We find ourselves, instead of being in victory, being in defeat. We find that instead of having that ascension life within, reigning and ruling, we are underneath the circumstances and loads of life. We find ourselves fearful and distressed.
As we talk about becoming living stones in the house of God, that His purpose might be fulfilled, yet we say, “Lord, there is so much work to do on this stone that it might be fitted in. Will You ever be able to complete that work?”
As I considered these things, I said, “Well, Lord, so often our spiritual life is weak because we have missed the fundamentals. Somehow, we have missed the fundamentals of life.”
I know that in the game of football, there needs to be special talent to be a successful team. You have to have talent. But where games are lost most of the time is because somebody messed up in the fundamentals. Blocking and tackling are the very fundamentals of football, but somebody misses a tackle, somebody misses a block, and they lose the game.
So I was reminded that this issue of faith and truth is so fundamental to our Christian life. The Lord has impressed this on my heart this morning. May the Lord really show us what faith and truth really are, because we need that as the foundation of our Christian life.
Let me just read some verses that are very familiar to you. You can jot them down if you like, but we will not have time to turn to all of them.
In Ephesians 2:8, it says:
By grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
By grace are you saved through faith, and that faith is not of yourself. It is from God. It is a gift.
In Romans 10:17, it says, as our brother shared recently:
So belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
In Hebrews 12:2, it says that Christ is the author and finisher of your faith. He begins your faith, He develops your faith, and, praise the Lord, He completes your faith.
Then, on the matter of truth, we have John 8:32:
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Brothers and sisters, we need to know as Christians that nothing in this life will ever set us free except the truth.
John 14:6 says, Christ speaking:
I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
Only Christ is the truth—the reality, the eternal truth. John 16:13 says that the Spirit of truth will lead you into all truth.
We have been talking about this matter of faith. We have talked about relying upon, leaning on; our brother specifically emphasized having confidence in, which is what faith means. Indeed, that is what it does mean. It means to believe on, to rely upon, to have confidence in—total confidence. These are true of faith.
But what we may not realize is that there are really two kinds of faith. One is natural, and the other is spiritual. One is human faith, and the other is the faith of God. This faith of God is what we often refer to as living faith.
So what is the difference between natural faith, spiritual faith, and the faith of God? Well, the key is the source of this faith.
Natural faith comes out of yourself. It comes out of your soul. It is a part of who you are. As you are born into this world, you begin to develop a faith. As a matter of fact, without this natural faith, you probably could not get around very much.
For instance, this morning all of you have faith in the chair you are sitting in—that it is going to hold you up. Now, some require a lot more faith than others that the chair is going to hold them up, but that is faith. You just naturally believe that the chair is going to hold you up.
Now, when we were in Taiwan—my brother Kenny said something about me in his last message, so I feel like I need to respond—we went into this little restaurant after a sightseeing tour. It was a small Chinese seafood place, and they had plastic chairs. We all sat down at the table, and a few minutes later I heard this noise. It was Kenny—he was on the floor.
Well, unfortunately, Kenny’s faith failed. Actually, his faith did not fail; the chair failed him. So he could no longer put faith in that chair. It kind of shook my faith a little bit. I checked my own chair out.
But thank the Lord, I see that Kenny has faith today, sitting in that chair. You can see that natural faith is something that you do have. Without it, you would be afraid to leave the house.
I know most of us have now flown on an airplane. Anybody who has not flown on an airplane? Ah, just a couple. I can remember twenty years ago when people would say, “Oh, you will never get me on one of those things. The Lord did not mean for us to fly. If He did, He would give us wings.”
Well, man has learned the law of aerodynamics. Through the law of aerodynamics and the law of power, he has combined the two and has been able to make a machine that actually flies, which we call an airplane.
Now, when you get on that airplane, whether you know it or not, you have faith in the law of aerodynamics—that it is greater than the law of gravity, which wants to pull you back to the ground. You have faith that all the equipment will work.
I remember I was part of the test team on the Lockheed C-5A. It was the largest transport in the United States. I think Russia has now made a larger one, but it was big enough to hold six Greyhound buses in the hold, and we could put one hundred people upstairs. The engines were about six feet in diameter at the opening. They were GE engines; I could stand in the opening of the engine, and there were four of them.
