FAITH
E.M.Walkinshaw
Hebrews 11: 6; Acts 20: 18-21; 2 Corinthians 5: 5-11
I wanted to say a word about faith. Needless to say one feels very limited in speaking of such a matter; at the same time one feels the importance of it. Faith has been said to be light in the soul, not knowledge in the mind but light in the soul, the soul embracing the light of God. It comes by hearing and hearing by report, and it is very striking that the writer says here that "without faith it is impossible to please him".
Persons may wish to, may even try, but without it is impossible to please Him. The word 'impossible' appears in this epistle several times; in this case in connection with faith: "For he that draws near to God must believe that he is", that is that He exists, "and that he is a rewarder of them who seek him out". There are many persons who believe in God but who do not believe that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him out. Agnostics, I suppose, come within that category, but he that comes to God must believe that He is, that God exists; and then it is added, as I have said, that He is a rewarder of them who seek Him out. I suppose, dear brethren, seeking Him out might test us, but it is a great thing to do so. In one sense of course, as other scriptures show, you cannot search out God because everything is dependent upon the revelation of Himself. Scientists and such like men, while they may be respected in their own field, cannot search out God. Some years ago the Russians sent up some kind of capsule into the universe; their report when it came back was that we have found no trace of your God up there, something of that kind. That to any enlightened believer is a most absurd statement, as indeed the efforts to discover the origin of the creation. By faith we apprehend that the worlds were framed by the word of God and that is just simple for the believer; he does not need more than that. "He spoke, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast” (Ps 33: 9); faith lays hold of that and everything is simple, very simple for the believer because he believes that God is and is aware that God is infinite, that is that He is unlimited; man is finite, that is limited.
So the assertion of the writer of this epistle is that it is impossible to please God without faith because coming to Him you must believe that He exists. You can never prove it by scientific or mathematical demonstration, you must believe that He is, and then it is added, He is a rewarder of those who seek Him out. Is that true of everybody here? I trust so. He says in the beginning of the chapter, "Now faith is the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen". I think those are the effects in persons who have faith in God. So we begin there, dear brethren; we have all begun there in some way or another. Mr Darby tells us that faith must come first. I always used to think that repentance came first; I do not know what you think but it is what I used to think. I saw very clearly the point he made that you never repent towards the God in whom you have no faith, so faith must come first. In one way it is the gift of God; from another point of view Jesus says "Have faith in God" (Mark 11: 22), so you are responsible to exercise it. I think it comes first in that sense, the soul embraces the light of God as it reaches the soul and there is an answer to it. Another point about the verse, which I commend to your consideration, is this: it makes a clear link between faith and believing. Sometimes people say, What is the distinction between faith and believing? In this basic verse it makes a very clear connection; it says "For he that draws near to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder". So John, generally, uses the simple words 'believe', 'believing', 'he that believes' in the present tense, showing I think how, while we are here, we are always to be in faith, no matter what the matter is. It just comes to mind that Mr Stoney says, I believe, You walk down the street in faith, you come to the meeting in faith. So whatever you do you do in faith; that is, you are not governed by material things or the five senses but by another Man in another world. Of course you have to say to material things, each of us has our normal occupation whatever it may be and we have to say to it, but you are governed by another Man in another world, as Paul shows in other passages. So I commend simply to our consideration this great basic truth of faith, and I believe the Lord would call our attention to it because we are in a world that has become materialistic, very much so. Only the other day a fairly prominent man in our industry said to me, We have become so material that we worship what is material. It is not an idol formed of wood or stone, but we have come to a point in the history of this country and the western world where we worship what is material - that was his general comment. You say it is not true of everybody, thank God I do not think it is true of everybody; at the same time we are all inclined, particularly younger men and women, to be influenced by the environment in which we are most of our time; that is, our waking hours I suppose are spent in our normal business, secular occupation shall I call it? We are apt to be influenced by it, hence maybe the Lord is calling attention to faith, that we are not governed by what is seen but by what is unseen.
