The Province of Faith - Glenn Conjurske
The Province of Faith
by Glenn Conjurske
Abstract of a Sermon Preached on October 6, 1996
The title of this sermon may not very well express its contents. I usually don’t have any trouble formulating titles for my sermons and articles, which are succinct and expressive, but this time I am at a loss. What I mean by the province of faith—-and perhaps I should say “provinces” or “acts” or “ways”—-is simply what is the proper business of faith, what it does.
Though there is a great deal of preaching on faith in the Evangelical church, and though faith is very properly understood to belong to the foundation of our relationship to God, it seems that there is precious little understanding of what faith actually is, or of what it does. The notion which most people seem to have of faith is that it is that faculty by which we receive things from God. This is true, so far as it goes, but it is a very deficient idea of faith. So deficient, indeed, as to be practically wrong—-so deficient as to lead us actually astray.
Turning to Hebrews 11, which is properly called the “faith chapter” of the Bible, we find indeed some things about receiving from God, but we find some other things also. In verse 11, “Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age.” In verses 33-35 we have a glorious list of things which the saints of old received by faith. “Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens,” and “Women received their dead raised to life again.”
But there are also some things in this chapter about not receiving. In verse 39, “And these all, having obtained a good report though faith, received not the promise.” And in verse 13, “These all died in faith, not having received the promises.” According to some popular notions of faith, this ought rather to have said, “These all died in unbelief, not having received the promises.” If faith is a magic wand, by which we may receive what we will when we will, how is it that these all died in faith, and yet did not receive the promises? Why did they not “name it and claim it”?
The fact is, there are three things which belong to the proper province of faith, and receiving is the last of the three.
The first thing which faith does is to give up what it has. This is the initial step.
The next thing faith does is to do without what it wants. This the long course.
The last thing which faith does is to receive its desires. This is the end of its course, and this may never come at all in this life. “These all died in faith, NOT having received the promises.” Those who suppose that the province of faith is to immediately receive its desires have a notion which is so far defective as to be actually false. Dangerous, too, for God has no obligation to conform his actions to these false ideas, and such a notion of faith is likely to lead first to disillusionment, and in the end to settled unbelief.
I don’t pretend to give here an exhaustive list of the things which faith does. I only affirm that it must do these three things, and usually in this order. Yet the second of these propositions is generally ignored, while the first is often explicitly denied, and that by those who think they are preaching faith. I was once present at some evangelistic meetings, conducted by a Baptist evangelist, who told the people over and over, “You don’t have to give up anything.” They took him at his word, too. He lined up the week’s converts on the platform one evening, among them a young lady wearing a tee shirt embossed, “Elvis is king.” We might perhaps excuse such a thing in the young lady, on the plea of inveterate ignorance, but I rather fear that this may be carrying the plea of ignorance beyond its legitimate bounds. We need not know all the truth to be saved, but we must surely know some of it, and embrace it too, and it is certainly the business of the evangelist to teach men to repent of sin, renounce the flesh, and forsake the world. Alas, too many evangelists keep all such truth out of sight. They endeavor to make converts with a purely positive message, reserving everything negative until after the convert is made. But real converts cannot be made in this fashion, for the first province of faith is to give up. Paul’s converts “turned from idols to serve the living and true God.” (I Thes. 1:9). Faith gives up what it has always with the prospect of receiving something better, but the receiving comes later.
I have known some to teach that if we give up all for Christ’s sake, God will immediately give it all back to us. In other words, the Lord does not call upon us actually to give up anything. He only asks us to be willing to do so. But the doctrine of faith in Hebrews 11 is certainly another thing from this. It is true that God gave Isaac back to Abraham as soon as he saw Abraham willing to give him up, but he never gave back at all, sooner or later, his country, kindred, and father’s house, which by faith Abraham had given up.
God’s first word to Abraham was, “Get thee out—-of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house.” (Gen. 12:1). “By faith Abraham … obeyed, and he went out.” (Heb. 11:8). That is, he gave up all that he had in Ur of the Chaldees. This “by faith,” and this at the beginning of his course of faith. This he did, of course, with the prospect of receiving something better, but he never received it in this life. He “died in faith, not having received the promises.” It is plain then that the second province of Abraham’s faith was to do without. He must do without all that he had given up and left behind him, and he must also do without the promised “better thing.” “He looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” This was faith, surely, yet through his whole life he “looked for” that city, and never received it.
