This is one of the most beautiful types of spiritual failures that is known. So many have mistaken hope for faith. They had a confused idea that if they hoped strongly enough, they could bring the desired thing to them. They didn’t know that hope was future.
There are two Scriptures in Romans that will assist us.
(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth [gives life to] the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken. (Romans 4:17–18)
Here was a strange combat: faith warring with hope.
Hope wins in most cases, but hope lost here.
Abraham counted the thing for which he had hoped to be his own, and he resolutely put hope aside and claimed the son that God had promised.
But the eighth chapter of Romans throws more light upon it:
For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. (Romans 8:24–25)
Again, Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The Centenary Translation of the New Testament by Helen Barrett Montgomery gives this translation: “Faith is the title deed of things hoped for; the putting to the proof of things not seen.”
Believing is action. Faith is the cause of the action.
You can see that in this: “Faith is giving substance to things hoped for.”
It is bringing into the present tense things that were in the future for us—so we can see that hope is never now.
If I hope for my healing and only have a hope, the undertaker will have a job.
Now a man’s investments are all in the future. He bought stocks hoping for a rise. He bought a piece of land hoping that he might sell it in the future to advantage.
Hope has no present-tense blessing. The hoper lives on hopes. The Word is loved, admired, but not acted upon.
The hoper is merely an assenter to the Word. He admires it, knows it is true, will suffer for his convictions of the utter truthfulness of this revelation, but he does not act upon it.
We have many able Bible teachers who are mere hopers or assenters of the Word. Good people, but they have never enjoyed the realities of the things that belong to them. Many of them will act on their creed, but they will not act on the Word.
Often, they are assenters to the verbal inspiration. They think all the time that they are believers.
You understand that the believer is a possessor. “He that believeth hath eternal life” (John 6:47 ASV). He who hopes has not yet arrived.
He who hopes may possess sometime, but not now.
The hoper is a present-tense failure as far as the realities of the Word are concerned. He may be a beautiful failure, but he is a failure.
He fails in the midst of rosy hopes. The fragrance of dead hopes fills the air. He fails because he only hopes.
Abraham believed in spite of hope, and brushing hope aside, grasped the thing that God had promised.
Many people are in bondage to faith’s most dangerous enemy.
Faith is giving substance to that for which we vainly hoped.
Hope has no substance. It is an empty cloud.
Hope deludes the lost; it deludes the sick and the defeated.
There is no hope for the hoper if he remains a hoper.
Prayer that is based on hope is sure to fail.
Salvation that is based on hope never comes to maturity.
The sick person who hopes for healing remains sick.
Let us change hope into faith as Abraham did. Then life will be a success.
Jesus was God speaking. How solemn is that statement. It is pregnant with a challenge from the very throne of God.
He was not only the Word, He was the living Word. He was the miracle-performing Word. He was the death-destroying Word. He was the life-giving Word.
He said, “I am come that you might have life.” (See John 10:10.) That life was the nature of God, and that nature of God was in His Word.
When He said in Matthew 24:35, “My words shall not pass away,” it was simply a statement of fact, just as in 1 Peter 1:23 (MOFF), “the living, lasting word of God.” It lives, and it lives in me, this living logos, the life-giving Word of God.
And hear Him whisper, “I watch over this Word to see that it is performed.”
Can’t you see how safe it is to trust this living Word?
God speaks, then sets a watch over it to see that it is made good as we trust it or act upon it.
Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you.”
It dwells in you in the measure that you practice it. You may have it committed to memory, but if you do not practice it, it doesn’t dwell in you.
Revelation 12:11 says, “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word [logos] of their testimony.” That Greek word logos is Jesus; and they overcame the devil with Jesus on their lips.
“My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). That is the logos of God on my lips. I stand by it. That is my confession and I maintain it. That is His statement of fact and He stands by it. He meets the need!
First Peter 2:24 says, “Who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” That is a little blind to us. Read it like this: “That we having died unto sins might live in the power of His righteousness that has been imparted to us.” Then I can act on the Word, “by whose stripes ye were healed.”
I know that the Word is true. I do not ask Him to heal me, because I am healed. I simply stand by my confession that I am what He says I am.
Stand by your prayers when you have used His Word on your lips. Don’t go back on the spoken word from your own lips. You spoke His Word; that was as though He had spoken it.
You said to the Father, “In Jesus’s name, I take this, I take the salvation of this loved one.”
He has given you a legal right to the use of His name. You hand that name back to Him with your request.
THE DANGER OF SEEKING EXPERIENCES
She said, “I know it is true for I experienced it.”
It isn’t a problem of whether the Word declared it or not. It isn’t what the Word says, but what our experience says.
Faith in our experiences is not always faith in the Word. Faith in what I have seen or heard is not always faith in the Word.
Practically all religious experiences are products of the physical senses. It is something felt or heard or seen.
Sense experience always leaves one empty when the experience grows old.
Seeking experiences is always dangerous for it is trusting in the arm of the flesh rather than in the Word, because experiences are always connected with the senses.
Sense experiences are fascinating to a soul-hungry man.
They attract the curious.
They are always in the realm where most folks live.
