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God has Power over all creation and every circumstance of our lives
Faith is the key to divine healing, finances being restored and all that we need from God. Our faith in God releases His power into our lives, our bodies, and all our circumstances.
od brings things from the spirit realm into the natural realm. Now what is the part that the angels play?
Psalm 103:20 (KJV) says, Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. You will find all over the Bible where God will release a command and angels begin working with His words to bring them to pass.
MINISTERING SPIRITS
The word hearkening means attending to what has been uttered, to give heed to what has been uttered and obey it, and to comply with what has been uttered. Comply means to perform or to execute. In other words, this verse is telling us that when God's Word goes forth, the angels attend to what has been uttered, they give heed to it, they obey it, they perform it and they execute it.
Now, if that's the way it works with God, then we, having the same spirit of faith can utter the Word of God and the angels will hearken. Do you know what the problem has been with most Christians? The angels haven't been hearing anything that they can hearken to come out of their mouths. The angels don't hearken to unbelief. They don't hearken to woe is me. We are going broke. We are going to fail. They only hearken to God's Word
In other words, the moment a believer speaks God's Word, the angels hear it and when they hear it they know they are under assignment by God. They don't question it, and they don't have the right to decide whether they are going to obey or not. They have a charge and they have an assignment by God to hearken to that Word, to comply with that Word, to perform that Word and do whatever is necessary to execute that Word.
ASKING IN FAITH
"And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them" (Mark 11:22-24).
There is an unseen principle of force in the material world which is mightier far than all the physical elements that we touch and see.
It is the force of attraction which, in its twofold form of cohesion and gravitation, holds the physical universe together. As the force that condenses and holds in cohesion the minutest particles of matter, it is the cause by which, in a sense, all things consist or hang together. But for this cohesive force, our bodies would dissipate into impalpable air, the rain-drops and the oceans would dissolve into vapor, the mighty mountains would crumble to pieces, and the great world itself would explode in a catastrophe of wreck and dissolution.
- And in its wider and far-reaching application, it is the force that holds our planet in its orbit and keeps it, on its awful journey of a thousand miles a minute and more than five hundred million miles a year, from rushing into the distant fields of immensity, or diverging a hair-breadth from its unmarked path amidst the spheres, or even quivering in its course notwithstanding the terrific velocity of its career.
- It is the same force that holds all the planets on their aerial track, and all the systems that circle round ten thousand suns in all their spheres, without collision or catastrophe. It is the mighty power of gravitation. All unseen it is, and noiseless.
- There is no vibration in its mighty heart-throbs; no reverberation from its voice; no trace of its viewless but mighty arm. Yet, it is mightier than the earth which it poises in space and propels along its pathway; mightier than the sun, from whose center it sweeps the circle of the solar system with its revolving circuit of planets; mightier than all the stars in all their spheres; the great, invisible, intangible, inaudible, impalpable secret of the material universe and all its mighty movements. How simple is this subtle force, and yet how sufficient and sublime!
But now let us ascend from the material world to the social, rational, and human sphere, and there, too, we shall find a corresponding principle which holds society together, even as the law of gravitation holds the worlds of space.
What is that principle that binds the family together, that cements the friendships of life, that controls the partnerships of business, that forms the basis of commercial confidence and the greatest transactions of business, and leads men continually to stake their whole fortune and every material interest on their investments and securities?
- Why, it is simply confidence, trust, faith between man and man!
- Without it, the home circle would be torn with strife and wrecked with distrust and misery. Without it, political and national fabrics would collapse, and government would be impossible. Without it, business would be ruined. No single bank could stand a day without the trust of its constituents, and no security would be worth anything were men to cease to trust the promises and reliability of their fellowmen.
- The world is adopting this very name of trust in this day for its strongest institutions. Everything now is taking the form of a commercial trust.
- There must be some fascination in the term, and well there may be, for it is the very cohesive principle of society, the law of gravitation for the whole social world.
Let us now carry this thought to its true plane and apply it to the great spiritual kingdom of which all natural things are but imperfect types. Should it seem strange if this law of faith were found to be the very principle of the spiritual world as it is of the natural, the underlying force which holds it together, and the remedial principle which is to bring back our own lost orb to its true place in the circle of the heavens? Such indeed it is. Faith is the essential principle of the Kingdom of God. It was the loss of faith which separated man from God in Eden.
