Satan’s Attack on the Church

We seemingly are in an age when people talk about faith, but they’re not able to use it. In essence, Jesus described this when speaking of the Laodicean church. It’s very easy to talk of faith, but it’s something else to be able to produce that faith when the trouble comes. (Something else that’s hard to find is holiness.) Jesus let us know in Luke 18:8 that God will avenge His own elect quickly; nevertheless, will the Son of man find faith when He comes again? This stirs me. You see, I’ve seen things lived before me: I’ve seen people who really had faith in God and used it. God worked miracles, and I saw them happen with my own eyes; it was a reality. The devil never could pull up the stakes because they were driven in deeply.

It looks as though ministers are making more room for weak Christians all the time. Now, there’s room for the weak Christians, but God doesn’t intend for people to stay weak for five, six, or seven years. Some have been weak for twenty years. See, when we stay in that weakened condition, we’re unable to claim and receive from God what He wants us to have.

God’s a miracle worker, and He still hears the cries of His people. However, another generation is coming on that hasn’t seen what some of us have seen in the past. The devil would like to rob us, and he’ll be able to do it unless we get right down to business before Him. Not too many people today can say that they, by faith, pray for God to give them their daily bread. We have other ways of getting it, and we just thank Him for it. That’s good, but I merely use that as an illustration to show you that we have means of getting hold of most anything we need. I thank God that we’re able to get what we need; however, if we’re not careful, the enemy will work right through those means to take away every bit of faith we have in God.

The time will soon come for every one of us…when we’ll need something that we ourselves can’t get, and no one else will be able to bring us help. The best doctor in town may shake his head and say, “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.” See, it’s too late then, to try to start building up faith, just the same as it’s too late to get saved when Jesus “splits the clouds” one of these days. There’ll be a lot of praying going on, but it’ll be too late to pray. If we’re not careful, we’ll let the lightness of the age cause us to live loose and careless. Please, listen…there are plenty of people that used to serve God, but they don’t think they need Him now; so because they don’t think they need Him, they don’t give much thought to God or the things of God.

If the devil can’t get us to go out in the world and indulge in its pleasures, he’ll work on us in some other manner. He’s bringing his greatest attack on the church when he causes our faith to ebb away to the place where we can’t get hold of God as we ought to.

There’s much in our character and in our lives that can only be successfully dealt with by the exercise of a strong faith---our sorrows, our sicknesses, our ignorance. (I mean ignorance about the future, from this moment on). How are we going to live for God? We can’t live for Him according to what we’ve done in the past. We need a strong faith because we don’t know what’s going to come on us. Without a doubt, the things that will come on the true people of God from here on out are going to be greater than has ever befallen us in the past.

If we’re going to build up our faith, these are the days to do it; now’s the time to get a greater hold on God. If we’ll truly apply ourselves and will live as God wants us to live, He will have us ready for that, which comes upon us. The Bible tells us to get ourselves built up. What on? Our most holy faith. Are we there? Are we living right at the peak of our most holy faith, living as holy as is possible for us to live? The attitude of many people today is to live just as low as possible and still get by.

Everything that lies ahead of us---calls for a strong faith: our righteousness, our peace with God, our standing grace, our enduring to the end. We might be “saved now”, but only those who endure to the end “will be saved”. It’s not what we’ve been or what we are now, it’s whether we’re getting ourselves in shape to endure (to put up with some things, to have enough faith in God to take us through, to hold us fast, and to make us victorious). All of these things depend on a strong faith, and our faith comes by hearing the Word.

Heirs of the Ages

Through the fourth chapter of Romans, Paul made it plain to the Jewish people that works of the Law could not justify anyone, but rather, we’re justified by faith. This is what Paul was saying: If right relationship with God depended on the Law, the Jews wouldn’t get anywhere with it, because even though they knew the Law after a fashion, they couldn’t keep it, and the Gentiles couldn’t get anywhere because they didn’t know the Law. Paul used Abraham as an example. Back when Abraham and his father were worshipping images and false gods in heathenism…long before Abraham was circumcised and long before the word Jew had ever been heard of, Abraham began to walk with God by faith, and he was justified by faith.

