Reading: Genesis
15:5, 17:1-8; Romans 4:17-24; Hebrews 11:8-10; Revelation
21:9-18, 22:1-2.
We were speaking about
God's governing thought of enlargement, bringing to
remembrance His words to Abraham concerning the immense
increase which He purposed for His servant; and then we
saw how every bit of that increase came along the line of
a testing of faith.
This is not just
teaching. These things are very pertinent and appropriate
to our need at the present time. The whole work of the
enemy is by every means and agency to limit what is of
God, to reduce it, to make it as small as possible and
keep it so. God's thoughts, of course, are entirely to
the contrary; but God's thoughts do not just operate and
come to realization automatically. He is dealing with
living people, not with a mechanical world. It is in a
people that His thoughts are to have their fulfilment,
individually and collectively. For the realization of His
thoughts, therefore, all the work of the enemy has to be
overcome.
The
Battle Of Unbelief
Now the work of the
enemy is not only from the outside - it is from the
inside. The enemy has got a very strong and deep foothold
in man by nature, in you and in me, and it is no small
thing to enlarge us unto the enlargement of God. There is
very much in us that ever seeks to frustrate and limit
God. That foothold of the enemy in us by nature is
something that ever stands in the way of God's thoughts,
as a positive force to resist God. The essential nature
of the foothold is unbelief, and there is not one
of us, no matter how advanced may be the point of our
spiritual progress, who has no battle remaining with the
unbelief of his own heart.
"The sin which doth
so easily beset us" (Heb. 12:1), which impedes,
retards, and arrests us in the spiritual race, is
unbelief. You know that this letter to the Hebrews is all
concerned with going on - going on to fulness; and here,
in this metaphor of the race - 'running with patience the
race that is set before us' - we find the exhortation to
lay aside this impeding thing that so easily besets us.
It is unbelief. In the original text, the passage follows
immediately, without any chapter division, upon the
eleventh chapter of the letter, which is the chapter of
faith. Thus, in that quite general way, it is very
appropriate to our present need to speak about this
matter of 'faith unto enlargement', for as it was with
Abraham, so it is with us all.
But of course it has
particular and specific applications. In the work of the
Lord, in a ministry, in a testimony, in an
instrumentality for Divine purpose, there are times when
the direction and course of everything seems to be to
close it down, to thwart, frustrate, and bring it to an
end; and because of that, a very great test of faith
arises. Those concerned are thrown into the vortex of a
great conflict as to whether God, after all, wants this,
means this, is after this--or whether, in view of the
accumulation of frustrating, crippling, limiting efforts
and activities, some mistake has not been made, and the
whole thing needs to be reviewed and revised. At such
times, the enemy does press very hard with questions. It
is a time of severe testing of faith. And what is true
collectively becomes so true in individual lives from
time to time.
Abraham's
Tests Of Faith
Now, the point and the
argument of all that we see in the Bible is this: that
the very testing of faith is God's way of enlargement.
Fresh enlargements will come by fresh testings. That is
the order of things. It ever has been so. You see, here
is Abraham. With an oath and a covenant, God has
announced to him His thoughts about this great
enlargement. "I will make thy seed as the dust of
the earth" (Gen. 13:16). "I will multiply thy
seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which
is upon the sea-shore" (22:17). God has not left
Abraham in any doubt as to His thoughts about
enlargement.
But look at the testings
into which Abraham was immediately brought. He had,
speaking naturally, every ground and reason for saying,
'I have made a mistake in thinking that God meant that. I
have misunderstood what the Lord meant; I have been
caught in some illusion.' It would have been very easy
for Abraham, under the pressure and the trial, to have so
reacted. But the point is this, that the Lord has done,
where Abraham is concerned, far more than Abraham ever
thought. For you see, all that great multitude presented
to us in the last book of the Bible - 'a great multitude,
which no man could number' (Rev. 7:9), 'ten thousand
times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands' (Rev.
5:1) - Paul says they are the seed of Abraham (Gal.
3:29): not Jews, but believers, the children of faith
(3:7). Every one who has reposed faith in God is the seed
of Abraham - a countless seed. It has come to pass. But
see how Abraham's faith was progressively tested on this
matter of enlargement. It was not one battle fought once
and for all, and settled; but over a long life, till he
was a hundred years old, in different forms, at different
stages and with accentuated poignancy, again and again
the test of enlargement was raised.
But every test passed
meant some further enlargement. We have said that that is
a way and a law of the Lord. It is something to hide in
our hearts. The Psalmist said: "Thy word have I hid
in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee"
(Psa. 119:11). The sin of all sins, where God is
concerned, is unbelief, and here is a word that we must
hide in our hearts against the day of trial - the day
when we feel our faith is being so tested and tried and
pressed by the situations in which we find ourselves,
that it must mean limitation--it must work out to
curtailment, if not to an utter end. The Bible all the
way through argues the other way: that such tests of
faith are ever alongside of God's expressed and revealed
mind, that these tests are the way for the realization of
His purpose, and that the thought of God is, in the first
place, enlargement.
Establishment
But if spiritual
enlargement is a need, and if the work of God, the
testimony of Jesus, needs releasing and enlarging, is
this not equally true in the matter of establishment -
the establishing of the Lord's people? If God is after
enlargement, He is certainly revealed to be equally
desirous of, and working toward, that which is solid,
that which is substantial, that which is characterized by
stability, endurance, steadfastness, trustworthiness,
faithfulness, responsibility, depth. These words touch
the situation very, very closely.
We may recall that the
New Testament was written almost entirely for the
establishment of believers. Typical phrases are: "I
long to see you… to the end ye may be
established" (Rom. 1:11); and: "Now He That
establisheth us with you in Christ… is God" (2
Cor. 1:21).
God works for that which
will endure. A characteristic of God is the "for
ever" feature. "Whatsoever God doeth, it shall
be for ever" (Eccles. 3:14). The chief factor in
establishment is faith. Firstly it is the establishment of
faith - the objective ground. This is the message and
meaning of the Letter to the Romans. There can be no
subjective work unto this objective position is secured.
Indeed, it would be very dangerous to proceed with the
subjective otherwise. All further and fuller work in
us necessitates a strong and settled faith in what has
been done for us, and in what our standing is by
grace.
Then comes the
establishment in faith This means the removal of
all false ground - any ground of confidence or trust
which is other than God Himself. In this category of
false ground come our feelings, theories, traditions, and
all external supports. All these will prove false and
incapable of bearing the strain of true faith's testing.
In order to keep to reality and true life God shatters
all false positions, shakes all false ground, and strips
off all vain confidence.
This applies to our
lives and our work. It is very impressive to note that,
when Paul was a prisoner and when many old friends
forsook him, when churches which were his life-work
turned from him, he then wrote such tremendously assured
and confident letters as those called "To the
Ephesians", "To the Colossians", and
"To the Philippians". This does not look as
though he believed that the real work was breaking down.
"Unto the ages of the ages" is characteristic
of these messages.
Paul knew what he meant
when, in writing to the Thessalonians, he used the
phrase: "Your work of faith" (1 Thess. 1:3).
His was that, and it paid large dividends, although both
the faith and the work underwent severe testings.