Luke 18:1-8:
And He spoke also a parable to them, to the end that they should always pray and not faint,
saying, There was a judge in a city, not fearing God and not respecting man.
And there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.
And he would not for a time; but afterward he said within himself, Even if I fear not God and respect not man,
yet because this widow annoys me, I will avenge her, lest by perpetually coming she weary me out.
And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge says.
And shall not God at all avenge His elect, who cry to Him day and night, and He bears long as to them?
I say unto you that He will avenge them speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, shall He indeed find faith on the earth?
1 John 5:4-5:
For all that has been begotten of God gets the victory over the world;
and this is the victory that gets the victory over the world, our faith.
Who is he that gets the victory over the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
Revelation 12:11:
And they have overcome him—that is, Satan—by reason of the blood of the Lamb,
and by reason of the word of their testimony;
and they have not loved their life even unto death.
Thank You, Lord, for inviting us to Your table. Thank You for reminding us what great love You have poured out upon us.
Lord, as we are touched by Your love, we come into Your presence and say, “Lord, speak to us. Touch us. Transform us. Make us ready for Your return.”
We commit this time into Your loving hand and trust that Your Spirit will open our understanding and bring us into Your purpose. It is all for Your glory. We ask in Your precious name. Amen.
We have been sharing together on living by faith. What is faith? Faith is the substantiating power that brings the reality of God into our experience.
Faith is not something to look for within ourselves. We cannot find faith within ourselves. Faith is like an anchor: it has to be cast into God. The more we are conscious of Him, the more faith rises in our hearts.
Thank God that He is the faithful One, and He always rewards those who seek after Him. That is what faith really is.
But, as we have mentioned before, in order that our faith may grow, God, in His wisdom, will test us—to bring out what He has already planted in our hearts. By doing that, our faith is strengthened and increased.
Also, by His great wisdom, He will allow the enemy to tempt us. Through temptation, we realize how much He has already done in our lives to enable us to overcome temptation. Each time we overcome a temptation, it seems as if our faith in God gets stronger. This is our experience.
This morning we are to speak about the consummation of faith—that is, the triumph of faith.
In Luke 18, our Lord Jesus told us a parable. There was a widow, and she went to the judge to ask for justice. But it so happened that the judge was an unjust judge. He did not fear God, and he did not regard people.
When that widow came to him asking for justice, he simply ignored her. But that widow was very persistent. In spite of being denied many times, she continued to come and ask for justice.
Finally, the unjust judge said to himself, “Even though I fear not God and regard not man, this widow annoys me. I have to get rid of her.” So he said, “All right, I will do justice for her so she will not come back again.”
Our Lord Jesus used this contrast to show us that, as we come to God, will not God answer us, and surely and quickly answer our prayers? So the Lord said, “When He comes, will He find faith on the earth?”
Brothers and sisters, we read in 1 John 5:4-5 that all that has been begotten of God gets the victory over the world. This is the victory that gets the victory over the world: our faith.
In other words, there is a victory waiting for God’s people. But how do we get that victory? By faith.
You know, brothers and sisters, once we were under the power of darkness. We were hopeless and helpless. No matter how we tried, we were no match for the power of darkness.
But thank God, as we find in Colossians 1, He has delivered us out of the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. In other words, we are no longer under the power of darkness. On the contrary, we are under the kingdom of the Son of God’s love. So victory is ours.
Why does the Bible say faith is the victory? It is not because there is something in faith itself, or in believing itself. It is because of what we believe—Whom we believe.
Remember, as long as we are saved, we no longer belong to the world. The world is something that Satan uses to control us. He uses the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life to control people. This is Satan’s tactic.
But thank God, as soon as we believe in the Lord Jesus, we are no longer under that control. To put it another way, so far as the world is concerned, we are just strangers and sojourners. We are just passing through. This is not our home. We are looking for that city with foundations, which God has built for us.