Abraham believed in a noble God, and he knew that God’s promise and performance were equal. God’s not a God whose promise is stronger than His performance. He’s a God that’s ready and able to fulfill any promise that He’s made. His own words were, “Have I spoken it? Will I not make it good?” What’s that text saying? God’s performance is equal to His promise.

Verse 23 of our Scripture text contains a little clause which reads, “It was not written for his sake alone.” This lesson wasn’t written for Abraham’s sake alone, but there’s something in it that we can gather. Paul said in Romans 15:4, “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” If we’ll study what happened to Abraham and will allow the Holy Spirit to apply it to our hearts in the right way, it’ll give us a greater hope and it’ll enable us to look to God in a greater way; He truly is our hope. Jesus Christ is called the hope of the righteous, and He uses His Word to build us up and give us help.

We can read in 1 Corinthians, the tenth chapter…that these things happened to them for our ensamples. They were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might be able to operate a greater hope. There should be stronger faith among the people of God today than in any other era of time. Abraham didn’t have anybody to whom he could look as an example. He couldn’t read about anyone else who had been faithful, but we have many examples; therefore, we’re the heirs of the ages.

God has taken people through circumstances and let us watch them take hold of faith and move God on His throne, and every one of them are for our good, to help us. When we’re the heirs of the ages, down the stream of time, is great argosies laden with mental and spiritual wealth. With an open heart and mind, and in the right spirit, we can’t study this Book without our faith going up and up and up. It’s impossible! Faith still comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. God has just loaded His Word with circumstances which come near the kind of circumstances we’re in, and most always, they were worse than what we’re in, showing us how people took faith in God and made it through.

God’s put forth great effort to help us in this era of time. Certainly, God in His wisdom knew what it would be like even in our day, and He has exactly what we need to make it through. His precious Word is loaded with mental and spiritual wealth. We stand, as it were, on a moral delta made by the deposits of the noblest men of past ages. What encouragement we can receive! We’re rich (or at least we ought to be) in the very moral spoils of time.

No doubt, morally we’re living in as rotten an age as men have ever lived. The corruption in Sodom was just city wide, but today it’s worldwide. I believe the powers of evil are selective: Satan is bringing out every evil and ungodly work that’s possible, and not only is he working to damn the souls of men and women in this world, he’s also working to bring us down if he possibly can. Without a real settled faith in God, Satan will cause us to break down.

God’s given us everything that’s needed to make us rich mentally and spiritually. Even though we should be rich, truly speaking, as a whole, we’re weak in faith and puny in works (well, too many of us). Why did Jesus write to the church and tell them that they said they were rich when they were poor and blind and naked? (He was speaking of being spiritually poor in the things in which they ought to have been rich.) We sing, “I’m a happy millionaire, rich in grace beyond compare.” Are we? Do we have enough grace to go through the trial and shout the victory when it’s over? Or do we break down in the trial and act ugly, and then have to go around…pick up the pieces and ask people to forgive us? Yea, that’s the shame of our nakedness that appears.

Weakness of Faith

Our Scripture text says in verse 19, “And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead…” Abraham wasn’t weak in faith. The next verse said he was strong in faith. Why are we so weak in faith? First of all, weak faith considers circumstances rather than God. The enemy will try to get us fully entertained with our circumstances, and the more time we spend thinking on our circumstances, the more we’ll drain our faith. Abraham didn’t consider the fact that his body was dead as far as reproduction was concerned. Please notice that verse says, “…his own body now dead.” There was a time when he could have produced children, but he had passed that age. Sarah never did have any life in here womb to produce children. Now, that’s a hard place to start talking about babies. Isn’t that just like God! He picked out a one-hundred-year-old man, whose reproductive organs were dead, and his wife was ninety years old, and she never could produce a child. God deals in impossible things!

