Preface
Our theological schools have never had a department on Faith. It would make sense if every church would have a faith clinic, one class a week on the study and development of Faith.
Faith is not a product of sense knowledge.
It is not a product of intellectual faculties.
Faith is born of the human spirit.
Whether we want to face it or not, the fact is: there is no love in the natural human heart, and there is no faith in the natural human heart.
Faith and love spring from the recreated human spirit.
Until a man has received Eternal Life, the nature of God, he cannot be a faith man, and he cannot be a love man. He will only have a Sense Knowledge Faith.
God is a faith God.
Faith is His nature just as love is His nature.
I have sometimes thought that love was the mother of faith; that faith sprang out of the roots of love.
And love can only come from its source, the Father's heart.
So, when we are Born Again and receive Eternal Life, the nature of God, that nature begets in us faith, and we build up our faith by feeding on God's Word.
His Word is the only source of strength for the recreated human spirit; the only source of building faith.
Faith cannot be built by abstract reasoning.
It is only built by my acting on the Word, letting the Word live in me as it did in Jesus.
By my doing the Word, I build faith in my spirit.
I become a doer of the Word, a practicer of the Word.
The Word becomes a part of my very being.
Faith is like a muscle. You don’t get more muscle, you build up the muscle by exercise and nutrition.
I absorb it in my daily life; I feed on the Word and it builds up in me the faith of God.
Chapter 10
A STUDY IN FAITH
The reason faith is so difficult is that Sense Knowledge has gained the ascendancy in our educational and religious life. Sense knowledge has all come through our physical contact with the world.
We have learned to trust so utterly in our eyes, our ears, the sense of touch, of smell, and the sense of taste, that spiritual things are hard to understand.
It is easy to believe in things you can see, hear, feel, smell and taste.
The crowd said about Jesus, "We see the miracles; now we believe in you."
Thomas fell down at His feet when he saw the wounded side and the holes in His hands and feet. He said, "Lord, I believe." Jesus said, "Blessed are they who have not seen, yet believe." The Master touched the heart of things there.
Faith is independent of Sense Knowledge.
The antagonism of the scholastic world to the Revelation called the Bible is that the Bible demands faith in things the Senses cannot apprehend.
Hebrews 11:3 tells us that the worlds have been framed by faith through the Word of God. "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."
That explains the first verse, "Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen," or "Faith is giving substance to things hoped for."
Hope is not faith.
Faith is always now.
Hope is always future.
God said, "Let there be," and the sun, moon, and stars came into being.
He said, "Let there be an earth," and the earth came into being.
He said, "Let there be light," and there was light. It was a warm light that encircled the whole earth and made it a subtropical garden, out of which have come our coal, oil, chemicals, and minerals.
Then He said, "Let the earth bring forth," and the earth brought forth.
"Let the animals come," and the animals came.
Faith is the mightiest force in the universe.
It is the creative ability of God.
It is the creative ability of man.
Animals act by instinct, not faith.
Man acts by faith.
Man was created in the image and likeness of the Faith of God.
He is created in the image of love. He is created in the image of faith.
Whether you recognize it or not, man's entire life, from the time he becomes conscious as a babe, until he steps off into the unknown, is a faith life; one has faith in his senses, the other in God.
When man loses faith, life has lost its objective.
Great financiers are faith men.
Woolworth had faith in five and ten cent pieces.
Ford had faith in an automobile.
Edison had faith in electricity.
The Wright brothers had faith in flight.
Faith is the thing that brings success.
Doubt is the thing that brings failure.
The educational institution that teaches doubt becomes the unconscious enemy of civilization.
The modern trend of Sense Knowledge has been toward agnosticism.
The agnostic possesses the proud confession of "I do not know."
Atheism says that God does not exist.
The two of them are twin enemies of success and mental spiritual progress of the age.
The agnostic makes no contribution but confusion.
God is love. He works by faith. It is faith that works by love.
He is the faith God.
Man is the crowning work of faith.
Being created in the image of love, he must live by faith.
Man is a faith creation.
When reason usurps the seat of faith, man becomes a failure.
Let us now consider what faith in the spiritual realm can mean.
SOME REALITIES
The bolder the faith, the greater is the success.
