Dear Brothers and Sisters, this is one of those super sensitive, I might accidentally step on someone’s toes posts…. Do let me know if I have missed it in my tone etc. and I will adjust things. There is no condemnation for those who walk after the Spirit. As always, this may not mean much to some… that’s just fine. Others might disagree, that is fine too… although in this case I would be blessed if you share the scriptures that I might be missing from my understanding so I can amend my thinking and theology. As always, pray about it, confirm in the Word for yourself what God says about it. Thanks so much for your amazing forbearance, mercy and love. Tough truths to talk about in person, even harder in the format of a post. Blessings.
The Holy Bible is our only guaranteed, God sealed and approved book of spiritual truths and facts. Yes, facts, many facts that we can stake our lives on in full confidence of their truth. God expects that all who believe receive His Word as fact, not as fiction, not as good counsel, not as advice… FACTS. The trouble is that sometimes, often even, life presents us with two sets of conflicting facts. God requires us to believe the biblical facts above every other report. Culturally, we have put a far greater value on “scientific” and sensually perceivable (of the five senses) facts above God’s Word. It is very easy for us to read 5 to 20 verses in scripture which plainly say one thing and then dismiss them with words like “well yes, but in our experience, that has not “proven” itself to be true, so there must be a loophole in scripture somewhere that I don’t know about to explain the why of it”. Sadly, scripture reveals that the loophole of why God’s Word doesn’t seem to be fulfilled is often tied directly to our unbelief, to our traditions which can nullify God’s Word or our lack of knowledge. Let’s explore some scriptural accounts where God’s promise was believed and received or doubted and left unfulfilled.
Mark 7:11-15 New King James Version (NKJV) “11 But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban”—’ (that is, a gift to God), 12 then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, 13 making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.” 14 When He had called all the multitude to Himself, He said to them, “Hear Me, everyone, and understand: 15 There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man.”
We have a lot of traditions in the body of Christ that literally have the power to make the Word of God of no effect. In humility, this verse should make us all take a good long pause and commit seriously and deeply to letting God expose these things in our hearts and purge the things that are in us that are defiling us and rendering the Word itself ineffective in our lives and hearts.
2 Corinthians 5:7 King James Version (KJV) “7 For we walk by faith, not by sight:”
A very quick search of the word “believe” and an in depth study, confirm that “believing” God’s Word is in the central thing that is required to be saved and a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Mark 16:16 World English Bible (WEB) “16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who disbelieves will be condemned.”
Most of us understand that believing Jesus is God Son, that He came in the flesh and died and rose again are essential truths that we must believe to be saved. The challenge is that Mark 16 goes on to say:
“Mark 16:17-18 World English Bible (WEB) “17 These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new languages; 18 they will take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it will in no way hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
God provides some pretty clear markers so that we can recognize who His followers are. There are several of these throughout scripture. It is convenient to make these undermine and eliminate these confirming signs and markers. God knows that our congregations are often a mixture of goats and sheep. It is absolutely not our place to judge the hearts of others but these verses are an excellent thing to study for ourselves, to motivate us to truly submit to Him and allow Him to transform us into the likeness of Christ. Having reverential fear of the Lord and accepting His Word as the final authority are essential to the Christian Walk.
1 John 4:20 KJV”If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”
John 13:35 King James Version (KJV) “35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
Galatians 5:24 King James Version (KJV) “24 And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.”
John 14:20-21 World English Bible (WEB)”20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 One who has my commandments and keeps them, that person is one who loves me. One who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will reveal myself to him.”
Knowing God’s Word, listening to Him, obeying Him, pleasing Him, living for Him, is the heartbeat of one who is really believes. God considers the heart of man and He is never ever deceived by lip-service. He spells it out plainly. Our genuine love and submission to God is revealed our obedience to and reverential response to his Word.
Psalm 138:2 King James Version (KJV) “2 I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.”
God Himself upholds every word and never changes his mind or breaks His oath. The Word of God is the Ultimate Witness in every Case. If the Word reveals facts on a matter, these are sovereign and carry greater weight than every other testimony/fact combined.
Numbers 23:19 KJV “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?”
God has revealed His will on certain topics plainly and many biblical facts through Holy Scripture. Where His will is revealed, we can act with total confidence knowing that He never changes. We do not need to seek Him for confirmation or fresh revelation.
1 Timothy 2:3-4 King James Version (KJV) “3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; 4 Who will have all men to be saved [sozo], and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”
Many are familiar with this verse in the sense of God desires for all people to be saved in the sense of going to heaven when they die. Many don’t realize that the original language communicates a much bigger meaning which includes physical healing. God has put it in the public domain, in the official record book, that His will is to save, make whole and heal physically and mentally all people. This is a biblical fact.
Strong’s definition of Sozo
Isaiah 53 King James Version (KJV) “53 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?”
God is very aware that many do not believe His report, His Word. Scripture records that very often, men believe the testimonies of others over the Word. The theme repeats itself over and over againg during the Exodus story.
Matthew 16:23 World English Bible (WEB) “23 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men.”
Matthew 17:18-20 King James Version (KJV) “18 And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. 19 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? 20 And Jesus said unto them, 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.”
