YES, I AM - PART FOUR

A FAITH ILLUSTRATION

I learned the speaking of the word of faith as a regular principle of life through my friend Rees Howells. I listened to him in his daily talks on how the men of God in the Bible came to the point of speaking that word of faith. It gradually soaked into me that this was not some occasional, rather exotic way of handling life’s challenges, but the normal one. I saw it in the men of the Bible, and supremely in the life of Jesus Himself. Moses announced the ten plagues to Pharaoh one by one, crossed the Red Sea, got water from the rock, assured the people of daily manna... each by some specific word, such as "Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord which He will show you today; for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more forever. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace" - when the Israelites were terrified by the chariots of Pharaoh pursuing them. Joshua, when the priests blew the trumpet, commanded the army around Jericho: "Shout, for the Lord hath given you the city"; David declared to Goliath, "This day will the Lord deliver thee into my hand"; Elijah told Ahab, "There shall not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word."

Those great Bible examples could seem out of reach to us ordinary twentieth-century folk. But I observed Rees Howells at his Bible College put faith into present-day action. And I have since seen multitudes of instances of this during my years in the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade.

I had, as a young man, joined C. T. Studd in the heart of Africa, after my army years in World War I and a time at Cambridge. I had been attracted by his new venture, then called the Heart of Africa Mission, because it was founded on the principle that God alone would be the supplier of all needs... according to His promises, with no appeals made to man, and no needs mentioned except to God. The Crusade has remained wholly faithful to this principle these sixty-eight years of its existence. Pauline and I lived like this with C. T. Studd and our fellow workers in the Belgian Congo, and experienced God’s faithfulness.

Meanwhile, back in Britain I had become a close friend of Rees Howells, and the first link between us was his sense of oneness in spirit with C. T. Studd, whom he had never met. From Rees Howells I learned not just an almost unnoticed walk of faith regarding the daily supplies coming from God, but a principle of faith to be definitely applied to every challenging circumstance of life, the way Jesus plainly acted in meeting every variety of need.

My Waterloo came when C. T. Studd in the heart of Africa was "glorified" (the way we always speak of the "death" of God’s servants), going to the Lord in 1931 with "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" as his last words. He had commissioned Pauline and me to return to the home base in England and carry on the Crusade with the thirty-five workers in the Congo, and just we two at home. That first month at home we received $500 for those workers for a month! And it was precisely then, at the bottom of a dry well, as it were, that I looked up to the glimmer of light at the top and was challenged to put into practice on my own what I had learned from others.

I am writing this not from any special interest in the incident, but because it illustrates what we are talking about how to use the word of faith. The way we then did it is the way I and so many others still do it today. Not one iota of difference. That is why I mention it in detail: as an example of practicing the faith way as the only way - the only workable way - of living, applicable to every detail of our lives. For though learned, perhaps, in a crisis, it is then to be practiced in all our daily situations.

There were four of us together one day at the house which was our London headquarters in 1931. There was Pauline and I, one missionary recruit, and one missionary on furlough. What did we do? First we faced our negatives. Things were at the collapsing point: Trouble had arisen and many had left us. The Depression had hit and money was practically nonexistent. We had plenty of advice to "give up" - close the small mission, or offer it to others. (This situation was of the same kind that we are all confronted with at times, with pressing, even disastrous negatives: What shall I do about this mountain, this hopeless situation, this impossible person?)

Well, I had learned the first step from Rees Howells. Not calling on God and asking Him for deliverance; nor listening to man - but listening to God. In other words, not what we think about it, but what has He to say to us about it. "What’s up, God?" This is revolutionary (and has remained so) because it reverses prayer. It is not we talking to Him and bringing Him our needs, but giving Him the chance to talk to us.

For us at that time it certainly was the difference between collapse and continuing. We listened. But how does God talk to us, or we hear His voice? We have already gone into that: by knowing our inner spirit-union, then catching on to what comes to our minds as what He is saying to us. On that occasion, a thought came to us fully suitable to our special calling. We remembered that our founder, when he first went alone as a pioneer to the heart of Africa, wrote that God had spoken to him on board ship "in strange fashion" and said to him, "This journey is not only for the heart of Africa but for the whole unevangelized world." He had added, when he wrote this home to his wife, "To human reason it sounds ridiculous, but faith laughs at impossibilities and cries, ‘It shall be done!’"

