“Now
faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
For by it the elders obtained a good report” (Hebrews 11:1-2).
God has moved me tonight to speak on the marvelous,
glorious reality of God’s Word. How great should be our faith, for we cannot be
saved except by faith. We cannot be kept but by faith; we can only be baptized
by faith. We will be caught up by faith; therefore, what a blessed reality is
faith in the Living God.
What is faith? It is the very nature of God. Faith
is the Word of God. It is the personal inward flow of divine favor, which moves
in every fiber of our being until our whole nature is so quickened that we live
by faith, we move by faith, and we are going to be caught up to glory by faith,
for “Faith is the Victory!” Faith is the glorious knowledge of a personal
presence within you, changing you from strength to strength, from glory to
glory, until you get to the place where you walk with God, and God thinks and
speaks through you by the power of the Holy Ghost. Oh, it is grand; it is
glorious!
God wants us to have far more than that which we can
handle and see, and so He speaks of the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen; but with the eye of faith, we may see it in all its
beauty and grandeur. God’s Word is from everlasting to everlasting, and “faith
is the substance.” If I should give some of you ladies a piece of cloth,
scissors, needle and thread, you could produce a garment. Why? Because you had
the material. If I should provide some of you men with wood, saw, hammer, and
nails, you could produce a box. Why? Because you had the material. But God,
without material, spoke the Word and produced this world with all its beauty.
There was no material there, but the Word of God called it into being by His
creative force. With the knowledge that you are begotten by this incorruptible
Word, which liveth and abideth forever, you know that within you is this living,
definite hope, greater than yourself, more powerful than any dynamic force in
the world—for faith worketh in you by the power of the New Creation of God in
Christ Jesus. Therefore with the audacity of faith we should throw ourselves
into the omnipotence of God's divine plan, for God has said to you, “If thou
canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” (Mark 9:23).
It is possible for the power of God to be so manifest
in your human life that you will never be as you were before; for you will be
ever going forward, from victory to victory, for faith knows no defeat.
The Word of God will bring you into a wonderful place
of rest in faith. God means for you to have a clear conception of what faith
is, how faith came, and how it remains. Faith is in the divine plan, for it
brings you to the open door that you might enter in. You must have an open
door, for you cannot open the door; it is God who does it, but He wants you to
be ready to step in and claim His promises to all the divine manifestation of
power in the name of Christ Jesus. It is only thus that you will be able to
meet and conquer the enemy, for “He that is within you is greater than he that
is without.”
Living faith brings glorious power and personality; it
gives divine ability, for it is by faith that Christ is manifested in your
mortal flesh by the Word of God. I would not have you miss the knowledge that
you have heard from God, and to realize that God has so changed you that all
weakness, fear, inability, and everything that has made you a failure has passed
away. Faith has power to make you what God wants you to be; only you must be
ready to step into the plan and believe His Word. The first manifestation of God's plan was the Cross of
Calvary. You may refuse it; you may resist it. But God, who loves you with an
everlasting love, has followed you through life and will follow you with His
great grace that He may bring you to a knowledge of this great salvation. God,
in his own plan for your eternal good, may have brought something into your life
that is distasteful; something that is causing you to feel desperate, that your
life is worthless. What does it mean? It means that the Spirit of God is
showing you your own weakness so that you might cry out unto Him, and when you
do He will show you the Cross of Redemption. Then God will give you faith to
believe, for faith is the gift of God.
God, who has given us this faith, has a wonderful plan
for our lives. Do you remember when God brought you to this place of salvation,
how the faith He gave you brought a great desire to do something for Him, and
then He showed you that wonderful open door? I was saved over sixty-seven years
ago, and I have never lost the witness of the Spirit. If you will not allow
your human nature to crush your faith and interfere with God's plan in its
wonderful divine setting, you will mount up like the eagles. Oh the wonderful
effectiveness of God's perfect plan working in us with the Divine Trinity
flowing through humanity changing our very nature to the extent that we cannot
disbelieve. Instead, we act faith, talk faith, and in faith sing praises unto
the Lord. There is no room for anything that is not faith, for we have passed
beyond the natural plane into a new atmosphere—God enclosed and enclosing us.
Faith is an increasing position, always triumphant.
It is not a place of poverty but of wealth. If you always live in fruitfulness
you will always have plenty. What does it say in this scripture? “The elders
obtained a good report!” The man who lives in faith always has a good report.
The Acts of the Apostles were written because the lives of the Apostles bore the
fruit of active faith. To them faith was an everyday fact. If your life is in
the divine order, you will not only have living active faith, but you will
always be building up someone else in faith.
What is the good of preaching without faith? God
intends that we should so live in this glorious sphere of the power of God, that
we will always be in a position to tell people of the act that brought the
fact. You must act before you can see the fact. What is the good of praying
for the sick without faith? You must believe that God will not deny Himself,
for the Word of God cannot be denied. I believe this message is given in divine
order, that you may no longer be in a place of doubt but will realize that
“faith is the substance!” Beloved, even with all the faith we have, we are not
even so much as touching the hem of God’s plan for us. It is like going to the
seashore and dipping your toe in the water, with the great vast ocean before
you. God wants us to rise on the bosom of the tide, and not keep paddling along
the shore. Oh to be connected with that sublime power, that human nature may
know God and the glory of the manifestation of Christ!
The Word of God is eternal and cannot be broken.
You cannot improve on the Word of God, for it is life, and it produces life.
Listen! God has begotten you to a “lively hope.” You are begotten of the Word
that created worlds. If you dare to believe, it is powerful. God wants us to
be powerful—a people of faith—a purified people. God wants a people who will
launch out in Him and dare to trust Him in glorious faith which always takes you
beyond that which is commonplace to an abiding place in God.