Because of that, we are strangers to the world. We are still in the world, but the world has no attraction for us. Why is it so? Because we believe.
When our Lord Jesus came into this world, He was in the world as a stranger. He just passed through it. How He suffered from the world! Even from the beginning, when He began His ministry, He was tempted by Satan with the world.
Satan said, “If You worship me, I will give You the whole world.” And the Lord rejected him outright.
From the very first of His life to the very end of His life, the world could not touch Him. He said in John 12 that when He was lifted up, the prince of this world would be cast out.
When our Lord was on this earth, He overcame the world. That is the reason, brothers and sisters, faith is the victory. Because we believe in our victorious Lord, we can overcome the world—not because of our faith itself, but because our Lord has overcome. His overcoming becomes our overcoming.
So this is why the Bible says faith is the victory. Dear brothers and sisters, as we travel through this world, remember: so far as the world is concerned, we have been crucified; and so far as we are concerned, the world has been crucified. We are the Lord’s, and we who are the Lord’s overcome the world. This is our victory.
I remember when I was young. After the Lord had saved me, I was so grateful to Him that I offered myself to Him to serve Him.
But even with that kind of desire, I remember that in my young age I served Him according to my own will. What I thought He would like, I did—not according to God’s will.
Gradually, the Lord began to open my understanding, and I began to realize that if we want to serve Him, it is not according to our will, but according to His will.
I remember when I was in college, the Lord began to open my understanding, and I began to see what the will of God was concerning His church.
I was the son of a pastor of a Methodist church, and everybody expected me to succeed my father. But the Lord began to show me that the church is the body of Christ; it is not an organization.
Then the Lord began to bring together a few of us who saw the same thing when I was in college. We came together simply to remember the Lord, to seek the Lord, and to try to follow the Lord.
We began with seven people: three brothers, all classmates in the college, and four sisters. They were in a hospital far away, on the other side of the city. One was the principal of the nursing school, one was the superintendent of nurses, one was a nurse, and one was a patient.
But the Lord began to show us the same thing. I remember the first time we came together and broke bread in a sister’s home. We all wept.
The presence of the Lord was so real, and our hearts were so touched by the Lord. The Lord began to work. All the nurses in the nursing school got saved, except, I think, two.
When God was doing such a wonder, you know, I was troubled—troubled by my own situation. I felt that I was standing on two boats, and the two boats began to sail apart.
In a sense, at that time, even though I was very young, it seemed that the Lord had put a responsibility upon my shoulders. So I began to be troubled. I said, “Lord, if I myself stand on two boats—one boat of denomination, my future, and the other boat standing on the will of God—and I can see that these two boats are sailing apart, what should I do?”
While I was in such perplexity, God sent a servant to us, and he began to speak from Luke 14. He said that a man who tries to build a tower should sit down and consider whether he will be able to finish it. If he is not able to finish it, it is better not to start; otherwise, he will be laughed at by everybody.
Or a king is going to fight an enemy, and he is only willing to use ten thousand soldiers, but the king that comes against him has twenty thousand. It is better that he make peace with his enemy before he starts the war. You know the words: count the cost.
When the brother was speaking all that, it touched me deeply. We had lunch because we had another meeting in the afternoon. After lunch, everybody went to his or her corner to rest.
I remember very vividly that I was sitting in my chair and praying. I said, “Lord, why is it that I could not go straight? Is it because I have never counted the cost?”
So I began to count the cost. You know, if you try to count your cost, the cost gets higher and higher. I said, “Maybe I will be discharged by the university. Maybe I will be driven out of my home. What should I do?”
So I told the Lord, “I could not do it. It is beyond me.”
At that time, I saw a vision. I saw the Lord coming to me, showing His hands bleeding. He said, “I did all this for thee. What wilt thou do for Me?”
Brothers and sisters, what can you do? I told the Lord, “All right. I am willing—willing to give up everything for You.”