Well, that was certainly absurd to us. Our thirty-five in the Congo were almost at starving level, and here God was coming back to us through our founder and saying, "Not only for the heart of Africa but for the whole unevangelized world." But we knew it was the word of the Lord in all this impossibility, and we accepted it. For C. T. Studd had said specifically: "Faith laughs at impossibilities," and this was where he and Rees Howells talked the same language - faith!

So the next thought that came to us - His mind in our mind (We were not doing any official praying, not on our knees. We were sitting talking, and this was our prayer!) - was, What does "faith" mean when it comes to a matter not of theory but of action? That led us to the Bible, which was always our foundation - the Bible interpreted to us by the Spirit. It seemed practical to us to turn to the experience of Joshua, for he was Moses’ successor… and in a minute way we were successors to our Moses, C. T. Studd. So we read Joshua chapter one, and that was where God’s mind speaking through our minds put us right into focus, put us right along the lines Rees Howells had always talked about and showed us in his own life. We read how God spoke to Joshua and told him to pick up the torch that Moses had laid down and go forward into the promised land, crossing the Jordan River.

Well, that was still theory to us. Exhortation wasn’t what we needed. It was how to get into action. So we read further. That interview with God closed with verse 9. Then the paragraph mark: change of subject. And here was our key illumination - a lifelong one to me. We read that Joshua called together the officers of his army and told them to make practical preparations - commissariat, food, etc. - for Joshua said, "Within three days ye shall pass over this Jordan." That was what struck us. By what authority did Joshua name "three days" and then say with total confidence that they would then cross the flooded river? God had not said that to him.

Then we saw. We got into focus how Joshua and all such men spoke their words of faith. They named their needs. They, not God. "What things soever ye desire." This was the secret. The hidden key. This life is not to be we men pathetically depending on God, calling on God as though at a distance and not too willing to help. It is God’s marvelous plan of entrusting Himself to man, joining Himself to man as man. It is man speaking as God. It is union in action, just like with Moses, Elijah, and the rest. It was Joshua who, as a military commander, calculated the days needed for preparation and then fixed a timetable by the word of faith. He had got it! He understood that God had entrusted His own plans and the power for their fulfillment to His anointed agents - which we all are. You define what you need and how much you need. Then you say so. That’s all. You say it is coming. That it is there already in your sight. "Within three days ye shall pass over."

It is always our speaking our word of faith which puts a person into action. But this is not human action. It is God-action, Spirit-action, and the river will dry up and the people cross. So we see that all hangs on this spoken word of faith, and that’s all; because it really is God the Father speaking His word by His son or daughter, through whom the Spirit then moves into manifestation. Do we see this?

We did that morning. We sat together and spoke that word. We calculated our "three days" to be that God would start sending new recruits, the first of a great army, to fill gaps in the Congo as well as going to other lands. (We took no note of the needs of the existing workers, for we knew that was God’s normal business.) We named "ten," and that as the first token of a world-wide advance to begin in the Congo. They would come in a year, by the first anniversary of C. T.’s glorification. We said it, named the number, and the day - July 16, 1932 - and used that scripture we have already quoted in Mark 11:24. We believed we had received, as it says.

Next day as we gathered, one of us asked the Lord to remember and send the ten. The Spirit rebuked us. Do you ask for what you’ve got? If you got it yesterday, shouldn’t you give thanks? So for the rest of that year - no man knowing what was happening - we thanked, watched, and often laughed, as the ten came: called (with Bible-school training), financed, and commissioned to the Congo where they all went. The last one, Ivor Davies, was given the name Kumi in Africa, which means "ten." The last £200 needed for his passage there came three days before the anniversary. We were in Belfast, in a prayer conference which began five days before, watching each mail, and the telegram came from Pauline in London: "200 pounds for the ten, Hallelujah." We heard later that it had come from two old ladies whom we had never met. So thank God for old ladies!

