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September/October 2006 |
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Faith -the ultimate realist
Faith is under fire - but are we unwittingly aiding the enemy?David Andrew asks if our faith can keep up with horses...
FAITH has been given a bad name. Of course it has. If you were God's enemy, and you realised that 'without faith it is impossible to please Him',1 what would be your first objective? If you knew that believers walk by faith, not by sight2 and you wanted to make them stumble, what would you attack? If you understood that faith can be as good as 'evidence' and can make invisible, hoped for things as substantial as real possessions3 – but you needed to spread gloom and despair, what would you target? If faith is under fire today, it was no less so in the days of the apostles. Much of their writing and their work was intended to fan the flames of faith4 in believers and protect their minds from clever distortions.5
So today... faith can mean everything and nothing. It can be a synonym for the stiff upper lip. I've heard folks who never enjoyed a Biblical faith described as 'having great faith'. It simply meant that they were good at keeping their spirits up in the face of adversity. If they believed in anything, they believed in the strength of the human spirit. To a Muslim, Christian 'faith' is unbelief. To a Christian, Muslim 'faith' is unbelief. Even the world's terrorists perpetrate their violence against civilians on the ground of their 'faith', and in many 'Bible-believing' movements, major distortions have subtly infiltrated over recent decades. In some places, it is simply a mind-control technique for acquiring our dream possessions. In others it's the power we can exercise even over God to ensure that He delivers on His promises!
All this serves to show how the 'god of this age' fears the true faith of Jesus Christ and seizes every opportunity to destroy it, undermine it and discredit it. In fact discreditation is a major objective of the enemies of our faith – but do we help to discredit faith ourselves?
Have you ever been told that 'faith works'? Certainly, there are multiplied glorious examples that faith is often rewarded with amazing miracles. But what to do when faith does not 'work'? Is faith only for pragmatists and spiritual engineers who need measurable results before faith is of any use? Herod had James beheaded. When this turned out to be a crowd-pleaser, he had Peter slung into prison. The apostle was sent an angelic visitor who miraculously caused his chains and doors to unlock so that the apostle literally walked out of jail!6 What are we to say... that faith 'worked' for Peter, but not for James? The problem with measuring faith by results is that it makes God accountable to our expectations for the outcome – or it condemns our apparent 'lack' of faith for a poor outcome. By this reasoning, many sick people have come forward for healing only to leave again with their sickness compounded with guilt, because they ('obviously') did not have 'enough faith'!
Not qualified It is true that God often reveals His plans to those who take the trouble to draw very close in prayer – and sometimes fasting. But unless we have had clear revelation of God's intended outcome, we are not qualified to assess whether our faith has 'worked' (we mean 'performed to expectations') or not!
If we are not careful, our 'faith' can be like the army Gideon never had. The 32,000 fighters he started out with were disallowed – all except 300, because the Lord knew Israel would boast that her own strength had saved her.7 If our faith always delivered to (our) order, we would end up with 'faith in our faith'. Worse still, if we could always exercise faith for a predictable outcome, we would be on the very edge of sorcery and witchcraft – certainly the 'glory' would come to us, not to God!
In the pages of SWORD, we are giving it all we've got to encourage faith that will be equal to the trials and persecutions ahead – yes, I do mean in the UK and the so-called 'free world'! A faith that draws its strength from within ourselves – however strongly held – is not the faith that will stand the test.
By its very nature, true Biblical faith puts God and man in their correct proportions. Abraham, the father of our faith 'believed GOD'.8 This is the only antidote to the spreading poison of humanism that relentlessly exalts man and diminishes God. All of us need to look honestly at what we call our faith. Every believer needs to ask: 'Is my trust in a great faith or a Great God...?'
Prisoner in charge When UK airports were suddenly thrown into chaos with police revelations of a massive alleged terrorist plot to blow up nine or ten aircraft in mid-Atlantic, my scheduled Bible readings drew me to Paul's shipwreck off Malta. His bold confidence that no one would lose his life unless they tried to save themselves is awesome. It was the prisoner who took charge of a shipload of sailors and Roman soldiers. I mused that Paul would be an interesting fellow-passenger in any modern transport danger! The point is that his bold confidence was in his God, not in himself. Because of this, his words had divine authority that silenced all contrary counsel. Paul had an alternate view of reality that enabled him to challenge the terrified expectations of the entire ship's company!
True faith will always afford an alternate view of reality. Not that faith simply chooses to see things differently, nor does it deny the realities of the here and now. If the bank account looks grim, faith will not fly us to cloud cuckoo land where, as Voltaire jibed 'everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds'. That would be wishful thinking at best, mind control at worst – and reality would be no part of such thinking. Faith actually sees realities beyond those we can perceive with our five senses – because faith is actually in touch with them, and in touch with the God who gives substance to the invisible. Joseph was so clear that God would remove his people from Egypt and cause them to inherit Canaan, that he 'gave instructions about his bones' some four centuries before the Exodus!9
This faith / reality relationship is the key to understanding the faith we aspire to for the difficult days ahead. The gallery of heroes in Hebrews 11 'died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off'. So confident were they of these realities, that they 'were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.' 10 In short,)) faith enabled them to be rooted in God's future rather than man's present.
Faith does not deny present realities, it merely denies them the label of 'total reality' – because the believer is able to live in and perceive two 'worlds' at one and the same time. The challenge is to translate mere statements of faith and beliefs into ruggedly practical perceptions that alter what we are prepared to accept as the final word on our situation. Back to the bank account again...
Is the balance a mess because we have been irresponsible in our spending or borrowing? Faith knows God's restoring mercy well enough to remind us that: 'if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness'. Faith will be confident of this outcome, and will encourage in us that 'godly sorrow that leads to repentance and leaves no regret'. Does the negative balance represent our faithfulness to God and to needy fellow believers so that, like the Macedonian churches, we gave 'as much as [we] were able, and even beyond [our] ability'?11 Faith will reassure us that: 'God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them'12 In either case, faith will put us in touch with the realities of our special relationship with God – encouragement we would not expect from a merely earthbound view of our situation.
Insider information About-to-be-shipwrecked Paul had a firm grasp of a reality that his companions did not share, he knew he had heard from God. He knew his divinely appointed journey's end was in Rome, not at the bottom of the Mediterranean! He knew the ship would be lost but the lives would be saved. He did not have access to this information by earthly means. This faith perspective put him firmly in charge of a situation when otherwise he might have been as panic-stricken as the rest!13
Are we getting the message? Faith is a realist – the ultimate realist – because it is constantly engaging with ultimate realities. Next time we face a crisis will we let our faith (informed by God's Word) be the final arbiter of our total reality – or will we continue to perceive only the partial reality afforded by our native wit? How will we face our persecutors if we allow them to fill the picture and obliterate our view of God our Saviour? How will we face our trials if we do not exercise the eyes of faith to view the 'joy set before us'? If our faith won't let God into the household accounts – how will it let Him strengthen us under fire? As the Lord said to Jeremiah: 'If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?'14 How indeed! 1 Hebrews 11:6 2 2 Corinthians 5:7 3 Hebrews 11:1 4 2 Timothy 1:6 5 2 Corinthians 11:3 6 Acts 12:1-10 7 Judges 7:2-3 8 Romans 4:3 9 Hebrews 11:22 10 Hebrews 11:13 11 2 Corinthians 8:1-3 12 Hebrews 6:10 13 Acts 27:1-44 14 Jeremiah 12:5 David Andrew is the editor of Sword
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