We used to fly on these things. One day, somebody told me that we had overstressed the wing bolts and that we were fortunate the engine had stayed on the plane. Our whole purpose was to test the plane to its limit—hopefully without breaking it.
So I said, “Well, how many bolts are on this engine?” They said, “Five.” So when you get on an airplane the next time, you might want to look at the engine and make sure all the bolts are there. But anyway—faith.
The interesting thing about that is that because of faith, you are able to experience flying. But if you did not have faith in that airplane, you would not get on it, and you would never experience what it is to fly.
That is our natural faith. It comes out of our self-life. It is something we learn through experience, and we begin to have faith in things.
But there is also a faith that is based on man’s wisdom, out of man’s self-life, that is more inward. It has to do with man’s conscience, because all men have a conscience.
But the Bible says that before we come to the Lord Jesus, before we have the blood applied to our hearts and conscience, it is an evil conscience. In other words, it is a conscience that is always accusing you and always finding you guilty—which we are many times, particularly before we come to Christ.
It also says in Romans 1 that God has demonstrated that He is the eternal power and Godhead, and that this knowledge of the Godhead is in man. Thank God for that.
But unfortunately, man, with his evil conscience, gets tired of feeling guilty and does not want the guilt. So he tries to come up with means to appease his guilty conscience—something that he can put his faith in to appease this guilty conscience.
Brothers and sisters, this is where superstitions and religions have arisen: out of man, out of his self. It is all because he wants to get rid of this guilty conscience, but he does not want to come to God. His main purpose is to ease that guilty conscience.
Some examples over the years are seen particularly during the Dark Ages: flagellation. We even see it today. People feel like they have to beat themselves with straps, and somehow this releases them from guilt. They have done something to pay for their sin, and therefore the guilt goes away.
They are constantly doing this, or they may have some other self-abasing thing, like refusing to eat for a certain period of time so that their conscience can become clear.
During the Dark Ages, unfortunately, in what was called the church anyway, men developed a system of payments. If you would just pay the priest a certain amount of money—depending on the greatness of your sin was how much money you had to give—you could appease your conscience by just paying the priest and putting faith in that.
They also came up with a system of penance, some kind of penance that you had to pay. Today, if you are found guilty before the court, sometimes they will require you not to serve time, but you will have to do some form of social service for the community—a penance for what you have done.
Brothers and sisters, man put faith in this. They believed that it worked because, once they made that confession, their conscience was eased.
A caution to us as Christians: we know that the Lord Jesus has said to us through His Word in 1 John 1:9:
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
But I want to say this: I have become convinced that if our confession really is just to appease our conscience so that we can go on and live our life the way we want to, I do not believe that is the confession the Word of God is speaking of here.
When you read the context of 1 John 1, you see that our brother is saying, “Look, we have tasted of the Christ. We have seen the Christ. We want you to enter into that fellowship we have with Christ.” That fellowship is the fellowship of the Father and the Son, and we want you to be a part of that fellowship.
He goes on to say that if you walk in the light, as He is in the light, then you will have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Christ will cleanse you. Then it goes on to say that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins.
In other words, the reason you need to confess is not to appease your conscience, but because fellowship with God has been broken. Brothers and sisters, if in our confession our fellowship with the Lord really is not restored, then I think all we have done is appeased our conscience so that we can go on.
I think it is just an area we need to be careful about. The whole matter of confession is that you might get clear before God, that you might apply the blood to your sins. He is faithful and just to forgive you, but the whole purpose on God’s side is that your fellowship might be restored with Him.
Sometimes we do things, and we just lightly, frankly confess it. I have done it; that is why I am saying it. Then we go on. But finally, God awakens us that we really have not restored fellowship with Him. That really was not confession in the sense of a repentant heart.
It was confession in the sense that man confesses with his natural faith and says, “I just need to get rid of this guilty conscience.” Often we go on in many things that the Lord did not approve of, I think, because we have done that. So may the Lord quicken us.