Faith wins.
When faith dies, success folds its wings. We can take as the slogan of life Matthew 19:26: "But with God all things are possible."
Unite with Mark 9:23: "All things are possible to him that believeth."
1 John 4:4: "Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world."
Who is in you? It is God!
Then to the God who is within you, all things are possible.
If you give the God within you liberty, let Him loose in you, you become limitless in your realm.
"All things are possible to him that believeth." The Greek word there for "believe" means "a believing one."
That is a child of God, a believing one.
You and God are linked together. You become invincible.
You see a glimpse of this in Martin Luther's ministry.
We saw it in John Alexander Dowie.
We have seen it in individuals here and there—God and man linked together, doing the impossible.
We know that every step out of love means sin.
We know that every step out of faith means weakness and failure.
The word, "believing," is a verb. The word, "faith," is a noun.
Believing is acting on the Word.
Faith is the result of this action.
Jesus acted on the Word of His Father. He said, "The words that I speak unto you are not mine but my Father's." John 14:10.
All His works were a result of His words.
Matthew 8:5-13 gives us a record of the Centurion.
In the 8th verse the Centurion said, "But only say the word, and my servant shall be healed."
Jesus spoke the Word.
The healing of the leper, the healing of the woman with the issue of blood, and the healing of the man mentioned in Mark 2:3-12 are miracles performed by His word.
Matthew 14:23-33 is the story of Peter's walking on the waves.
Peter said, "If it be you, bid me come." Jesus simply said one word, "Come." When He did, the waters sustained the weight of Peter.
Again we see Jesus quieting the sea. It was words that quieted it. He simply said, "Peace be still." Mark 4:35-39.
Jesus' faith was in His Word.
Acts 3:1-11 gives us a picture of Peter's faith in the Name of Jesus in his lips.
Sixth verse, "But Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but what I have, that give I you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." The life-long cripple became well and strong.
Acts 20:7-12 is the story of the young man falling out of the third-story window. He was taken up dead. "Paul went down, bent over him, and took him into his arms. “Don’t worry,” he said, “he’s alive!” Then they all went back upstairs, shared in the Lord’s Supper, and ate together. Paul continued talking to them until dawn, and then he left. Meanwhile, the young man was taken home alive and well, and everyone was greatly relieved."
It was the Name of Christ in the lips of Paul that raised the lad from the dead.
Faith, then, is acting and speaking the Word of God.
Sense Knowledge speaks the word of man, and faith speaks the Word of God.
Sense Knowledge man acts upon Sense Knowledge.
The faith man acts upon the Word of God.
Faith is giving substance to the thing that you had long hoped would become real.
Hebrews 11:1, in one translation reads, "Now faith is the title deed to things hoped for."
Hope never gave a title deed, but faith is the title deed.
When you believe the Word, anxiety and fear leave you.
As long as all you have is hope, you will be filled with anxiety and worry.
Mark 11:22, "Jesus answering said unto them. Have faith in God," or "Have the faith of God."
It is Jesus' challenge for us to have the “God kind of faith.” He had it.
"Verily I say unto you. Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be you taken up and cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he says cometh to pass; he shall have it."
There are two things to notice: He believes in his heart, and he believes in his words.
You believe in your heart, and then you believe in the words on your lips.
That gives you power over demons and disease and circumstances.
Mark 11:24: "All things whatsoever you pray and ask for, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them."
They have not been in your possession, but it is just as real as though they were.
Faith counts the things that are not as though they were.
Romans 4:17, Faith counted the things that were not as though they were and they became.
Abraham counted that Sarah was able to give birth to a child when she was ninety years of age, and she became the mother of Isaac.
Abraham believed that his body would be rejuvenated, and it was.
Romans 4:19 is God's commentary on this.
"And without being weakened in faith he considered his own body now as good as dead (he being about 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."
You can see the resistlessness, the absolute ability of faith.
Faith in you will conquer as faith in Jesus conquered.
Faith in your own words will drive disease out of sick men's bodies.
When you say, "In the Name of Jesus, disease depart from this body," you have confidence in Jesus' words in your lips as Jesus had confidence in His Father's words in His lips, and the healing takes place.
Faith comes by daring to act upon the Word.
