NEWS The Result of Faith
Since I have been blogging on faith, I thought I would post something T. Austin-Sparks wrote on the subject from his essay "The Most Difficult Thing in the World." It is wonderful and I hope it brings much light to you:
The Result of Faith
(a) Rest
So, just finally, a little word on the result of faith. First of all, of course, it is rest. We are not now thinking of some future rest, some future land, whatever our hymn writers have to say about it. You read again this fourth chapter of the letter to the Hebrews, and you see "We who have believed do enter into that rest". Some of us have already entered in, says the Apostle. God defines a day - it is not the future - and some of us do enter in. This rest is not a time period, it is a state, and the Apostle says here so clearly that entering into rest is simply a matter of entering into a settled faith in God. You know quite well that however doctrinal and technical this may seem, it is very true. We can prove it almost any day of our lives. When we get to the place where we put ourselves and what we would like on one side and accept the Lord's will - not just resignedly saying Well, if that is what the Lord wants, I capitulate; if I could have it otherwise, I would, but this is evidently what the Lord wants: but if with all our heart we accept it and enter into this with the Lord to co-operate with Him, when we come there, rest enters into our souls, our souls come to rest, on all sorts of things, small and great.
(b) Power with God
Then victory comes because faith is power. If the Word of God is strong and clear about one thing, it is about this. Oh, faith is power. First of all, it is power with God. What is more powerful with God than to be well-pleasing to Him, and that is why I read about Enoch. "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and he was not found because God translated him: for he hath had witness borne to him that before his translation he had been well-pleasing unto God". That is all centred in, and made to rest upon, faith. "Without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing unto him". Surely that is our ambition above all - to be well-pleasing unto Him. How? - to believe Him, to trust Him, to repose faith in Him, to be well-pleasing unto Him. It is power with God. We can consider that along the other line, that our weakness with the Lord is always found in our reservation, our question, our doubt, our uncertainty. That is our weakness with God, and the Lord waits.
(c) Power over Satan
It is victory over the Devil because, if there is one thing that is the playground of the Devil, it is unbelief, and if there is one thing that the Devil is always seeking to promote and maintain, it is unfaith. The hallmark of the Devil's work from the Garden to the end is unbelief, doubt of God, to question about God and God's ways - and God's motives. That is where the Devil is coming all the time - with an 'if'. If this and if that. If God were what He says He is, then this would not be. You know the thousands of 'ifs' and 'buts' of the Devil. The only power of victory over the Devil is faith in God. We can use the language of victory and power over Satan and it counts for nothing. We must have a new position of power over the enemy. The key is faith; it may be faith in the Blood, or in the Name, or in the Lord, but it is faith.
(d) Power over the World
It is power over the world. "This is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith" (1 John 5:4). The world in this sense is that whole system and order and atmosphere and attitude of things which must have the seen, and the present. What is the mark of the world? It must see, it must have now. Anything that is unseen and not present is utterly outside of the mentality of the world, and we know how much of the world there is in our nature and the battle is there. Faith overcomes that world that is in our own natures and around us. "The things which are seen are temporal: but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Cor. 4:18). Faith has to do with those things.
May the Lord increase our faith.
Agape,
Steve
The Result of Faith
(a) Rest
So, just finally, a little word on the result of faith. First of all, of course, it is rest. We are not now thinking of some future rest, some future land, whatever our hymn writers have to say about it. You read again this fourth chapter of the letter to the Hebrews, and you see "We who have believed do enter into that rest". Some of us have already entered in, says the Apostle. God defines a day - it is not the future - and some of us do enter in. This rest is not a time period, it is a state, and the Apostle says here so clearly that entering into rest is simply a matter of entering into a settled faith in God. You know quite well that however doctrinal and technical this may seem, it is very true. We can prove it almost any day of our lives. When we get to the place where we put ourselves and what we would like on one side and accept the Lord's will - not just resignedly saying Well, if that is what the Lord wants, I capitulate; if I could have it otherwise, I would, but this is evidently what the Lord wants: but if with all our heart we accept it and enter into this with the Lord to co-operate with Him, when we come there, rest enters into our souls, our souls come to rest, on all sorts of things, small and great.
(b) Power with God
Then victory comes because faith is power. If the Word of God is strong and clear about one thing, it is about this. Oh, faith is power. First of all, it is power with God. What is more powerful with God than to be well-pleasing to Him, and that is why I read about Enoch. "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and he was not found because God translated him: for he hath had witness borne to him that before his translation he had been well-pleasing unto God". That is all centred in, and made to rest upon, faith. "Without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing unto him". Surely that is our ambition above all - to be well-pleasing unto Him. How? - to believe Him, to trust Him, to repose faith in Him, to be well-pleasing unto Him. It is power with God. We can consider that along the other line, that our weakness with the Lord is always found in our reservation, our question, our doubt, our uncertainty. That is our weakness with God, and the Lord waits.
(c) Power over Satan
It is victory over the Devil because, if there is one thing that is the playground of the Devil, it is unbelief, and if there is one thing that the Devil is always seeking to promote and maintain, it is unfaith. The hallmark of the Devil's work from the Garden to the end is unbelief, doubt of God, to question about God and God's ways - and God's motives. That is where the Devil is coming all the time - with an 'if'. If this and if that. If God were what He says He is, then this would not be. You know the thousands of 'ifs' and 'buts' of the Devil. The only power of victory over the Devil is faith in God. We can use the language of victory and power over Satan and it counts for nothing. We must have a new position of power over the enemy. The key is faith; it may be faith in the Blood, or in the Name, or in the Lord, but it is faith.
(d) Power over the World
It is power over the world. "This is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith" (1 John 5:4). The world in this sense is that whole system and order and atmosphere and attitude of things which must have the seen, and the present. What is the mark of the world? It must see, it must have now. Anything that is unseen and not present is utterly outside of the mentality of the world, and we know how much of the world there is in our nature and the battle is there. Faith overcomes that world that is in our own natures and around us. "The things which are seen are temporal: but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Cor. 4:18). Faith has to do with those things.
May the Lord increase our faith.
Agape,
Steve
posted by Steve at
2:12 PM
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