The Passover seemed to be an act performed by God sovereignly; God directed each step of it. However, when you read the book of Hebrews, you find that it was created by human initiative under divine direction, but human initiative brought that judgment to pass.
Some of us are looking for God to do such great things, to bring immunity, deliverance, appropriation and judgment that will turn loose the Kingdom of God in all of its power. They have started to break on us already.
The eleventh chapter of Hebrews gives us insight into some of the stories about mighty men of faith and helps us understand why things happened as they did.
Psalms 103:7 tells us that God made known His acts to the children of Israel, but He made known His ways to Moses. Moses could see what was going on and how it worked. You may see certain things happen, but you don’t always know exactly how or why they work as they do.
As you become more perceptive and more mature in the Lord, you can see what is going on and sense the ways of the Lord in it, but the babe sees only the action that is accomplished, and doesn’t know the ways of the Lord.
When you read Hebrews 11, look carefully into certain verses that explain the stories. You get the impression that the events just happened, that God made them happen. While it is true that God made them happen, it was the faith of the individual, the initiative of his faith that precipitated it. God can create the shotgun and the bullets and put them in your hand, but the finger of faith pulls the trigger that shoots off the gun.
And many of the things that God has done for us are provisions that remain as they are, just provisions, until we appropriate, until we light the fuse and detonate the charge.
The promises of God are the most tremendous potentials that we have ever seen. Few, if any, that have lived on this earth have ever tapped the full potential—not even the Lord Jesus Christ, because His ministry was restricted to what the Father willed Him to do. But He did point to a time that His disciples would do greater works than He (John 14:12).
While Jesus was on the earth, He had authority over the earth, but not the heavenly places where fallen angels have their thrones, because they were kicked out of the third heaven. But at the end of Jesus’ ministry he had only 120 disciples, and the city of Jerusalem was worse off than when he started his ministry.
But when He was raised from the dead, He received a name above every name, and all authority in heaven and in earth, was given Him. And he gave that authority to His disciples to make disciples of all nations.
His disciples waited in the upper room until the day of Pentecost and the Holy Spirit was poured out, and that day 3,000 came into the church, and every day people were getting saved.
Acts 2: 41 Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.
47 Praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.
The enemy counter attacked, and threw Peter and John in jail, but the number of just the men that became disciples was about 5,000 a number greater than the disciples under Jesus ministry.
Acts 4: 3 And they laid hands on them and put them in jail until the next day, for it was already evening. 4 But many of those who had heard the message believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.
The greater works we have not seen as yet, but we will see them. Someone is going to come along and start moving in the fantastic, moving way out into things that the world has never seen before. This will happen because they will have that simple, aggressive faith that with its initiative opens up the full expression of those promises and puts them in action.
All of us would be glad to have faith that would turn loose in our own lives the promises God has made, the things He has spoken to us. You know that God has brought words to your own heart. Whether or not you received it by prophecy, you still have had a witness to your own spirit of that which God has given you, that God loves you and there are things that He wants you to have. You know that and you can become quite aggravated that the circumstance doesn’t change as rapidly as you want it to change.
We do not want to miss the full impact of what the Lord is doing. We do not want our desires to ease off, or our own hearts to become dull because we are not sustaining that peak of faith.
This message comes to stir our spirit that our initiative and faith should hang on to what God is speaking and doing, so that we let none of these things slide by nor lose any of the full force of the answer that God wants to bring.
When God says He is going to bless us in a certain way, we want it. When the Lord says there will be showers of blessing, we don’t want sprinkles. If the Lord says our cup will run over we don’t want half a cup; we want the full measure of what the Lord has promised He will do for us.
When God said in Hebrews 11:5, By faith Enoch was translated that He should not see death, it didn’t mean that he was walking along one day and it just happened that God took him; Genesis 5:24, does say that … he was not; for God took him, but Hebrews 11 explains that, By faith Enoch was translated. He believed for it to happen.
By faith, Abraham, being tried, offered up Isaac. Hebrews 11:17. Abraham had faith that God was going to raise Isaac from the dead, if necessary. We begin to see that though he was fully obedient, that obedience did not relinquish faith. Sometimes God requires us to do something that is our obedience test, to see if we will still believe. How can we put a knife into the bosom of Isaac and still believe that God is going to make him the father of many nations? That requires a response of faith.
Obedience can be with despair or it can be with faith. You can lay your Isaac on the altar with despair “Well, that is the end of Isaac. He is gone; let’s just bury him.” And that is why people lay their Isaacs on the altar.
