Index
Introduction
Faith and Love
Faith’s Great Foundation
Faith’s First Failure
Sight, the Enemy of Faith
Faith Comes by Hearing
Our Strength and Shield
The Place of Peace
Faith to Suffer
The Prayer of Faith
A Final Word
Introduction
The Spirit has led me to put a number of things in writing to share with the saints for their edification and instruction, but I can think of no more important message than that which is contained in this book. The book “The Remnant Bride” presents a challenge to the saints to not be content with Outer Court Christianity, but to enter into the place of intimacy to which the Bride of Christ is called. The books “The Road from Babylon to Zion”, “Laying Down the Law” and “Sarah’s Children” contain insight and instruction to the saints to lead them out of the dead works of an apostate church and into the will of God. The books “Sabbath” and “God’s Plan of the Ages” contain foundational truths and hold great benefit for those who comprehend their message. Yet in this book is contained a message of foundational truth that goes even deeper than the books that have preceded it.
Some having read the cover to this book and discerned that it deals with the topic of faith might rightly object, that as profound and essential as faith is, there are deeper and more important issues. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians he declared that “there abides faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.” What will be shown in the pages of this book is that faith is actually born out of love. Faith finds its foundation in the love of God, and it is those who struggle with trusting in the love of God who have the greatest difficulty in manifesting faith.
The extreme importance of faith is seen in the words, “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” Pleasing God should be the aim of every saint. If we understand that we have no possibility of pleasing God apart from faith, we can discern that it is among the most vital and essential needs of every saint. This book will explore questions such as:
• What is the foundation of faith?
• Why is faith so important to God?
• How might we be increased in our faith?
• Why does God allow, and even desire, for our faith to be tested?
• How is God glorified by our faith?
From Genesis to Revelation the Scriptures reveal that Yahweh has been looking for faith in the heart of man. The history of the 6,000 years of man’s existence has revealed that faith has been a rare and precious thing. Far more men have lacked faith than have possessed it. It has been a mere remnant of mankind that have found God’s approval as they have manifested faith in Him. With these few God has been well pleased. Their faith has brought glory to the God who created them.
The words of Christ reveal the divine quest that has been present within the Godhead since Adam was created.
“When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”
Luke 18:8
The Father, Son and Spirit are still on this divine quest today. Even in the Old Testament, this divine quest, this earnest searching by God for faith in the hearts of men, was expressed in the clearest of language:
II Chronicles 16:9
“For the eyes of Yahweh move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.”
In this hour the eyes of Yahweh continue to search the earth that He might find those who trust Him with their whole being. He is looking for those who will willingly cast everything over onto Him in confidence that He will not forsake them. Will He find what He is looking for in your own heart? When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith in you?
This book is offered as a challenge to those who name the name of Jesus Christ, Yahshua the Messiah. Its aim is to reveal why faith is so precious to God, and why it is absolutely essential if any are to please Him. May you be stirred up in your innermost being, and may Yahshua find faith in you at His soon return.
Faith and Love
Understanding the message of this chapter is essential to comprehending why faith is so very important to God, bringing great honor to Him, and why a failure of faith is so grievous, serving as a reproach to Yahweh. Most of my life I did not understand the things shared here, and I cannot ever remember a sermon or teaching on this matter. It is something that the Holy Spirit has brought understanding in as I have been led through multiple trials of faith.
The foundation of faith is having a genuine trust in God’s love for us. The absence of faith is similarly based upon a distrust, or unbelief, in God’s love for us.
Understanding the words above is critical in order to comprehend this matter of faith. Most sermons on faith that I have heard have centered upon God’s power and ability to rescue and deliver. There are myriads of examples throughout Scripture to draw upon to exposit Yahweh’s great power. Yet, I am convinced that most failures of faith are not due to unbelief in God’s great power. Most failures of faith are the result of not trusting in God’s love and kind intention toward man.
When one considers this, they can perceive that this makes a failure of faith an even greater reproach to God. When a man or woman believes God can deliver them from some trial, or preserve them through it, when they have little doubt about His power and ability to save, but they do doubt His willingness to save them, this brings a tremendous reproach upon God. Throughout this book we will look at many examples of this type of failure, and we will see how Yahweh was dishonored as men doubted His love for them.
Consider for instance the children of Israel who were delivered from the bondage of Egypt. They had witnessed the awesome power of God in the miraculous plagues and judgments that were brought against the gods of Egypt. They had seen the Nile turned to blood. They had seen frogs cover the land, as well as lice and locusts and other insects. They had witnessed the hail and lightning, and had seen Yahweh make a distinction between the Egyptians and the children of Israel, for the land of Goshen where the Israelites dwelt was right in the midst of Egypt, yet it was spared from the plagues.
They had seen the darkness that covered the land for three days, a darkness so thick that it could be felt, and no one in Egypt moved while under the darkness. They had witnessed the boils that tormented the Egyptians, breaking out everywhere upon their flesh. The Egyptians were so in awe of Moses and his God that they began to esteem the Israelites whom they had despised, and when Moses instructed the Israelites to ask of the Egyptians articles of clothing and gold and silver, we are told that the Egyptians gave them all they asked for, and so the Israelites plundered the wealth of Egypt. Finally, the Israelites also were witness to the first Passover where the firstborn of all Egypt was slain, both of man and cattle, yet all those of Israel were protected who had placed the blood of a lamb upon their doorposts.
