FAITH, ENDURANCE AND WISDOM
[p. 177] FAITH, ENDURANCE AND WISDOM
It is encouraging to see that God has taken us up in view of developing certain features in us, and those features are developed on the line of endurance.
There is nothing accidental or haphazard in any testing that comes; we have exactly the test which is needed to bring out the nature of our knowledge of God and the amount of faith we have, and to furnish that faith with power of endurance, so that there is real increase.
If I shirk a test, I lose the gain of it. The gain of a test lies in facing it and going through it with God. Our whole life is a series of tests, but all together they are planned so as to work out in result the accomplishment of what is in the mind of God in regard to each saint.
It is beautiful to think of it working out to completeness, so that there is not an element wanting. We can count it joy in view of the issue. If I am tested as to whether I will compromise a divine principle, and I evade the test, I lose the gain that would have accrued from facing it. But if faith comes into exercise there will not be a single test that will not be productive of good to us.
We have to submit to the government of God, as suffering under it the consequences of our own failures, and the general failure of His people. But there is a deepening, under the government of God, of all these experiences. Most of us are shallow and superficial at the beginning, but testings bring about a deepening, a truer self-knowledge; we discover what weakness and want of wisdom are in ourselves. Such discoveries turn us to God for wisdom.
The great gain of faith is that we reach God about things, and what is merely natural is displaced. “That ye may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” contemplates that God has a certain end to reach with every one of us, and He [p. 178] means to add every element that is needed to make up the complete thought that He has in His mind for us.
Endurance is a quality which is of primary importance. Moses persevered as seeing Him who is invisible. There is a danger of going on to a certain point, and then stopping short. If endurance has its perfect work we shall be “perfect and complete”. Every needed element will be added in the faithfulness of God.
The Lord Jesus was never deflected; He went straight on; He was marked by endurance; He “endured the cross”. It was a great and precious feature in Him, that He endured. He went through everything, even to the endurance of the cross.
This scripture would teach us that we are under the hand of God in every testing, and if we go faithfully through the test with Him we shall reach the perfection and completeness of what He has in His mind for us in it. Endurance and wisdom are two primary necessities for us in a day like the present. It is a difficult time, and for such a time both endurance and wisdom are needed, and they are the two things to which James calls our attention first.
However unforeseen by us a difficulty may be, it cannot baffle divine wisdom. Wisdom is a most comprehensive thing. There are, I believe, ten different words in Hebrew for wisdom, which suggests its varied and comprehensive character; it takes different forms according to the need of the moment. Scripture speaks of the “all-various wisdom of God” as being made known through the assembly (Ephesians 3: 10). Wisdom is infinitely varied, and it will meet everything. There is not always chapter and verse for every detail; if there were it would leave little room for wisdom.
Wisdom is essential, and it can be got by asking of God. He is not unwilling to bestow it; He gives to all freely, nor does He reproach us for the lack of it. “And it shall be given to him”. There is no uncertainty as to the result to those who “ask in faith, nothing doubting”. A doubter is double [p. 179] minded and unstable; he does not really know God; he is carried by the influences of the moment, and there is no wisdom in this.
I have no doubt that James, in his references to wisdom, has in mind the “wise” of Daniel 11: 35 — the Maschilim — who have benefited by the instruction of the thirteen Maschil psalms, so as to have understanding in the mind of God in the last days.
How necessary to ask of God for this wisdom in a day when conditions are abnormal! Nothing but wisdom from above will ever carry us through. But is it impossible that the “wise” should be baffled, however great the difficulties may be. Wisdom comes out in knowing how to act in presence of difficulties. The deacons in Acts 6 were men full of the Spirit and wisdom, and it was said of Stephen that “they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke” (Acts 6: 10). His address in Acts 7 is a wonderful example of a man speaking in wisdom; no answer to it was possible. Wisdom is needed that we may use knowledge aright. If knowledge is not used in wisdom and love, we may stumble the very persons we want to help.