Here is the tricky part… Men, especially those who walk after the flesh, who serve their own appetites and desires, who have not taken the command to crucify their own flesh seriously, are susceptible to being deceived. Even the disciples themselves stumbled due to their unbelief. The sensual (of the five senses) testimonies of their eyes and ears were held in higher esteem in their hearts than the words and promises of God.
Romans 4:19-24 King James Version (KJV) “19 And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb: 20 He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; 21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. 22 And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. 23 Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; 24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;”
Abraham believed God. He believed God in spite of the fact that the biblical facts, the words that God spoke, seemed utterly impossible to him in face of the facts he faced as an impotent man. He knew in the natural his wife had never conceived and had left childbearing years behind years ago. Imagine being 100 years old as a man suffering from impotence, and imagine having a 90 year old wife who not only has never conceived even before menopause, but now is truly passed that season of her life and God saying these things to you. It is no small wonder to us that Sarah laughed. And yet, the physical facts yielded to the Word of God. This is an excellent example of a man believing God and seeing the promise. Now let us explore the story of the 12 spies of Canaan, this is an excellent example of men believing the physical facts over God’s Word/command.
Numbers 13 World English Bible (WEB) “13 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Send men, that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel. Of every tribe of their fathers, you shall send a man, every one a prince among them.”3 Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran according to the commandment of Yahweh. All of them were men who were heads of the children of Israel.” 4 …. “16 These are the names of the men who Moses sent to spy out the land. Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun Joshua. 17 Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said to them, “Go up this way by the South, and go up into the hill country. 18 See the land, what it is; and the people who dwell therein, whether they are strong or weak, whether they are few or many; 19 and what the land is that they dwell in, whether it is good or bad; and what cities they are that they dwell in, whether in camps, or in strongholds; 20 and what the land is, whether it is fertile or poor, whether there is wood therein, or not. Be courageous, and bring some of the fruit of the land.” Now the time was the time of the first-ripe grapes. 21 So they went up, and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, to the entrance of Hamath. 22 They went up by the South, and came to Hebron; and Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were there. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.) 23 They came to the valley of Eshcol, and cut down from there a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bore it on a staff between two. They also brought some of the pomegranates and figs. 24 That place was called the valley of Eshcol, because of the cluster which the children of Israel cut down from there. 25 They returned from spying out the land at the end of forty days. 26 They went and came to Moses, to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, to the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word to them and to all the congregation. They showed them the fruit of the land. 27 They told him, and said, “We came to the land where you sent us. Surely it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 28 However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the children of Anak there. 29 Amalek dwells in the land of the South. The Hittite, the Jebusite, and the Amorite dwell in the hill country. The Canaanite dwells by the sea, and along the side of the Jordan. 30 Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, “Let’s go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it!31 But the men who went up with him said, “We aren’t able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.” 32 They brought up an evil report of the land which they had spied out to the children of Israel, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that eats up its inhabitants; and all the people who we saw in it are men of great stature. 33 There we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim. We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.”
The reality is, the 10 spies accurately reported what their senses could perceive. And yet scripture records what they reported was an “evil” report.
Here is the Strong’s definition “דִּבָּה dibbâh, dib-baw’; from H1680 (in the sense of furtive motion); slander:—defaming, evil report, infamy, slander.” from Definition of evil report
From God’s perspective, their words were defaming, slanderous against the Lord’s report. They were inciting rebellion against God’s leadership and command. Bottom line, they called God a liar. God said do this, I will make it happen, and they said don’t, we can’t do it, even though God said we could. This story alone should give us great pause. There are far more who walk by sight then by faith. 2 of the 12 spies were able to believe God over their own senses. Scripturally, the faithful remnant commonly far out-number the masses who are deceived. Jesus made it clear that narrow is the way of life. We must therefore be extremely leery of believing popular conclusions and thinking of things the way most people do. Believing God when it goes against the grain, against traditions, against our peers etc is truly hard work. Believing God takes effort as there are so many forces at work trying to stir and establish unbelief. God’s will was for them to enter the promised land at this time, due to their rebellion, they were condemned to wander and die in the wilderness. They failed to receive His provision because they refused to believe God.
I am going to digress for just one moment here to address something that commonly pops up. There is a possibility that someone reading this post is objecting to this statement thinking that it must have been God’s will for them to reject God and remain in the wilderness, after all, He is sovereign right?
This tradition of man deserves it’s own post (I will make one up)… Sovereign means mightiest, greatest… It does not mean all controlling. This is a relatively modern invention superimposed on scripture having no foundation in the Word.
SOVEREIGN, adjective suv’eran. [We retain this babarous orthography from the Norman sovereign The true spelling would be suveran from the Latin supernes, superus.]
- Supreme in power; possessing supreme dominion; as a sovereign ruler of the universe.
- Supreme; superior to all others; chief. God is the sovereign good of all who love and obey him.
- Supremely efficacious; superior to all others; predominant; effectual; as a sovereign remedy.
- Supreme; pertaining to the first magistrate of a nation; as sovereign authority.
SOVEREIGN, noun suv’eran.