Brothers and sisters, the point is that we operate in this realm of natural faith and often do not really experience that much of real faith—of spiritual faith.
Now, I said there are two types of faith: natural and spiritual. Spiritual faith, the faith that comes from God, is absolutely necessary to your Christian life. Just as with natural faith about sitting in chairs, you would be frozen up and would not be able to move, so with spiritual faith, God says you really cannot move in this Christian life without it. It is absolutely necessary.
Ephesians 2:8 says that you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is what? A gift of God. A gift of God. So it is different from this faith that comes from yourself, from the self-life, from the soul-life. It is a faith that comes from God.
Romans 1:17 says:
But the righteous shall live by faith.
Romans 3:28 says a man is justified through faith. Romans 14:23 says that whatever is not from faith in your life is sin.
Second Corinthians 5:7 says that we walk by faith—our daily walk. Hebrews 11:6 says that without faith it is impossible to please God. So faith is absolutely critical to our spiritual life before God and to our walk.
Now, is God asking us to put this natural faith in Him—the same kind of faith that will sit in a chair and believe that it is going to hold you up? Is it the same faith?
Let me say it this way. You can ask some people, “Do you believe in Jesus Christ?” and they will say, “Yes.” In many cases, what they are telling you is, “I have natural faith in Jesus Christ.”
In other words, “My mom and dad told me about Jesus Christ. I have heard about it. I have even been to assembly a few times. I have heard about Christ. Yes, I believe Christ. I believe Christ like I believe Abraham Lincoln, like I believe Christopher Columbus. The stuff I have heard—I believe it is true.”
That is not the faith that saves, brothers and sisters. What is? Spiritual faith.
I think one of the best illustrations in the Bible is Matthew 16:13-17. Let us look at that real quick.
Now when Jesus came into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Who do men say that the Son of man is?
And they said, Some say John the Baptist; some, Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.
He saith unto them, But who say ye that I am?
And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jonah: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven.
“Whom do you say that I am?” That is one of the greatest questions of the universe. When God asks you that question, you need to be prepared to answer.
Peter had living faith that Jesus was the Christ—the sent One, the anointed One, the Son of God. That was a stumbling block for the Jews. They could not believe that Jesus was the Son of God.
It is a stumbling block to the Muslim world today. They will accept Him as some kind of prophet or teacher, but never as the Son of God. They do not have faith. They even believe in Jesus Christ in the sense that they know He was a man who walked this earth, but they do not have living faith.
Unfortunately, they are unable or unwilling, in their pride, to receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior—that revelation God wants to give to every man, that faith He wants to give.
By grace are you saved through faith, not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God. Brothers and sisters, whenever God speaks to you, whenever He wants to give you that gift of faith, please do not resist it. Please do not reason it away in your mind. When He gives you faith, you have to accept it and act on it.
Then it becomes living faith in your heart and mind. So it is the source. What was the source of Peter’s faith? It was not from within Peter. It was not from his self-life or his soul-life. It says, “My Father who is in heaven.” It was a heavenly source, not an earthly source. It was God, not man, that it came from.
In 1 Corinthians 2:5, Paul says that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Faith must stand on what God has given. This is the faith that saves, brothers and sisters. This is the faith that heals. This is the faith that allows you to walk the Christian walk. It has to come from God.
It does not originate out of your own self. It does come through your spirit, and in that sense it is inward. But it certainly does not come out of that natural life that you have.
Now, how does this faith come? I say that God gives it to us. Our brothers have already shared on this, but I want to touch on it quickly.
Romans 10:17 says that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Look at the Word of God: faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God.
Now, interestingly enough, the word for “word” in that Scripture is rhema, the Greek word rhema. There is another Greek word for the Word of God: logos, the Word.
The logos is the Word. It is this Bible; it is what God has given to us. But rhema means that the Word has been made real to you. It has been personally spoken to you, and you have personally received it.
So it says that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by a personal word from God to you. In other words, this Word becomes living and real to you. It does something in your spirit. There is a transaction in the spirit when you receive rhema. The Word becomes living, and you sense it, and it is real. That is faith.
John 16:13 says:
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth.