But it was not that easy. Even though I had promised the Lord that I was willing, it took me three days and three nights of struggling. In the daytime I went to school, but I could not hear what the professors were saying. At night I could not sleep. I struggled.
But after three days and three nights, the love of Christ conquered. So I finally told the Lord, “All right. I am willing to give up my future—everything—to follow You.”
Thank God, He has kept me until today.
So, brothers and sisters, it is not that I have great faith. No, I am a man of small faith, but I have a great God. He has sustained me ever since.
Faith is the victory, and it is faith that one day will become sight. We have faith in God, knowing that His purpose and His will for us is to conform us to the image of His beloved Son.
One day that shall be a fact. One day our Lord Jesus will return and receive us to Himself. What a glorious day that will be!
As I think of the consummation of faith, I think of church history. As you read the book of Acts, in the first four chapters you find how the church began on the day of Pentecost. When it began, what a glorious church it was!
All those who believed persevered and continued in the teaching and the fellowship of the apostles, in the breaking of bread and prayers.
What is the teaching of the apostles? The word teaching is singular, while apostles is plural. Whichever apostle it may be—Peter, James, John, or whoever—they had only one teaching. It was the teaching of Christ. What they had received from the Lord, they passed on to us.
So also was the fellowship of the apostles. Again, you find fellowship in the singular. It was not that Peter had his fellowship and Paul had his fellowship. How people would like to make Paul their fellowship or make Peter their fellowship! But no, so far as the apostles were concerned, they had only one fellowship: fellowship with our Lord.
What they had received, they passed on to us. So we are all called into the fellowship of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, as we find in 1 Corinthians 1:9.
Their teaching is one; their fellowship is one. It is none other than the teaching of Christ and the fellowship of Christ in the Spirit.
In the early days, you find that Christians—whether they had been following the Lord for two or three years, or had just believed and been saved, like the three thousand on the day of Pentecost—all persevered together in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles.
How did they express that fellowship and teaching? By two things most prominently: the breaking of bread and prayers.
Brothers and sisters, as we look into the church today, how we look down upon these two things! You go to any great gathering of God’s people, and you will find the two things most neglected are the breaking of bread and prayer.
Maybe you have the breaking of bread once a year, twice a year, or once a month. But who would think of breaking bread every Lord’s Day? It is too much.
So far as prayer is concerned, you may have several hundred people gathered together, but at prayer time, how many do you have?
These are the two things neglected by God’s people today, and yet these are the two things that are most essential, because they represent the teaching and fellowship of Christ.
As they persevered together, more people were added, and everyone who was added persevered in the same way. That is what you find in the first four chapters of the book of Acts.
When you come to the fifth and sixth chapters, you find that there were problems in the church. No matter how perfect the church is, there are bound to be problems. Brothers and sisters, do not be afraid of problems, because if you handle problems rightly, it means growth.
Here you find that a couple tried to deceive the church. But they were not deceiving the church; they were deceiving the Holy Spirit. Immediately, you find that the discipline of the Holy Spirit came upon them.
When the church is in right order, the working of the Holy Spirit is very prominent. Today you find that you can do many things wrong without any discipline. It is because of the low state of the church.
You find also that when the widows of the Hellenistic Jews were neglected, there were problems. There were two kinds of Hebrews: one kind lived in the promised land, and another kind lived outside the promised land. When there are differences, there are bound to be problems.
But you see how they solved the problem. They solved it by appointing seven people. If you look at the names of the seven, except one, probably all the others were Hellenistic Jews.
They had no selfish idea for themselves. They thought only of their brethren. Because of this, the apostles were free to pray and to preach, and God greatly blessed the early church.
When the enemy saw that, he tried to use persecution. That is always the case. He used Saul to persecute the church, but you find how God brought Saul into His camp, and he became the apostle Paul. In other words, God works wonderfully.