This is the long course of faith, and this may be a good deal more difficult than the initial giving up. When Abraham gave up his country and his kindred, he did so with the bright prospect of a better land. This made the giving up a comparatively easy thing. He had then no idea that he would walk his whole life as a stranger and a pilgrim in that land which God had promised him, and that God would never give to him in this life so much of it as to set his foot on. (Acts 7:5). But faith in the Bible is intimately connected with patience. “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him.” (Psalm 37:7). This patient waiting is required of faith, for God ordinarily has no intention of rewarding our faith immediately. There is usually a long course of waiting before us, and of course of doing without. During the time of “faith and patience,” we must do without all that we have given up by faith, as well as the “better thing” upon which our hopes are set. So it was with Abraham, and this is the most difficult part of faith. He could recall the kindred and possessions which he had left behind, and he could see the Canaanites in possession of their houses and lands in the very land which had been promised to him, and yet he himself had nothing of the sort. He dwelled in tents, as a pilgrim and a stranger.
This is the long course of faith, and it may be a course of extreme difficulty—-of disappointments, hardships, and unfulfilled longings—-while we behold those who have no faith prospering on all sides. It is just this which Psalm 37:7 addresses, saying, “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him; fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way.”
And understand, it is precisely by faith that we thus do without. Abraham and Isaac were not forced to do without that home and rest which all of our souls love so well, and wander as homeless pilgrims and strangers. They chose to do without. This was the way of faith. “And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.” (Heb. 11:15). They chose neither to return to the country from which they had come out, nor to take possession of the country to which God had led them, ere God gave it to them. This is always the way of faith, for it is God who requires us to give up the things of the world and the flesh, and it is God who withholds from us the “better thing” at his pleasure. We therefore must either do without, or compromise. Faith chooses to do without. There is no naming and claiming of anything here, but a long and difficult course of determined self-denial.
And what we see in Abraham, we see also in Moses. “By faith he forsook Egypt.” (Heb. 11:27). He gave up his position and possessions. “He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.” He parted with the pleasures of sin and the treasures of Egypt. These things were not wrenched from his grasp. He chose to give up the good which the world could give. He chose to do without it, and moreover to do without anything else in its place for the time being. True, “he had respect unto the recompence of the reward,” but that was only to come at the end of his course.
But more. Moses not only chose to do without the good, but to receive evil in its place. “Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.” This is the way of faith. At the close of the list of the glorious things which men had received by faith, we are told, “And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented. … They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise.” (Heb. 11:35-40). All of this they did by faith. They chose to do without the good things, even the necessities, of this life, while some of them chose to do without life itself. They chose to receive evil instead of good, and this for the long course. “They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented.” They looked for the receiving at the end of the long course.
Once understand the simple Bible doctrine of faith, and it immediately appears that much of the gospel preaching of our day is false. “God loves you, and has a wonderful plan for your life.” Indeed! And what sort of “wonderful plan”? Ah, perhaps to wander in sheepskins and goatskins, in deserts and in mountains. Perhaps to dwell in dens and caves of the earth. Perhaps to be destitute, afflicted, and tormented. Perhaps to languish year after year with unfulfilled longings. Perhaps to receive a dream from the Lord, and to be hated for it by your brethren, and so to go first to slavery, and then to prison, as Joseph did. A wonderful plan, indeed!—-but the wonder of it did not appear till the end. Nor was it only Joseph’s personal happiness which was consulted in the framing of that plan.
Yet observe, though we earnestly contend and preach that in the very nature of the case much of the reward of faith cannot come in this life, but must be reserved for the life to come, yet it also belongs to faith to receive some things in this life, and for this life. Joseph did, though only at the end of a long course of doing without. Some things must be received in this life, or they cannot be received at all. Faith lays hold of such things, as well as of the eternal recompense of the reward. “I had fainted,” David says, “unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” (Psalm 27:13). The man who has a burning need for a wife, or the woman who craves a child, must have their desires granted in this life, or not at all, and faith lays hold of “the goodness of the Lord” for such things, and presses its claims, and receives its desires.
