TILL ALL OUR STRUGGLES CEASE
ONE OF THE chief difficulties is our failure to see that faith can be received only as it is imparted to the heart, by God Himself. Either you have faith, or you do not. You cannot manufacture it ... you cannot work it up. You can believe a promise, and at the same time not have the faith to appropriate it. But we have formed the habit of trying to appropriate by belief; forgetting the while that belief is a mental quality, and that when we try to believe ourselves into an experience, we are getting into a metaphysical realm.
But faith is spiritual ... warm and vital ... it lives and throbs; and its power is irresistible, when it is imparted to the heart by the Lord. It is with the heart that man believes unto righteousness. Heart belief opens the door of communication between us and the Lord and a divinely imparted faith becomes possible.
Is it not a fact that with most of us our conception of Faith has resulted in our struggling in an attempt to believe? It may be that, with all our struggling, we have come at last to the place where we do believe; and then we have been bewildered by the fact that we did not receive the thing for which we prayed. We must discern that such belief is not necessarily what the inspired Word calls faith. In later chapters, we shall give you many scriptures that prove beyond the shadow of a doubt the truth of this alarming statement.
According to the Word of God, all we need is faith as a grain of mustard seed, and the things which the world calls incredible and impossible will be brought to pass. How many times during the meetings we have conducted have we seen the scripture stories of yesteryear enacted again before our eyes!
The seventeenth chapter of Matthew is a chapter of contrasts. It climbs to the heights, and then goes down to the depths. It talks of mustard seed and mountains of despair and transfiguration; but what a lesson the Holy Spirit would bring to you and me on this great subject of faith through its priceless words. Down from the mountain top of transfiguration came our blessed Lord. Down from the gates of heaven itself, where the glory breezes kissed His cheek and the angels wrapped around His shoulders the robes that had been woven on the looms of light. Down from a place of holy communion and encouragement to the place of human defeat and perhaps despair; for at the foot of the Glory mountain was a valley, and through it wound a trail of human bewilderment.
There was sickness there. A crushed and bleeding heart was there. A father who had met an obstacle that had crushed him in spirit and in heart was there. Preachers were there, too. They had gone through the formula. They had rebuked the devil. They had shouted and groaned just like we have done a hundred times, and yet the things for which they prayed had never happened. Even as with you and me.
THEN JESUS SPOKE
Then Jesus spoke! O glorious words of omnipotence! Matchless words of authority divine! With Him there was no struggle. There was no groaning, and no battle that was fierce and long, to bring about the answer to a broken father's prayer. He spoke. The devil fled. A happy boy, cuddled in his father's arms, sobbed his gratitude to God. A happy father embraced his boy and looked with tear-stained eyes of love and adoration at the face of the Man before whom devils fled.
Then again Jesus spoke! In answer to their question regarding their defeat, he said: "Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, "Remove hence to yonder place;" and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." What a statement! All we need is faith as a grain of mustard seed and mountains will tremble in fear as we approach.
Do you realize what Jesus was saying? He declared that the least amount of faith that He could give was greater and mightier than the largest amount of the power of the devil. Here was a David and Goliath experience in the realm of the soul. A mustard seed went to battle against a mountain and slew it; but it had required the faith that He alone could impart as a gift.
Did those disciples believe? Yes they did. They believed in Jesus. They believed in His promises. They believed in divine healing, or never would they have held the healing meeting that day. Believing just exactly like you and I have believed in healing services and in our church meetings, they prayed and importuned; but nothing happened. What they needed, according to Jesus, was faith-not a carload of it, but just a little faith - as a grain of mustard seed. That would be enough! That would be all that was necessary . . . if it was really faith.
When a woman in one of my congregations one night told me that she had all the faith in the world for her healing, I regretted to have to tell her that if I had faith as a grain of mustard seed ... just that much of my Master's faith ... what greater miracles would have been wrought in the mighty name of Jesus that night!
Let us face the issue squarely. Let us with open, surrendered hearts ask the Holy Spirit to send forth the Light and Truth to lead us to that Holy Hill. Is it not evident that when we have prayed what we thought was the prayer of faith and nothing happened, it must be that what we thought was faith was not faith at all? Did Jesus say that faith, as a grain of mustard seed, would work some times and not at others? Did He declare that it would be operative on occasions and inoperative at other times? Read the text. His declaration was clear, concise, and plain. There was nothing ambiguous about it. It was a plain statement of fact from the lips and heart of the eternal God Himself; and who can speak with greater authority than He?
Whenever and wherever this faith is in operation, we shall no longer be standing around poor, sick folk hour after hour, rebuking, commanding, demanding, struggling, and pleading as in the days of yore. There may be a place for intercession, but it is not in the exercise of faith. Intercession and groaning of the heart may precede the operation of faith; but when God's faith is imparted, the storm dies down and there is great calm and a deep settled peace in the soul. The only sound will be the voice of thanksgiving and praise. The full realization-that it was not our ability to believe that made the sickness go, but rather that the faith which is of God was imparted-will steal over our soul, like a morning daybreak, to bid the night shadows flee away.
