beautiful life becomes when the Word gains the ascendancy in our hearts!
It will be a great clay to you when you know that your Faith does things, when you believe in your own ability to reach the ear of Love.
When you know that your prayers are answered, that God hears you, you are no longer dependent on another's Faith, you have your own.
Say it over and over again, "At last I have faith in my own faith. I can reach God as well as anyone else."
If a loved one is stricken, you fearlessly take your rights and deliver them from the enemy, your prayer prevails, your faith wins.
You can use the Name of Jesus Christ as well as any believer now.
That Name is yours at last, with its "all authority" and you dare use it as your own. He gave you the right to use it, and you are doing it.
Knowledge is of no value unless you know how to use it.
You know your standing with the Father, you know your privileges, now act your part.
Faith in Other's Faith
The largest percentage of those people who are healed in mass meetings, where they have mass faith, seldom ever maintain their healing.
The reason is obvious. They have no personal faith. It is just faith in other people's faith.
During our last trip to Los Angeles, a Christian worker who has been greatly used of the Lord said to me, "I cannot understand why my prayers for some of my old friends are not heard. They used to be healed every time I prayed for them."
I said, "The difficulty lies in the fact that when by reason of time those sick people ought to be praying for the sick themselves, they need someone else to pray for them."
Just as the Spirit says in Hebrews 5:12, "For when by reason of time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that someone teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God ; and are become such as have need of Milk, and not of solid food. For everyone that partaketh of milk is without experience in the Word of righteousness; for he is a babe."
Everyone that partaketh of milk ; that is, lives in the realm of the Senses and is dependent upon Sense evidence instead of the Word, has had no experience in the Word of Righteousness. He is still a babe.
What does it mean?
Those people who have been healed by someone else's faith for years, have reached a place where God demands that they have faith of their own.
If they are unwilling to study the Word, unwilling to develop their faith life, they will turn to the "arm of flesh" and suffer the penalty that naturally follows.
God expects every one of us to have experience in the Word of Righteousness. In other words, that we have experience of our own in praying for sick folks, in proclaiming the Word, in leading men to Christ, in unveiling the Word.
Colossians 1:12 "Giving thanks unto the Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light."
Here is a better translation. "Giving thanks unto the Father, who has given US the ability to enjoy our share of the inheritance of the saints in light."
He has delivered you out of the authority of darkness.
He has recreated your spirit.
Now He is ready to renew your mind so that you may understand your privileges and rights in Christ.
It belongs to you. You have a right to it.
You should enjoy it instead of being dependent upon someone else's faith.
You have a faith of your own now.
What an hour it would be if those who read this message should declare, "By the grace of God. I will have my own faith."
You have a right to it. It belongs to you.
You have the same Holy Spirit that I have, the same Holy Spirit that Jesus Christ's had, and that the Apostles had.
You have the same Eternal Life, the same Righteousness, the same ability.
The Father has no favorites.
All these things belong to every one of us, so we need not be barren or unfruitful.
2 Corinthians 9-.8 "And God is able to make all grace abound unto you; that ye, having always all sufficiency in everything may abound unto every good work."
And in the tenth verse he says, "And he that supplieth seed to the sower and bread for food, shall supply and multiply your seed for sowing, and increase the fruits of your righteousness."
You have the Righteousness that is imparted to you in the Nature of the Father at the New Birth.
That Righteousness should be bearing fruit in your daily life.
You should take advantage of the fact of your legal standing before the Throne, of your rights in Christ and begin to pray for the sick and needy.
You have the same Legal standing before God that apostle Paul had and you have the same Righteousness that he had, there is no excuse to hide your light beneath a bushel.
Begin to witness of what you are in Christ.
Chapter VIII, CORRESPONDING ACTIONS
WEYMOUTH Bible gives us a striking expression in James 2:14 "What good is it my brethren, if a man professes to have faith, and yet his actions do not correspond?„ (The Weymouth New Testament, otherwise known as The New Testament in Modern Speech or The Modern Speech New Testament, is a translation of the New Testament into nineteenth-century English by Richard Francis Weymouth. It was based on the text of The Resultant Greek Testament. )
18th verse, "You notice that his faith was cooperating with his actions, and that by his actions his faith was perfected."