If God asked you to do something, to lay something on the altar, don’t do it with despair, don’t get ready for a funeral, do it in obedience: “I lay Isaac on the altar, but I know what You said about Isaac. I will put that knife in him and give him as a sacrifice, but I stand here, demanding action, because there are promises about Isaac.” So by faith he offered up Isaac, but not in despair. Obedience can be in despair or it can be in faith.
By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid.….verse 23. That wasn’t just an evasive action on the part of his mother to keep him from being killed when he was born (because of the law of Pharaoh to kill the Hebrew males at birth).
By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. verse 24. That wasn’t just a rebel protest, it was more than that. By faith, he was identifying himself with those slaves, knowing that God was going to deliver them, choosing rather to share ill treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasure of Egypt: for he looked unto the recompense of reward. verses 25–26.
He knew it was all going to come back: there was a reward walking with God that he was not going to miss, so By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. verse 27. He saw the Lord. The Lord wasn’t visible to the natural eye, but faith sees the invisible realm. His own heart reckoned on the invisible God more than anything else, and that is why he endured. If you depend too much upon what you see in the natural realm, you despair, for all of us have circumstances that could overcome us. All of us would have problems if we gave into them.
A church is generally composed of two classes of people: those who are the problems and those who are the solution to the problems. That is what makes a good church.
We want the people who come in with the problems, but there had better be those who are the solution to the problems, too, who know how to meet the needs.
There are always two kinds of people who are very willing: those who are willing to work and others who are willing to let them do the work.
We want to be part of that solution to the problems: to have the faith and not look at the circumstances. The people who are the solution to the problems have as many problems themselves as the people who come to them, but they don’t talk about them because their problems are in the process of solution.
I am concerned about the people who have not found the first initiative in faith that their problems are going to be solved, so that they can help those who are ready to despair and need that one word of encouragement in order to go on.
Moses had the key—he endured as seeing him who is invisible. But Moses always had problems: three million of them!
I never envied the job Moses had, with all of those ex-slaves. There is a certain pride and arrogance of the rich and the aristocratic, but there is also an arrogant pride, belonging to people who have been very poor in this world’s goods, and when they look at their problems, out of them comes the wrong response.
The solution is to get your eyes off of the problems and see Him who is invisible; and that is what Moses did. By faith he endured, by faith he persevered, by faith he kept on going as seeing Him who is invisible, keeping his eye on the Lord.
Perhaps one day the Lord meets your heart and you are encouraged; the next day it can be just a little worry, just a little happening, and you shift over to, “Oh, things are just awful! Nothing ever is going to work out right,” because you are not enduring as seeing Him who is invisible.
You are looking at the circumstances and the problems and you will never see them the same—they look one way one day, and another way the next. You can’t go by the appearance.
You endure as seeing Him who is invisible. There are days that you look at the pastor and say, “He can minister to me, he can do anything for me that I need done”; and the next day you may think, “Nobody can help me, Nobody loves me, nobody cares, I don’t even feel like I’m a member of this body. I’m cut off,” and you feel withdrawn—all because you gave significance to the appearance of things. You can’t depend upon appearances, for they change from day to day.
Hebrews 6:19 says we have an anchor within the veil. We have reached right into the very presence of God and fastened our anchor.
That is a good thing to do, for scenes down here can shift; the tides can come and go, but we are anchored in the Lord.
This is what you need, good solid faith. God has spoken a word that there is a walk with God for you. You may be walking through a valley today and tomorrow be out on the mountain top. One day it is bad; the next day you are trusting the Lord more because you turn your eyes to the Lord. A person who is sustained by God, because he constantly looks to God as a source of supply, possesses the promises. That person makes it.
The first Psalm says that the man who meditates on the law of the Lord day and night will be like a tree that is planted by the rivers of living water. It doesn’t make any difference what comes or goes, that tree brings forth its fruit in season. Whose leaf also doth not wither, And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The wicked are not so, But are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.
Why are the ungodly always driven like the chaff? Because they are going by the circumstance and the appearance.
We are sending our roots into God and we are sustained. It doesn’t matter what happens, we’ll not wither. There is a permanence, an abiding presence of the Lord within us. We will bring forth fruit in season, anything we do will prosper because we are sustained by our roots in God. Moses endured as seeing Him who is invisible.
One of the most important points is Hebrews 11:28: By faith he kept the passover.… The margin reads “instituted.” By faith he instituted the Passover, and the sprinkling of the blood, that the destroyer of the first-born should not touch them.