Then it is morning-glorious morning in our soul. We can believe in the morning . . . we can love in the morning . . . we can have confidence in the morning . . . but only God can send the morning. He alone can make it. We can believe in healing . . . we can believe in our blessed Redeemer and His power to heal . . . but only He, the Lord Jesus Christ, can work the work which will lift us to the mountain peaks of victory.
THE
The mistake with many people has been that they have confused their own ability to believe for the faith which is of God. To sit down and repeat over and over "I am healed-I am healed-I am healed" is not only unscriptural, but extremely dangerous spiritually. I admit that such a spiritually unsound procedure might help a few neurotics, but it would never remove the mountains of which the Master spoke. How well do I remember the crippled man in a wheel chair, whose case would best illustrate scores of others whom we have contacted from time to time. Around him were grouped a dozen people who were doing everything in their power to get him out of that chair. There were prayers and tears mixed with commands and rebukes; and every sincere effort was being put forward to get him to walk.
When I talked with him quietly, he told me with such deep sincerity that he had been trying so hard to believe. He informed me that he had had lots of faith but now was bewildered and perplexed as to what to do. I soon discovered that he had been entirely wrong as to what faith really is. He had thought that he would be healed if only he could believe that he was healed. That was what he was struggling and trying to do.
He believed the promises of the Word. He believed in the power of Jesus to accomplish the miracle. He believed so many, many things-wonderful and glorious to believe in these days of doubt and fear-but he was trying to do the impossible. He was staking the working of the miracle on his ability to believe mentally that it was done.
I told him the story of a visit I once made to the house
where Jesus turned the water into wine. I told him of how the Holy Spirit spoke
to this unworthy heart of mine as I stood before those pots. I asked him if he
believed the Bible story of the miracle which the Master did in Cana of Galilee. He told me that he did. As my thoughts
turned back to that afternoon in
This is the lesson I received that day. Though the mother of Jesus, as well as the disciples, was there, would that water have turned into wine if they had merely believed that it was wine? It required the command which left the lips divine! It required the touch of the hand of God Himself. They could fill the pots with water; they could fill them to the brim. They could carry them to the appointed place. They could do the things He told them to do; for He never asks men to do the impossible. That power He reserves for Himself.
All things are possible with
God. But Mark (
So I told my story to the old man in the wheel chair. Did
you ever see a flower open to the smile and kiss of the morning sun? I saw one
that day, as I looked into the face of the dear old man. Home he went to
patiently wait until some angel voice would whisper in his soul the news that
Jesus of Nazareth was passing by on the
A few nights later he was back in his wheel chair. I met him. "I am going to walk tonight," he declared. His eyes were alight with something I knew was faith. "How do you know it?" I asked him. "It is so quiet and peaceful in my soul; I am so happy in the consciousness of His presence, that all I need now is to obey His word and be anointed in His blessed name." There was no struggle; not even intercession, for that had gone before.
There is no need of the darkness, when the sun has come up over the hill; no need for the struggle between darkness and light, that we call the morning twilight, after the rays of sunshine have kissed the earth! Out of his wheel chair he got and walked the length of the altar; then down on his knees in adoration, praise and worship, to pour out his grateful heart in thanksgiving for the heart belief, or faith, that comes only from God.
THE MASTER'S VISIT
The postman has just been to my door. He left a letter that I want you to share with me. It is the story of a woman who was crippled beyond any I have ever seen in the many years I have presented my Lord as the Saviour of the soul and the Healer of the body. When first I saw her, she begged piteously for prayer. She asked me to heal her. I could not . . . and I knew it. I might have gone through a series of commands, rebukes and pleadings ... but I did not. I was just a disciple at the foot of the mountain; and I knew that we both needed our Lord to come down.
I believed in Jesus, and His power to raise the fallen. I believed His promise, and I stood on His word. But as I looked into the face of a woman who had crawled on her hands for ten years, and who was helpless from the waist down, my heart told me that I needed more than just to believe she was healed. I needed the impartation of that faith which supersedes reason; I needed that spiritual quality of heart belief which no mental affirmations of mind could ever bring about. I knew that was what she needed too.
So I pleaded with her to contact Jesus. I begged her to wait patiently for the Lord. Her hour would come . . I felt it in my heart. I knew that Jesus never fails. But, oh how many times, we prevent His working by our foolish endeavors to do what He alone has power to accomplish. So day after day her husband and friends carried her to the meetings. Day after day she sought the face of the Lord. Night after night they picked up her helpless body and placed it before the old wooden bench where prayer was wont to be made.
The days passed. In spirit she climbed the temple steps into the tabernacle of the Lord. She passed by the altars of surrender and sacrifice, and one night she entered into the Holy of Holies. What a night! It was Sunday. Healing was not on the program which had been printed by human hands. But God works wonders when Jesus of Nazareth passes by; and the Holy Spirit can make us rise above our forms, rituals and plans.
