In the further opening up of that which the Lord has brought for our consideration in this conference, we bring forward some of the passages of Scripture which have been guiding our thoughts.
Again, the words from Isaiah’s prophecy, Isaiah 53:10-11:
When thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed.
He shall see of the travail of His soul,
And shall be satisfied.
Here, you see, the travail of His soul.
Then this other passage in the letter to the Romans, Romans 9:6-8:
For they are not all Israel, that are of Israel:
Neither, because they are Abraham’s seed, are they all children:
But, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.
That is, it is not the children of the flesh that are children of God;
But the children of the promise are reckoned for a seed.
And the letter to the Galatians, Galatians 3:7:
Know therefore that they that are of faith, the same are sons of Abraham.
You see, the travail of His soul. We, I trust I can say, are being led at this time to a place of apprehension of that upon which the heart of the Lord is set: a divine and spiritual seed, born out of His travail.
In these few minutes this morning, I want to dwell upon another fragment of this whole matter, which is in these last words that we have read: “Know therefore that they that are of faith, the same are sons of Abraham.”
There is one supreme characteristic of this divine seed, and that is faith. Whether we like it or not, Christianity rests upon one word, and that word is faith.
The beginning of the Christian life rests upon that. The continuation of the Christian life rests upon that. The consummation of the Christian life, the completion, rests upon that one thing: faith.
It relates to salvation initially. It relates to and governs the whole course of spiritual progress. It relates to service. It relates to prayer. It relates to the perfecting of the believer. It relates to final victory.
There is no phase, no aspect, no stage of the Christian life with which this issue is not bound up. It is from beginning to end, at all times and in all things, just a matter of faith.
It is just there that we find the weakest point in human nature. No doubt about it—no doubt about it. Sooner or later, we discover that that is our weakest point all the time.
When I used to look at certain people who seemed to have natural faith, with whom it seemed to be not a difficult thing at all to believe in God—it seemed quite natural to them to believe in God—they had no difficulty about it. You know, I was born with an unbelieving heart, an infidel mind. They seemed to have none of those difficulties.
And I have lived a few years, and I have watched those same people, and I have seen them come to a place where, for the time, the most difficult thing in all the world for them was to believe God. Sooner or later, we discover that this is our weakest point.
But, on the other hand, this is the strongest point in the divine nature.
This matter of faith, then, is basic to our union with God.
If this is the strongest point in the divine nature, and it is the weakest point in our nature, those two things cannot exist and obtain in a true union. They are contradictions. They are quite against one another.
The issue is: it is either God or ourselves. Union with God always rests upon this matter of our faith.
The same is true of our communion. The continuation of union and living in the good of it—the expression of it, communion—it is all a matter of faith.
It is a matter of God’s pleasure in us, and that is an important matter.
And without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing unto Him.
—Hebrews 11:6
This matter of God’s pleasure in us makes a very deep difference. It is possible, thank God, for Him in grace and mercy to use us as instruments, but at the same time not to take very much pleasure in us.
You may be used of the Lord, and yet know that the Lord is not taking pleasure in using you. He is doing it in grace and mercy. You may not be able to understand that, but it is true.
Somewhere, even in the servant, there is a reservation about the Lord which holds up the Lord’s good pleasure in His service.
It is something more than having blessing from the Lord, something more than even being used by the Lord. It is the Lord having delight in us. And, mark you, the point at which the delight factor comes in is just this matter of faith.
It does not say, “Without faith it is impossible to get any blessings from the Lord.” It does not say, “It is impossible to do any work for the Lord.” But it does say, “Without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing.”
And then, what a lot of other things depend upon and rest upon this foundational thing of faith. I only mention them and leave you to think it out.
You know, after all, love rests upon faith. Think about this. It depends upon faith, does it not?
Joy rests upon faith. Think about this. You know as well as I do how miserable you are if you have lost your faith, or if you have any doubts. It is only when your faith is clear and right that you are really happy. Joy hangs upon faith.
And does not peace hang upon it? You might change the word and call it rest. That is the biblical way of putting it: rest, peace. It does rest upon faith. There is no rest or peace unless there is faith. Rest and peace are proportionate to faith.
Then again, meekness—meekness. What is the opposite of meekness? Well, it is trying to force things, asserting yourself, trying to hold your own ground, vindicate yourself. Faith undercuts all that—undercuts all that.
You need not worry at all about anything. You should be perfectly restful about issues if you have faith.
Patience—well, so obvious, is it not? Patience rests upon faith. Those two things are put together in the Word of God.
And so are all the other things: hope, longsuffering, kindness. All the divine virtues rest upon the foundation of faith. And if faith is not there, these other things are either wanting or they are weak.
It is a tremendous matter, this matter of faith. You look through the Bible and you see all the tragedies and the calamities that were resultant from a lack of faith.
The first great tragedy and calamity of all is called the Fall, and faith failed, was not there.
Israel’s tragedy in the wilderness—same reason. Israel’s going into exile and captivity—same reason. And perhaps worst of all, Israel’s present dismissal and setting aside—same reason.
There are personal instances, such as Ishmael, and Esau, and Saul, in the history of God’s interests in this world. Many more could be mentioned, but I mention it again: the tragedies and calamities, whether personal, national, or collective, can be traced to this one cause—a breakdown somewhere in this matter of faith.
Now let me say a platitude: faith is always faith. Faith is always faith. It will always be objective.
It will always focus upon the very character of God. That is the focal point of faith: the very character of God.
And remember that any weakness or absence of faith—and I am speaking now about spiritual things—is an impugning of the character of God.
That is where we begin our Bible. “Hath God said?” “Hath God said?”—impugning the character of God, a calling into question of the character of God, a throwing of doubt upon the character of God. That was the initial and inclusive breakdown.