Someone may say, “I can’t get faith to pray for impossible things.” Well, then, how can you claim salvation, because salvation is impossible with men. In the nineteenth chapter of Matthew, the rich, young man who said he had kept the Law from his youth up, asked Jesus, “What good thing shall I do?” Jesus told him to go and sell what he had and give it to the poor, and the young man went away sorrowfully, The disciples inquired, “If he can’t be saved, who can be saved? Jesus said, “With men this is impossible; but with God all things [not just salvation] are possible.” If we’re saved, God has already worked something impossible with men in our life.

A miracle is a supernatural working of God’s power beyond what the human can do, and that’s exactly what salvation is. Weak faith, first considers the circumstance rather then God. Through the powers of unbelief, we can begin to look strongly at the things which are seen with the natural eye, things which are understood with the physical mind.

The devil’s just like a clutterer, cluttering the way that leads to the fulfillment of the promise. He knows that if we, by faith, stand on it, own it, and claim it as ours, there aren’t enough “devils in hell” to keep it from coming to pass! So what does he do? He clutters the way with impossibilities, getting us to think on the circumstance. The more we think on it, the weaker our faith becomes, the bigger the impossibilities surmount, and the smaller God seems to be. It’s mere weakness of faith that makes us pour over the difficulties and see the impossibilities that lie in the way of the promise.

Some say it’s hard to believe in things unseen. However, we believe in unseen things by the testimony of observant men in our world. Doctors can take an instrument and tell us exactly what’s wrong with us, and we haven’t it at all; yet we believe them. (More and more we can read in the newspapers that they’re finding out that doctors have performed surgery and have gone in after something that wasn’t there.) There’s many unseen things, which we take man’s word for.

I’ve never been to Europe, but I’m sure it’s there. How do I know? I believe the books that I’ve read about it, and I believe the testimonies of those who’ve been there. Europe is an unseen thing to me. I’m just illustrating how we accept unseen things along many other lines, but when it comes to spiritual things, people say, “Oh, you can’t ask me to believe what I can’t see,” and they get their minds set against the unseen things. Why not believe in the unseen things of the spiritual realm? We have the testimony of God’s Word, and we have the testimony of His servants who preach it to us.

Isn’t it something how quickly unbelief raises up when it comes to the things of God? There’s not a person that would say, “I don’t believe the astronauts have ever gone into space. I think they went out somewhere in the clouds and rested someplace, and then came back.” No, you’d argue, “I know they’ve been there!” Well, how do you even know there’s space out there? You see, we take hold of unseen things and just take them as facts and tell them as facts; but when it comes to spiritual things, “old split hoof” goes to work on us with unbelief, telling us, “Now, don’t be too sure.” Well, we’re talking about a more sure word of prophecy that can’t fail! They’re the words of Jesus!

Heaven and earth will pass away, but His word will never pass away. We can depend on them; yet we have such a struggle.

Believing in Hope Against Hope

“Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be” (verse 18). Abraham against hope believed in hope. In other words, all natural hope was against him: the arguments of sense, reason, experience, and medical knowledge. Some say, “It’s hard for me to operate faith when the doctor says I cannot live.” What the doctors say, doesn’t have anything to do with how long you’ll live.

A doctor told one sister that she was going to die, and she said, “No, I’m going to live. I won’t die until God says so,” and it made him mad. Then when she lived and said, “Thank God, Doc. I told you I would live,” he said, “It wasn’t God; it was the penicillin.” A man that won’t give God any credit shouldn’t have any credit.

No doctor can tell us how long we’ll live. I’m not against doctors. I’m just saying that whenever any man begins to tell us that we’re not going to live, he doesn’t know that, and he’s taking too much on himself. You may say, “Well, my loved one died.” There’s a time for every one of us to die, but until that time, there’s a God in Heaven that will heal our bodies according to the faith we have in Him.

I remember another case when a little boy was full of poison, and the doctors had given up on him. He’d swollen up and turned an odd color, and his eyes rolled back in his head. The doctors came out and told the young parents that he couldn’t live. The mother wasn’t a Christian, but she asked her mother (who was Christian) if she would call me. I went to the hospital in the middle of the night, and the doctors and nurses were watching over him closely. They let me in, and stood right there while I prayed. I called back later to see how he was and the nurse said, “Reverend, I believe God has heard your prayer. Call me back in the morning.” So she gave me her name, and when I called back, she said, “He’s up eating, Reverend.”