This opens up a new thought. The keeping of the Passover was not defensive alone; it was also an aggressive act of faith. Does that startle you?
The institution of the Passover was not just a defensive action to prevent judgment upon themselves, but they had believed God and had aggressively inaugurated a flow of judgment of the word of God, and they kept it as an aggressive act of faith. By faith, Moses instituted the passover and the sprinkling of the blood, that the destroyer of the first-born should not touch them.
By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were swallowed up. verse 29. That was a big thing. By faith, they went through it. What would it be like to go through that Red Sea? It would take a lot of faith to walk through those walls of water! There was nothing holding up that great wall of water but just the blessing of the Lord. I imagine the people went through, blessing that wall, envisioning the fish, realizing it was just water, they could have reached through and caught one of those fish. By faith, they passed through the Red sea.
By human judgment, God can be rather aggravating at times, giving the right word at the wrong time! Think of those people coming up out of Egypt to the Red Sea, and Moses giving the wonderful word to them: “Stand still!”
If ever there was a time for running someplace, that was the time to do it. Surrounded by mountains, and sea, wondering “What are we going to do?” “Stand still!”
They murmured against Moses, “Now look what you did! We would have been better off in Egypt. We are going to die here. What a place to die!”
So Moses told them to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. The Lord will fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace. And the Lord said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? (A very aggravating answer) speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward. Exodus 14:15.
By faith they passed through the Red sea—we are doing things just as great today. You may say, “I can’t do it: I am confronted by such a sea of confusion and problems; I am so restricted, I am so incapable of meeting that with which I am confronted.”
True, but go on anyway; face it, God will make you a miracle. He will make you into a miracle and let you walk in the midst of miracles.
By faith, we institute (bring about) things. By faith, we start things. The Lord has taught us something that is so basic to this walk with God—to be open to the Lord, to be open to one another, to draw a blessing, to bless one another; and that constant blessing lifts people up to the Lord.
We are facing a good day. Every day we move more and more because our faith is aggressive. When people come into a walk with God, they are less aggressive in faith and things are slower to happen. It will take maybe a year for them to grow from one step to another.
Now some of our people grow rapidly from one week to the next because they are determined to grow. When you start on a course to seek God, to walk with Him and have something more from Him, don’t go at it spasmodically, just keep pressing in with aggressive faith.
Your faith inaugurates (put something into operation) more than you know. God has provided for it to happen, but you make it happen.
It is that aggressive faith on your part that takes hold of what you want in a walk with God, to make it happen. You have the faith that says, “Lord, I am going to have it.”
I believe in much submission to the Lord: of being humble and submissive before Him, because He has an integrity and is so wise and can outmaneuver me. He has given me enough wisdom to learn how to keep from being dealt with by Him, which I am going to follow carefully, If I am the least bit proud or arrogant, the Bible says (I Peter 5:5), God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.
I look at all of the promises that God says about the humble and the meek so I know the way to do it: get down before God, and humble myself.
Oppressions can travel through the Body of Christ. Galatians 5:15 tells of people biting and devouring one another, being consumed one of another. Paul was saying that believers can do it.
In churches where the life of Christ isn’t coming forth, members gnaw at one another; they pull one another’s lives down. They are harsh in their judgments. Wherever people’s spirits are not right, oppressions travel through that congregation readily.
But the more a church has a right spirit, and the more the people have a right spirit before God, the less oppression’s can travel through the church, and the good things will travel around.
It is in proportion to the uprightness, humility, love, and openness in your own spirit that evil is limited in traveling around.
If you have a right spirit, everyone is blessing you. When you have a wrong spirit, the blessings don’t get through to you. You are the one who determines it, by your having a right spirit. If you have a broken spirit before the Lord, you are poor in spirit and yours is the Kingdom of heaven.
If you are going to be an intercessor, you will have to pray with a right spirit, with a broken and humble spirit before the Lord, a spirit that is determined for God’s greater glory, seeking first the Kingdom of God. Put that first and you will grow and have the armor of the Lord in it.
The Lord has shown me that a man is invincible as long as he is doing the perfect will of God. I don’t believe the lions could have chewed up Daniel—although he was in his nineties at the time they threw him in the lion’s den—until his work was done.
If you are in the perfect will of God, nothing can stop you. It is when you get out of the perfect will of God and in a place where your spirit isn’t right that you have trouble.