CHAPTER EIGHT
Unbelieving Believers

One of these days some simple soul will pick up the Book of God, read it, and believe it. Then the rest of us will be embarrassed. We have adopted the convenient theory that the Bible is a Book to be explained, whereas first and foremost it is a Book to be believed (and after that to be obeyed).

The fact beats ceaselessly into my brain these days that there is a world of difference between knowing the Word of God and knowing the God of the Word. Is it not true that with the coming round of Bible conferences we hear only old things repeated, and most likely come away without any increase in faith? Perhaps God never had such a set of unbelieving believers as this present crop of Christians. How humiliating!

Are we mesmerized by spiritual wealth? Perhaps a penniless seaman might be tantalized and tormented to sail over the Atlantic, knowing that beneath him lies the Lusitania with ten million dollars in her holds—his for the taking! The only barrier is a mile or two of water! Even so, the Bible, the Christian’s checkbook from the Lord of glory, says: ‘‘ALL things are yours . . . and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.’’ I am finding a healthy dissatisfaction these days with the poverty of us believers.

We rarely enter a prayer meeting without hearing the familiar phrase, ‘‘Lord, thou canst do this,’’ (stating some particular need). But is that faith? No. That is but recognizing the attribute of God called omnipotence. I believe that the living, unchanging Lord of glory can change into solid gold this good-sized table at which I am typing. Changing water into wine or wood into gold is all within the compass of His power. But He changed water into wine because of need. Right now I could use a million clean dollars (and not a cent of it on myself) in a way that would not make me tremble or blush in ‘‘that great day’’; and so I believe that there is genuine need. But, to say that He can do this does not change the wood; it therefore leaves me unsupplied. Yet when I move up and say, ‘‘He will change this table into gold,’’ my problem is solved.

We all know that ‘‘the greatest of these [faith, hope, and love]’’ is not faith. But why overlook the lesser? Where is there pure faith these days? What a travesty of interpretation of genuine faith there is right now! A familiar cry is: ‘‘We believe that the Lord would have us broadcast over ten more radio stations; we are looking to Him to supply our needs; send us your letters before next week!’’ That may be faith and hints, but it is not being shut up to God alone. We Christians glibly quote, ‘‘My God shall supply all (tremendous word!) your need’’; but really, do we believe it?

Without lessening its value, an appendix could be added to Hebrews Eleven and could include Hudson Taylor (founder of the China Inland Mission), George Mueller, Rees How-ells, and others who ‘‘through faith’’ did mighty works. In this perilous hour I am weary of all our mighty talk about our risen, wealthy LORD, and yet the trailing poverty of us sickly believers! God honors not wisdom nor personality but faith. Faith honors God. And God honors faith. God goes wherever faith puts Him. Faith, in a sense which I believe you will understand, localizes deity. Faith links our impotence to His omnipotence.

The scientific world has broken the sound barrier; the lax, lustful world around us screams out to us that men have broken the sin barrier; now, please God, may we move along and by simple, single-eyed faith, break the doubt barrier! Doubt delays and often destroys faith. Faith destroys doubt. The blessed Book does not say ‘‘if thou canst explain the Scriptures, all things are possible to him that explaineth.’’ God being who He is will never be explained in time; nor, we think, will He try in eternity to explain either Himself or His ways. The Book which is as immutable as its Author says, ‘‘If thou canst believe, ALL (that unavoidable word again) things are possible to him that believeth.’’

We have often heard people say with a sense of injury (after they have been overlooked for a job they thought they were admirably suited for), ‘‘It is not what you know these days that matters, but whom you know.’’ I do not pretend to know how real that reasoning is in the business world; but I am absolutely sure it is right in the spiritual realm. What we know about God these days is giving us a deep stream of shallow books and is filling our libraries. (We are not despising true learning, and certainly not that wisdom which comes from above.) But what we know is one thing; whom we know is quite another. Paul had nothing, but yet ‘‘possessed all things.’’ Sublime paradox! Blessed poverty! This blessed man was loaded spiritually. Building Christ’s empire and writing the oracles of the Lord never unbalanced him. Yet despite Paul’s incomparable record, we find him toward the end of the journey still longing for more: ‘‘That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.’’

Much of the barrier to believers’ translating the promises of God into fact before the eyes of men is that wretched thing called self. But Paul remembered when his old King Self was dethroned and—what is more—crossed out on a cross (Gal. 2:20). Then Christ was enthroned. And before we can be clean and ready for Him to control, self-seeking, self-glory, self-interest, self-pity, self-righteousness, self-importance, self-promotion, self-satisfaction—and whatsoever else there be of self—must die. Who a man is is not important; What he knows does not matter; but what he is to the inscrutable God is what matters. If we displease God, does it matter whom we please? If we please Him, does it matter whom we displease? What we can be in union with Christ is one thing; but what we are is quite another. I am terribly dissatisfied with what I am. If you ‘‘have arrived,’’ then pity your weaker brother and pray for me.

There is a faith that is just natural, intellectual, and logical; there is a faith that is spiritual. What good is it to preach the Word, if, as we present it, there is no kindling faith to make it live? ‘‘The letter killeth.’’ Shall we add death to death? The greatest benefactor of this generation will be the person who brings down on this strutting but stricken protestantism the inestimable power of the Lord. The promise still stands: ‘‘The people that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits.’’ If any of us knows God, ‘‘then watch out, Lucifer!’’