The fall of the race began the moment they listened to Satan's insinuations, "Hath God said?" and the recovery of the race commences the moment the soul begins to trust its God. This is why faith has been made indispensable to the reception of the gospel and the salvation of the soul. This is why it is forever true, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." Faith is the gateway of salvation, and it is not strange that it should be made the gateway of prayer.
Let us consider this great subject thoughtfully and prayerfully, and may the Holy Spirit search our hearts on this solemn matter, until we shall be convicted of sin, because we believe not. For this is the condemnation, because they have not believed on the name of the Son of God.
Faith is necessary in order to have acceptable and effectual prayer.
This our Lord very distinctly states in this passage. He commands the disciples to have faith in God, and then adds, "When ye pray, believe that ye receive them." But this is not the only place where this necessity is emphasized, for we are told in Hebrews that "without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him." There must be a believing recognition of God's personal existence and of His goodness and graciousness, and that He does hear and answer prayer.
In speaking of prayer for healing, it is declared that "the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up."
If we would understand what James means by the prayer of faith, we have only to turn to the first chapter and hear him say, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally" (or rather, "of course"), "but let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord."
- The language here is very emphatic. "Of course" God will give to all, but they must take by faith what God gives, or the giving is in vain. The man who wavers does not take, cannot receive.
- He is like that poor victim in the hospital who died in agony, with water held to his lips, but unable to swallow a single drop through the spasms which contracted his throat, arising from the most terrific of all human diseases.
- There are people to whom the Lord gives the Water of Life, but they will not drink it. There are people whose tables God has spread with the blessings of faith, but they do not partake of its bounties. There are prayers which God has answered, but we do not enjoy the answers.
- There are souls whom God has long ago forgiven, but they are in darkness and despair because they did not trust His pardon.
- Therefore, when the troubled and despairing father came to Him about his child, crying, "I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not . . . but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us, " the Master simply answered, as He turned the whole question back upon the man, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth."
It is perfectly right that God should require us to believe before He answers our prayers, because faith is the law of the New Testament and the gospel dispensation.
- The Apostle Paul speaks of two laws in the third chapter of Romans, the law of works and the law of faith. The former has been superseded, and the principle on which the whole gospel is based is the law of faith.
- "To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." We have already suggested why this law has been adopted.
- No doubt in the light of eternity we shall find many reasons for it which we could not now fully apprehend, but it is enough to know that as it was through unbelief that men fell, so it is through faith that they must be restored.
- In a word, we must come back to the point from which we started in a wrong direction. When Bunyan's pilgrim found that he had lost his roll on the Hill of Difficulty, he simply went back to the place where he had lost it and started on again.
- And so we must begin at the point of departure from God, by learning to trust Him. God is bound to act upon this principle if it be the law of this dispensation, and He cannot justly acknowledge our plea if we do not present it according to the prescribed rule.
If this be true, it works most solemnly in both directions; and while, on one side, it is gloriously certain, "According to your faith be it unto you," yet, on the other, it may be just as true, "According to your unbelief it shall be unto you." It may be that God for very consistency is required to keep His word to those who doubt Him as well as to those who believe Him, and that the enemy of souls might even accuse Him of falsehood and inconsistency if He answered the prayer of unbelief. He has announced this as the principle of His throne of grace, the very law on which petitions will receive attention and consideration, and surely we cannot afford to disregard this sacred intimation or venture into His presence expecting our unbelieving complaint and insulting doubts and insincerities to bring any blessing from His hand.
But faith is not only the law of the Christian dispensation; it is also a mighty force in the spiritual world. We are touching now upon a subject which the wisest spirits can but dimly comprehend, but upon which, perhaps, there is light enough to be well assured that the very act of believing for anything which God has promised is an actual creative force and produces effects and operations of the most important character.
Indeed it seems that faith is the very principle upon which God Himself acts, and the secret of His power in creating matter and in commanding the events of providence.
- "He spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast."
- When the disciples wondered at the withering of the fig tree, Jesus simply said it was an act of divine faith.
- It was the faith of God that produced it, and then He commanded them to "have faith in God." The faith of God must mean the faith which God Himself exercises. In the fourth chapter of Romans we are told a little about this faith of God, when it is said that Abraham acted like Him "who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were." He commands that which is not and expects it and believes in the efficacy of His own command without a shadow of hesitation, and He sees it instantly or ultimately accomplished. And even for the things that lie in the future in His purpose, He counts them as if they were present or past.
- The lapse of time is nothing in His mind and involves no uncertainty as to the results. He so believes in the things that are not that He calls them by the names of actual realities. He called Abraham "the father of many nations," before he even had a child, and made him call himself by the same significant name.