The next year we moved on to fifteen, the next twenty-five, the next fifty, the next seventy-five - and they came. There would be no point in giving further details, for we are looking at principles. But I thank God that the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade, coupled with the Christian Literature Crusade (which was born out of it), together have some 1500 workers, establishing the gospel in over forty fields. Thank God, today thousands around the world have confessed Christ and are themselves now forming national churches, spreading the gospel witness. The whole company of Crusaders are still living with enthusiasm on the promises of God, applying these same principles of faith to all kinds of advances. Millions of dollars now come in annually... when it was but five thousand that first year. I do not mean to disregard the fact that there have been failures en route. And trials. For some there has been the glory of martyrdom, as they have laid down their lives for Christ. There are objectives of faith not yet in the visible; but on the whole, we have seen overwhelming evidences of the truth of God’s word-that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

WHAT IF IT DOESN’T HAPPEN?

Now the question is, Does this illustration bring home to us the fact that faith is consummated in our word of faith? For third-level living requires a catching on to the mind of God through our minds in a situation, replacing our negative thinking; then boiling it down to a clear, specific objective; then stating that objective in its direct, practical form by my word of faith; then believing that it is already in existence, because there is no time factor (past, present or future) in God’s "fourth dimension." So we also, as He, call the things that be not as though they are.

Then, having done that by our word of faith, we never repeat it again in the form of a request; we don’t ask, we thank. We continue repeating our "thank you" in our inner recognition of what is coming, for our faith has within it a "sense" of the thing anticipated. We already "see" in faith as well as speak that word of faith.

Never, of all things, do we ask, "Why hasn’t it happened?" We surely give ourselves totally away, if, when the answer has not yet come (or even after it "cannot" come, for the time for the answer has passed with no answer) we say, "He hasn’t done what I believed for. It hasn’t happened. Faith doesn’t work." By that we would imply that the answer depended on our faith, and this has failed; or we have believed amiss, or something. But it is His faith expressed by us, and we are saying He has done it. Not we, but He. Therefore, if it is a done thing by the word of faith, we never say it hasn’t been done. Never! For our word of faith means that we have said it has happened in the spirit. It has happened, and if someone says it hasn’t happened, we still say it has happened. God will fulfill His own word. It was He who told us to say to that mountain "Be gone!" and to believe that, when we pray, we have received. So it has happened. Hold on! Even if we do not see things until the other side of the grave! For it was said of the men of faith in Hebrews, "These all died in faith, not having received the promises but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them." But even if they did not receive the fullness, they did have a good slice of the cake en route! I believed God for a solution to a problem in our missionary work forty years ago. I expected the answer, but did not see it come, and was tempted to say, "No answer. I must have been mistaken." But just now the answer is appearing.

Of course the temptation is to question. "Was it my faith at fault?" "Was my motive right?" "Was I mistaken or presumptuous in speaking that word of faith?" Never accept those questionings which come from our souls. They come from the recurring temptation to move back into "separation" - as if it is not God speaking by us in our fixed union, but that we still have our separate, self-condemning selves. Condemnation accompanied by darkness comes from beneath. Conviction accompanied by light and peace comes from above. Go back to our spirit-centers where the word is "Be still, and know that I am God." If I totally trust Him with a single eye, I shall see that what appeared to me to be a mistake, or to have had some flesh motivation behind it, is not; God will give the perfect and fully satisfying fulfillment. Such times, when apparently faith does not become substance, are given us to establish us more thoroughly in the fact that we have the mind of Christ and must not recognize the false possibility that we are back in our old, divided, self-motivated outlook.

As for "presumption," what that really means is that my word of faith had behind it a desire for my own satisfaction or self-display, rather than being solely for the glory of God or the benefit of others, or perhaps was meant to test God’s faithfulness. Don’t be frightened by such a barb. Don’t accept that in our union relationship with Christ our motives are flesh-centered. Stand to your "launch out in faith," and believe that God meant it.

Sometimes, as with Paul, the exact desire, as first named, is refused: not with a No but with a far vaster Yes. Because if Paul had gotten the removal of his thorn in the flesh, we should all have forgotten about that as an incident of history. But we never forget the answer he received - a support to the whole church of Christ in all of the pressures of life - that "God’s strength is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:7-11). And so inwardly conscious of this did Paul become that he went on to say, "Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake"; and then, no longer mentioning God in it, "....for when I am weak, then am I strong." That is union. That is Paul speaking and living as God. A far vaster answer for the centuries than a temporary healing. So here it is. Keep speaking the word of faith, as I do, all the time. Say again and again, "This has happened, that has happened, for I inwardly see it has happened." Watch for the happening, and enjoy the many times you see it happen.

By now it is surely clear that this is radically different from the normal underlying faith by which all who are born-again live. In that sense all Christians walk by faith and not by sight. But on the third level, "father" grade, of which we are now speaking, faith is the operating agent, the one and only means by which every situation of life is authoritatively handled. We are mountain-movers. Like those in Hebrews 11, we are stopping the mouths of lions; out of weakness we are made strong. We have an appetite for "tight corners," as C. T. Studd said, to "give us the luxury of seeing God deliver us out of them." We are now in permanent faith-action, as Jesus was on earth. This is the commissioned third-level life, using the word of faith as naturally and continually as we make normal human decisions. It is our common habit and practice.

We say this to underline that third-level living - with the rivers flowing outward, with the Spirit "mighty in us" towards all - means life is constant faith-action, way beyond the normal way of life in which, on occasions, prayer or faith is a useful resource. On this level, all life is faith-in-action. We are "fathers in action."

DIFFICULT PEOPLE

Then there is the matter of loved ones. How many carry burdens for loved ones unsaved or backslidden. We cry day and night like the importunate woman calling on the unjust judge. But suppose we kind of "gather up our garments about us" and speak the word of faith: "It is done." We know that we should do this because we can have what we want. Well, do it! By faith see God at work in that precious one, beneath all the appearances of sin and flesh and maybe antagonism and contempt. Don’t see him or her in those fleshly appearances. See him as a precious and loved son of God, though still a prodigal son. See him as a marred son of God, just as I was - prodigal, but a son. Tell him you have seen him in your faith and that God will get him, for he is His. And see all the positives you can in his life, which you can appreciate and for which you can be thankful.

Always remember our true perspective: God is the All in all. Therefore, when I am confronted with this or that situation it is He who put me there, and I know why: He is going to come through with some new and glorious manifestation of Himself - the positive through the negative. He only works through His sons, and in this case He is telling me, "I am going to do it through you." My hurt and disturbance is His way of stirring me to move into my word of faith. That is why in Isaiah there is that upside-down statement, "Before they call, I will answer" (65:24). "No," we would say. "Call first on the phone and then get the answer. Not answer before call!" But God already has the answer - and He has in me a son whom He can trust not to be knocked down by the problem, but to turn it into a call on Him; and my way of calling will be my word of faith... and through the faith will come the substance. Indeed, He deliberately puts me in my "hot spots" to cause me to want deliverance, and to speak that deliverance-word of faith. That is how He finds me - and you - to be a profitable son.

That loved one is saved. We may have often to repeat that to ourself or to others, when nothing seems changed. But we repeat it - not the prayer of request, but the word of faith. What burdens that takes off our heart, and how it changes our attitude toward the one we have believed for, because we practice seeing through to who he is by the eyes of faith, rather than being obsessed by the unpleasant present appearances; and our change of attitude is what God uses to change him, for beneath the facade of defense there is really a hungry, watching heart. And by taking such positions of faith for those nearest to us, we then are ourselves freed to reach out in faith for others. St. Augustine, when he found the Lord after his dissolute life, asked his mother where he had been all those years. "In my faith and love," she answered.

When someone asks me to pray with them for a loved one, maybe a husband or wife, I say briefly to her (supposing it’s a wife), "It isn’t your husband who is the problem. You are the problem. You as a daughter of God have the right to speak the word of faith that God has your loved one saved or delivered." I give her the scriptures and the promises. Then I say, "I won’t pray for you more than this one time. But if you like - and you see that you have this right to believe - I will join you now in your word of faith." That is much more help to her than my just praying a prayer with her. It is helping her to be the wife of faith.

And if someone says, "But how can you say by faith that God has your loved one saved? Hasn’t he a will of his own?", my answer is that his will is not what controls him. It is his wants, and his will will follow his wants. And God has His own clever way of changing our wants. He can make us sick of what we used to want from this world, and can make us want Him. Then our will will follow our want.

Our relationship to our fellow Christians radically changes also, when we know who we are, for then we know who they are. I first see my brother just as a human person, who may or may not appeal to me. I always start like that, but then the change. I know who I am, so I know and see who he is. He is Christ to me, even in his human form. More than that, we all have mannerisms, habits, ways of saying and doing things in which we are different from each other, and this can rub each other the wrong way. But since I know that I am as God means me to be, warts and all, so I know my brother is as God means him to be, and we love and accept each other as we are, for we are Christ to each other.

And when clay feet appear in us (and they do), in habits that we have which at least appear as flesh turning up, we still say that is how God means my brother at present to be. He will be taking care of any changes that are needed. We are all being "conformed to the image of His Son." My part is to have it fixed in my faith that God is doing that in my brother, as I see Christ perfect in him. That saves me from being judgmental of him. The time may come when the Lord gives me the freedom to talk things over with him. This is where what Jesus said about the mote and beam takes effect. If I have the beam in my eye, it means that I am seeing my brother’s weak spot more vividly than enjoying Christ in him. I cannot then take out his mote. But if my love and esteem of my brother is greater than any lesser shortcomings, and he senses that, then he is likely to hear me about his mote. So this is the beautiful way in which our brother is always Christ to us in his human form; and whenever he is less than that to me and the clay feet are obsessing me, I am the one off-center more than he. I adjust myself to who I am, and I have nothing then which obscures my clear sight of him as who he is. Always the single eye to my brother, as to Christ.

BODY HEALING

Faith also influences my attitude toward my physical health. Our bodies, especially when sick, are very real to us. We cannot help being body-minded. The immense appeal of any healing ministry, naturally, is the hope of a body healing; and we know that as in the days of Jesus there were wonderful healings, so also there are today. Some people have and use the healing gifts which Paul mentioned among the gifts of the Spirit.

But Paul did plainly warn us all that our bodies are not to be redeemed until the resurrection. "We ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body" (Rom. 8:23). Only about our bodies did he say that we are saved in hope, and "hope that is seen is not hope" (vs. 24). In everything else we walk by faith and may experience immediate deliverances. But our outer man perishes, and the majority of us have body infirmities of some kind, whether eyes, teeth, ears or elsewhere. So we can easily be very body-minded. But I find the answer to this in the fact that I am not a body person, but a spirit person tabernacled in my body. Therefore, whatever my body condition, I keep reminding myself that I am in God’s eternal life, and in perfect spirit health, and that’s the real health.

Then when I have some attack of sickness, I first accept it as from God, for all is always from Him, and therefore He means me to be like that for the moment. I do not put a desire for physical healing first, but I see myself in Christ’s eternal health … and praise Him, though that’s not easy when in pain.

But then I can also rely on Paul’s words in Romans 8:11, that the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in me and "shall... quicken our mortal bodies"; and I can enlarge that from "shall quicken" to "does quicken," for He does dwell in us. So I take body quickening for granted, and look also for healing. I take what medical remedies are available, but I am inwardly maintaining my position of being in God’s health. As we do this - I along with many others - we have proved both the quickenings and body healings. Yet not always. There are those who are not healed, and though they long for it - and may be experiencing questionings and travail - they accept their condition as from God. Usually they have to fight the battle of faith in refusing condemnation from those who say that they lack faith or they would be healed. That is good for them, because it gives them experience in not taking questionings about their faith from man; for they learn to have the inner peace which comes only as we hear God’s voice, and that gives light and assurance. Then Christ is very specially magnified in them, as they still praise Him and adjust their lives to ministering His love to others.