It’s not hard to believe God. He’s not lost His power. He’s still in control. The breath of every living thing is in His hands. He appoints our bounds that we can’t go beyond. No man can appoint them.

Abraham believed in hope against hope; all natural hope was against him. I repeat, the Bible says that he considered not his own body now dead. He was past the power of reproduction. See, if we’re going to see the divine workings of God, we must look beyond ourselves and our circumstances, no matter what the case is. All things are possible with God. We must look to God alone. If we’ll put our faith and trust in Him and believe His Word, He will deliver. I believe that one of the great needs today is that we need to be like our father. Abraham is called the father of the faithful, and those are the only ones that he’s the father of. What does the word faithful mean? Full of faith!

God is endeavoring through His Word to encourage us and strengthen us to be like Abraham: strong in faith. Verse 19 of our Scripture lesson said he was not weak in faith. He didn’t stagger at the promise of God, but he was strong in faith, giving glory to God. In spite of all appearances, and in spite of all the seeming impossibilities, let’s believe God. Can it be…that Abraham, in the dawn of time, with no Bible to read and no examples to look upon, by his might, puts shame on our weakness?

By weakness of faith, we can shut ourselves up in the gloomy castle of doubt, and we’ll lead miserable lives. Then our harps will be hung on the willows, and we’ll not be able to sing the songs of Zion with jubilance and happiness or sing of the victorious way. The songs of Zion are songs of victory! We can’t sing the songs of Zion when our harp’s hung on the willow. In too many cases, the harps are hung on the willows and the swords are in the sheaths. God gave us the sword of the Spirit to use, and He tells us what we can do with it; but too many times, the sword is rusted in the sheath, and when that happens, the devil has us.

We start out in the Spirit, having a powerful life, but if we’re not careful, we’ll end up in the flesh, trying to fight against these powers in the flesh. It can’t be done! How long has it been since we used our sword on the devil? How long has it been since we pulled the sword on the powers of unbelief, doubt and fear?

We’re in a battle, and the Bible tells us to put on the whole armor of God and to make sure that we’ve done all to stand, and then stand. When we stand and take the shield of faith in one hand and the sword of the Spirit (which is the Word of God) in the other hand; that will make us “devil proof”. We have an armor on where he cannot touch us, and we have a shield that enables us to ward off every fiery dart. Then, when he’s done his best and can’t do any more, we can take the sword of the Spirit and start hacking at him. If the sword’s in the sheath, we impede true progress, and by so doing, we dishonor God.

The Call of God Is An Individual Call

We read in Hebrews 11:16, “…wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God…” Who were they? People who had faith. They believed God. God’s not ashamed to be called their God, and He prepared a city for them. We’ll be strong if we’ll look above and beyond our surroundings to the God who promises and remembers that with Him nothing is impossible. God’s expecting us to stand on that! May God help each one of us to look away from ourselves and our circumstances and look to Him, as never before.

Abraham had a divine future held out to him in the promise of God. We can read in Genesis, the twelfth chapter, where God looked down and, in essence, said, “Abraham, get out from among your kindred and from your father’s house and walk with me. I’ll be your shield, and I’ll be your exceeding great reward.” That’s what God said to Abraham. Now God is saying to everyone following the way of sin, “You may entertain thoughts about Heaven, but there’s no way to get to Heaven, walking the road of sin. You must be changed before you can start.” For Abraham, there had to be a starting place. Where’s the starting place for us? When we give up all, come to God, and walk with Him on the highway of holiness; then, thank God, we’ll get to Heaven.

God, by the Word of God, gave Abraham a precious promise, and he believed God. God told him, in so many words, “I’m going to make you a daddy, and you’re going to have as many children as there are stars in the sky,” and he believed God. It jolted him a little, and Sarah laughed, and God said, “What’s Sarah laughing at? Is anything too hard for the Lord?” There’s nothing too hard for Him.