And it has always been that, you see, because the focal point of faith is nothing less and nothing other than the very character of God: whether we believe that God is what He says He is. That is the ultimate matter in relation to faith.
It is always faith. We are always wanting faith to be something other than faith, trying to turn it into something else—either sight, or experience, or what we get, or what God does for us. But God always keeps this thing in the realm where it is, after all, faith. He never moves it out of that realm.
Look at the tremendous implications of this one fragment of Paul’s statement on this matter in Galatians 3:7: “They that are of faith, the same are sons of Abraham.”
He has said, “Not all they that are of Abraham are children.” Ah, the seed—the seed. He said not, “And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.” This is the true seed of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And by that, for a moment or two, let us look at these implications of Abraham’s seed. For the covenant was made not after the flesh—that is laid down. It is a spiritual thing, and pans out, as we see in the Scriptures, to be that which is born out of the travail of Christ, the fruit of His travail, the reproduction and multiplication of Himself.
The corn of wheat having fallen into the ground and died—this is the seed. All the covenant promises made to Abraham are fulfilled and realized in Christ and His seed. We inherit all that, of course; you are familiar with that as truth. But it all comes to us through faith in Jesus Christ, because we are the seed mentioned to Abraham.
Look at Abraham, therefore, God’s great example of faith. God carried through the whole system and purpose, from eternity to eternity, in creation, in redemption, and in established fulfillment. He carried that whole realm in the soul of one man.
Yes, Abraham rightly has a large place. It is as though God forced through the very soul of that man the whole range of His divine purpose in redemption, all on the principle of faith, by a long succession of demands for faith.
It is written for our instruction. First, the promise of a land: “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee.” And then He promised him that land: “I will give it”—His promise and His covenant.
Abraham did it. He left his country and subsequently his father’s house, and came into the land. All his life he went up and down in it, dwelling in tents, and never got a foothold—never got a foothold, really—according to the covenant and promise.
We can read the story in a few minutes, but it took a few years. And many of you—well, what are you going to do about that?
There was plenty of scope, through the years and all the demands of patience, and all the trials and adversities of many years, to say, “I made a mistake. I made a tremendous mistake. I got an idea. Evidently something happened. I got out on a wrong line altogether. Nothing that I was told is being supported.”
Plenty of room for all that sort of thing. We can enlarge upon it, and I do not think we could exaggerate what Abraham had to encounter in his own heart on that one question of a land.
But that is not enough. He was promised a seed. “In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” “Thy seed”—again and again, that word is on the mouth of God in speaking to Abraham: seed.
And not a child—not one—and naturally little or no prospect of anything like that. His own situation utterly contradicted God’s promise concerning the seed.
Plenty of room there, is there not, to have a controversy with the Lord and to get all sorts of tangles in your own soul? What a mess you could get into with a situation like that.
Well, it was not for a day, or a week, or a month, or a year, that Abraham had to grapple with a problem like that.
And then, and then, so God came and repeated this, reiterated this, and focused down this matter upon a child. By this time all natural hope had receded and gone away, and left him with a promise a few more years.
Just something said to him, and nothing to support or bear it out in actuality. If hope had receded far back to the horizon before the promise was actually crystallized, surely it had gone beyond the horizon now. He looked at his own body as good as dead.
God had said it would be, and He is leaving him with that situation.
And then the child is given. Yes, a son is born.
We know the great test of faith that came in for that period between the promise and the realization. Even Abraham broke down. We know about Ishmael. Nevertheless, the child is born. The child is there. There is the infant.
And with what wonder they must have looked at that child. There is the little child growing up in their home, and how they must have cherished that child in the light of all that God had bound up with his life. And he has grown to youth.
No doubt he was an object of great love, care, devotion, watchfulness, and expectation. Then the blow: “Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest.” God seems to be rubbing salt in, does He not?
“Thine only son”—I have not got any others. “Whom thou lovest”—on the other hand. Well, we need not press this further.
Abraham went on, came to his very altar, and died not having received the promise.
“These all died in faith,” says the writer, “not having received the promises.” No, he had not got the land. He had not got the seed in any commensurate way. But he died in faith. That is the point.
They that be of faith are Abraham’s seed. This seed, these children, this people, this true Israel of God, is on that basis, that principle, and after that kind.
Let us make no mistake about it. I started by saying, whether we like it or not—and we do not like it. No, we do not like it. It is the hardest, the most difficult thing, but there it is. Take it or leave it.
It is a matter of believing God, and believing God not because of what He can do or will do, but because of what He is.
And it goes a long way, very deep down. That tries us on everything—God’s postponements, God’s delays, God’s seeming contradictions and paradoxes, a thousand and one things.
The end is, after all: what are you going to do about that? Is God God? Is God what He says He is, or not?
Does your interpretation, your argument, your position, your mind about things, really set aside God? God knows what He is doing.
If I had time, I should take that into the realm of spiritual life. You know, in our spiritual lives, in our spiritual growth, in the perfecting of us into the likeness of Christ, there are lots of things that we think the Lord ought to have removed long ago, and He has not removed them—even matters of our character.
If we could, we would make God make us absolutely sinless this very moment. He does not, and He does not.
Beginning like that on the matter of faith, even in our spiritual transformation. And how many other things would we have God do for His own glory, and He does not do them—for the facilitation of His own interests and work, and what not—and He does not do them.
Well, either God is or He is not. Either He is faithful or He is not. He is either consistent or He is not.
You see, after all, dear friends, we are brought back to this. It is just the practical question of faith—the question of faith.
They that be of faith are Abraham’s seed. What is Abraham’s seed? Why, those born out of his travail. And what travail there is related to the fruit of faith. How there is no real fruit that is not the fruit of that, and travail is always a matter of faith.