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 do 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, through whom the Spirit then moves into manifestation?
We did that 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 (and we took no note of the need of the existing workers; we knew that was God’s normal business). So we named ten, and them 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. And we believed we received, as it said.
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 thank? 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 they all went to the Congo. The last one, Ivor Davies, was given the name Kumi, in Africa, which means ten. The last $1000 came three days before the anniversary. We were in Belfast in a prayer conference five days before, watching each mail, and the telegram came from Pauline in London, “$1000 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 15, the next 25, the next 50, the next 75, and they came. There would be no point in giving further details, for we are looking to principles; but I thank God that the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade, coupled with the Christian Literature Crusade that was born out of them, have some 1500 workers, establishing the Gospel in forty fields, and thank God today for the thousands around the world who have confessed Christ, and are themselves now forming national churches spreading the Gospel witness. And the whole company of Crusaders are still living with enthusiasm on the promises of God, and applying these same principles of faith to all kinds of advances. Millions of dollars now come annually when there was five thousand that first year. Failures there are en route: the, glory of the martyrdom of some who have laid down their lives, objectives of faith not yet in the visible; but with the general overwhelming evidences of the truth of God’s word—that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
| “But,” you ask, “what if the manifestation just doesn’t happen?” That’s not the point. The point is, have you come to see that faith is always consummated in our word of faith? All of life is catching on to the mind of God through our minds in a particular situation and replacing our negative thinking, then boiling it down to a clear specific objective, then stating that objective in its direct practical form by our word of faith, and 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. 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 may 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. Then 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 cannot ever come (since the time for the answer has passed with no answer), we then say, “He hasn’t done what I believed for. It hasn’t happened. Faith doesn’t work.” By that we have implied that the answer depended on our faith, and this has failed, or we have believed amiss, or something. But it was His faith expressed by us, and we were 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 we don’t see it 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 prayed we received. So it has happened. Hold on! It has happened even if we don’t see it except on 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, were persuaded of them and embraced them.” But even if they did not receive the fulness, 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 which did not 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 temptation to move back into separation, as if it is not God speaking by us in our fixed union, and we still have our separate self-condemning selves. Condemnation with darkness comes from beneath. Conviction with light and peace comes from above. Let’s go back to our spirit centers where the word is, “Be still and know that I am God.” Totally trust Him with the single eye, and I shall see that to what appeared to be a mistake or to have had some flesh motivation behind it, 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 do 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 has behind it something for my own satisfaction or self-display, regardless of whether it was for the glory of God or the benefit of others, or even to try out for our own benefit whether God is faithful to His promises or not. 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 faith, and that God meant it. Sometimes, as with Paul, the exact desire, as first named, is refused, not with a “No” but with a far faster “Yes.” Because if Paul had got 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 did get—to be an example to the whole church of Christ in all of the pressures of life—that God’s strength is made perfect in weakness (II 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 persecution, in distresses for Christ’s sake” and then, no longer mentioning God in it, “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, as you inwardly see it has happened. Watch for the happening, and enjoy the many times you see it happen. |