Ever Increasing Faith - 8. Righteousness
by Smith
Wigglesworth
It is written of our blessed
Lord, "Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even
thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." It is
the purpose of God that we, as we are indwelt by the Spirit of His Son, should
likewise love righteousness and hate iniquity. I see that there is a place for
us in Christ Jesus where we are no longer under condemnation but where the
heavens are always open to us. I see that God has a realm of divine life
opening up to us where there are boundless possibilities, where there is
limitless power, where there are untold resources, where we have victory over
all the power of the devil. I believe that, as we are filled with the desire
to press on into this life of true holiness, desiring only the glory of God,
there is nothing that can hinder our true advancement.
Peter commences his second epistle with these words, "Simon Peter, a servant
and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith
with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." It is
through faith that we realize that we have a blessed and glorious union with
our risen Lord. When He was on earth Jesus told us, "I am in the Father and
the Father in me." "The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works." And
He prayed to His Father, not only for His disciples but for those who should
believe on Him through their word; "That they all may be one; as Thou, Father,
art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may
believe that Thou bast sent Me." Oh what an inheritance is ours when the very
nature, the very righteousness, the very power of the Father and the Son are
made real in us. That is God's purpose, and as we by faith lay hold on the
purpose we shall be ever conscious of the fact that greater is He that is in
us than he that is in the world. The purpose of all Scripture is to move us on
to this wonderful and blessed elevation of faith where our constant experience
is the manifestation of God's life and power through us.
Peter goes on writing to these who have obtained like precious faith, saying,
"Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of
Jesus our Lord." We can have the multiplication of this grace and peace only
as we live in the realm of faith. Abraham attained to the place where he
became a friend of God, on no other line than that of believing God. He
believed God and God counted that to him for righteousness. Righteousness was
imputed to him on no other ground than that he believed God. Can this be true
of anybody else? Yes, every person in the whole wide world who is saved by
faith is blessed with faithful Abraham. The promise which came to him because
he believed God was that in Him all the families of the earth should be
blessed. When we believe God there is no knowing where the blessing of our
faith will end.
Some are tied up because, when they are prayed for, the thing that then= are
expecting does not cone off the same night. They say they believe, but you can
see that they are really in turmoil of unbelief. Abraham believed God. You can
hear him saying to Sarah, "Sarah, there is no life in you and there is nothing
in me, but God has promised us a son and I believe God." And that kind of
faith is a joy to our Father in heaven.
One day I was having a meeting in Bury, in Lancashire, England. A young woman
was present who came from a place called Ramsbottom, to be healed of goiter.
Before she came she said, "I am going to be healed of this goiter, mother."
After one meeting she came forward and was prayed for. The next meeting she
got up and testified that she had been wonderfully healed, and she said, "I
shall be so happy to go and tell mother that I have been wonderfully healed."
She went to her home and testified how wonderfully she had been healed, and
the next year when we were having the convention she came again. To the
natural view it looked as though the goiter teas just as big as ever; but that
young woman was believing God and she was soon on her feet giving her
testimony, and saying, "I was here last year and the Lord wonderfully healed
me. I want to tell you that this has been the best year of my life." She
seemed to be greatly blessed in that meeting and she went home to testify more
strongly than ever that the Lord had healed her. She believed God. The third
year she was at the meeting again, and some people who looked at her said,
"How big that goiter has become." But when the time came for testimony she was
up on her feet and testified, "Two years ago the Lord graciously healed me of
goiter. Oh I had a most wonderful healing. It is grand to be healed by the
power of God." That day someone remonstrated with her and said, "People will
think there is something the matter with you. Why don't you look in the glass?
You will see your goiter is bigger than ever." That good woman went to the
Lord about it and said, "Lord, you so wonderfully healed me two years ago.
Won't you show all the people that you healed me." She went to sleep
peacefully that night still believing God and when she came down the next day
there was not a trace or a mark of that goiter.
God's word is from everlasting to everlasting. His word cannot fail. God's
word is true and when we rest in the fact of its truth what mighty results we
can get. Faith never looks in the glass. Faith has a glass into which it can
look. It is the glass of the perfect law of liberty. "Whoso looketh into the
perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful
hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." To the
man who looks into this perfect law of God all darkness is removed and he sees
his completeness in Christ. There is no darkness in faith. There is only
darkness in nature. Darkness only exists when the natural is put in the place
of the divine.
Not only is grace multiplied to us through knowledge of God and of Jesus
Christ, but peace also. As we really know our God and Jesus Christ whom He has
sent, we will have peace multiplied to us even in the multiplied fires of ten
thousand Nebuchadnezzars. It will be multiplied to us even though we are put
into the den of lions, and we will live with joy in the midst of the whole
thing. What was the difference between Daniel and the king that night when
Daniel was put into the den of lions? Daniel knew, but the king was
experimenting. The king came around the next morning and cried, "Oh Daniel,
servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to
deliver thee from the lions?" Daniel answered, "My God bath sent His angel,
and bath shut the lions' mouths." The thing was done. It was done when Daniel
prayed with his windows open toward heaven. All our victories are won before
we go into the fight. Prayer links us on to our lovely God, our abounding God,
our multiplying God. Oh I love Him ! He is so wonderful
You will note, as you read these first two verses of the first chapter of the
second epistle of Peter, that this grace and peace is multiplied through the
knowledge of God, but that first our faith comes through the righteousness of
God. Note that righteousness comes first and knowledge afterwards. It cannot
be otherwise. If you expect any revelation of God apart from holiness you will
have only a mixture. Holiness opens the door to all the treasures of God. He
must first bring us to the place where we, like our Lord, love righteousness
and hate iniquity, before He opens up to us these good treasures. When we
regard iniquity in our hearts the Lord will not hear us, and it is only as we
are made righteous and pure and holy through the precious blood of God's Son
that we can enter into this life of holiness and righteousness in the Son. It
is the righteousness of our Lord Himself made real in us as our faith is
stayed in Him.
