"That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1:7).
A very confused young pastor whose faith was shattered, called me this past week for prayer and counseling. He was saved during the hippie revival of the late sixties and has been in the ministry more than 15 years. Over the years he became deeply impressed with the TV evangelists and their success in reaching the masses. Using similar methods, he had raised up a church of nearly 300.
When certain TV evangelists came under scrutiny and some were found to be in sin, his faith was staggered. At the same time the doctrine of prosperity had begun to disillusion both him and his congregation; and further doubts were setting in.
He then became involved with an independent group that believe they represent the new move of God on earth — prophets! Everyone was prophesying to everyone else. Most of the prophecies did not come to pass but certain significant ones did and this impressed him. How could it be wrong if some of the prophecies were coming to pass? But there was a nagging in his soul that increased when they introduced choreographed ballet dancing in the conventions and associated churches.
He attended one of these conventions recently and had to walk out because it was a circus of personal flattery in the name of prophecy. The leaders would get up and prophesy great things of one another, as if led by an unseen spirit, saying, "You prophesy good of me and I'll prophesy good of you!" It was fleshly, self-exalting and frivolous. He left the place totally shattered in his faith. Another supposed move of God was nothing but a disappointment.
He said, "My church would stand with me for hours thundering over our city in tongues: binding strongholds, principalities and powers. We've bound the enemy from the east, west, north and south but the city only gets worse. There is no evidence of a change!
"I have heard many voices. A month ago I heard a sweet voice saying to me, "My son, from this day on I've released all the funds you need. You will never again lack funds!" It never happened and the financial situation got worse. Now I am afraid to listen to any voice; I am doubting the validity of tongues and I don't want to hear any more phony prophecies."
He went on, "My faith is shaking. I love the Lord, but I don't know what to believe anymore. I feel so out of place. I think, at times, it's going to have to be just Jesus and me because I'm so wary of falling into another deception."
This pastor's trial of faith is not an isolated experience. Right now multitudes of God's people are enduring the severest trials of faith since coming to Christ. Their faith has been cast into the fire of testing!
Satan has mounted a powerful assault on the faith of the chosen. It will only get hotter and more intense in the troubled days ahead. Peter warns of a "season of manifold temptations causing heaviness" (1 Peter 1:6).
Paul, writing to Timothy, said, "This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son...fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith" (1 Timothy 1:18-19). We must fight to keep our faith. We cannot give up when the fiery test comes or it will lead to certain shipwreck.
The children of Israel failed their "trial of faith."
When the fire was applied and the test became intense, the Israelites folded, succumbing to a spirit of unbelief
"Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; while it is said, Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses. But with whom was he grieved forty years? Was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief" (Hebrews 3:7-19).
Their faith did not come forth "more precious than gold" but, rather, the fire of testing hardened them in unbelief. The carcasses of a whole generation fell in the wilderness. They ended up as blind, bitter, God-forsaken people who were full of unbelief. "So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief" (Hebrews 3:19).
Faith is not the absence of distress and sorrow!
It isn't an expression of doubt to cry or be crushed by a problem. Oh, what mind-games we play every time we face some great trial or test. We deny our feelings and try to erase all thoughts of distress. Some grit their teeth, take deep breaths and act unmoved, undisturbed; and they say with a smile, "My heart is at ease; I believe; I'm OK, all is well." All the while their hearts condemn them because they are in reality heavy hearted and distressed.
Peter was speaking to Christians "kept by the power of God through faith." These greatly rejoiced in the Lord; yet they "now for a season...are in heaviness through manifold temptations."
To be "in heaviness of heart" means in great distress, sorrow, or grief. Jesus, in Gethsemene, expressed sorrow and heaviness of heart. "...and [he] began to be sorrowful and very heavy.... Then said he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful" (Matthew 26:37-38).
Distress and doubt are not the same thing. Doubt is the belief or the fear that distress will win, that it will overwhelm and destroy — that the trial will bring you down.
Faith is the means by which we come out of distress. It is the settled belief that "the season" of sorrow or the hour of temptation will not harm, overcome or destroy you. Faith rests in the promise that God will make a way of escape.
Distress may fall suddenly on me in the form of unforeseen demonic attacks, storms that stir up the waves and pound my ship, causing me to have a season of heaviness of heart or moments of panic. But I look to Jesus and faith says, "I am in no danger because Jesus is with me in the boat!"
Faith cannot be divorced from God's eternal purpose
Canaan was a type or representation of God's eternal purpose. From the beginning, God has been looking for a people He could "bring in" to His rest, to a fullness in Jesus.
