God is creating an instrument; and that instrument is going to be a believing people who will hit the world with their faith. It is our faith: we are not busy with a program in this walk that goes out with evangelism, psychology, and winning ways. There isn’t anything about it to like to begin with. After you get in it, you like it. But when you hit it on the surface, you don’t like it, because it is total. People like to play church too well; they like the course of self-deception. To come into something as total as this shakes you up; it disturbs you too deeply.
What do we do? We are going to do the will of the Lord, so when He sets something before us, we believe. If it is an impossibility, we still believe. All things are possible to him that believeth. And that’s the way we proceed: in the name of the Lord.
The Scriptures have become an experience to us instead of an intellectual exercise. There is an opening until there’s a feeling and impression that we receive on a spiritual plane, rather than just find that we examine and think over a truth that is organized in its presentation to us. We want to have the experience of what life was like in New Testament times—to hear Christ speak.
It is difficult for us because we have a traditional faith rather than a contemporary faith. We look back believing, “Oh, it all happened. Everything that the Scriptures say that Jesus did, we believe it. How could Peter ever deny the Lord like that? Shame! How could Judas betray the Lord? How could Thomas be such a doubter?” Why is it that Jesus would reprove His disciples and say, “O ye of little faith!” when they had seen Him do all those mighty miracles? We say today just like they did in Jesus’ day, “If we had been there, we wouldn’t have done that” (Matthew 23:30). Jesus turned to the Jews and He said, “You say, ‘If we had been living when our fathers lived we wouldn’t have slain the prophets.’ ” It is always easy to have a traditional faith—that you believe. When you look back, you believe: “It happened just that way! The fish swallows Jonah, for sure. That’s the way it was!” But it isn’t easy to come to the present hour and say, “Yes, I believe that word now.”
There can’t be anything that is more an expression of a deceptive, religious spirit than present day Fundamentalism. They argue that they believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God from cover to cover, but refuse to believe in miracles happening today. Everything is put in the sweet by and by or way off in the past somewhere, but nothing is for right now, except to believe we are saved eternally—miracles, signs and wonders have passed, but there will be more of them in the future. The Darby system of prophecy was followed by the Scofield Bible, by Larken in his Dispensational Truth, and by the dispensationalists, of which a predominate number are Baptist in their doctrine. The Pentecost move followed the same thing. They didn’t have any system of prophecy of their own, everything was borrowed. It is interesting that Darby, about a century ago with his system of prophecy, was the first man in the history of the church to take that viewpoint; and that was the first time that they began to look for an antichrist to come. That was the first time they believed that the falling away was yet to come. Ninety-nine percent of the teaching from Bible times (New Testament times until Darby’s prophecy), held to views entirely different than the system of prophecy that had been preached to us in recent years; so that we would still look for the tribulation period and the antichrist, etc. Many of them knew that a great deal of that had already happened. It is very interesting that they did not look beyond the papacy for the antichrist, down through, perhaps, more centuries than you would imagine. They had too many fulfillments of all the prophecies; they knew what had happened. We at this end of the age don’t realize that there was a thousand years of dark ages in which men could be torn asunder, ripped to pieces, or disemboweled for disagreeing with one of the edicts of Rome. That thousand years of darkness did more to retard and make people into a mold and image than we can know. It is an historical fact that the literacy rate in the days of the Apostle Paul, with all the slaveries and the different levels of life among the people, different class distinctions, was greater than it was even at the end of the renaissance. There were more who could read, write, and speak a number of languages than there were when Martin Luther began to speak “The just shall live by faith,” (by about double).
No one seems to understand how suddenly the world was plunged into such darkness when it was such a literate world. Going back to the time of the Greek philosophers, scientists, and historians, the atomic theory was already being taught as one of the scientific theories, long before experimentation and inventions.
Gutenberg, with his famous Bible and his wooden letters carved out by hand, emerged from the dark ages, a world where they copied everything by hand. Printing began to come in, and then it was that there came a restoration, which was like coming out of tribulation. We can’t understand how those people yearned for that and with what eagerness they received it. John Calvin wrote the famous “Institutes Of The Christian Religion,” defended his doctor’s thesis before the great body of the college: the great doctors and the learned men of the universities. At the age of twelve he could write and read fluently in Hebrew, Greek, French and Latin.