I read one time about a missionary in a foreign land. She wanted to build a mission station, and it was going to cost thousands of dollars. She’d prayed through concerning it. So she went around telling people that she was going to build a new mission station. When they would inquire as to how much she had, she said, “Twelve pence.” They told her, “Twelve pence won’t do anything.” She said, “That’s right, but twelve pence, God and me can,” and she built it and didn’t owe anything when it was completed. God moved on the hearts of some businessmen and the money just flooded in until the mission salvation was built. You see, God doesn’t care if we have twelve cents or twelve thousand dollars. He’s not bound by those things. He can do anything!

When Abraham believed God, it meant the divine future had a reality for him that, in comparison with everything else, lost both reality and value. He was a rich man. He lived in Ur of the Chaldees, which was one of the finer cities of that day, but when God told him to come out, he came out. There’s not the least doubt in my mind that he left a better home then any twelve of us have, put together. He left his homeland, his friends, and his kindred.

He came home one time after he’d been talking to God and probably said, “Sarai, get ready, we’re going to move.”

“Oh,” she no doubt said, “Where are we going to move?”

He said, “God hasn’t told me that yet.”

How’d you like to go like that? We have to have everything fixed and settled and every problem worked out, or we don’t move; yet, we say we’re moving by faith. The Bible says he went out not knowing where he was going, but he knew that God had called him, and he rested on that divine call to move; then he trusted God to take care of the rest. Because he was so faithful in moving out, God walked with him and told him that he would be the father of many nations, and God changed his name from Abram to Abraham, because it means many children. No doubt, everyone around him said that it was an impossibility and that it could not come to pass, but Abraham believed the promise, and it came to pass.

We want to stress right here: that too many don’t take faith in the call of God when He calls them. Someone may ask, “Does God still call people out from their kindred and friends?” Yes. The call of God is still and individual call. We each must take an individual stand for God and truth. Why? If we don’t, the devil will work through our friends or our people, to draw us back.

Abraham left his country and his kindred because there was no comparison between what he was leaving and what he was going to gain. He renounced the tempting openings, which he saw around him. He had something revealed to him, which nothing else could compete with in reality and value. The future held the promise of God.

Strong in Faith

It says in verses 19-20 of our Scripture text: “And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God.” The Bible says that “he considered not” and “he staggered not” at the promise of God, or the Greek translation says that “he disputed not.”

Many lose the promise because they hold a consultation in their minds. God will tell us exactly what He wants us to do, and when we decide that we need to sit down and think about it and pray about it, the more we think about it and pray about it, and the more consultation we hold in our mind, the harder it will become for us to believe and move as God directs. When God speaks plainly to us and tells us what to do, we’re doing the most dangerous thing in the world when we pray about it, think about it, and sleep over it. Abraham didn’t do that. He did not stagger at the promise, he did not dispute it, and he didn’t allow himself to hold consultation. He allowed nothing or no one to disturb that inward conviction.

Faith is “down on the inside”. Faith is the substance and the conviction (the Holy Spirit brings a conviction to our heart) of things. Abraham was convinced and convicted, and he would not allow anything or anyone to disturb his thinking. A lot of people have their faith weakened because they allow other people and other things to disturb the promise that God has so wonderfully given to them. The devil is out to weaken our faith and to kill it, if he possibly can. We need to be careful, lest we stagger at the promises of God through unbelief. All of the staggering at God’s promises among the people of God is through unbelief. It’s not the promise that fails; but when we stagger, it’s our faith that fails.

Verse 20 said he was strong in faith, giving glory to God. When people said, “Don’t you know that you’re dead as far as reproduction is concerned? Don’t you know that Sarah’s womb is dead? She can’t have a child.” Abraham probably said, “I’m glad you mentioned that. This gives God a greater chance to have glory than if I was a young man and Sarah was a young woman.” See, through weak faith, we’re robbing God of glory. We’ve prayed many times “Lord, we’re not in Egyptian bondage; but we’re in affliction’s bondage. Our people are sick. Too many times, our praying is just ceremonial praying, and there’s no power in it. Lord, send a Moses to deliver us out of the bondage of this affliction” God is doing it---among those who have strong faith!