Your fear to act upon the Word is unbelief gaining the ascendency.
Matthew 18:18: "Verily I say unto you, What things so ever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what things so ever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
Here is God's challenge to united faith.
Everyone of you should hunt for a prayer partner who can believe with you, who can unite their faith with yours.
You become a resistless power the moment you do.
You may be mighty in faith alone, but you can be mightier in faith united with another.
John 14:12-13, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto the Father. And whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the son."
The word "ask" here in the Greek means "to demand."
You are not demanding it of Jesus, but you are demanding it as Peter demanded the man at the beautiful gate to rise and walk.
You are demanding sickness and pain to leave bodies in the Name of Jesus.
He said, "That the Father might be glorified in the Son."
John 15:7: "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever you will, and it shall be done unto you."
Satan has taken advantage of you. Disease and sickness have made an invalid out of you.
Circumstances have gained the mastery and made a slave instead of a master of you.
Now you abide in Him, and let His Word abide in you.
Let that Word abide in your lips and contend with your sickness and you will become the master again.
You simply insist that that thing is not for you.
You will not stand for defeat any longer.
You can look the adversary in the face and say with quiet assurance, "Satan, you are defeated. In Jesus’ Name I demand my rights."
John 16:24: "Hitherto have you asked nothing in my name: ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be made full."
Your joy cannot be made full while loved ones are sick, while men and women are captives of the adversary.
Your joy cannot be made full unless you can see the will of the Father worked in the lives of men and women around you.
Go, then, and take what belongs to you in that Name.
Questions
1. Faith cannot be built by abstract reasoning. How do you build your faith?
2. What is the difference between Faith and Hope?
3. Faith is independent of Sense Knowledge. What should that mean to us?
4. Agnosticism and Atheism are twin enemies of success and mental spiritual progress. Atheism simply says God doesn’t exist. Agnostics do nothing but cause confusion. What happens when reason usurps the seat of faith?
5. Every step out of love means ______ and every step out of faith means ___________ and ___________.
6. Faith is acting and speaking the Word of God. What does Sense Knowledge speak?
7. How does Faith come?
8. How is your joy made full?
Our theological schools have never had a department on Faith. It would make sense if every church would have a faith clinic, one class a week on the study and development of Faith.
Faith is not a product of sense knowledge.
It is not a product of intellectual faculties.
Faith is born of the human spirit.
Whether we want to face it or not, the fact is: there is no love in the natural human heart, and there is no faith in the natural human heart.
Faith and love spring from the recreated human spirit.
Until a man has received Eternal Life, the nature of God, he cannot be a faith man, and he cannot be a love man. He will only have a Sense Knowledge Faith.
God is a faith God.
Faith is His nature just as love is His nature.
I have sometimes thought that love was the mother of faith; that faith sprang out of the roots of love.
And love can only come from its source, the Father's heart.
So, when we are Born Again and receive Eternal Life, the nature of God, that nature begets in us faith, and we build up our faith by feeding on God's Word.
His Word is the only source of strength for the recreated human spirit; the only source of building faith.
Faith cannot be built by abstract reasoning.
It is only built by my acting on the Word, letting the Word live in me as it did in Jesus.
By my doing the Word, I build faith in my spirit.
I become a doer of the Word, a practicer of the Word.
The Word becomes a part of my very being.
Faith is like a muscle. You don’t get more muscle, you build up the muscle by exercise and nutrition.
I absorb it in my daily life; I feed on the Word and it builds up in me the faith of God.
Chapter 10
A STUDY IN FAITH
The reason faith is so difficult is that Sense Knowledge has gained the ascendancy in our educational and religious life. Sense knowledge has all come through our physical contact with the world.
We have learned to trust so utterly in our eyes, our ears, the sense of touch, of smell, and the sense of taste, that spiritual things are hard to understand.
It is easy to believe in things you can see, hear, feel, smell and taste.
The crowd said about Jesus, "We see the miracles; now we believe in you."
Thomas fell down at His feet when he saw the wounded side and the holes in His hands and feet. He said, "Lord, I believe." Jesus said, "Blessed are they who have not seen, yet believe." The Master touched the heart of things there.
Faith is independent of Sense Knowledge.
