An Exhortation to Faith

Norman Grubb wrote the following exhortation in an article entitled, "The Authority of the Believer." It is good instruction for us today:

And the Lord said unto Moses, "Wherefore criest thou unto me? Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward: but lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it; and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.” Ex. 14:15-16.

“Why do you ask Me to do it? Do it yourself,” God was saying, in reality, to Moses. “'Stretch' out your rod and divide the sea.” In other words, Moses had said to God, “You do it”; but God answered Moses, “No, you do it.” A glance through the Bible or Christian biography multiplies instances of this: take account of the lives of Jeremiah, Gideon, Hudson Taylor, and others like them.

Man starts on the Christian highway with much of the grave-clothes of the Fall still upon him. Separation from God has been a stark reality to him; he knows the weakness of the flesh; visible lack and need are more real to him than invisible fullness and supply.

But to those who have ears to hear and hearts set to follow comes a new word: “Say not, I am a child”; “Go in this thy might”; "Say not, I am weak, I am carnal, I am needy, I am earthy"; "Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead"; "Understand that the Lord is joined unto you, one spirit. Understand that you have the mind of Christ. Understand that the life of Christ is ever flowing in and through you as the sap of the vine through the branches." You do not need to keep asking for what you already have. You do not need to sing, “I need Thee, oh I need Thee.” Sing, “I have Thee, oh I have Thee.” Never waste your breath by asking Him to be near you, who is already within you, joined to you in such a union that you and He are described as “one spirit.”

Do not cry out for what you already have, but use it, use it. “Wherefore criest thou unto me . . . stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it.” Speak out the word of faith. Exercise the authority of God.

Christ spoke such a word as this. He spoke it once to a fig tree: “No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever.” Mk. 11:14. Next day, Peter noted that it had withered, and he commented, “Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.” Now note what Christ said, in effect: “You go and do the same. I spoke the word of authority with which I am equipped by the indwelling Father (John 14:10). Now you speak it also.” His actual words were, “Have the faith of God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea . . . he shall have whatsoever he saith.”

“Have the Faith of God” is the literal rendering, as in the margin of the Authorized Version, and this conveys the vital meaning more clearly than just “Have faith in God,” as in the Authorized Version text.

The words, to “have faith in God” means to many just a reliance on the ability of God in His heaven and a leaving it to Him to do it. But to “have the faith of God” means to recognize an indwelling God (as Jesus did in the instance cited above), to realize that we have His mind, and that by the inspiration of his Spirit we speak forth with our human lips the word of believing faith, of authority, just as He did when He said, “Let there be light: and there was light,” or as the Lord Jesus did in the above incident. And we are told in Romans 4:17 the characteristic of the Faith of God, who “calleth those things which be not as though they were.” We are to do the same.

Thus Christ, said, “Say unto this mountain.” “Say,” not “pray.” The word is most significant. The thought is not that prayer should be omitted--for the ‘Word’ counsels us to pray. Prayer is the attitude of one who has not and needs. Saying the word of faith is the attitude of one who has and dispenses what he has. Such is the “throne life” as we commonly speak of it. A throne is occupied by a king. A king is a possessor and dispenser of gifts. Thus, as we who are believers are joined to Christ, He, the head, we the members of one Body, physically on earth, (spiritually enthroned), we are told that we are “kings . . . unto God,” and “seated in the heavenlies.”

Examine the men of God through the Bible--prophets, apostles--and you will find this conscious attitude of authoritative faith to be theirs. The difference stands out clearly with Hezekiah and Isaiah. Hezekiah was a man of prayer. The threats of the enemy came upon him with overwhelming force. He prayed. He bemoaned weakness. “This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy: for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.” Isa. 37:3. “Not strength” was his emphasis. Then he sent word of the situation to the man of faith. Hear Isaiah’s answer, a declaration, a saying unto this mountain. “Thus saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words that thou hast heard, wherewith the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Behold, I will sent a blast upon him, and he shall . . . return to his own land.” Vs 6,7.

The one--godly, praying man though he was--spoke in weakness. The other spoke in authority. The one was fully conscious of need and lack and separation from the supply of power. The other knew union with God, and spoke as His mouthpiece.

Latterly, I was notified of a severe crisis in one department of the work with which I am associated, sufficient, if it came to a head, to spoil the advance of years in that area. Before I understood the life of authority in the Spirit, I would have recognized the attempt of the devil to disrupt a work and would have laboured in prayer for the destruction of his devices. But, in the maintaining of the position of the throne life, the Lord spoke to me through one sentence in a letter concerning the affair. It said, “I am afraid you are in for a sea of trouble.” The Holy Spirit said, “What did Jesus do in a storm? Walk on the waters, or sink beneath them?”

I saw in a moment. I was not to spend one wasted minute fearing, doubting, burdened, magnifying the power of Satan. I was immediately to declare the victory over Satan gained two thousand years ago. I was to see it to be a present victory in this very affair, not a future one. I was to enjoy the defeat of Satan. I was to count this actual trial as “all joy” and no sorrow, and to realize that if God does allow the enemy to come in like a flood, it is always to give an opportunity for the authority of faith to be manifested by which Satan is given a bigger defeat, and the work of God a bigger advance.

So from that day to the day five months later when those concerned met for the critical settlement, I enjoyed the trial, laughed the laugh of faith, bore testimony in public and private that there was this severe trial, but that the devil always makes a laughingstock of himself (Col. 2:15); for his attacks in the hands of faith become boomerangs; he gets the defeat, and we the new blessing, as at Calvary. And I told folk that I would return to describe the victory in due course. And thus, of course, it has been. In one meeting every cloud vanished, unity and stability came to this department beyond anything in its history, and all learned a little more how not to be ignorant of Satan’s devices.

The use of “the faith of God” which was operative there against an attack of the enemy, has been proved hundreds of times over to be equally the secret for obtaining supplies, moving governments, saving souls, transforming characters, and the like.

To one who asks, “But how can we realize this as a personal experience?” we answer, as God answered Moses in the incident at the beginning of this article, "Awake. Arise from your deluded condition as if you are still fallen, still separated by sin, still weak. (Realize your equipment), the mystery hid from ages and from generations: (Christ in you). Declare it, as the prophets of old: 'I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord.' Cease to live bound up in those old grave clothes of 'judging by appearances,' 'walking by sight.'" You appear weak, you appear to be without the presence of Christ, you appear loveless, of little faith, and all the rest of it. You still live in the devil’s lies of the have-not life. But you have—all things. All is within, if Christ the Saviour within. Burst through those bonds of feelings. Say, “Though all men and devils say I have not, I say I have, on the authority of God’s Word.” Call the things that be not as though they were. Carry out Mark 11:24: “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”