Do not expect a perfect church in which there is no problem of any kind. Wherever we are, there are bound to be problems. But thank God, if the Holy Spirit is there, the problems can be solved, and the church will be blessed.
Then, of course, you come to the second and third centuries. Because of the growth of the church, in the beginning the church was not persecuted by the Roman Empire. Why? Because the Romans considered the church part of Judaism, a sect of Judaism, and Judaism was protected by the Roman government.
The early persecution did not come from the Roman Empire, but from the Jewish nation. Later, as more Gentiles were added to the church, it could no longer be considered merely a Jewish sect. It was a different entity.
When this happened, the Roman Empire began to persecute the church. During the second and third centuries, history tells us that ten times there was great persecution from the Roman Empire upon the church.
But even with all these persecutions, thank God, the God of glory used persecution from the enemy to purify His church. We often see that in history.
Whenever there is persecution, you find the church is purified and faith begins to grow. Those who believe in the Lord become vigorous. But if you have a very easy time, that is human nature: we try to relax.
During those two centuries of persecution, it was the Roman Empire that was defeated, not the church.
So Satan changed his tactic. He knew that persecution could not destroy the church, so he tried to become a friend to the church.
You remember, in AD 312, Constantine, a Roman general, was fighting for the empire. We are told that he dreamed a dream and saw a flag saying, “In this sign, conquer.”
At that time, Constantine’s army came mostly from Gaul, and they were mostly Christians. I do not know whether it was a tactic to encourage his soldiers to fight for him or whether it was real; we do not know. But anyway, under that flag he gained the Roman Empire.
If I remember rightly, in AD 316 Christianity was considered the state religion. Any soldier who would be baptized would be rewarded with clothes and silver.
To please the empire and gain all these benefits, who would not do it? So Christianity became a state religion, and Constantine ruled over Christianity.
Many came into Christianity. But because those who came in were not saved and did not know God, how could they serve God? Of course, they could not. So that is why you had to have people trained to serve God.
We know that this was the downfall of Christianity. From the sixth century to the sixteenth century, the church came into the Dark Ages.
People then did not even know how to be saved. The teaching was that you had to accumulate merit in order to go to heaven.
Only very few people who had enough merit went straight to heaven when they died. Most people did not have enough merit to go to heaven. So what would you do? After you died, you would go to purgatory. You had to be purged.
But the saints had more merit to enter into heaven. So the teaching was that if you prayed to these saints, they could share some of their extra merit with you and get you out of purgatory more quickly—if you paid a certain amount of money.
Brothers and sisters, you may laugh at it, but at that time it was very popular. Who would not want to go to heaven? If you just paid some money and got there earlier, who would not do it?
As they said concerning indulgences, “When the money in the box rings, the soul flies into heaven.” If you had greater sins, you paid more. Somebody who wanted to commit something would pay first, get the indulgence, and when caught, show the indulgence—and be guiltless.
Brothers and sisters, you may laugh at it, but at that time it was very real. That was the way they built St. Peter’s Cathedral. The way of salvation was not known. It was certainly the Dark Ages.
In other words, Satan seemed to succeed in his tactic. What he could not break through persecution, he broke through compromise.
But thank God, in the sixteenth century, we often consider that century the beginning of the recovery of the testimony of God.
In the sixteenth century, God raised up people such as Martin Luther, Calvin, and so forth. They began to preach and emphasize two things. One was justification by faith. We are not justified by merit; we are justified by faith. That is the simple gospel.
At that time, it swept over the world. The second thing was an open Bible, because at that time the Bible was not allowed to be read by the people.
In a monastery, the Bible was in chains. But Martin Luther and the other Reformers demanded an open Bible in the vernacular language—the language where you belonged. That was the Reformation.
But the Reformation, of course, was only the beginning. From century to century after that, God has been doing the work of recovery.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, you find the so-called mystics. They sought God, and they found God. In other words, they began to consider their spiritual life.