Suddenly, the world ceased to be dark and men began to study; men began to learn; men began to seek God. We don’t have a very clear picture of what happened, but this may give you a new concept and picture of what really happened down through the years. I’m painting a background to help you understand what it means to believe. We talk about the unbelief that came up with our scientific age; but unbelief has always been with us. We today feel, “If we could have seen the miracles and the signs and wonders which Jesus did, we would not have doubted.” You would have. There’s that much unbelief in your heart. “If we’d been living in the days of the Reformation, we would not have wavered.” You could have. We are living in the very end time, in a day when exploits and signs and wonders are going to be performed, and we could say, “If we just lived back in those early days, we would have believed.”
This is the most amazing hour in the world to be alive. This is the time that’s almost unbelievable. We are already in battle. If I weren’t a believer about anything that has come by prophecy or by revelation concerning this hour, I would still have to come to the same conclusion that prophecy and revelation have brought me, if only I had to learn it from Satan, because every man who starts to serve God in this day begins to learn something about satanic conflict and devil power; you learn a great deal by the kind of enemies that you make and the kind of opposition that you stir up. I’m not only convinced by God, but I’m convinced by the devil’s actions that this is the greatest walk, the greatest time, and the greatest period in the history of the world.
I want to paint a picture of what the Lord Jesus Christ was really talking about—what He was really saying about faith and about believing in this hour.… When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? Luke 18:8. We could say that there are more Christians in the world today than there have been at any time in the history of the world. But we would also have to be honest and say that the percentage of the world’s population that is Christian is diminishing every year. Among all of these millions: Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant, or other religions that name Christianity, of all of them put together and the millions that are in them, the greater part of them have a traditional faith. To them, Jesus is largely the great “I was,” not the great “I AM.” They see Him basically as one who performs all the miracles—the Son of God, etc.; although an ever increasing percentage of them do not believe He was God, that He was virgin born, or that He was resurrected from the dead.
Faith is diminishing greatly, yet, in this hour the challenge to believe God is greater than ever before. Daniel prophesied, “they that know their God will be strong and do exploits” (Daniel 2:32); and the Lord prophesied the time: … the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto the Father.” John 14:12. There has to be someone to come along and even exceed in the works of Christ, in the miracles and signs and wonders that they perform. We begin to waver in that point; “How can it be? How can we honestly say that we are going to have that kind of faith in the earth again?” It just is going to be!
I began to challenge myself, “Am I really a believer?” Yes, I am, but there are so many things that the deep unbelief in our hearts does to condition us. Every time you’re discouraged, you’re manifesting unbelief and sinning against God. Every time you’re discouraged and depressed, that means you’re not exercising faith in God. Every time you are aware of opposition coming against your life, it can be amazing how you react. I have written a creed to believe and to keep in my Bible to read.
I believe in Christ’s absolute defeat of Satan on my behalf. We don’t always act that way, we go about the battle as though he were not defeated. If you don’t believe it, he isn’t defeated. He is absolutely, completely defeated by Christ on your behalf if you believe it. It is when you believe Christ that you are out from under the dominion of darkness, translated into the Kingdom of God’s dear Son. Jesus Christ died for your sins, and not yours only; He is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world, but only if they believe. “By His stripes you were healed” is a prophecy (Isaiah 53:5), but you will still be sick until you believe it. Christ defeated Satan and He has the keys of hell and the grave for you if you believe it; but only if you believe it. Satan sits like a shrewd old poker player, bluffing you out at every hand, and he doesn’t even have anything up his sleeve—he can’t make it. Call his bluff! Christ defeated him! And if you say, “I believe in Christ’s absolute defeat of Satan on my behalf,” and you come to believe that and you say, “I’m going to believe that, I’m going to believe it with all my heart,” it starts happening.
I believe in the blood of Christ shed for me by which I am absolved of sin and of the human nature to sin. That shocks people, they don’t want to believe that; but it’s Scripture, and that is what we will believe. I believe that by the blood of Christ shed for me, I am absolved of sin and the human nature of sin to be the righteousness of God. I believe to be the righteousness of God.
I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Ancient of Days, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, Who fainteth not, neither is weary, Who has blessed me with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places.
I believe that I am being guided into all the truth by the Holy Spirit Who dwells within me.
I believe that the Holy Spirit will reveal progressively the vast scope of all things freely given to me of God.
I believe to be filled with all the fullness of God. I am going to be a believer.
I believe that as a member of the Body of Christ, I am the expression and the execution of the will of God in the earth. That is to me the greatest of all: that as a member of the Body of Christ, I am the expression of the will of God, and the execution of the will of God in the earth.
I believe that in Christ all the works of the devil are to be destroyed—all of them. And this is a simple matter of faith.
I believe that the devil is a lie and the father of all lies.
