FAITH AND PROVIDENCE
FAITH AND PROVIDENCE
Faith is resting on the known mind of God which He has communicated, assured that whatever be the difficulties in the way of its fulfilment, or however great the opposition, it will ultimately be established. Faith in its very nature has to do with that which is not seen; it must rise above the visible and count on things that are not, as though they were. If everything here were of God, and all in full uninterrupted righteousness, there would be no need to rise from the visible in order to rest only on the invisible. But the contrary is the fact. Everything has been diverted from its divine place, and the more this anarchy has prevailed, the more faith has become the true and only principle of action for the man of God. Yet God has not deserted the earth. He rules and keeps it in check, and this is His providence; but this is evidently a different thing from faith. Faith knows His mind at any given time, as He is pleased to reveal it, and rests on it, assured that it will be accomplished in spite of all the opposition [p. 35] and misrule which surround us. Faith rests on the mind and will of God, and not on the way in which He in His wisdom stems and controls the elements of disorder on earth. Faith rises to His will as a link in the chain of His purposes, a chain in which is neither bend nor break, and where every thought of His heart is maintained and in harmony. It soars into the undisturbed region of His blessed, unalterable will, and bides its time here, assured that it has the key of the position, and that in due time all will open out, and be as it has been intimated.
The moment man fell, and another rule besides God’s, and irrespective of God’s, obtained a place, God must either altogether suppress man, now acting for himself and supported by Satan; or, while suffering this evil rule, to a certain extent, to exist, He, as the only source of power, must check and control it as His wisdom and ultimate purposes require. God never gives up His supreme power; but it is plain to any thoughtful person that if man has, under the counsel of Satan, adopted another rule and line of action besides God’s, God must either remove His disobedient creature from off the earth, or He must check and control his adverse intentions and ways. The latter is what God has done; and every intervention of His power here on earth is His providence. Such interventions are to check and limit the rule of self-will which has sprung up against Him; and faith of course recognises them as of God, for the purpose intended by Him; but faith itself rests in God in quite another region, and on quite another ground beside that of intervention put forth to check the progress of evil and self-will. The simple issue raised is this: Am I to live by faith, resting in God’s word, above all the evil and opposition here, or am I to be dependent on His providences only for a knowledge of His will and of my walk through the world according to it? Nothing can be plainer than that faith, as I have attempted to represent it, is a far higher and [p. 36] more restful path, as also the only true and safe one; for it views God’s mind in a region where nothing checks or interferes with it; it sees Him as He is in Himself, and there rests on Him; whereas in providence I only follow Him in His way of limiting and controlling the misrule and disorder here, in order ultimately to bring about His own purposes. Again, faith is always intelligent and assured; but often the providences of God are mysterious and unaccountable.
Abram, the father of the faithful, is called to walk by faith, to go out, not knowing whither he went, and into the land of Canaan he came. By providence there is a famine in the land, and he goes down into Egypt. Occupied with the providence, he slips from faith. The famine was permitted of God; why, we know not, or need not enquire; but it was a providence, and Abram in following it turned aside from the path of faith in which he had hitherto walked; and I need not add that his doing so was attended with sad and painful consequences. God’s word to Abram had been to dwell in Canaan, and while he walked in faith he adhered to this word; but when “the famine was grievous in the land” he declined from faith and regarded the famine as an indication to him to go where there was plenty; and here was his mistake and failure, because in doing so he surrendered faith, which has to do with nothing but God’s word. It is not that I am to despise or disregard the providence, but I am not to surrender faith and adopt the providence instead. If I am walking in faith, and persistent in the path of faith, the providences will eventually suit and confirm me, not by carrying me outside faith — which, if I make them my guide they must do — but by proving that the God whom I rest in, and whose word I follow, is the same God who checks and controls the evil here by His providential hand. “A ram caught in the thicket by his horns” (Genesis 22: 13) is a providence for Abram, when faith had previously risen above all providences. The man of faith can [p. 37] turn providences to account, whether they be apparently for him or against. At Ziklag all the providences are against David; but he “encouraged himself in the Lord his God”, 1 Samuel 30: 6. If he had rested only in providences at that crisis, he must have succumbed, and that too at a juncture and a moment when he was within a step of the kingdom, for Saul was then being slain on the mountains of Gilboa.