One of the unfortunate things about seeking experiences is that those who are seeking are in the realm that is governed by evil spirits, for Satan rules most people’s bodies, the home of practically all of our experiences.
That is the reason that so many have lost their minds; for when people seek experiences for a long time, demons often take advantage and become their helpers.
They are not wrestling with God. It is not with the Word. They struggle with themselves to get their senses to function.
Sense experiences are always based on sense knowledge faith.
We should remember that sense knowledge always fails us in a crisis, and you will notice that the people who are depending on experiences are ever seeking to have the experience repeated.
They believe in experiences because they live in the realm of the senses.
They never believe the Word. They assent to it, or they hope in it.
Experience-seekers are always unstable in their faith.
The Word of God does not carry as much authority as the word of the person who has the experience.
These people are ever seeking faith.
They have continual war with doubts and fears and discouragements.
They will tell you that they are having a hard battle with the adversary.
Most of these people have rented a place at the altar.
They are perpetual seekers who long for experiences and power.
They are seeking their healing, not knowing that the Father laid their diseases on Jesus.
They are honest, but they are walking in the realm of the senses.
Their teachers are sense knowledge taught people.
They believe much about the Word, but they do not believe the Word itself.
They act on the word of man and it breaks under them.
They read much about the Bible and about experiences, but they do not study the Word systematically. Consequently, they are unstable and double-minded.
They are like people who take drugs or liquor. They are drunken with the senses.
If they could only know the sure Word, the unbroken Word, the living Word, the life-giving Word, the all-satisfying Word, they would give up their quest for experiences and let the Word satisfy them.
SEEKING MANIFESTATIONS
What kind of manifestations are they seeking? Something connected with their physical body.
They wish to speak in tongues.
They desire to go under the power.
They wish to have their body vibrate and shake.
They wish to see some physical demonstration of the Spirit’s power. The Holy Spirit never gratifies them.
The only spirit that will gratify them is dangerous to play with.
But you ask, “Do you not believe in speaking in tongues?”
Yes, when the Holy Spirit speaks through you, it is beautiful.
But no one needs to wait and tarry for Him to do it, for the tarrying gives the adversary an opportunity to deceive them, and the people who are seeking this are not spiritually minded.
They will not know a demon from the Holy Spirit.
But you say, “Didn’t the disciples tarry ten days?”
Yes, they waited until the fullness of time came for the Holy Spirit to come. From that day to this, there has been no need to tarry.
The Holy Spirit is here, and He will enter the body of any man or woman who invites Him in.
Luke 11:13 says, “How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”
You don’t receive eternal life by tarrying and struggling for it. You receive eternal life by acting on the Word.
The same thing is true in regard to the Holy Spirit, and every other blessing that is promised in the Word.
Tarrying means that the Word isn’t true, and you have to do something to add to its truthfulness, to its veracity.
Waiting before the Lord for power and for some special blessing that you have heard about is unnecessary because you have in you, if you have received the Holy Spirit, the fountain of all experiences.
You have invited the Holy Spirit to make His home in your body; and He said if you did, He would come in and occupy it.
Well, you have only one thing to do: that is to accept that statement of His as absolutely true, and thank Him—feeling or no feeling—that He has come into your body to make His home.
Now you allow Him to take over your life.
You are not passive, but you are insistent that He take you over; that He illumine your heart and your mind; that He will now guide you into all the reality of the redemptive work of Christ that belongs to you; and that He prove Himself to be greater in you than the forces of darkness that are around you.
He is the power of God, the mind of God, the ability of God, and He is in you.
But give Him place, honor Him, and treat Him with the utmost courtesy.
Become accustomed to talking with Him; He is your continual companion.
He is to guide you daily.
After a while, you will be able to say, “Is it right to do this?” and you will get a “yes” or a “no” in your spirit.
When you have a few minutes to study the Word, remember He is there. He will illumine it.
As you meditate, He will unveil to you the deeper, hidden meanings in the Word that are necessary in your spiritual life, or to those to whom you are ministering.
Act as though He were there.
Plan your work with a consciousness that greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.
He is the one who can make Jesus wisdom unto you through the Word.
He can make the Word a living thing on your lips.
He gives you the ability to use Jesus’s name so that all the authority that is in that name can be exercised by you.
Experiences are not spiritual realities always, but the Holy Spirit’s presence in you, unveiling the Word, brings into your spirit consciousness realities of the highest value.
WE MUST NOT FAIL HIM
He has committed unto us the Word of grace.
He has committed unto us the Word of wisdom.
He has committed unto us His ability.
Have you ever taken notice of what you are in Christ? Of what you have, and of what you can do? Why, you are the very sons and daughters of God Almighty. You have His life and nature in you. You have the great mighty Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. What can you do? Measure it by the ability of God that is at work within you. Measure it by His own wonderful Word.
He knew what needs would face us when He was planning our redemption and when he was planning the new creation. I can hear Him say: “I’ll identify Myself with them; I’ll be in them; I’ll work through them. My ability shall become their ability, My wisdom their wisdom. I won’t let them fail. Through the Word, I will build Myself into them.”