We still don’t understand this thing of being a believer. When we believe God, there is something very important that happens. We literally turn it on. The provision is already made. Tell me, what does Christ have to do to heal your body? What has taken place when someone lays hands on you and it is accomplished? What are they doing when they are laying on hands—what are the hands doing? When they anoint you with oil—what does the oil do? Do you know what you are doing? You are reaching into a provision of God ministering it. It is already poured, you just drink it. But you don’t taste it until you drink it. Jesus said, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. John 7:37b. It is that simple. Come and get it; it is yours! What is yours? All these things that we say we believe. Satan is defeated for you. We will take some of that victory now. We will take the healing, we will take the deliverance, we will see the works of Satan destroyed. We will be believers. If the blood of Jesus Christ is to mean to us what we say it means, it means we are constantly drawing upon it as a perfect, final, complete provision for every need of the whole of man. And in believing that with all of our hearts, it is there. It is real. But if we do not believe it, it is a vague thing that never has reality to us.
Notice the phraseology in the three separate accounts of the woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years. Matthew 9:22, Jesus turning and seeing her said, Daughter, be of good cheer; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour.
Mark 5:30–34, And straightway Jesus, perceiving in himself that the power proceeding from him had gone forth, turned him about in the crowd, and said, Who touched my garment? And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me? And he looked around about to see her that had done this thing. But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what had been done to her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth. And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole, go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.
Luke 8:48, And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.
Not once in those three passages did it vary—Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole. What kind of faith? “If I can touch His garment I’ll be healed.” Very simple—no great problem there—that simple. That did it; it worked a miracle. “Thy faith hath made thee whole.” She just believed something: she stepped up and touched His garments, with a little difficulty perhaps, but she did it, and she was healed. “Thy faith hath made thee whole.” He didn’t say, “God has healed you,” or, “You are persistent enough, I will heal you.” No, He told her, “Thy faith hath made thee whole.”
Now we come to something that I want you to grasp, I don’t want you to miss the impact of these references. Matthew 17:19–21, Then the disciples came to Jesus apart (this is concerning the epileptic boy), and said, Why could not we cast it out? And he saith unto them, Because of your little faith: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you. “Nothing?” Nothing shall be impossible to you. We have to believe.
Matthew 21:18–22, Now in the morning as he returned to the city, he hungered. And seeing a fig tree by the way side, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only; and he saith unto it, Let there be no fruit from thee henceforward for ever. And immediately the fig tree withered away. And when the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, How did the fig tree immediately wither away? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do what is done to the fig tree, but even if you shall say to this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea, it shall be done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive. Lord, make us believers: to take that mountain; anything you ask.
Luke 17:5, 6, And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye would say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou rooted up, and be thou planted in the sea; and it would obey you.
Mark 2:22–24, And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass; he shall have it. Therefore I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive them (The margin shows “receive” is in the past tense, “believe that you received them”), and you shall have them. That’s a rough one—“Well, we’ll spiritualize that, won’t we? We don’t really believe that all of that’s going to happen, but we’ll make it spiritual. Maybe we’ll be good Christian Scientists—angels are good thoughts, and devils are mistakes or bad thoughts, and there is no sin, just error. Spiritualize it away.” What you do with sin is a sin. The psychiatrist says, “Live with it. Everybody does it, live with it. Learn what a devil you are, and then live with it.” Christian Science says, “It’s a mistake, it’s an error, don’t believe it.” God comes with one glorious announcement in the New Testament, Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world! John 1:29b. You can’t ignore it, you can’t do anything else with it but bring it out and let God deal with it.
The same thing is true of all the promises of God. We believe God, we get rid of sin. We believe God, and we appropriate His provisions and blessings. We are quick to say, “I’ll believe God to forgive me of sin” but we don’t realize the great sin of unbelief that is in our heart in not appropriating the will of God and the provision of God. Unbelief is unbelief. When God promised so many wonderful things in the Word, He swore in His wrath concerning those with unbelief, “They will never enter into my promises” (Hebrews 3:18). God won’t let you have it.
How many times the Lord gave the promise of entering into His rest! The book of Hebrews points out they didn’t make it under Joshua; they didn’t make it in David, “After so long a time, he said, ‘Today is the day of salvation. Harden not your hearts in the day of provocation.’ ” They didn’t make it back there and they didn’t make it in the days of David. Israel didn’t make it in New Testament times. There remains the rest to the people of God (Hebrews 4:6). Someone is going to have to claim this—so far it has gone to the dead letter office.