In Matthew 14 the providences were against Peter when leaving the ship to join Christ on the water. Was he to hearken to the “Come” of Christ, or to be swayed by the winds and waves? They were providences and tested his faith; and in so far as he had faith, he found they were not really adverse to him, but that they contributed to fix his eyes more absolutely on Christ; but when the providences engaged him, he had no power to overcome them, he began to sink!
Paul in Acts 27, resisted every influence which could move or reach a man in order to shake his faith in God. Providence, too, was at first against him, for “the south wind blew softly”, thus confirming the master of the ship in his rejection of Paul’s counsel (verses 10 - 13); but this in no wise altered Paul’s conviction, And why? Because he had acquired it from faith in God. Afterwards providences justify his faith. “Not long after”, we read in verse 14, “there arose ... a tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon”. Providences will confirm and justify faith; but lead to faith they never will. Faith can use them and unravel them, and see oftentimes their object and use; but faith is wholly above and independent of them, though free to use and accept them as they fall in with that which it enjoins. When I am walking with God — for that is faith — enduring, “as seeing him who is invisible”, I move on, though all circumstances be against me; and as I rise above them, I reach the providence which suits me, I am in the line of God’s government, above all others. When Moses leaves Egypt (Exodus 2: 15; Hebrews 11: 27)
[p. 38] he appears to be flying in the face of providence; but at the well of Midian he finds, in answer to his own grace and service, a door of relief and mercy which he can accept provided for himself. How different it would have been if he had waited to leave Egypt until he had a guarantee of Reuel’s reception in the land of Midian! Where then would have been his faith in the Invisible? God provides suitably to His own will and heart for the one walking with and for Him through a world of evil and misrule; but He Himself is the Guide for such an one, and not His providence. Hence all the providences for Moses in Midian must be put aside, and have no claim on him when God calls him to re-enter the path of faith and service.
The breaks in the path of faith are never counted to us in God’s sight. Our journey is one of faith, and wherever we stop, or however long may be the interval, there exactly, even as if we had slept on the road, we recommence our journey. This principle may be confirmed throughout Scripture, in the history of God’s people, whether individually or nationally. Abram, after his sojourn in Egypt, returns to “the place where his tent had been at the beginning ... unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first”. With regard to Israel as a people, we find the same principle adhered to; but I need not multiply examples. I repeat, what I have to do is to act in faith in God, relying on His word, and in spite of all providences; and then, while pursuing the path of faith, I use the providences as they are suitable, not as guides to faith, but as means to carry out the works of faith; and faith, as I have said, is intelligent and explicable, and will know what are providences, and as such usable, and what are not. David, in facing Goliath, chooses five smooth stones from the brook and puts them in his shepherd’s bag. These were the means which providence had placed in his hand; those which naturally came within the range of his calling; and this is a providence — [p. 39] what God in a natural way gives me a right to. Saul’s armour might have appeared to be a providence, but to the man of faith it was not so, and he rejects it. We must make a distinction between what man does and what God does. All that is termed providence is not so, while much which by the unthoughtful is called chance is by the enlightened seen to be providence; but the tendency is to substitute it for faith; and the man who gets outside faith in walk has necessarily, if he keeps up any link with God, to turn to providences. If I am waiting on providence, I am like a ship without helm or compass on the surface of the ocean, driven about at the sport of wind and tide, thinking myself very fortunate if I get into a safe port; whereas if walk by faith I am superior to the wind and tide, though I use either or both when they come in the direction in which I steer. As to that I have no uncertainty; there are no doubts in the voyage of faith. God’s providences, like the trade winds to the vessel, may come in to support and aid me, but they never generate or beget faith.
In a word, if I walk simply with God, I do whatever He, by His Spirit and word, tells me to do; not guided by what I see, or even by what I am given, but turning to account everything which I am given by His providence in that path in which I “look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen”, even that of faith.