You also find that God raised up the Moravians and Zinzendorf, and they began to spread the gospel. God has continued His recovery ever since.
In the nineteenth century, God raised up the Brethren, and how they recovered the teaching of the church. In the twentieth century and later, God raised up people in India, like Bakht Singh; in China, like Watchman Nee; and in England, like Austin-Sparks.
Anyway, we believe God is still recovering His church, going back to the original. As you come to the end, you will go back to the beginning.
Brothers and sisters, even at the end of the first century, in Revelation 1-3, the Lord sent seven letters to the seven churches in Asia.
All the apostles had died except John. He faithfully ministered to these churches in Asia Minor. Then he was exiled, for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus, to the island of Patmos.
On the Lord’s Day, he must have been looking across the Aegean to the coast of Asia Minor. On a good day he could clearly see the coastline. He was sitting there, meditating about those churches to which he had ministered before he was exiled. He must have wondered what had happened to them.
Then he heard a voice. He looked back and saw a vision: seven golden lampstands, and in the midst, One like the Son of Man.
To every church, the Spirit says, “He who overcomes.” So, brothers and sisters, we find that even during the first century, the call for overcomers had already come from God.
He foresaw the downfall of the church, but His testimony would not fail. So to every church, He calls for overcomers—those who overcome Satan, the enemy; those who overcome the world; those who overcome their own selves and allow the will of God to be accomplished through them.
In every century, God calls for overcomers. When the number of the overcomers has been fulfilled, that will be the beginning of the Parousia—the presence of the Lord.
Every century has had its overcomers, but the number of overcomers has not been fulfilled. That is why our Lord has not yet come.
Brothers and sisters, we are on the verge of the change of the age. The age of grace will end, and the age of the kingdom will come. But who will be used by God to turn the age? The overcomers.
How blessed it will be if, one day, all over the world, some people suddenly disappear! Where did they go? They were taken to the throne. They were the welcoming party for the coming of Christ.
They had overcome in their lives. Therefore, they were able to pass through the air, the headquarters of Satan, and get to the throne, preparing for our Lord to come to the air and then to the earth.
Brothers and sisters, the call to overcome is a call to every one of us here.
But how can we overcome? In Revelation 12:11, we find that they overcame the accuser by the blood of the Lamb.
Brothers and sisters, we can never outgrow the blood of our Lord Jesus. We need His blood every time, every day. The closer you are to the Lord, the more you realize how you need the blood of Christ to cleanse you.
The blood of Christ satisfies God’s righteous demands. The blood of Christ cleanses our conscience. The blood of Christ shuts up the mouth of the accuser.
The closer you get to the Lord, the more you need the blood. Somebody tells us that even the tears of our repentance need to be cleansed.
They overcame by the word of their testimony. Brothers and sisters, we are supposed to bear the testimony of Jesus.
We ought to show people who Jesus is, not only by our words, but by our life. Is Christ our life? We are to testify to that.
If we really live, “Not I, but Christ,” then when we say, “Jesus is Lord,” it is powerful. But if we do not live that life, even though we may say it, it has no power.
They loved not their life even unto death. That is, their self-life. They were willing to lay down their self-life and allow the life of Christ to take charge over them.
Brothers and sisters, these are the secrets of victory.
As we come to the end of this age, brothers and sisters, the Lord expects us to be overcomers—not to be overcome by the world or by ourselves, but to overcome by faith in our Lord Jesus.
May the Lord make every one of us here an overcomer. May that number of overcomers be fulfilled, and that will hasten the return of the Lord.
Shall we pray?
Dear Lord, we say that we long to see You come back. But, Lord, we realize it is we who delay Your return.
So we come back to You with repentance, giving ourselves totally over to You, allowing You to transform us and conform us to Your own image.
Not for ourselves, but to speed up, to hasten Your return. Lord, have mercy upon us. Hear us, O Lord, in Your precious name. Amen.