Not that this in any way overturns anything which we have said before. “By faith Sara received strength to conceive seed,” but only after languishing all her life, till she was ninety years old, doing without the child she craved. And here I take the occasion to point out that it is usually in the long course of doing without that faith breaks down. I have said earlier that the initial giving up is the comparatively easy thing. The long course of doing without is the hard thing—-and especially when we see all the folks around us in the possession of the thing which we so much crave. Sarah had the promise, but no child, while a thousand women all around her had no promise, but abundance of children. This is what the Bible calls “the trial of our faith,” and it is often very severe. It is here that faith is most likely to break down. Sarah’s faith did break down in the long course, and she contrived to receive her longed-for child by means of her handmaid Hagar. This was not of faith. It was the business of faith to “rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him,” and to fret not itself for others who prospered. And make no mistake about it, God will often try the faith of his own to the utmost ere they receive from him. Sarah must live many years seeing the wicked women of the Canaanites dwelling in houses filled with children, while she herself, with the promise of God, had only a tent, and an empty tent. Hannah endured all of the same pain, and to add to the trial of her faith, “her adversary provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the Lord had shut up her womb.” (I Sam. 1:6). Her adversary—-her husband’s other wife—-“had children, but Hannah had no children,” and her adversary made sure than Hannah never ceased to feel this. This is part of the trial of faith, and God himself sends the means to insure that we feel our deprivations while they endure. Faith submits to all of this.
Not that faith is passive in the business. Not so. Hannah was not passive, but wept and prayed before the Lord till she received from him. It is certainly not wrong in principle to take active steps—-to do all we can—- to secure our desires, so long as those steps involve no compromise, no departure from faith or righteousness. Here lies the difference between Sarah’s procuring of Ishmael, and Hannah’s procuring of Samuel. Sarah’s course was not of faith, but of the flesh. She resorted to questionable means. Hannah sought the blessing by prayer and tears. All legitimate means she was no doubt already using, and beyond that she could only weep and pray. And you will observe that the way of the flesh, which Sarah employed, issued only in trouble and strife—-trouble and strife which have endured to this day, and will not end till the coming of the Prince of Peace. Hannah’s course was of faith, and resulted in blessing for Israel, as well as the fulfillment of her own desires.
But I wish to make it very clear that Hannah’s faith was not passive. Though I teach that it is the way of faith to do without, while it waits patiently for the Lord, it may wait patiently without waiting passively. I reprobate and deplore those hyperspiritual doctrines which make faith passive. It is the way of many hyperspiritual teachers to diligently inculcate passiveness in waiting upon the Lord—-indeed, to make men so passive that they cannot be said to wait on the Lord at all. Single men are taught (by Bill Gothard, for example) to thank God that they are single, and thank him that if ever he sees that it will be more for his glory that they should marry, he will provide a wife—-while they, meanwhile, take no active steps to seek one. Their burning need for a wife is entirely overlooked. Others teach that it is wrong to feel any such need. They teach the young people that they ought to be “fast asleep in Jesus,” with neither thought nor desire of marriage, enjoying spiritual fellowship with each other, until God by some spiritual means wakes them up and bids them marry. Some even teach that a single man ought to be asleep as Adam was, when God took Eve from his side. Such teaching may suit angels, but it ill befits men. All such teaching is as directly contrary to the way of faith, as it is impossible to normal human nature. Faith is not passive, but active. It is faith which says, “I will not let thee go until thou bless me.”
Yet observe, “until thou bless me.” Faith is determined to wait patiently, to do without, and even to receive evil in place of good, “until” God gives his blessing. And this may be a long course of waiting. Abraham waited twenty-five years for Isaac. And observe again, “until thou bless me.” Faith will resort to no compromises or questionable means, but will seek the blessing from God, and under God, and in the paths of truth and righteousness. If it cannot procure it thus and there, it waits. Yet all the while it wrestles with God. This turning of faith into a passive thing is directly against Scripture, and it is a very pernicious doctrine. This passive faith is in reality probably no faith at all, and might therefore, were it not for the tender mercies of God, effectually stand in the way of our ever receiving from him at all. Resignation belongs certainly to the ways of faith. Paul was resigned to do without that healing which he had so earnestly sought of the Lord, and live with his thorn in the flesh till the day of his death. But I fear that what is sometimes called resignation is in reality only lukewarmness. We do well to be resigned to doing without some things always, and all things sometimes. It is always right to be resigned to doing without the blessing “until” God gives it—-and such resignation is necessary to keep us from compromise and fleshly means—-but we may wrestle all the while.
Behold, then, that grand, noble, and ennobling thing called faith—-giving up the good which it has in order to lay hold of that which God has promised—-doing without both the one and the other through a long course of trials and disappointments—-but receiving in the end its satisfaction, its vindication, and its fulness of joy. This is the faith of the Bible.
Glenn Conjurske