Then we have the reference in Acts where Paul, in connection with his preaching, does put repentance towards God first, then faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. So the light of the gospel reaches us - how wonderful that is! For my part I feel how little I appreciate the glad tidings and what they bring to me, that is in the way of light. The evangelist enlightens as we know; he tells me of righteousness satisfied, love flowing freely; of the fact that God has been made known, that the righteousness, glory, majesty of His throne have been met by the precious blood of Jesus, and that forgiveness, the remission of sins, is preached in the Name of that Man. Here Paul says he had gone around telling them this. It says he held back nothing, "in every house, testifying to both Jews and Greeks repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ". As I have already said, you would not repent towards a God in whom you did not have faith. Here he says "repentance towards God", that is the first thing, and "faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ" - changing the mind towards God, and then faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. I suppose we often take the good news as quite commonplace for we hear it so often, but I would like to emphasise the greatness of it, that God has granted repentance, granted it to us so that through His infinite grace we can be brought into blessing; in fact it is called the gospel of the grace of God and it has reached us on this great principle of faith. I desire, dear brethren, that we might all appreciate that these things spoken of are not simply initial but that they are to continue. So the way in which Paul presents it is "and to teach you publicly and in every house, testifying to both Jews and Greeks repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ"; that is, that that blessed Man is the object of the soul. There is no doubt much more in it than that, but at any rate that Person is before the faith of the soul. There are those as we know in the gospels who had to be told "O ye of little faith", Luke 12: 28. As feeling that we would say, I suppose, O Lord increase our faith. It says "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed" - that is not very much - "ye shall say to this mountain, Be transported hence there", Matt 17: 20. That is the practical effect of faith in the soul, I suppose what the Lord is speaking about there is what is so essential for us in our daily lives. So Paul's glad tidings were announced on this principle. We know that he says in the epistle to the Romans "on the principle of faith, to faith" (chap 1: 17); faith on the part of the preacher and faith in the person that hears. I would desire that the Lord might increase our faith. You will recall that Paul says to one company of believers, "your faith increasing", 2 Cor 10: 15.
Now not only is there the faith of coming to God; that is, believing that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those that seek Him out; and then the light of the glad tidings which brings us into blessing on the same principle; but there is also living or walking by faith, which brings me to my last scripture. Paul says here "Therefore we are always confident, and know that while present in the body we are absent from the Lord, (for we walk by faith, not by sight;)". We have not yet seen Him; when we see Him we shall be like Him - a wonderful prospect! but at the present moment we are absent from the Lord. Sometimes we speak of living near to Him and I suppose that would be a right expression, living in His life, but here the apostle is presenting the truth from the point of view of our being absent, or not at home (that is evidently the force of the expression). As absent from the Lord we would like to be present with Him; not alone, as others have said, but present with Him with all His people. I think another has said that he did not want to go to heaven alone, he would like to go with all the saints. I suppose all of us would like that. Here Paul says for the moment, "while present in the body we are absent from the Lord, (for we walk by faith, not by sight;)" that is, not as governed by seen things. A little earlier he said, "while we look not at the things that are seen, but at things that are not seen", chap 4: 18. Generally when we get into a scripture like this, or Colossians 3, "the things that are above" (chap 3: 2), someone asks the question What are they?. We know what the things are that are seen, that is not difficult, everything around us, what is material; but he speaks of things that are not seen and of looking at them. It seems a paradox in one way to the mind of man, but he says "while we look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen". I take it that we could allude to the city and the house, to many things, the light of which we have and which we can look at by the Spirit, take account of and be occupied with. I would urge all of us, especially our younger brethren, to be increasingly occupied with the things that are not seen. The Spirit of God will help you to understand them, help you to enter into them, help you to walk according to them, so that you are governed not by sight or any of the five senses but you are walking by faith. I believe basically, dear brethren, what is in mind in that is that the whole of your course is governed by having another Man in another world as your object. A little later in this passage he opens that up: "that they who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who died for them and has been raised" (v 15). So that quickened persons here, while absent from the Lord and present in body, are governed by that Man in that world and all those things that are related to Him. I think it behoves us all to give ourselves more to divine things, more to unseen realities. I believe that what is spiritual is as real to a spiritual person as what is natural is to a natural person, and I think that what we apprehend by faith the Spirit gives us the conscious enjoyment of.