So it is through the Holy Spirit Himself bringing the Word of God directly to you.
Brothers and sisters, if all you have is logos, you are like many teachers in Bible colleges. They read the Word, they study the Word, but they have never had rhema. All they have ever had is logos, and brothers and sisters, they destroy the Word of God through their teachings.
Not only must we have a knowledge of the Word of God, but we must have an experience of the reality and truth of the Word of God that comes through rhema—God speaking to you.
However, if you never look at the logos, it is hard and difficult for the Lord to really speak to you. If you are never before the Lord in meditation or prayer, it is difficult for the Lord to speak to you because you are doing so many other things.
The point is that this truth becomes reality to you. It is no longer a doctrine or teaching that you may understand and know about but have never experienced. That is why I feel that often in our Christian life we miss this very fundamental thing: we need faith. We need the Lord to give us rhema as we are before Him.
I like the prayer of that man who said, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” Living faith is a transaction in your spirit, a transaction with God.
Now, I hope that this helps clarify what Hebrews 11:1 says. I think we should turn to that too. Obviously, I am under time constraints here.
Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen.
Other translations say, “Now faith is the substantiating of things hoped for,” which I prefer: the substantiating of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.
Faith substantiates to you the reality of the truth. In fact, truth and reality are the same thing. But the truth we are talking about, brothers and sisters, is spiritual truth—spiritual reality.
When rhema comes to you and faith comes to you, it substantiates that truth to you. When you were first saved and accepted Jesus Christ, faith came and substantiated to you that Christ was real, that He was the Christ, the Son of the living God—the same thing that was substantiated to Peter.
From then on, Peter had a confirmed conviction that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. Therefore, brothers and sisters, because through faith Christ has been substantiated to you, you have a conviction in your heart that He is living and real. He is living and real to you.
Some people have heard about Christ all their life. There may be somebody in this room who has heard about Christ all their life, and if I were to ask you, “Do you believe in Christ?” you would say yes.
But has living faith come to your life, so that you know without any doubt? Is there that conviction in your heart, with no doubt at all, because you have seen the Christ through faith? Faith substantiates the reality of Christ to you. That is what faith does. Otherwise, all you have is knowledge, and you do not have the reality.
Brothers and sisters, we are not striving for knowledge. We are striving for reality.
Something as a little side note—I even put, “Be sure to say this.” Faith does not create the reality. The reality is already there. Faith allows you to see it.
You have heard that old saying, “If you believe hard enough, it will happen.” Well, there is a lot of soul power—we will not get into that today—that makes things happen. But that is not true faith.
Sometimes people say, “Well, if I can just believe this thing, and believe it and believe it hard enough, it will come.” All that is natural faith striving to believe, trying to make something real that you have not experienced yet.
Brothers and sisters, Christ is eternal. His truth is eternal. His truths are eternal. They are already there; they already exist. Even before the world was made, the truth was there. All faith does is open our eyes to see the truth.
Faith substantiates what is already there. Faith does not create anything. Faith really does not make anything happen. I would be careful about this one.
Faith allows what is already there in Christ to happen to you. I hope that did not confuse you.
So that brings us to the issue of truth. Faith and truth go together; they cannot be separated, because what faith is trying to do is reveal to you the truth. That is what spiritual faith is about: that you might know and experience the truth, not that you just have knowledge of it, but actually experience it.
Christ said—and Ralph said it this morning:
I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
Now, we as Christians often say, “Well, I understand that Christ is the life. I have experienced His life. I know that He is the way. There is no way I could ever come to God except through Jesus Christ. There is no way I can live my life until He shows me the way.”
But how much have we experienced of Christ as the truth?
Christ is the substance of all truth, all spiritual truth. All truth comes out of Christ. He is the originator of all truth. All His work on Calvary—that finished work of Calvary—is truth, and it came from Christ. All that He is in His character and nature, all of His works that He has done, is truth.
We have been told that the truth will set us free. That is John 8:32. Christ said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”
Now, just as there is natural faith and spiritual faith, there is natural truth and spiritual truth. Gravity is a natural truth. You can experience gravity if you will just get on the roof and jump off. You will know, when you get to the bottom, that gravity has done its work, and we can meet you at the hospital and talk about natural truth.