The antagonism of the scholastic world to the Revelation called the Bible is that the Bible demands faith in things the Senses cannot apprehend.
Hebrews 11:3 tells us that the worlds have been framed by faith through the Word of God. "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."
That explains the first verse, "Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen," or "Faith is giving substance to things hoped for."
Hope is not faith.
Faith is always now.
Hope is always future.
God said, "Let there be," and the sun, moon, and stars came into being.
He said, "Let there be an earth," and the earth came into being.
He said, "Let there be light," and there was light. It was a warm light that encircled the whole earth and made it a subtropical garden, out of which have come our coal, oil, chemicals, and minerals.
Then He said, "Let the earth bring forth," and the earth brought forth.
"Let the animals come," and the animals came.
Faith is the mightiest force in the universe.
It is the creative ability of God.
It is the creative ability of man.
Animals act by instinct, not faith.
Man acts by faith.
Man was created in the image and likeness of the Faith of God.
He is created in the image of love. He is created in the image of faith.
Whether you recognize it or not, man's entire life, from the time he becomes conscious as a babe, until he steps off into the unknown, is a faith life; one has faith in his senses, the other in God.
When man loses faith, life has lost its objective.
Great financiers are faith men.
Woolworth had faith in five and ten cent pieces.
Ford had faith in an automobile.
Edison had faith in electricity.
The Wright brothers had faith in flight.
Faith is the thing that brings success.
Doubt is the thing that brings failure.
The educational institution that teaches doubt becomes the unconscious enemy of civilization.
The modern trend of Sense Knowledge has been toward agnosticism.
The agnostic possesses the proud confession of "I do not know."
Atheism says that God does not exist.
The two of them are twin enemies of success and mental spiritual progress of the age.
The agnostic makes no contribution but confusion.
God is love. He works by faith. It is faith that works by love.
He is the faith God.
Man is the crowning work of faith.
Being created in the image of love, he must live by faith.
Man is a faith creation.
When reason usurps the seat of faith, man becomes a failure.
Let us now consider what faith in the spiritual realm can mean.
SOME REALITIES
The bolder the faith, the greater is the success.
Faith wins.
When faith dies, success folds its wings. We can take as the slogan of life Matthew 19:26: "But with God all things are possible."
Unite with Mark 9:23: "All things are possible to him that believeth."
1 John 4:4: "Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world."
Who is in you? It is God!
Then to the God who is within you, all things are possible.
If you give the God within you liberty, let Him loose in you, you become limitless in your realm.
"All things are possible to him that believeth." The Greek word there for "believe" means "a believing one."
That is a child of God, a believing one.
You and God are linked together. You become invincible.
You see a glimpse of this in Martin Luther's ministry.
We saw it in John Alexander Dowie.
We have seen it in individuals here and there—God and man linked together, doing the impossible.
We know that every step out of love means sin.
We know that every step out of faith means weakness and failure.
The word, "believing," is a verb. The word, "faith," is a noun.
Believing is acting on the Word.
Faith is the result of this action.
Jesus acted on the Word of His Father. He said, "The words that I speak unto you are not mine but my Father's." John 14:10.
All His works were a result of His words.
Matthew 8:5-13 gives us a record of the Centurion.
In the 8th verse the Centurion said, "But only say the word, and my servant shall be healed."
Jesus spoke the Word.
The healing of the leper, the healing of the woman with the issue of blood, and the healing of the man mentioned in Mark 2:3-12 are miracles performed by His word.
Matthew 14:23-33 is the story of Peter's walking on the waves.
Peter said, "If it be you, bid me come." Jesus simply said one word, "Come." When He did, the waters sustained the weight of Peter.
Again we see Jesus quieting the sea. It was words that quieted it. He simply said, "Peace be still." Mark 4:35-39.
Jesus' faith was in His Word.
Acts 3:1-11 gives us a picture of Peter's faith in the Name of Jesus in his lips.
Sixth verse, "But Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but what I have, that give I you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." The life-long cripple became well and strong.
Acts 20:7-12 is the story of the young man falling out of the third-story window. He was taken up dead. "Paul went down, bent over him, and took him into his arms. “Don’t worry,” he said, “he’s alive!” Then they all went back upstairs, shared in the Lord’s Supper, and ate together. Paul continued talking to them until dawn, and then he left. Meanwhile, the young man was taken home alive and well, and everyone was greatly relieved."
