THE NATURE OF FAITH

"Have faith in God." Mark 11:22.

"Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith." 2 Cor. 13:5

Morning Meditation 7/12/2014

The morning meditation is scanned into my word processor from a book called The Dynamic of Faith by A. Padget Wilkes. This book was reprinted by Milldale International Ministries, Zachary, LA 70791. The people at Milldale International have done us a great service by reprinting this book. However, it may be out of print again. I am not for sure. The book that I have is a paper back and has fourteen chapters and 219 pages. It was such a good chapter I could not resist sending it to you. It is longer than usual. I hope it is a blessing to you:

It has become, alas! almost a commonplace in Evangelical religion, meaningless and empty, that all our spiritual blessings are received through faith. I propose, therefore, to try and unfold the fulness of the meaning of that wonderC2ADful word: "Have faith in God." The emphasis given to it in the New Testament ought at once to make a thoughtful reader see that by it is meant far more than a thorough assent to all the truths of Scripture, or the cheap, easy-going "believism" of the present day.

Faith is a mighty living thing, producing wonderful results in the conscience, heart, will, mind, and life of the recipient. I say recipient, because faith is the gift of God. But more of that later. I propose, therefore, in this first chapter to consider briefly seven of its aspects as presented to us in the pages of the New Testament.

1. A MYSTERY. "Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience."-1 Tim. 3:9.

Now faith is here called a mystery--a Divine mystery. And so it assuredly is! John Wesley used to speak of "the interior eye of faith being opened by the Holy Ghost," to see and appreciate spiritual realities. Only those who have experienced that still but a mighty miracle, can ever understand those words. It is truly a Divine mystery in the soul revealed by the Holy Ghost. What need then we have to cry to God to give us true faith in Him, to wait upon Him in the deepest humility and sense of dependence, instead of attempting, in the superiority of our supposed wisdom, to grasp and comprehend the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven.

"A man can receive nothing except it be given him from above." How jealous is God of this law! How unwilling is man to keep it! We love to think that by "searching" our Bibles, and commentaries, and books of reference, and thereby obtaining the clearest theological light on these things, we can "find out God." But alas! tired and disappointed, we are at last brought by His grace to see that we can only come to know the tenderness and love of the Father through the mystery of faith, as revealed to us by the Holy Ghost.

2. A SEED. "If ye have faith as a grain of . . . seed."--Matt. 17:20.

Elsewhere in Scripture, the Word of God is spoken of as a seed. But here this simile is applied to faith. At times, indeed, it is almost impossible to distinguish the little seed-corn of some precious promise buried in the soil of the human heart, from the wondrous principle of faith that apprehends it, fastens upon it, and finds in it its life and sustenance. They appear almost one and the same thing. A seed--within which lies, all motionless and silent, the wonderful dynamic of life--only let it be deposited in the soil, its native element, an environment adapted to its nature, and at once the latent forces begin to stir and throb and operate.

So it is with faith.. Only let that Divine thing be implanted within the soul by the Holy Ghost, and it will at once begin to cast out and bring in, to move and work in all its strange and silent power. All our desires, affections, emotions, thoughts, and imaginations will be aroused from their apathy of selfishness and their sleep of death, and spring forth and shoot upward into the sunshine of the love of God to poor sinful humanity.

2. A PRINCIPLE. "The word mixed with faith." -- Heb. 4:2C2AD

Here we have another discovery in the Scriptures, that faith is a principle, and not a mere attitude toward God. It is a Divine principle planted within the soul. We are speaking now, of course, of faith in its highest form.

One of the best definitions of faith outside the Word of God is given us by William Tyndale--Saint, Reformer, and Martyr--who left us, as his imperishable monument, the translation of the Scriptures in our mother tongue. He says: "Right faith is a THING wrought in us by the Holy Ghost, which changes us, turns us into a new nature, and begets us anew in God, and makes us sons of God as thou readest in the 1st of John, and kills the old Adam and makes us altogether new in the heart, mind, will, desire, and in all the other affections and powers of the soul--the Holy Ghost ever accompanying it and ruling the heart."

Now here faith is defined as a thing wrought in us. And so it is. It is a Divine principle, a blessed power that God gives and implants within. Stephen, we read, was "full of faith." We cannot be full of an attitude, but we surely can be full of that Divine light and sweetness and easiness of soul that enables us to rejoice in the Lord evermore.

4. A SUBSTANCE AND A CONVICTION. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of facts not seen."--Heb. 11:1, literal translation.

Now it might be urged that if faith is the gift of God, we are helpless in the matter, and can only wait till God implants it within. But this is only so in appearance. Our text here teaches us that there are two degrees or forms of faith--a substance of things hoped for, and a conviction of facts not seen.

Mrs. Hester Ann Rogers, with her wonderful insight into spiritual things, speaks as follows: "The witness or seal of the Spirit "--she is here referring to the fulness of faith--"is God's gift and not our act; given to all who act faith in Jesus, and the promise made through Him. But it is not given till faith is acted. If we, as penitents, had no power to act faith, how would God be just in condemning us? . . . It is after this act of faith--not before it--that God gives the witness of the Spirit." And so it surely is!