Being Fully Persuaded

The Amplified version of Romans 4:20 reads, “…he grew strong and was empowered by faith as he gave praise and glory to God. The next verse (King James version) said, “And being fully persuaded [not almost persuaded] that, what he had promised, he was also to perform.”

By reading those verses, we’ll find that faith grows just as all other powers and graces grow. How do we grow in grace? We’d like to have faith just poured out on us, but there’s only one way to grow, and that’s by exercise. As we’ve traveled the country, people have asked me to lay hands on them so they’ll have faith, but we don’t get faith that way. Abraham’s faith grew to the place where he was fully persuaded.

We need to get a promise from God, lay hold on it, and claim it as ours; then read it often, and between the times we read it, meditate on it. Faith is fed with a promise, and faith is exercised by the waiting period. If we study the life of Abraham, we’ll find that he had to wait quite a while for the fulfillment of the promise. It didn’t come to pass the very day that God gave it to him. So there’s a waiting period, and since he was fully persuaded, his faith didn’t diminish during the waiting period; but instead it grew. The Bible lets us know that.

The very obstacles that would stagger the faith of a doubting one will cause the believing one’s faith to be strengthened. Obstacles will come our way, and if unbelief and doubt are in our mind, they’ll cause us to have less and less faith. As the same obstacles “come on” a believing one, he overcomes them and they strengthen his faith. The promise provides a banqueting table at which the unwavering man can feed. God will provide by furnishing the food, and man provides by making the right use of the food; they work together to produce faith. The unwavering man reaches the sublime heights, developing in faith and giving glory to God. One of the basic ways that we give glory to God is by believing His Word.

Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” How did Abraham give glory to God? By believing His Word. Unbelief is so great today. Nothing thrills the heart of God any more than to see a people that believe Him. Abraham believed God, and he gave glory to God. Thank God, the infinite condescends to the finite and seeks to raise man up out of his finiteness to larger spaces of divine possibility. Everything that the church has ever been blessed with, is ours, plus more than they ever understood or were ever blessed with. There are divine possibilities for the church that she has never looked upon, never beheld, and never been blessed with, if she will “sell out” and allow God to work.

Paul, in the Ephesian letter, lets us know there are higher heights, deeper depths, and greater breaths. God is working to lift us up to the place of divine possibilities so that we can give glory to God. We give glory to God, not by our weakness, but by our striving to get out of our weakness and putting on God’s strength. This is the way we glorify Him. Abraham knew he had a hard situation. He gave glory to God by not being weak in faith and by not letting the flesh or his people, “down the promise”. He stepped out away from them, stood for God, and gave glory to God by believing Him; and as you know, God brought it to pass.

It’s indeed faith to build upon the all-sufficiency of God for accomplishing that which is impossible. God is glorified by our trusting Him. The Bible said Abraham was fully persuaded. His full persuasion was built upon the omnipotence of God. He believed that God was able to perform. Oh, how God wants to perform today. We don’t mean that He wants to “put on a show”, but we mean that He wants to bless His children, supply their needs, and cause people to turn to Him.

Abraham---A Man of Faith

God called Abraham the father of many nations, yet he was a hundred years old and he never had a child. How could he believe God? He believed that God was the Creator. His faith was tested after God told him that he would make him the father of many nations (speaking of those who are born again). What did Abraham have his faith built on? That God was the Creator, and he knew that God could create children.

After the little boy Isaac, was born and had reached a nice age, God tested Abraham’s love. He told him to take the lad (that little boy that he had found such rich fellowship with, and God had promised him that through the seed of his body all nations would be blessed) and kill him. Brother, God will “cross us up” sometimes to see whether or not we’ll believe Him. This thing didn’t add-up: God blessed him with a child, and through him all nations were going to be blessed; then God said to take him and kill him. No doubt, Abraham thought, “Well, Lord, I believe in creation, and you created a child out of a dead womb and a dead daddy.” So, he took a mule loaded with the wood for the sacrifice and started their journey. Every once in a while, the boy would probably look up and say, “Daddy, where are we going?’

“We’re going up to worship God.”

“Daddy, where’s the sacrifice?”

“The Lord will provide.”

Abraham was a man of faith! I believe that, humanly, it was tearing his heart out. When he got to the foot of the mountain, he told his servants to wait and he and the son would be back. That’s faith! What did he have faith in? The resurrecting power of God. Read the Scripture. It says that he knew that even though he slew him, God could raise him up to life again. Abraham bound Isaac and laid him on the altar and raised the knife. In his heart, he slew him, but an angel spoke to him and told him not to kill the lad.

When Abraham looked up, there was a ram fastened in the thicket. God then knew that Abraham loved Him supremely; he had proved it. In a figure, God raised-up Isaac and gave him back to Abraham. The faith of Abraham encompasses so much. We repeat, faith is a strong, inward persuasion manifesting itself in outward acts. And if that strong, inward persuasion is there, it will manifest itself in outward acts. The sad part is: many have lost that strong, inward persuasion. God has blessed us in this Holy Ghost dispensation. He’s given us the Holy Spirit to help us with a strong, inward persuasion.

There’s no better illustration of faith than the life of Abraham. He believed God, he trusted God’s Word, and he took God’s way. This can be said of everyone who believes God; we believe His Word, and we walk His way. A simple definition of faith means trusting God’s Word and taking God’s way. Christian friend, we’re in a battle, and the Bible tells us to fight the good fight of faith. The enemy wants to destroy our faith. When he has destroyed our faith, or even limited it, we become powerless, and we’re not able to give glory to God as God has ordained.

Be Strong in the Lord

I read the following facts one time: In the first seventy years of the twentieth century, one-hundred thousand people were martyred for religion or for freedom of worship. In communist satellite nations (read this closely), only one out of every one-hundred people could take the persecution and die for the cause. Ninety-nine percent of them thought they had faith, but when it came to a show-down, they recanted and gave in to communism.

If someone would start pulling our fingernails out, little by little, or if we would be placed in a rat-infested cell and the hungry rats began chewing on our body, would we recant? We’re so protected against the work of the enemy. Some people are ready to give up if someone talks crossly to them. Others get peeved over something and will stop church attendance. Now, they wouldn’t be able to face a firing squad, would they? Many don’t really have it; they just think they do. Only one out of a hundred nailed their faith down with their own blood.

Well, we need to know that our faith is real. Why? Because we can’t develop it if it’s no real. We can work ourselves to death trying to build up our faith, but if it’s not real, we’ll never build it up, and we’ll end up with less faith after all of our struggling. We have to know that it’s definitely real before God.

God has been good to protect us from such persecution as those things we’ve mentioned, but only He knows what’s in the future. We certainly don’t want any of those things to happen to anybody, but they can. Where’s our hope? It’s in God and in God alone. Let’s ask ourselves---is our faith real? Have we heard God’s call to come out from our family and take an individual stand for God, no matter what others do?

Abraham’s not the only one who is blessed. The Scripture said that it was not written for him alone, but for us too. If we take a definite stand and walk with God, He’ll be there to reward us. We can’t walk with God without God rewarding us.

As soon as Abraham started walking, God came down and started walking with him. He said that He would be our shield and our exceeding great reward. We can’t beat that! Nothing can happen to us, unless God allows it, so everything that happens to us is for our good and for His glory. There’s not a place in the world that we can get a reward like God will give us if we’ll trust Him. We just need to walk with Him. How can we tell if we’re walking with God? We’ll have our mind off of ourselves, and we’ll be praying for others.

God’s eye is on the righteous, and His ear is open to their cry. The fervent, effectual prayer of a righteous man avails much before God. Let’s never get that old feeling, “There’s nothing that can be done.” Let’s look away from the circumstances and look to God who’s the Master of every circumstance. He can change anything. Within our test, there are just two kinds of faith: strong faith and weak faith. Which kind do we have? Now, if we have weak faith, let’s trade it off. The Bible says in Ephesians 6:10, “Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.” God wants us to have strong faith, He wants us to be able to take a strong stand, and He wants us to be strong on every link, not in ourselves, but in His might and in His power! [ The End ]