One of the gravest mistakes that many believers make is to confess their faith in the Word, and at the same time contradict their confession by wrong actions.
A woman said to me, "I cannot understand why I did not get my healing.
I have prayed and prayed. I know the Bible is true."
I asked her, "Are you still taking medicine?"
"Oh, yes," she said.
Then I read her this scripture that I have just quoted. Her actions did not correspond with her confession. She said she was trusting the Lord and yet her trust was in medicine and not in His Word.
We say we trust the Father for our finances, and at the same time we are worrying and fretting how we are going to pay our bills.
One minute we confess that no Word from God can ever be forfeited, that
He must keep His Word with us, and that we know that He will, and the next moment we are repudiating all that we have confessed.
James tells us there must be corresponding action.
"Be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only deluding your own selves."
The actions of a "doer of the Word" coincide with his confession.
Jesus said, Matt. 7:24-26 "Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house ; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
"And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it."
So many who profess Christ and who declare they believe the Word from Genesis to Revelation, and they say it with a great deal of unction are not doers of the Word. They are talkers about the Word. They have mentally assented to the fact that the Word is true.
It does them no good. They are not making it their own.
When I trust in the Word with all my heart, and stop leaning upon Sense reason, stop looking to people for deliverance, then there are corresponding actions.
My actions are in perfect fellowship with my confession.
It has taken some of us a long time to have corresponding action with our confession.
Until there is corresponding action, there will be continual failing.
I may confess as loudly as I please that God is the strength of my life and at the same time tell about my weakness, my inability, and my lack of faith.
There is no corresponding action here.
I am resorting to human means rather than trusting in the Lord utterly.
That is bound to bring confusion in my spirit and weakness and failure in my life.
Let us turn resolutely to 1 Peter 5:7 "Casting all your anxiety upon Him for He careth for you."
Regardless of circumstances, regardless of influences about us, let us turn every problem into His care.
Your worst enemy is yourself. It has come through Sense Knowledge that would limit you to your own ability.
The language of the Senses is: "I can't, I haven't the ability, I haven't the strength, I don't have the opportunity, I have no education, I have been limited."
The language of faith says, "I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me,"
That's to think with God's Word.
Who is it that strengthens me? It is my Father God.
I can do all things through Him. I cannot be conquered. I cannot be defeated.
There isn't force enough in all the world to conquer Him who dwells in me.
Not only am I born of God, a partaker of God's nature and life, but I have God dwelling in me, and I have the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwelling in me.
I have God's wisdom, God's strength, God's ability.
I am learning how to let Him govern my intellect, letting Him think through me, use my vocal faculties.
I am daring to think His thoughts after Him.
I am daring to believe that it is God who is at work within me and that He will work His own good pleasure.
I am daring to say in the presence of my old enemies: failure, weakness, want, lack of opportunity, lack of knowledge, lack of strong friends, and a thousand others, "God is my ability."
God has made me greater than my enemies.
God has made me put my heel on the neck of weakness, of fear, of inability, and I stand and declare that whosoever believeth in Him shall not be put to shame.
I cannot be put to shame.
My weaknesses are routed.
The strength of God is mine.
The ability of God has taken me captive and I revel in this captivity.
That is Faith speaking, real corresponding action.
Chapter IX, WITH THE HEART MAN BELIEVETH
FOR years I have been eagerly searching for a satisfactory explanation of Romans10 :10a. "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness."
You understand that the word "heart" is used illustratively because the heart is the life center of man. It is the great blood pumping station that keeps the physical body alive.
We have come to know that when God speaks of the heart, He means the human spirit.
We know that man is a spirit.
He is in the same class as God.
We know that God is a spirit and that He became a man and took on a man's body, and when He did it He was no less God than He was before He took the physical body.
We know that man, at death, leaves his physical body and is no less man than he was when he had his physical body.
We know that man cannot know God through Sense-Knowledge.
God is only revealed to human through the spirit. Through Revelation-Knowledge
It is the spirit of man that contacts God.
We know that spiritual things are just as real as material things.
God is just as real a person as though He had a physical body.
Lord Jesus Christ, with His glorified body now in Heaven, is no more real than the Holy Spirit or the Father.