After I was baptized with the Holy Ghost the Lord gave me a blessed
revelation. I saw Adam and Eve turned out of the garden for their disobedience
and unable to partake of the tree of life, for the cherubim with flaming sword
kept them away from this tree. When I was baptized I saw that I had begun to
eat of this tree of life and I saw that the flaming sword was all round about.
It was there to keep the devil away. Oh, what privileges are ours when we are
born of God. How marvelously He keeps us so that the wicked one touches us
not. I see a place in God where Satan dare not come. Hidden in God. And He
invites us all to come and share this wonderful hidden place where our lives
are hid with Christ in God, where we dwell in the secret place of the Most
High and abide under the shadow of the Almighty. God has this place for you in
this blessed realm of grace.
Peter goes on to say, "According as His divine power bath given unto us all
things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that
hath called us to glory and virtue." God is calling us to this realm of glory
and virtue where, as we feed on His exceeding great and precious promises, we
are made partakers of the divine nature. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for right here in this life. It is right here that God would have us
partake of His divine nature. It is nothing less than the life of the Lord
Himself imparted and flowing into our whole beings, so that our very body is
quickened, so that every tissue and every drop of blood and our bones and
joints and marrow receive this divine life. I believe that the Lord wants this
divine life to flow right into our natural bodies, this law of the spirit of
life in Christ Jesus that makes us free from the law of sin and death. God
wants to estabish our faith so that we shall lay hold on this divine life,
this divine nature of the Son of God, so that our spirit and soul and body
will be sanctified wholly and preserved unto the corning of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
When that woman was healed of the issue of blood, Jesus perceived that power
had gone out of Him. The woman's faith laid hold and this power was imparted
and immediately the woman's being was surcharged with life and her weakness
departed. The impartation of this power produces everything you need; but it
comes only as our faith moves out for its impartation. Faith is the victory.
If thou canst believe, it is thine.
I suffered for many years from piles, till my whole body was thoroughly weak;
the blood used to gush from me. One day I got desperate and I took a bottle of
oil and anointed myself. I said to the Lord, "Do what you want to, quickly." I
was healed at that very moment. God wants us to have an activity of faith that
dares to believe God. There is what seems like faith, and appearance of faith,
but real faith believes God right to the end.
What was the difference between Zacharias and Mary? The angel came to
Zacharias and told him, "Thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son." Zacharias
was there in the holy place, but he began to question this message, saying, "I
am an old man, my wife is well stricken in years." Gabriel rebuked him for his
unbelief and told him, "Thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the
day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my
words." But note the contrast when the angel came to Mary. She said, "Behold
the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word." And Elizabeth
greeted Mary with the words, "Blessed is she that believed: for there shall be
a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord." God would
have us to lay hold on His word in like manner. He would have us to come with
boldness of faith declaring, "You have promised it, Lord. Now do it." God
rejoices when we manifest a faith that holds Him to His word. Can w e get
there
The Lord has called us to this glory and virtue; and, as our faith lays hold
on Him, we shall see this in manifestation. I remember one day I was holding
an open-air meeting. My uncle came to that meeting and said, "Aunt Mary would
like to see Smith before she dies." I went to see her and she was assuredly
dying. I said, "Lord, can't you do something?" All I did was this, to stretch
out my hands and lay them on her. It seemed as though there was an immediate
impartation of the glory and virtue of the Lord. Aunt Mary cried, "It is going
all over my body." And that day she was made perfecly whole.
One day I was preaching and a man brought a boy who was done up in bandages.
The boy was in irons and it was impossible for him to walk and it was
difficult for them to get him to the platform. They passed him over about six
seats. The power of the Lord was present to heal and it entered right into the
child as I placed my hands on him. The child cried, "Daddy, it is going all
over me." They stripped the boy and found nothing imperfect in him.
The Lord would have us to be walking epistles of His word. Jesus is the Word
and is the power in us, and it is His desire to work in and through us His own
good pleasure. We must believe that He is in us. There are boundless
possibilities for us if we dare to act in God and dare to believe that the
wonderful virtue of our living Christ shall be made manifest through us as we
lay our hands on the sick in His name.
The exceeding great and precious promises of the Word are given to us that we
might be partakers of the divine nature. I feel the Holy Ghost is grieved with
us because, when we know these things, we do not do greater exploits for God.
Does not the Holy Ghost show us wide-open doors of opportunity? Shall we not
let God take us on to greater things? Shall we not believe God to take us on
to greater manifestations of His power? His call for us is to forget the
things that are behind, and reach forth unto the things which are before and
to press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus.