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
Savior 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 hast 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.
Some
are tied up because, when they are prayed for, the thing that they
are expecting does not come 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 was 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 that 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 hath sent His angel, and hath 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 hath 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 establish 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 coming 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 we 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 perfectly
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.
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