When requests for prayer are asked for in a meeting, the majority given are for people in their sick condition in the hospital and so on. It would be good if such requests were channeled into prayers that the sick ones should be praising the Lord in their sickness, so that those around them might see the victory of faith. Then the prayers for the physical healing would only be secondary, and that is proper.

FROM SPIRIT ACTION TO BODY ACTION

We have now seen how the Holy Spirit flows out of us in rivers on our fatherhood, or ascension, or royal priesthood level - Spirit through our spirit, by the launches of faith unlimited. Being on such a level means advancing from faith as the almost subconscious background of our life in Christ - and that is marvelous in itself - to faith consciously recognized and continuously used as the "Open sesame," the Aladdin’s lamp, to God’s unlimited treasure chamber. Not an incident or condition of life is outside its reach: "All things are possible to him that believeth." The word of faith may be applied to even the commonest daily incidents, such as the loss of a pin or the loss of a job, or to the salvation of the unsaved and the changing of a community. It is applicable not just to so-called religious activity, but extends to all of life, for we now know there’s really no difference between the secular and the spiritual.

Once the Spirit has revealed faith to us as the principle of achievement in all life, the key to the handling of all evil as well as good, we can say that life is never less than "the adventure of adversity" (as I called it in that little book Touching the Invisible). And it is. I would not be writing this if it were not so. But again I say it is conditioned on this third-level understanding of the word of faith as the weapon of our warfare by which we "fight the good fight of faith," and not works. From our new position in the heavenlies we are not being handled by life, but rather are handling it.

So we now move on to the other channel through which the river of the Spirit is flowing - our bodies. Here again there is what I would call the normal level of His working and the revealed "special level." The normal level is that from the moment the Holy Spirit takes possession of our bodies at the new birth, both as His temple and lighthouse, we cannot help ourselves. We are under a new drive! My body formerly was used for fleshly self-satisfaction; now it is for benefiting others. As one has just written me: "I’m learning the times I am fulfilled are when the Lord is using me for others."

Precisely. The God of other-love has taken us over at our new birth. There is that something in us which gives us no rest until we share with others this priceless treasure which is now ours. We can’t help it. Knowing we once were on the road to eternal death, but now have eternal life! - we have to tell others. We cannot but speak of the things we have seen and heard. When Christ became real to me at the age of eighteen I was not yet a vigorous witness, but I had to write of it to my mother from my English boarding school, Marlborough College; and I had to tell my closest friend at school (now a bishop) what had happened to me. In those days, at our English "public schools," it was a rare thing to find a master or boy who had any living experience of Christ, and indeed when I told my friend what had happened, he commented, "If that is Christianity, none of us have it!"

So I’m saying the "normal" is that by some means or another we are witnesses. As Jesus said, men don’t light a lamp and put it under a bushel but on a lampstand, so that it lights the whole house. The Spirit in us compels us to be His witnesses by one means or another. Our bodies are used by Him so that by work or word, Jesus is reaching others.

Our witness is intensified as the Spirit is consciously given full control of our bodies. In my own young life, a few months after my new birth, His uncomfortable challenge came to me through a small booklet to break the one close friendship I had with a girl who did not want to go all the way for Jesus, but just remain "a good church girl." I knew God had spoken, and I wriggled this way and that for weeks. But the Spirit kept saying to me, "You can’t have Christ and anti-Christ in your heart." The final break cost me plenty at the moment of doing it; but with my body-interests now freed from a lesser attraction, the Spirit at once took right over. I had just received my commission and was joining my regiment as a soldier in World War I; and it simply grabbed me that I must get eternal life to my fellow soldiers, officers and men… as we would soon be facing death in the trenches, for we all joked about becoming "cannon fodder." My colonel did not like my effort and I lost promotion by it, but I did witness.

So there are varying degrees of intensity in the Spirit’s use of our bodies to bring Christ to others, progressing from our new birth to our conscious body-commitment to Christ. Indeed, we cannot be born again by the Spirit of other-love and not have our first urgings to share Christ with others - and this is really the beginning of the fatherhood level, for in actual fact, all levels are already in us in Christ.