So into this passage Paul introduces the truth of the earnest of the Spirit. Now the earnest is of the original. So we have brought together in a number of scriptures these two great salient facts of Christianity, that is faith and the Holy Spirit. Faith is not, as a clergyman once said, believing in things which cannot be known to be true. Maybe they cannot be demonstrated scientifically or mathematically to be true, but they can be known to be true by the Spirit. So we have the earnest of the Spirit. May the Lord help us, dear brethren, on this great matter of faith that we might be relieved from being occupied with, and governed by, material things, that we may be occupied and governed by the things that are not seen, for the things that are seen are for a time but the things that are not seen are eternal. I think the Spirit of God would engage us with those things. Now you younger men, younger women, look into them. Ask the question, What are the things that are not seen? Do not leave it hazy. I find often in my reading of Scripture I have left things hazy. One is beginning to be helped a little to enquire more deeply. I think the Spirit of God would deepen our thinking and deepen our souls not only in faith but in the knowledge, in His power, of the things which God has prepared for those that love Him. May the Lord exercise every one of our hearts about this great matter. I have touched it, I appreciate, very feebly and from only one or two scriptures, but I believe at any rate one has touched the basic scripture as to faith, that without it it is impossible to please God. Then the way in which it enters into the glad tidings, repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ, and then the way in which it is to govern us in our walk. How far it does, of course, would humble us but we do not want to be too occupied with that. I find at times I am very much occupied with the enormous amount I do not know. If I were more occupied with the little that I know of the Lord it would expand, and I think that would be more exhilarating. May the Lord help us in that, and then to understand that the ultimate is as it says of others, that they died in faith; not by faith because it was not their own action, but they died in faith. The just shall live by his faith and walk by his faith and ultimately he dies in faith. How wonderful that is! It is set out for us so perfectly in Jesus the Author and Completer of faith. You may remember that Satan tried to attack that, he tried to say that Jesus was not a Man of faith, but the Spirit of God helped us to see that it was seen supremely in Jesus as a dependent Man here, the Author and Completer of faith. Look off unto Him, dear brethren, and be governed by faith. May it be so, for His Name's sake.
CROYDON
27 May 1979
THE CHILDREN'S BREAD
Luke 15 is everywhere loved because it tells of the salvation of a son: Matthew 15 should also be loved as recounting the blessing of a daughter. Doubtless she was not so great a sinner as the son in the parable, yet, being lost in sin like us all, she needed to be brought to Jesus for healing and salvation. In conversation at that time the Lord spoke of "the bread of the children", meaning the basic food made from wheaten flour or, amongst poor people, from barley or even rye. It was made in thin wafers or cakes that could be quickly baked if visitors came unexpectedly as when Abraham and Sarah entertained angels long ago.
This food was of course for the body - what kind of bread do children need to nourish their souls and quicken their spirits? Scripture knows more varieties of bread than we ever see on our tables, and they all have to do with the person of Christ and with life eternal. In their pathless journey of forty years the Israelitish children had daily supplies of manna. This was a grain-food something like thick frost which their fathers had to stoop down to collect early in the morning, yet it was called "the bread of the mighty". Therefore to keep strong for the way of faith in daily life we need to feed our souls on thoughts of the humble life of Jesus in this very same world. The Gospels would be food for over a year, reading ten verses each day!
The Lord Jesus spoke of Himself in a four-fold way as bread and in particular as "the bread of life" and "the living bread". Both these expressions show us how vital it is to nourish our souls on Him as we see and know Him in heaven, so as to enjoy life in the land of the living. We come in our hunger to Him as the bread of life and we continue to live in Him and on Him as the living bread.
In the ancient tabernacle tent-service there were always loaves of bread set before Jehovah to represent the tribes of His people. This was called "the shewbread" or 'bread of the presence' and the meaning for Christians is that God's joy in His saints is nourished by having us always before Him. Further, there were many offerings made to God, all of which presented some perfections and glories of Christ and are called "the bread of God". We too may feed on these and must also eat always the untainted bread of "sincerity and truth". Do you enjoy this feast?
J.C.Evershed