1 Peter 3:4, our spirit is called the "hidden man of the heart."
In Romans 7:22 it is called "the inward man". This "inward man" and "the hidden man" give us God's definition of the human spirit. The real man is spirit.
He has a body and a soul.
The soul contacts the intellectual realm, the physical body contacts the physical realm, and the spirit, contact the spiritual realm.
That explains how "the natural man understandeth not the things of the spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually understood." 1 Corinthians 2:14.
The first two chapters of 1 Corinthians give us a contrast between Sense-Knowledge and spiritual knowledge, or between the five senses and the spirit.
You understand that all the knowledge that man has outside of Revelation Knowledge has come to him through these five doors to the mind.
They are the means of communication between material things and intellectual.
The mind can receive nothing unless it receives it through these Five Senses. (The subject is covered more fully in our book "The Two Kinds of Knowledge).
If The Five Senses were destroyed, man would have no means of receiving knowledge.
He could not know himself, nor the material world.
2 Corinthians 4:16 "Wherefore we faint not, but though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is being renewed day by day."
Ephesians 3:16: "That He would grant you according to the riches of His glory, that ye may be made strong with His ability through His Spirit in the inward man."
When a man is Born Again, Eternal Life is imparted to his spirit, to this inward man.
When the Holy Spirit comes into his body, He comes in to dwell in his spirit.
The Holy Spirit cannot communicate directly with our minds, but He must communicate with us through our spirit which reaches and influences our intellectual processes.
The spirit has a voice. We call that voice conscience, or a hunch, or guidance.
Sometimes it is called intuition. We get a hunch and if we follow it we do not make a mistake. (I do not like the word "hunch" but it is in common use).
We all know that if we had followed an inward voice, we would never have made some of the investments that we have made where we lost money; that we would never have chosen certain people as companions; we would never have gone into business with certain people.
That inward voice seeks to give guidance to OUR minds.
We would almost never make a mistake if we would learn to give heed to
our spirit.
One of the greatest mistakes that has been made in our intellectual
culture has been the ignoring of the spirit.
Knowledge of our intellects has taken the throne, and our spirits have
been locked away in a prison.
Consequently we are continually making mistakes because our spirit
which should guide us is not permitted to function.
Knowledge is something that we acquire through the Senses, through
reading, through travel and hearing.
Wisdom is the ability to use the knowledge to profit.
Wisdom does not come through the Senses.
Wisdom comes from our spirit.
James says that it comes down from above. That is divine wisdom, God's
wisdom imparted to us. James 3:13-18.
The man who shuts his spirit away and makes a prisoner of it, who never
listens to it, never obeys it, becomes crippled and is an easy prey to selfish and
designing people.
The one who lets the spirit gain the mastery and influence him at crisis
times is the one who climbs to the top.
What does it mean to "believe with the heart"?
It means to believe with the spirit.
We cannot believe with our intellect. That goes without argument.
Faith is a product of the spirit.
This inward conviction, this thing called assurance, is a child of our
spirits.
We don't know why we know ; we cannot explain it, and yet we do know.
The other day I was unfolding the Word to a woman who had a very
painful sickness. As I opened the Scripture step by step she said, "I see it. By his
stripes I am healed."
I said, "How do you know you are healed?" She said, "Because the Word declares that I am."
Sense Knowledge said, "The sore is still in your body and you can feel
the pain even now."
Yet she arose above Sense Knowledge and Sense Evidences and declared
that she was healed.
As I prayed for her, her faith absolutely drove out the disease. The thing
that meant death to her was gone. Why? Because in her heart she believed the
Word of God; in her spirit she believed it.
low does our spirit get faith that our intellect cannot obtain—through the
Word.
Jesus said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Matt. 4 4.
He is speaking of spiritual food. He is using Sense Knowledge terms to
convey a spiritual truth.
Our spirits become filled with assurance as we meditate in the Word.
For many years I have walked by faith for our finances, for all my
physical needs. Now I have grown to see that the Word is the food that builds the
spirit, makes it strong, and gives to it its quiet assurance.
The Senses believe in what they can hear and see and feel.
The spirit believes in the Word, regardless of seeing, hearing, or feeling.