Surely this generation of Israel could not doubt the power of God. They had witnessed things that astonished both great and small. The power Yahweh exhibited was so great that the Egyptians begged the Israelites to leave them in great haste, fearing that they would all be dead if they tarried any longer. There is no possible way that the Israelites who followed Moses and Aaron could doubt the power of Yahweh. They had seen His power repeatedly with their own eyes.
The Israelites left Egypt and God brought them to the Red Sea by a circuitous course to make the Egyptians think that they were lost and wandering in the wilderness. The Egyptians then said, “What have we done in letting them go? We must bring them back.” So Pharaoh and his armies pursued Israel and found them camped before the Red Sea, with mountains on either side. The Egyptians came in behind them leaving Israel no place to go. They were hemmed in.
See now what Israel did next. Did they remember the plagues and great power of God and expect Yahweh to perform another miracle on their behalf? Did they stand with confidence as they viewed the Egyptians, knowing that Yahweh was mightier than the gods of Egypt and well able to save and deliver them? Did they remember His words of kindness and His promises to bring them into their own land? No. Instead they brought reproach upon Yahweh by expressing great unbelief. Yet their unbelief was not in His power to save, but in His love for them.
Exodus 14:10-12
As Pharaoh drew near, the sons of Israel looked, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they became very frightened; so the sons of Israel cried out to Yahweh. Then they said to Moses, "Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you dealt with us in this way, bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we spoke to you in Egypt, saying, ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness."
What an insult this was to Yahweh. When He had demonstrated His mighty power, and His willingness to bring them out of Egypt; when He had spoken through Moses and Aaron, telling the Israelites that He had seen their cruel captivity and He had heard their cries and was going to bring them to their own land, a land flowing with milk and honey; after all this, they scorned His love and accused Him of having the falsest of motives. They accused Him of not truly loving them, but of bringing them out to the wilderness to kill them.
What is the greater insult to God, failing to believe in His power, or failing to believe in His love? It would have been better that they had doubted His power, for doubting His love was a reproach to His character. The God who had just brought them through the first Passover celebration, demonstrating His love for them by sparing their children while killing the firstborn of all of Egypt, would later give His own Son as an atoning sacrifice in their place. He would demonstrate a love that would confound both man and the angels by delivering up His Son in the place of sinful man. It was this love, a love purer and deeper than anything known throughout the creation, that was being called into question. Great was the insult to God, and deep was His displeasure over their unbelief.
If you are a child of God then you have surely been brought to trials of your own where faith was necessary in order to overcome and see God’s deliverance. Perhaps you have known a financial crisis, or a health crisis, or a legal crisis, or some other test where you were placed in a perilous situation. Surely you heard the Spirit urging you to trust God, to place your hope and faith in Him to deliver you. When you heard this voice, did you truly doubt Yahweh’s ability to deliver you? Did you think He did not have the power to provide the money you needed, or to bring healing, or to deliver you from the peril you faced?
I have been placed in many such situations, and I know that the struggle in my heart was not in doubting His power and ability to deliver me. Rather, my struggle was in trusting in His willingness to deliver me. In my youth I struggled with this time after time. I would say to God, “I know You can save me if You are willing, but how do I know You are willing?” My struggle for faith was not based upon my doubting His power, it was in doubting His love for me. What a diabolical thing is this struggle. What a reproach to a loving heavenly Father who did not spare His own Son, but freely gave Him up for us.
I did not understand when I was younger that my unbelief in His willingness to save me was actually a lack of confidence in His love toward me. It was years later when I was faced with some severe tests that the understanding came. His grace was great toward me, and He enabled me to cast myself upon Him, believing that He did love me and He would surely not fail me as I looked to Him. It was after these tests that I came to understand that my decision to trust Him brought great honor to Him, for it was a testimony of my belief that He is a loving Father.
Throughout this book we will look at numerous examples that bring forth the understanding that faith is born out of a confidence in the love of God toward us. We will also see that men and women struggle with faith when they lack this assurance of God’s love.
It may seem incredible to us that the Israelites could have witnessed so many mighty acts of God and still failed in faith. We may be tempted to judge them as the most carnal of people after God had given them many assurances of His love and they still called it into question. Yet we need to judge with righteous judgment. We have been given a greater witness of God’s love then they ever received. They only saw a lamb being sacrificed to spare them from the penalty of death. We have the witness of God giving the life of His beloved Son for us. When we look to the cross and see what an awesome and incomprehensible love was demonstrated there, we have not a shred of room to ever doubt Yahweh’s love for us. But we struggle with unbelief, nonetheless.
We should weep and fall on our knees in repentance when we consider what a reproach we have often brought to God when we manifested unbelief in His willingness to see us through some situation. Yahweh has done all He could possibly do to demonstrate that His love for us is a faithful and true love, beyond our ability to comprehend. How His heart must ache when we come before Him with our doubts and anxieties and we ask Him, “Do you truly love me? Are you there? Have you forsaken me?” Look to the cross, child of God. His love is beyond questioning.
John 15:13
“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”
Romans 8:38-39
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Messiah Yahshua our Lord.
Prayer:
Father, forgive us for doubting your love. Your love is our delight. Though we do not deserve it, we receive it with gladness of heart and rejoicing. It is Your love that gives us hope, and it is in the confidence of Your love that we are able to demonstrate faith as we walk through many trials. Father, may You have a people who demonstrate an unshakeable confidence in Your love, and may I be among those people. May You receive honor as I willingly cast my life into Your hands in full assurance of Your great love for me. My Abba, my Father, my heart trusts in You.
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1 comment:
Thank you for sharing this. I was greatly convicted, yet also encouraged and look forward to reading more.
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