The things that God has promised and provided! If you were nothing but a lowly scavenger going around saying, “I’ll just take what other people left, what God promised them which they never walked in,” you’d be walking in a lot more than you could realize. One woman had a wonderful gift of singing psalms, but she became rebellious and left. Another sister said, “Lord, that gift was a gift to the Body, I’ll take it—Lord, give it to me.” She meant it and she walked in it. If you look around, there are enough discarded ministries that if you never had anything prophesied over you, but you just picked up what other people tossed aside in their unbelief, you could be walking in more than any of us. It is a sin to read the Scriptures, see the great provision that God has made for us, say you believe it, and not really go after it to walk in it.
There are two sides to a coin. It is one thing to believe to be delivered from sin; it is another thing to believe to become the righteousness of God. It is one thing to believe to be brought out from the dominion of darkness; it is another thing to believe to become the execution of God’s will in the earth, the expression of His will, a member of His Body doing His will, walking in His fullness, growing up into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, being filled with all the fullness of God, and walking in those exceeding great and precious promises—laying hold upon it. God is judging us—He loves us and somehow we will believe to get out of the mess we’re in, but will we believe to get into the fullness of Him?
It is time to believe. We have come so far in this walk, we have so much. We love Him, we worship Him, we have beautiful communion with the Lord, and the rapport between the believers is like a big family. This must have been exactly the way it was in New Testament times. The fellowship among the brethren is beautiful. We love it so much. But one thing we must do: we have to get up, go out in the world, and do the works of God. How do we do that? Just believe.
I don’t think that the disciples had conferences on evangelism, Sunday school conferences, youth conferences, ways of studying to meet the youth of the day and what they were going to do next, masses with jazz music, etc., trying to relate to the world: “Come, look. There’s nothing different between you and us. You’re sinners and we’re sinners, we’re all sinners.” So what do we do? We walk out and we show there is a difference.
What did the early church do? Someone crippled was lying at the gate. ‘Beautiful’; along came Peter and John at the hour of prayer (three in the afternoon). The crippled fellow looked up, expecting to receive something from them. What happened? Peter looked at him and said “Look on us! Silver and gold we have none; such as we have, we give you; in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, get up and walk.” And he did.
We could do it. We are as close to God as they were then. There was a black cloud behind Peter; He denied the Lord three times in one night—but now there was a new record for Peter: “Get up, walk, come on!” He got up, and began to walk and leap. The people rushed together. Thousands of them became believers that day. Every time people of the world turn to Christ and believe, it is because they see the faith of someone who already is a believer.
This walk will never go anywhere unless the world sees you as a believer. You could work away, year after year to get a few more converts, but you are brought together for one thing: to be a believing body. It is not what you do or how big your job is; God will see to it that the world is reached. God will do it if you will be a believer. I believe in Christ’s absolute and complete defeat of Satan on your behalf. Do you believe it? Are you determined to believe it? Do you believe that as a member of the Body of Christ, you are an expression of the will of God in the earth, of the execution of the will of God in the earth? Do you believe that all things have been freely bestowed upon you in Christ, every blessing in the heavenly places? Start claiming it.
People must know you believe what you believe. They have to go that far with you. Even if they disagree with you, they can still be won if they know you really believe; and they have faith in that. People will come to believe, not because you are perfect after the flesh, but because you are perfect after the Spirit. Begin to believe that you are beautiful; that you are perfect in Christ. You are His righteousness. If you believe it, that is what you will express. If you say, “I am so full of faults; I am so weak,” that is what you will be—weak. Let the weak arise and say, “I am strong” (Joel 3:10). God takes the foolish to confound the wise (I Corinthians 1:27). He is not going to confound the wise with those who say, “I am foolish.” That will not confound anyone. But when the foolish confounds the wise, he walks up to the wise, opens his mouth with faith and says something, and the wise man says, “How wise that is.” He believes to speak wisdom. The weak man will confound the mighty. He doesn’t come to that mighty man standing there, look up, and say, “I’m weak.” No, he looks up and says, “Okay, Goliath, I’m strong.”
“Pull him down! I can do it! I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me! I can!” And there’s not any sufficiency of the flesh, any faith in it. It is a faith in God, a faith in what He has done and what He has provided; what He is to you and your relationship to Him. And you say, “I believe it!”
The little flea rides on the ear of the elephant as the elephant roams across the bridge. The little flea gets a little sea-sick because the bridge is shaking: “Get on the other side!” he is buzzing in the elephant’s ear. And then he says, “Oh my, didn’t we shake that bridge?”
And so it is: we walk with God and we shake the bridges and we move the mountains and we stand before the Lord—“My Lord, didn’t we move that earth for you!”