The people who are prayed for again and again but do not get their healing, they only have Sense Knowledge faith.
They do not have Revelation faith. They have faith in man, faith in the anointing oil, faith in someone else's prayer, faith in some person or organization. They do not have faith in the Word.
James 5:14 illustrates this: "Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church : and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up." Then it tells how the prayer of a Righteous man availeth much in its working.
This whole picture is a Sense-Knowledge-faith picture.
If the one who was sick had known that "by His stripes" he was healed, he would have had no need to call for the elders.
But because he did not know it, in his desperation he turned to the Lord and to the elders.
Here is a demonstration of the Grace of God, in meeting man on his own level as Jesus did in the Incarnation.
When the Word was made flesh and dwelt among men, He came into man's Sense-Knowledge realm, so that man could see Him, hear Him, touch Him.
Everything connected with the earth walk of Jesus as far as man could see, was in the Sense realm.
There was no faith in Jesus from a spiritual point of view.
They believed because they saw the miracles and ate the bread.
When He died on the cross there was no spiritual apprehension. They did not know that He was dying for their sins. They thought He was dying as a martyr for His ideals.
Sense Knowledge holds the same conception today.
The scholastic world believes Jesus died for His convictions.
At the Crucifixion, Sense Knowledge-faith broke down.
To believe with all our hearts is to believe independently of Sense Knowledge.
Our Spirits respond to our yielding to the Lordship of Jesus. (The key to Biblical faith is the recognition of the Lordship of Jesus by the heart.)
1 Peter 3:15 "But sanctify in your heart Christ as Lord."
"Sanctify" means to "separate' or "set apart". We set Christ apart in our hearts.
When we crown Jesus as Lord of our lives, we crown His Word as Lord of our lives. This gives the Word its proper place.
Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father. His Word is in our hearts.
We give to that Word its place, and when we do, faith becomes perfectly natural.
Proverb 3:15 "Trust in the Lord with all thy heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding (or to Sense Knowledge). In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He will direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own conceit.'
Be not wise with Sense Knowledge which leads us to repudiate the Word or to act independently of it.
2 Corinthians 10:3 "Casting down reasonings and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of the Word of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ."
This is very important if we want to walk by faith. The Word must be superior to Sense Knowledge, whether that Sense Knowledge be ours or someone else's.
We want to remember that Sense Knowledge is always limited.
No man has perfect Sense Knowledge.
The Word of God is perfect. This Revelation is His perfect Revelation and it meets every crisis and every need of our lives.
If we trust this Word with all our hearts then there comes a quietness and rest into our spirits.
Believing is knowing. We know that the Word of God is true.
When He says, "And my God shall supply every need of yours," we simply know in our spirits that every need will be supplied and we don't worry; we have no anxiety.
Our hearts take courage as we read the Word. Our assurance becomes deeper.
This is assurance which is independent of Sense evidence. It may contradict Sense evidence as it often does, but we know that spiritual things are as real as material things.
We know that spiritual things are superior to physical things, for God, a spirit, created physical things.
We know that spiritual forces are stronger than physical forces.
We know that "Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world."
We know that the Greater One is master of disease and weakness.
We trust in Him with all our hearts; He rises up in us and gives our minds illumination which they can get from no other source.
We know we cannot be conquered.
We know because we believe.
Chapter X, ACTING ON HIS WORD
In John 6 :47 Jesus said, "He that believeth hath eternal life."
"Believing" is "having". It is possession.
Mental Assent admires the Word, confesses that the Word is true and very desirable, but it doesn't possess.
Believing ends in the glad confession, "It is mine. I have it."
How little real action on the Word we see today.
You remember the man who was brought into the presence of Jesus by four of his friends. (Mark 2:1-12)
Jesus said to him, "rise, take up thy bed and walk."
Had he not acted on the Master's words, he never would have been healed; but because he acted, he was healed.
Luke 5:5 Peter said, "But at thy word I will let down the net."
What a change would come into some of our lives if we said, "At Thy Word I will."
We have clung to the theories of men and ignored the Living Word.
Healing and victory belong to you.
When Jesus said to Peter, "Come, walk the waves with me", Peter acted on the Word.
When the servants filled the firkins with water, they obeyed what Jesus said, and the water became wine. "John 2:1-11.
