FAITH THE GIFT OF GOD

FAITH THE GIFT OF GOD

The doctrine about faith that is in circulation around you is not a new one; it is a heresy of old standing. It springs from the desire in the human heart to be able to do something for oneself. It is a Satanic subterfuge, when the conscience must own that works cannot save the soul, and that salvation is only through faith, to attempt to make faith man’s own work, and that having faith in Christ is the same as having faith in Napoleon. Faith in Napoleon affects me as to my intellect. Faith in Christ effects for me the greatest revolution ever known, translating my soul from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. Can man effect this great alteration, for it is not a reformation but a transformation? Can man acquire by himself, or does he possess, this great power?

There is always God’s power with faith in God’s word. If you believe man’s word you have only the worth of what you believe, but when you believe God’s word you believe in God, and this could not be but by the power of God. How could man reach up to God but by His power? “Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” (Isaiah 53: 1). Faith and power go hand in hand. Man fell when he turned away from God in unbelief; when he pleases God it is proof that a divine light has entered his soul; he believes “that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11: 6).

^[p. 350] The believer lays hold of what God in His nature requires. Therefore Abel offered the firstling of his flock, and the fat thereof. Faith in God is a true apprehension of God with relation to me at the moment, and surely this must be from God, and not from sinful man.

We have an illustration of faith in the nobleman in John 4: 46 - 54; the moment he believed, the power of God wrought the cure in his son, though miles away from him; so the nobleman “knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house”.

Again, all men have not faith: the assertion that they have is a false assertion, uttered in order to place a man’s salvation in his own power. True, man is responsible to believe in God, but the fall is that he has turned away from God, and is at enmity against Him. God commands every man to repent; the law was given to disclose the inveterate opposition of man’s heart to God; he was proved by it to be a sinner; all must be lost if God did not compel the prodigal by one means or other to come in. Look at the two thieves on the cross. The one had faith; the Saviour was manifested to him there and then; while in the other there was no faith, though he could reason well, and had heard enough to know that Christ was no ordinary person.

“Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10: 17). It is by divine power that man believes the word of God. His power is in His word. Who ever believed it that did not know His power in it? It is the incorruptible seed, “the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Peter 1: 23).

The Lord preserve you from these workings of the mind, which is at enmity with God.