- He calls Jesus Christ "His only begotten Son," "the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world," and the cross was as real to the Father ages ago as it is now. He speaks of you and me as if we were already sitting in the heavenly palaces in the ages to come, and shining like the sun in the kingdom of our Father.
It was this faith in Jesus Christ that commanded and compelled the quickening of Lazarus in his tomb. It was a resistless force, a divine power that actually moved upon second causes and compelled their obedience; and if that faith of God be in us, it will be a corresponding force, and there shall be in us that effectual working prayer which availeth much, which, at the very moment we are offering it and believing for it, is moving something or upon some heart, and making someone conscious of the presence of the power of God.
Surely this is reason enough, then, that we should pray in faith. It is a spiritual force which God requires of us to cooperate with, to enter into, to use with Him and for His glory.
- The mighty forces of nature must have man's cooperation or they are lost and wasted. The electricity goes to waste if we do not constrain it to our will and use it according to its own laws. And so God's omnipotence must be taken hold of by our faith and actually used, in deep humility but holy confidence, for the carrying through of His own great purposes.
- Could we see what is behind the curtains of the invisible world, we should be able to trace living streams of spiritual influence passing from the heavens at the very instant that the prayer of faith is ascending from some lonely closet, and terminating upon the very persons at that very instant whose names are being held up before the throne.
- Two streams of heavenly power would be distinctly visible; one an ascending line of prayer from the kneeling suppliant, and the other a descending current of power upon some far distant heart. Such phenomena have actually been traced in innumerable instances.
- While Elijah was praying on Carmel, the clouds were actually marshaling on the distant horizon; while Jacob was praying at Peniel, the heart of Esau, as he lay in his tent that night, was going back to early memories, and melting into the tender welcome which he gave at that noontide to his once hated brother.
- While some of God's remembrancers have been holding up special fields in far distant lands, it has been actually found at that very moment showers of blessing have been descending on that special field prayed for.
- While some weeping wife or mother has been praying for her husband or boy, that husband or boy was being converted hundreds of miles away. Faith is therefore a force as mighty as that which we control when we touch the electric button, or open the valve of the engine, or pull the little cord that explodes the mighty subterranean battery which upheaves the mountain of rock or discharges the sunken torpedo. In requiring us, therefore, to pray in faith, God simply requires us to join hands with Himself in the exercise of His own almighty power, and be partakers of His mighty working.
The faith which God requires of us in prayer is essential to our own spiritual welfare; and, if it add no direct ulterior result in the actual answer, it would be abundantly repaid in the blessing which believing prayer brings to our own spirit.
- How it quiets our fears, tranquilizes our agitation, and stills our troubled spirit! How it enables us to submit to God and say "Thy will be done" as we never can until we believe that His will for us is only love and blessing.
- Indeed, so wonderful are the subjective benefits of prayer that many go so far as tosay that this is all the value of prayer. This would be a very foolish conclusion to adopt, for it would be a strange blessing if we were only comforted by an imaginary dream which had no objective reality.
- Take away the actual reality of God and the facts of prayer, and you take away the foundation of our subjective comfort; for, if God be not real and the answer not actual, why, our comfort is a lie, and our ulterior peace a delusive dream.
- But if we know God is real, and that His promise will be actually fulfilled, then indeed we can rest our troubled heads upon His breast and our hearts upon His promises, and be still and know that He is God.
How self-possessed and restful the hearts that have learned to trust God for all they ask! How sweetly these two thoughts are combined in the benignant words of the apostle in
- Philippians: "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
- " There we have the injunction to pray about everything-the requirement to pray without care, doubt, or anxiety, and then the promise that the peace of God shall keep our hearts and minds through Jesus Christ.
But God requires our trust in order to keep us from hindering His answer to our prayer by our own restless activity or flight.
- When we ask God to do anything for us, we must give Him time to do it, and carefully avoid rushing off in unbelieving haste to do something that would probably quite hinder His plan. Many a time, if God were to come with the answer to our prayer, He would find that we were not there, but had simply run away in fear and doubt, first firing our gun like a sentinel, and then getting off as fast as our limbs could carry us.
- Suppose Israel had not believed God when they cried unto Him at the Red Sea, but had rushed back upon their foes or forward into the deep or away into the mountains, where God could never have answered their prayer by dividing the sea.
- To prevent this He had to say to them first, "Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord," and then bid them go forward in His way and claim it.
Lesha M. Cantrell, M.Th.
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