You can even experience natural truth. But what is the truth that sets you free? It is not natural truth. It is not even truth about yourself that sets you free. It is the truth in Jesus Christ that sets you free.
Not only is it the truth in Jesus Christ, but it is the truth of what you are in Jesus Christ that is going to make the difference in your life. That is the only thing that will ever set you free.
You can exert all the willpower you want to in order to change your life, but it will not change. It will only become more corrupt. It will be more deceptive. It will look spiritual, it will look real, but it is deceptive. Willpower and mental powers can never set you free from the bondage we are in.
Brothers and sisters, before Christ, we are in the bondage of sin. We are under the bondage of the law of sin in our body, that sinful nature that dwells within. We are under the power of Satan. We are under the law of death, and death reigns all around. We are definitely not free.
But even after we become Christians, after we have gotten over that initial love relationship where we just love the Lord and are in love with the Lord, as we go on, we begin to notice that there is a problem. When we want to do good, we end up doing bad.
We seem to have no power over this sinful nature that is in us, and we are being controlled by the law of death that works in our members. We find that the world still draws our heart. We are still attached to it. We cannot let go of it.
We cannot just use the things of the world; the things of the world grip us as we use them, and they become so necessary to our lives. How will we ever be set free? The Word of God says that only the truth can set you free, and that truth is in Christ.
I know that a lot of times Christians will use this verse—that the truth will set you free—and that you are to speak the truth in love, and that is going to set you free. So that gives them liberty to speak their mind to you and tell you what they think.
That is not truth. That is not the truth that sets you free. I can sit here and tell you all your faults, and I guarantee you that you will never be free of them. It may be true, but that is natural truth.
Spiritual truth sets you free, and it is what you are in Christ. It is more real than natural truth because spiritual truth is eternal in nature.
Now, why is this important? Why is it important to see that spiritual truth is more real than natural truth? It is because our own condition, the experiences that we experience in our Christian life, and the feelings that we have contradict the truth of what we are in Christ.
We say, “Well, I am a failure. I have sinned here. I have done this. I am still hooked to the world. The truth is, my condition is pretty poor.” I cannot say that is not true. That is your condition. That is your experience. It does not line up with what you are in Jesus Christ.
But you will never be set free by hanging on to what you are in your natural condition. That will never set you free. You can sit there and confess all day long how bad you are and how far short you are of God.
Sometimes we do need to realize that. Do not get me wrong. We need to come under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. But to stay in that frame of mind, to concentrate on your condition and your feelings—“I do not feel spiritual today. I do not feel joy”—brothers and sisters, these things will destroy your faith rather than build it up.
What you are in Christ is more real than anything else in this natural world, because it is spiritual in nature, eternal in nature, real in God, and real in Christ. Praise God, He is bringing you into that reality, and He is going to do it through faith.
Because it takes faith to see your spiritual condition before God—who you are before God. Faith must always look at the truth.
Once faith tries to rest on your personal condition, once you begin to look inside, your faith is like a bucket: you just shoot holes all in it, and the faith immediately drains out.
If we continue to concentrate on our feelings, our experiences, even our failures, you will never be delivered. It is not that we say these things do not happen. The issue is where you are looking. Are you looking at the truth, or are you looking at yourself and your own experience?
As young Christians, we see this sinful nature I mentioned before drawing us away from the Lord and causing us to do things we do not want to do. What is the answer? We go to the Lord and say, “Lord, help me.”
The Lord says, “It has already been done. I have done it all on Calvary’s Cross. It is a spiritual reality. It is spiritual truth that your old man has been crucified.”
God has put you in Christ on Calvary’s Cross, and that old man that came out of Adam, that came from your natural life, from your mom and dad, has been crucified. The Lord says, “I have no more to do with that man. He is gone from My sight. I will never have anything to do with him. He is flawed and can never be fixed.”
Once through faith God shows you this reality, brothers and sisters, you begin to agree with God. You say, “Thank God, Lord, I have been crucified there, because I have to agree with You. I have tried and tried and tried in this old flesh and the old man to do what You want, and he always fails.”
