The Rest and the Courage of Faith # 2

A Present Entering into Rest (continued)

The rest of faith must be our position; not only in the great matter of justification, though if it is not settled here, it will not be settled anywhere. Oh, the enemy is striking at that, even with the people of God; he is ever seeking to undercut that; in some way to raise again the question of justification, of being just with God in our standing, in our acceptance - not yet fully and finally in our state, only in Christ; that is, not as finally perfect in ourselves, but in that union on the ground of what He is. The enemy never ceases to try to undercut that, and his methods are countless and very persistent and very forceful. The rest of faith in that, but also in a hundred and one other ways in the practical things of everyday life; things which are not in our power to arrange, secure, settle and bring to pass. Every day beings hundreds of ways in which there is the opportunity to stand into the rest of faith, into that faith in the Lord which brings rest. So subtle are the ways of the enemy that he will even tell us that that is too small a thing with which to trouble the Lord; that is a mere incident, why take that to the Lord? He has bigger and more important things than that on hand! Why try to make the Lord your errant-boy (I say that reverently) just to do all the little things you want done? If in this the testimony is preserved in rest, then it is a big thing to the Lord, not a little thing. If in this matter the Lord's glory stands to suffer, then it is a very big thing. It may be an incident in daily life, yes, in many, many ways every day, you and I can so lose our poise and our rest and our quiet confidence as to lose our spiritually, and the Lord lose much, so that it is proved that somewhere faith has been lacking, and with it the rest has gone. That is one side. It is a challenge to us, a real challenge.

The Necessity For Faith

"We see that they were not able to enter in because of unbelief". "Not able" - paralyzing, disqualifying, incapacitating unbelief. That means that the sooner we face this whole question and, as far as possible, get it settled, the better. For thirty-eight years Israel was simply locked up, held up, and went around and around, so to speak, on this one question as to whether they were going to believe God. It arose, let me say again, on all kinds of matters. It arose on physical matters, for a life in that wilderness was a great proposition physically. The Lord did not change the physical conditions. He called for a change in the people themselves first; the physical conditions were settled when He had got the change inside them. When the matter of faith in Him was settled, then the Lord dealt with the physical. The question arose in the circumstantial, the emotional, the intellectual, the volitional realms; the challenge was made along all those lines in numerous ways. You can take all their experiences and see how each one was a peculiar form of the challenge to faith, and the challenge was changing almost daily in its aspect, its form, but it was the same challenge. It came along every kind of line and the Lord never changed it, never prevented it, never allowed the whole set of conditions to be altered, but always focused on one point. The thing that matters is the inner man, and not until the issue was settled there, did the Lord deal with all the other things.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 3)