We mentally Assent to the integrity and the reality of the Word; but we do not act on it.
Until we act upon it, it does not become a reality.
You may hold the Resurrection Truth as a great doctrine or dogma, but it will not mean anything to you until you say, "He died for me. He conquered death and hell for me. He arose for me. And because He arose I am a victor, I am a conqueror of Satan today. Satan has no dominion over me. I am free." Then the Word becomes something more than a doctrine or a theory. It becomes a reality.
People who act on the Word receive things.
Today, the one who acts on the Word receives.
You act faith, you talk faith; your actions and your words agree.
You are a believer.
It took faith to get into the family, but after you get into the family all things are yours. (1 Corinthians 3:21)
It took faith to become a child of God, but the children own all that Christ wrought for them.
When God says, "I watch over my Word to perform it", then you may be certain that if you accept Isaiah 53:3-6 that just as surely as God sits on His throne, healing is bound to be yours.
All you need to do is act on the Word.
It is deeply important that you learn this simple little lesson.
It is not struggling, or praying, or crying.
It is acting on what God has spoken that brings results.
Faith and Believing
The word "faith" is a noun: the word "believe" is a verb.
"Believing" is really "acting" on the Word.
It is simply acting on the Word of God as you have acted on the word of a physician, the word of a lawyer, or the word of a loved one.
You don't ask the questions: "Do I believe?" or "Have I faith?"
You simply say, "That is what God has said," and you act accordingly; or
"Did God say that 'by His stripes' I am healed? If God said it, then I must be healed, and I will act on what God has spoken."
Faith is the result of action.
Believing is taking the step up to the object, the thing you want. Faith is having arrived.
Instead of using the word "believe", I use the words "act on His Word."
It is simpler. It is perfectly Scriptural and it is just what Jesus meant.
It is a remarkable thing that nowhere in the Epistles did Paul urge believers to believe or have faith.
Our urging men to believe is a result of the Word's having lost its reality.
What does Paul tell us?
Ephesians 1:3 "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ."
If He has blessed you with every spiritual blessing, then you are blessed.
You don't need to ask for the spiritual blessings.
All you need to do is thank Him that you have them.
All you have to say is, "Father 1 thank Thee for my healing. I thank Thee for my deliverance."
All that Jesus did was to act upon His Father's Word.
All that Peter did was to act upon the Word which Christ had given him.
It was the Word of Christ in apostle Peter's mouth that he acted upon that brought salvation and healing and deliverance to the people.
We may preach the Word, but if we do not practice it, it will produce no results.
We may preach healing and declare our faith in healing, but that is of no value unless we practice it.
James tells us that "faith without corresponding actions is dead."
When we act on the Word we show our faith.
We know that no Word from God is void of power or void of God's ability. Luke 1:37.
So, we act on it. We fearlessly lay our hands on the sick. We command the disease to leave in Jesus' Name and it obeys. The sick one is healed.
He said, "I watch over my Word to perform it."
We would never have laid hands on the sick and claimed healing if He had not told us to do it.
He said, "They that believe shall lay hands on the sick." Mark 16:16-18.
That means the instant we accept Christ as our Savior, confess Him as Lord, and receive Eternal Life, we can begin to function in the Family. We can begin to lay hands on the sick.
"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." Mark 16:16.
The Greek word there for "saved" is "sozo" which means "healed."
Healing in the final analysis is spiritual as well as physical.
Disease manifests itself in the physical, but its roots, its substance, its reality are in the spirit.
The word "believe" occurs about one hundred times in the Gospel of John.
The word "faith" only occurs about two or three times.
The reason evidently is that he was talking to men outside of the Body of Christ, to Jews under the Law.
They were not men of faith. They did not have faith. He was inciting them to believe.
Some Facts About Believing
Some people cannot believe the Word because they have never confessed the Lordship of Christ.
The fear of man has held them in bondage.
This is one of Satan's strongest holds on man.
Many times a dead denomination creed imprisons a man.
You have been taught not to believe this and not to believe that.
Your Christ has been lost in a maze of theological theories.
Abandon yourself to the Lordship of the Word; act on it, and God will become real to you.
Part Two , continue here ....