A beautiful spirit pervaded that Sunday evening service. Down at the altar, where she had been carried by her husband, she reclined to pray, for she could not kneel. Then Jesus came. He gave her a vision of Himself. She saw Him at the end of a road. He smiled. She was conscious of faith flowing like a river across the fields of her heart. Before it happened, she knew it! How, or why, she could not tell; but she knew that there had been a divine infusion of the Faith that is the Faith of the Son of God.
At that very moment, the Saviour imparted His Faith to my heart too. I turned to the Methodist minister on the platform and said, "Tonight we shall see the glory of the Lord." We did. As the hand of the Lord was laid upon her, she straightened out. Her shriveled limbs grew to normal size faster than it takes to tell it. She stood to her feet! She walked! No need to be carried now, except in the loving arms of Jesus.
Down to the foot of the cross streamed sinners to seek a Saviour! The building rang with the praises that come from happy hearts, and the rafters resounded with the message:
"Only Jesus, only Jesus,
Only He can satisfy.
Every burden becomes a blessing,
When 1 know my Lord is nigh."
ONLY JESUS
The reason for telling this story is that I want you to see the difference between human effort to believe, and the faith that is the gift of God. How much better, and more scriptural, it is to wait until Jesus of Nazareth passes by and speaks the word of faith to the needy heart, than to mistake our belief in healing for the faith which He alone can give.
Frankly, the day they first brought that poor, helpless woman for prayer, I was aware of three things. I knew she did not have faith; I knew I did not have the faith; and I knew that only Jesus had. So quite evidently our mission was to draw close to Jesus. It is our privilege to take our troubles and our cares to Him in prayer; and within our heritage is the right to draw apart from the world into the sacred place of communion, where heaven comes down . . . our souls to greet . . . and glory crowns the Mercy-Seat.
That is what we did! We could have set our minds and our
wills to work right then and there. We could have commanded, exhorted and
entreated . . . and she could have struggled to rise, as others have done, in the power of will instead of in faith. But no ... there is a better
and sweeter way. It is God's way! It is the Bible way. It was a long way for
the nobleman to walk from
It may be that the trail will be steep over consecration mountain and through the valley of the+ yielded heart; but hope will give strength to our feet and, as we walk with Jesus in the way, the toils of the road will seem nothing; for He and He alone is the giver and imparter of that faith which is able to remove mountains.
I should like to share with you our sister's letter:
Dear Brother Price:
Christian greetings! Oh, hallelujah, the joy bells are ringing in my heart because of Jesus!
As the time draws near to another anniversary of the great
miracle performed upon my body, the thoughts and the warmth of my husband's
heart and mine, go out to you in a very special way. Thank God, the blessed
Christ came to us and manifested His power and presence so preciously to us,
that evening,
What good measure He gave us! He saved my soul as well as healed my body, using you as His disciple. Truly 1 was in a pitiful condition, was I not, Brother Price? I was in great need both spiritually and physically. Spiritually, I thought 1 was saved, but was really sort of on the fence, having too much of the Lord to enjoy the world, and too much of the world to have real joy in the Lord.
Through your preaching the full gospel, the real joy of the
Lord came into my heart, also my husband's to abide-with the assurance that our
many sins were washed away in Jesus' cleansing blood. Physically well, you
pretty well know my condition in that respect, as you could see for yourself my
helplessness when I was taken into your meetings, not being able to walk or
stand, or even let my feet rest on the floor in the usual way when sitting in
my chair. Ten long years of helplessness, being carried in the arms of my
faithful husband, with continual suffering; and then, Jesus again walked the
My heart overflows as I talk to you of it, and the tears are
and too, for Jesus' love melts me down in praise and thankfulness before Him.
Yes, Jesus heals sick bodies today! Keep on telling the good news, Brother
Price, for there are so many sick and afflicted ones all about us. God's word
tells us that Jesus healed the lame, the blind, the lepers, and all manner of
diseases, when He walked this earth many years ago, and we do know that He does
the very same in the days in which we live. His power has not lessened. Those
bleeding healing stripes He bore at
In thankfulness and praise to Jesus, we again wish to thank you, Brother Price, for the part you had in the great work. Like Paul, you were not disobedient to the heavenly vision, for you did not compromise in any way, but declared the whole truth, not leaving out that Jesus heals the sick today.
My husband and I are so well in body, all glory and praise to Jesus our physician. Never any need for pills or liniment now; the promises are sufficient. Hallelujah! Jesus never, never fails.
'We continue to pray for you. May you ever be guided by the Holy Spirit, and anointed from above for even greater service than in past years, to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ.
How the Holy Spirit warms me as I write, and the power of God thrills and fills me. Hallelujah! Jesus lives! How do we know? Thank God, because He lives within.
Cordial Christian love to you all, from your ever thankful friends in Jesus,
Brother and Sister Johnson