Let me tell you something: the old man is a slave to sin. No matter how hard he tries, no matter how much willpower he exerts, he can never overcome the law of sin and death that is in your mortal body and will be there until Christ comes again.
What will overcome the law of sin and death is the law of life in Christ Jesus, which is in you. Do you believe that? Do you have faith in that? Has God shown you through rhema that you are alive in Jesus Christ, risen with Him from the grave? You have that resurrection life.
As long as your eyes are fixed on who you are in Christ, then you can be delivered from what you are in yourself—and no other way.
Do you believe in your experience, in your own personal condition, rather than what the Lord is saying—rather than what the truth is?
Brothers and sisters, sometimes we have these truths before us, and faith has not come. What are you going to do?
Well, certainly, if God has said it, it has to be real, does it not? It has to be true. You should have enough faith to believe that the Word is true. But it has not been made real. So what do you do?
You have to stand on that truth. You say, “Lord, for some reason faith is not there, but Lord, give me faith to see, to believe. I stand on this truth. Even though I do not seem to have it yet, I stand on it. I believe it. Help my unbelief.”
Brothers and sisters, you will believe. You will come into the reality of it. As soon as faith comes, you will begin to experience the reality of that truth in your life personally, and your experience will actually become what you are in Christ. That is the way it works.
I remember a story. I have read many books over the years, and I cannot remember exactly where it came from, but it gave an example of truth, faith, and experience walking along the top of a wall.
Truth, faith, and experience were walking along the wall. Faith was doing great as long as he kept his eyes on truth. Truth was leading; truth was in the forefront. As long as faith kept his eyes on truth, he walked a straight line and stayed on top of the wall.
But as soon as faith turned around to look at experience following him, he fell off the wall. He no longer had his eyes on where he was going.
Where we are going is what we are in Christ. Oh, may the Lord encourage us to get out of our stupor and to look at Him.
If we look inside, brothers and sisters, I guarantee you it will be corruption. I do not care how far you have advanced in your spiritual life. When you look inside, you will always find corruption. You will not find Christ there—in your soul.
Faith is a gift of God. He will give it to you, brothers and sisters. Our responsibility is to use it and to keep our eyes on Him.
In Romans 1:17, it says that we go from faith to faith. In other words, you look to the Lord, He gives you faith, you believe the truth, the truth begins to become real in your life, and your faith increases. Then more truth comes, and it is from faith to faith. We should be advancing in faith all our life.
Hebrews 12:2 says:
Looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.
He is the beginning of your faith, and He is the One who will complete your faith. Praise the Lord.
Brothers and sisters, let me say it this way: what is going to help you the most?
“Lord, I am failing. I am a failure. I have always been a failure. I have become a Christian, and I am still a failure. You are just going to have to help me, Lord, some way or other.”
The Lord may have mercy on you and lift you out of that condition. But what He wants you to do is get your eyes on Him and on the truth, that faith might come, and that you might say, “Lord, hallelujah, I have been set free in Christ Jesus. I am a new creation in Christ.”
Do you believe that? That is the truth. Have you seen through faith that you are a new creation in Christ? Oh, it transforms your life, brothers and sisters.
You might be saying, “Well, Lord, I am trying to give up some of these worldly things. They are hanging on today. They have a grip on me, Lord. It is television I watch—it has a grip on me. I automatically go down and sit in front of it. I can get up for a few minutes, but I have to come back.”
It could be anything. I am not just knocking television. There are a lot of things in this world that grip our lives. You say, “Lord, You have to help me. I just do not know what to do with this.”
The Lord says, “Look at Calvary. At Calvary, I crucified you to the world. That old man that was addicted to these things has been crucified. Do you believe Me? The world has been crucified from you. I have set you apart from the world. You are no longer a part of this world. You are a part of Me and with Me.”
Temptations—what do you do when temptation comes, brothers and sisters? Do you meet temptations with your willpower, or do you meet them with faith in the Son of God?
What do I mean? If temptation comes, you begin to struggle in your will. You know the enemy is after you. You know he is coming. But more and more, you want to do what he is suggesting. All of a sudden it grips you. It not only grips your soul, but it grips your body, and you find yourself doing what the enemy wants you to do.