- A supreme lord or ruler; one who possesses the highest authority without control. Some earthly princes, kings and emperors are sovereigns in their dominions.
- A supreme magistrate; a king.
- A gold coin of England, value 20s or $4.44
1828 Webster definition of “sovereign”
As mentioned above, God’s will is for all to be saved. The reality is not all are. God does not force man to comply nor does He pull our strings like a puppet master. Scripture record that life and death are in the power of the tongue and records that God exhorts us to choose life. The biblical fact is they refused to obey and suffered for it.
Numbers 14 KJV “20 Then the Lord said: “I have pardoned, according to your word; 21 but truly, as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord— 22 because all these men who have seen My glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put Me to the test now these ten times, and have not heeded My voice, 23 they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected Me see it. 24 But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it.”
Humility calls us to face the possibility that somewhere in our own hearts and attitudes and understandings, we have done similar things as those who followed God into the wilderness. Have we ever complained? have we ever “grumbled in our tents”? have we ever accused God of causing us grief that our own actions have brought about? Knowing the biblical facts and acting on the biblical facts is, in “reality”, likely one of the biggest keys that Christ has made available to us through His Word to live in health and in the fulness of “life abundantly”.
Hosea 4:6 King James Version (KJV) “6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.
John 6:29 New Living Translation (NLT) “29 Jesus told them, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.”
Practically speaking, where do we go from here? I am so thankful that God always makes our part simple. He says “Seek first the Kingdom and His righteousness” and then He faithfully “provides everything else we need”. John 6 tells us that the work He has assigned ot us is believing in Jesus. To believe His Word, we have to know and trust the author. Our confidence, just like Abraham’s as recorded in Romans 4, rests in knowing that “He who promised if faithful and will deliver on His promise”. We all need time alone with Him, time invested in His Word, time invested meditating on the truth of His Word. As He sanctifies us (renews our thinking, our bodies, our hearts)through time in the Word and our obedient response to acting on what He reveals, the reality of God, the immensity of His Love and Faithfulness become so tangible that believing His promises follow easily and without effort.
I will share one other example for those who would like it of the senses failing to perceive the reality of a situation is the story of Elisha and his assistant. One saw the situation threw the eyes of faith and the spiritual reality, the other was blind and was assessing the situation only part of the facts.
2 Kings 6:14-20 King James Version (KJV) “14 Therefore sent he thither horses, and chariots, and a great host: and they came by night, and compassed the city about. 15 And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do? 16 And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. 17 And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.18 And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto the Lord, and said, Smite this people, I pray thee, with blindness. And he smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha. 19 And Elisha said unto them, This is not the way, neither is this the city: follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom ye seek. But he led them to Samaria. 20 And it came to pass, when they were come into Samaria, that Elisha said, Lord, open the eyes of these men, that they may see. And the Lord opened their eyes, and they saw; and, behold, they were in the midst of Samaria.”
This verse demonstrates powerfully how the man who was seeing things carnally, through the flesh alone, was in great fear and terror, and if on his own, would likely have perished or been taken captive at this time. However, the one whose mind was stayed on the Lord and seeing the spiritual reality realized the victory was assured.
Romans 8:3-9 King James Version (KJV) “3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”
All life flows out of being spiritually minded. Death surely follows carnal (sense led) thinking. Yes, we absolutely have to “face the facts”, and face “the reality” of the situation. These ought to in every case include the provisions and promises of “the Word made Flesh”. God’s provision is perfect. My prayer is to be able to see all the facts as Jesus did in every situation and as Elisha did when he was surrounded, and with the utter confidence that Caleb and Joshua and Abraham did when faced with total human impotency.
On a totally personal note. My personal conviction…. not that I understand fully, or have perfect knowledge by any means, but what I do believe is that if I knew all the facts in the case, the sick or suffering one before my eyes or heart would be healed. If they are not, in humility I accept that it is most likely because of the spiritual truths/facts I don’t know yet. Some might wonder why I believe this so passionately. And my answer is Jesus Christ. Scripture records many times that He healed all who were brought to Him. AND scripture has no record, not a single one, of Jesus turning anyone away for any reason and refusing to heal them. Jesus was the exact representation of the Father, the Word made flesh, and did nothing other than what He saw the Father doing (John 5:19). Scripture is a perfect record of His ministry. If the Father had cause to leave even one unhealed, scripture, I believe would have recorded it. And yet, there is no exception. Not one. Then John 14 records that all who believe in Him will do the same works He did and even greater works.
Hebrews 1:3 BSB “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His nature, upholding all things by His powerful word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. ”
John 14:12 King James Version (KJV) “12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.”
Some biblical stories to consider where the people had to believe God’s Word above the circumstantial evidence
Esther
Daniel and the Lions Den
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and the Fiery Furnace
The walls of Jericho
Abraham and Isaac
Every one of the apostles died or faced exile for their faith
The women who bled for 12 years
The lepers who cried out to Jesus
Jesus’ Passion
Moses several times
Gideon
Syrian Phonecian woman with demon possessed daughter
Man with epileptic son
Healing and Discipleship 