God commands us to believe, because by His grace we can. As we do so, and take sides with Him against unbelief--that archenemy within our hearts--He bestows upon us, and plants within us, the holy conviction of His Divine facts. The act of voluntary faith passes into the gracious state of believing. But one is certainly dependent on the other. We believe, and God puts the crown of assurance upon our faith. And so, using the power of faith that we have, we may yet believingly sing:

"Inspire the living faith

That whosoever receives,

The witness in himself he hath

And consciously believes."

5. A WORK. "Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest " (God's rest). " This is the work of God, that ye believe. . .--Heb. 4:11; John. 6:29.

We get in these Scriptures a still further view of faith. There is an active no less than a passive believing in God. Putting away sloth and pride, we need to use the faith we have, till the substance of things hoped for, becomes a sweet assurance of facts not seen as yet. And this is hard work. It means much prayer, much searching of the Word, and much crying to God to strengthen the things that remain, fearful lest Satan shall cheat us of our crown, and cause us to go mourning all our days.

James Caughey has said that there is a difference between faith (as commonly understood) and believing. The one is like water at rest; the other is like water in motion. Put a boat on a lake or some piece of stagnant water, and it remains motionless.. Put it on a river running ten miles an hour, and, to use his quaint expression, it "just moves." And so it is with faith.

Where there is a true faith, inwrought by the Holy Ghost, there is a labour to enter in (Heb, 4:11), a stretching forth of the hands that brings us into a king's palace (Prov. 30:28), a going on unto perfection (Heb. 6:1), a pressing toward the mark (Phil. 3:14), a running so as to obtain (1 Cor. 9:24), a seeking the things that are above (Col. 3 :1). This is the true work of faith. This is the holy dynamic of the soul.

St Paul prayed for the Thessalonian Christians that God would " fulfill every desire of goodness and every work of faith with power." "This is the work of God that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent." It is blessed to have holy desires, desires of goodness, "to dwell in the House of the Lord, to inquire in His Temple" (PS. 27:4); to feed on the sincere milk of the Word " (I Pet 2:1, 2); to see the salvation of men (Rom. 10: 1, 2); to have righteousness exceeding that of the Pharisees, a real loving, living thing (Matt. 5 : 6, 20); to have Christ magnified in us, whether by life or death (Phil.1:20, 23).

But if our desires are mere desires--if there is with them no work of faith, like the sluggard, we shall "desire and have nothing." Let us see that faith is at work, stretching out its hand to receive from Him who waits to fill the hand and to fulfill the work of every believing soul.

6. A FIGHT. "Fight the good fight of faith"--I Tim. 6: 12.

Closely akin to the work of faith is its fight. Alas I we have not merely the sluggishness of our own stupid hearts against which to contend, but an active enemy whose main work is to keep us from believing God! He knows that this is the victory that overcometh, even our faith. Was it any wonder that the Blessed Master said: "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth?" Not--be it noted--if ye do, or will, or try to believe, but if ye can.

Yes, here is the battle! In a later chapter we shall see some of the hindrances fatal to victory.

The enemy seeks to lull us to sleep with the promise of triumph at some future time, or, by pious phrases about the rest of faith, deceive us into thinking that we shall grow into Christ's image unconsciously, without the battle of believing or any active outgoing of our hearts in aggressive acts of faith. Oh, that we would awake, and put on the whole armour of God, by faith go forth to battle, by faith lay hold of the promises of God, by faith seek to pluck the prey out of the hand of the mighty, by faith praise our God and shout defiance to the enemy in the Name of the Lord!

3. A REST. "Let us labour therefore to enter into . . . rest."--Heb. 4:11.

Above all, we should bear in mind that true faith is perfect rest. All the labour and all the conflict with the enemy lead to this. Now faith has been aptly described by some as "Forsaking All, I Take Him." That is a good definition. How much the "all" includes, many saints never fully learn--all our sins, of course; all our righteousness, our self-complacency, our self-confidence; our own desires for fame, or wealth, or pleasure; our doubts, our fears, our unbelief, and suspicion. And then to enter into the rest of faith, to sink into the will of God, to take all that comes and all He sends with joy--this is rest. When we are enabled to "consciously believe," that all is made over to Him and accepted in "a covenant ordered in all things and sure," that is the rest of faith.

Within the compass of these eight words, "Let us labour to enter into that rest," the two remotest opposites appear--"labour" and "rest." Some few forsake their righteousness; a few more forsake their sins; but, alas! what a labour it often is to forsake our doubts and fears and unbelief. How desperately "the sin that doth so easily beset us" hinders us from entering in. Many, alas, never realize or appreciate their foe! And yet, only as we do and steadfastly believe, shall we ever press into all the fulness of the blessed rest of faith, which is truly the gift of our loving Father in Heaven.

In the 95th Psalm, the Holy Ghost speaks of My work . . . My ways," "My wrath," "My rest" and laments that though Israel of old saw God's works at Massah and Meribah--the smitten rock of Calvary (Ex. 17), and the exalted rock of Pentecost (Num. 21)--saw his works and drank of the " double stream," alas, they never entered into God's rest, and gave as the reason that they were ignorant of His ways.

"He made known His ways unto Moses and His acts unto the children of Israel." Moses alone knew God's ways, the inner ways of his continual presence and power.. Are we like the Israelites of old? Or have we, like Moses, learned of the ways of God and entered into the rest of faith?

May the Lord make this a blessing to all of you

In Christ

Bro. White