Willpower will never prevail against temptation. Let me tell you that. Willpower might make it for a while. It might make it through the first temptation, the second temptation, but usually by the third or fourth one, you are done for. He has got you hook, line, and sinker, and you fail.
So what is the truth that is going to set you free in the hour of temptation? Is it not, brothers and sisters, that the life of our Lord Jesus overcame every temptation?
It is the power in His own life that overcomes temptation. Brothers and sisters, it is His life. He has finished that work of victory over the enemy, and all of his devices have been crumbled in the hands of our Lord Jesus, who overcame every temptation.
That same life is in you. So you need to say, “Lord, I come to this thing. I am being tempted, but my faith is in the life of Christ in me. Lord, You answer that temptation. You answer the tempter.”
Once he draws you out to try to fight it, he has got you. Only the Lord’s life in you can overcome temptation.
Victory: often we find ourselves under a cloud of oppression, just being down.
My testimony—I think it was two nights ago; I cannot remember—a number of us brothers had gathered for prayer before the prayer meeting concerning the assembly. We were praying about the assembly, and we were brought into warfare.
We did not start out there, but it seemed like we began to be brought into this area of warfare, of standing for the assembly, with the enemy holding things back and the Lord not being able to get through to us.
We were praying, and brothers and sisters, all of a sudden the Lord touched me. His victory was so real. I knew we had victory.
I was not praying for victory. I knew we had victory. That was faith. It was real. I tell you what, I was never so energized. I had not been so energized in a long time in my life, except for that night. It was the spiritual energy of the Lord’s life because the victory had come.
Now, I do not know if you all experienced that victory that I experienced for you that night. But brothers and sisters, His victory is real. We do not have to live under oppression. We stand in the victory of Calvary.
The key is faith.
You know, often we are like the man in prison. He is rightly in prison because of his wrongdoings. Someone comes and talks to him about his situation. He says, “Yes, I did things wrong. Yes, I need to be here.”
The man says, “Well, let me tell you something. I have put a key to the jail cell in your pocket. If you want to be free, all you have to do is use that key, and you can get out.”
The prisoner says, “Oh no, I cannot believe it. Besides, I deserve to be here. This is what I am. Oh, I bemoan my condition. It is terrible. Would you say I have a key in my pocket?”
That is the way we are, brothers and sisters, often. The Lord can give you the key of faith; we just will not use it because we are looking at ourselves instead of Him.
Is that not the great lesson of Peter? Remember Peter in the boat? It was a stormy night. The storms and waves were rolling, and the disciples were rowing with all their might to overcome the storm, but they could not overcome it.
Suddenly Peter sees the Lord walking on the water. At first they think it is a ghost, but then Peter says, “It is the Lord.” He says, “Lord, just speak to me, and I will come to You on the water.”
The Lord said, “Come.” Peter, hallelujah, had faith. Faith had come. He got out of the boat. He stepped on the water. He took the steps. He was looking at the Lord, but all of a sudden he became aware of all the roaring waves around him. He sank.
He sank because he had taken his eyes off the Lord. As long as they were on the Lord, faith was holding him up on that water. Hallelujah.
But there is an important point I want to make: it was not Peter’s faith. The Lord had given him faith, and he just acted on it.
He acted on it until he took his eyes off the Lord and put them on himself and the condition he was in. He realized the waves were about to swallow him up, and he lost faith.
Galatians 2:20 says:
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me.
It is not your faith. It is not your faith. It is His faith.
Lord, we thank You today for this great thing that You have done. You have brought us the truth, and Lord, in Your mercy, You have been willing to give us faith, that we might take the truth and hold the truth and be set free in the truth, and that we might become truth and You might become truth in us.
Lord, may we become a people of faith—real faith, living faith. Lord, the truth is already there. The truth has already been accomplished. Oh Lord, give us faith that we might really believe.
Oh Lord Jesus, we do not need to be running around in mournful shells the rest of our life. You have called us to be victorious Christians, spiritual men and women, walking in the Spirit.