"The knowledge of what the Scripture means when urging upon us the
necessity of cultivating faith is more important than any other
knowledge that can be obtained."
Faith is the expecting the word of God to do
the thing which that word speaks and the depending upon the word only to
accomplish the thing which that word speaks.
Abraham is the father of all them which be of
faith. The record of Abraham, then, gives instruction in faith -- what
it is and what it does for him who has it.
What shall we say, then, that Abraham our
father, as pertaining to the faith, has found? What saith the Scripture?
When Abram was more than eighty years old and
Sarai his wife was old and he had no child, God "brought him forth
abroad and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to
number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be."
And Abram "believed in the Lord; and he
counted it to him for righteousness." Gen. 15:5,6. Abram accepted
the word of God and expected by the word what the word said. And in that he was right.
Sarai, however, did not put her expectation
upon the word of God only. She resorted to a device of her own to bring
forth seed. She said to him, "The Lord hath restrained me from bearing: I
pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by
her." Gen. 16:2.
Abram, for the moment, swerved from the
perfect integrity of faith. Instead of holding fast his expectation
and dependence upon the word of God only, he "harkened to the voice of
Sarai."
Accordingly,
a child was born, but the whole matter proved to be so unsatisfactory to Sarai
that she repudiated her own arrangement. And
God showed His repudiation of it by totally ignoring the fact that any child
had been born. He changed Abram's name to Abraham and continued to talk
about making him the father of nations through the seed promised and of making
his covenant with Abraham and the seed that was promised. He also changed
Sarai's name to Sarah, because she should "be a mother of nations"
through the promised seed.
Abraham noticed this total ignoring of the
child that had been born and called the Lord's attention to it, saying, "O,
that Ishmael might live before thee!"
But "God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear
thee a son indeed, and thou shalt call his name Isaac, and I will establish my
covenant with him for an everlasting covenant and with his seed after him. And as for
Ishmael, I have heard thee: behold, I have blessed him, and will make him
fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and
I will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac,
which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year." Gen.
17:15-21.
By all this both Abram and Sarai were taught
that, in carrying out the promise, the fulfilling of the word of God, nothing would answer but dependence upon that
word only. Sarai learned that her device brought only trouble and
perplexity and delayed the fulfillment of the promise. Abram learned that
in harkening to the voice of Sarai, he had missed the word of God, and that now
he must abandon that whole scheme and turn again to the word of God only.
But now Abraham was ninety-nine years old and
Sarah was eighty-nine. And, if anything, this seemed to put farther
off than ever the fulfillment of the word and called for a deeper dependence
upon the word of God -- a greater faith than before.
It was perfectly plain that now there was no
possibility of dependence upon anything whatever, but the naked word only; they
were shut up absolutely to this for the accomplishment of what the word said.
All
works, devices, plans, and efforts of their own were excluded, and they were
shut up to faith alone -- shut up to the word alone and to absolute
dependence upon that word only for the accomplishment of what that word said.
And now that the way was clear for "the
word only" to work, that word did work, effectually, and the promised
"seed" was born. And so "through faith," through
helpless, total dependence upon the word only -- "Sarah herself received
strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age,
because she judged him faithful who had promised."
And "therefore sprang there even of one,
and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as
the sand which is by the seashore innumerable." Heb.
11:12.
And thus was fulfilled the word spoken to
Abram, when God "brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now
toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them . . . . So
shall thy seed be."
This is a divine lesson in faith. And this is
what the Scripture means when urging upon us the necessity of cultivating
faith. For this was imputed to
Abraham for righteousness, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith.
Yet "it was not written for his sake
alone, that it was imputed to him, but for us also, to whom it shall be
imputed, if we believe on him that
raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and
was raised again for our justification." Rom. 4:23-25.
And all "they which be of faith are
blessed with faithful Abraham." All they who, excluding -- yea,
repudiating -- all works, plans, devices, and efforts, of their own, depend
in utter helplessness upon the word of God only to accomplish what that word
says -- these are they which be
of faith and are blessed with faithful Abraham with the righteousness of God.
O, "understanding how to exercise faith:
this is the science of the gospel"! And the science of the gospel is the
science of sciences. Who would not
strain every nerve to understand it?
RH Jan. 24,
1899
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