It was the Name of Christ in the lips of Paul that raised the lad from the dead.
Faith, then, is acting and speaking the Word of God.
Sense Knowledge speaks the word of man, and faith speaks the Word of God.
Sense Knowledge man acts upon Sense Knowledge.
The faith man acts upon the Word of God.
Faith is giving substance to the thing that you had long hoped would become real.
Hebrews 11:1, in one translation reads, "Now faith is the title deed to things hoped for."
Hope never gave a title deed, but faith is the title deed.
When you believe the Word, anxiety and fear leave you.
As long as all you have is hope, you will be filled with anxiety and worry.
Mark 11:22, "Jesus answering said unto them. Have faith in God," or "Have the faith of God."
It is Jesus' challenge for us to have the “God kind of faith.” He had it.
"Verily I say unto you. Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be you taken up and cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he says cometh to pass; he shall have it."
There are two things to notice: He believes in his heart, and he believes in his words.
You believe in your heart, and then you believe in the words on your lips.
That gives you power over demons and disease and circumstances.
Mark 11:24: "All things whatsoever you pray and ask for, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them."
They have not been in your possession, but it is just as real as though they were.
Faith counts the things that are not as though they were.
Romans 4:17, Faith counted the things that were not as though they were and they became.
Abraham counted that Sarah was able to give birth to a child when she was ninety years of age, and she became the mother of Isaac.
Abraham believed that his body would be rejuvenated, and it was.
Romans 4:19 is God's commentary on this.
"And without being weakened in faith he considered his own body now as good as dead (he being about 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."
You can see the resistlessness, the absolute ability of faith.
Faith in you will conquer as faith in Jesus conquered.
Faith in your own words will drive disease out of sick men's bodies.
When you say, "In the Name of Jesus, disease depart from this body," you have confidence in Jesus' words in your lips as Jesus had confidence in His Father's words in His lips, and the healing takes place.
Faith comes by daring to act upon the Word.
Your fear to act upon the Word is unbelief gaining the ascendency.
Matthew 18:18: "Verily I say unto you, What things so ever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what things so ever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
Here is God's challenge to united faith.
Everyone of you should hunt for a prayer partner who can believe with you, who can unite their faith with yours.
You become a resistless power the moment you do.
You may be mighty in faith alone, but you can be mightier in faith united with another.
John 14:12-13, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto the Father. And whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the son."
The word "ask" here in the Greek means "to demand."
You are not demanding it of Jesus, but you are demanding it as Peter demanded the man at the beautiful gate to rise and walk.
You are demanding sickness and pain to leave bodies in the Name of Jesus.
He said, "That the Father might be glorified in the Son."
John 15:7: "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever you will, and it shall be done unto you."
Satan has taken advantage of you. Disease and sickness have made an invalid out of you.
Circumstances have gained the mastery and made a slave instead of a master of you.
Now you abide in Him, and let His Word abide in you.
Let that Word abide in your lips and contend with your sickness and you will become the master again.
You simply insist that that thing is not for you.
You will not stand for defeat any longer.
You can look the adversary in the face and say with quiet assurance, "Satan, you are defeated. In Jesus’ Name I demand my rights."
John 16:24: "Hitherto have you asked nothing in my name: ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be made full."
Your joy cannot be made full while loved ones are sick, while men and women are captives of the adversary.
Your joy cannot be made full unless you can see the will of the Father worked in the lives of men and women around you.
Go, then, and take what belongs to you in that Name.
Questions
1. Faith cannot be built by abstract reasoning. How do you build your faith?
2. What is the difference between Faith and Hope?
3. Faith is independent of Sense Knowledge. What should that mean to us?
4. Agnosticism and Atheism are twin enemies of success and mental spiritual progress. Atheism simply says God doesn’t exist. Agnostics do nothing but cause confusion. What happens when reason usurps the seat of faith?
5. Every step out of love means ______ and every step out of faith means ___________ and ___________.
6. Faith is acting and speaking the Word of God. What does Sense Knowledge speak?
7. How does Faith come?
8. How is your joy made full?