"For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God" (Hebrews 4:8-9). What God promised is still mostly unclaimed!
God's purpose is not to simply deliver people from their sins and bring them out of Egypt nor to test their loyalty in a wilderness — that is not even the half of it. God is interested in much more than getting you out of some present crisis after which you testify, "He brought me out! He delivered me! I was in a hopeless situation and God made a way!" No, this is not it! There is a greater glory.
God's eternal purpose is to bring to Christ a people who find Him to be all they will ever need. He is to be the end of faith.
He is a loving Father and will not let you suffer more than you are able to bear, but will make a way of escape in any temptation — but that is not enough! To simply escape trials is not the triumph of faith.
In ten separate crises, the Israelites proved the Lord faithful to deliver them; yet still they were not "in the land." They did not know Him or understand His ways.
Many of us, like the children of Israel, have been delivered time and again out of one trouble after another, finding ourselves "out" of danger but not "into" rest. We have not learned Jesus and how to rest in Him because we fail to see God's eternal purposes in these things. Our trials are not accidents, they are allowed by God because He is trying to produce something in us. He has a plan and purpose and is going somewhere with us.
When we fall into trials or trouble our reaction is, "Oops! I must have grieved God. I did something wrong and now I'm paying for whatever sin or failure it was." Yet more important than where the trial came from is how we respond in the midst of it.
The giants in the promised land were not a result of Israel's sin, nor were the walled cities or iron chariots. They were opportunities to behold the Lord's power and might triumphing over the enemy. Many of our trials are not a result of personal failure — but, like the giants, are opposing powers from the devil to keep us out of the place of rest in Christ.
The reason I have been so vehemently opposed to the modern-day gospel of prosperity is because much of it has been divorced from God's eternal purpose, which is to be conformed in holiness to the image of Christ. You can't get the milk and honey, the good things that are promised, until you are "in the land." Many want all the blessings without going in, without spiritual warfare and victory over the flesh, which requires us to enter into His life!
The riches are all in Christ Jesus. In Him dwells all fullness of the Godhead; and when you truly enter into Christ, you then discover true riches. We miss the point entirely if we think Israel's inheritance was real estate. It was much, much more. The Lord Himself was to be their inheritance.
He brought them into a place where they would have an opportunity to live wholly devoted to the Lord with no other source to meet every need. It was a place where God could reveal Himself as all sufficient.
"Some must enter in" (Hebrews 4:6). This is still God's purpose for us — to bring us in, into Jesus and a place of total dependence on Him with no confidence placed in the flesh.
A Caleb Company
In Numbers 13 and 14 we find the language and definitions of unbelief and true faith. The ten spies who had gone up into the land had returned with a report of what they had seen. "We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey.... Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great" (Numbers 13:27-28).
Caleb, the voice of faith, said to the people, "Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it."
The people cried out in fear and unbelief, "We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. And there we saw giants" (Numbers 13:31-33).
This is the language of unbelief. "We are not able to cope this time! This crisis is different. It will eat us up! There is no hope to stand up against this enemy. We have experienced other victories, but this situation is bigger, too far above us!"
Consequently a cry of unbelief went up from the whole congregation, "Let's go back. We can't make it. There are too many strong enemies, we can't go in!" (Numbers 14:1-4).
And again — faith speaks, "The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land...the Lord...He will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey" (Numbers 14:7-8). Even though the children of this unbelieving generation later went in — they never fully possessed the land. If they had gone in to the true rest, the Lord would not still be speaking of an unclaimed rest.
There still remains for us a place in Christ where we cease from all our works and self-effort: we stop trusting in men; we stop manipulating, struggling, and striving for things to happen. Before the Lord comes, He must have a people who go in, a people who will use faith to tear down everything that keeps them from the fullness of Jesus.
This is what the testing is all about. God wants to know what is in your heart. Is it fear of giants and a desire to go back to Egypt or an abandon to the Lord and His care of you? Satan does not want a people who cease from their own works and depend totally on Jesus as Lord.
Caleb understood God's purposes. He knew that the enemy had no power to stop God's people from going in if they stepped out in faith. "Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people for they are bread for us: their defense is departed from them, and the Lord is with us: fear them not" (Numbers 14:9).
Satan is using that giant of a trouble facing you not to keep you down but to keep you out! It's not an isolated trial; it is all hell raging against you to keep you from going on into the fullness of Christ, to a place of rest, a life of confidence and a walk of peace under His lordship.
All heaven and hell behold you as you stand on the brink of the Jordan. How will they see you look into the future? Will you look with unbelief and say, "If going all the way with Jesus means one big battle with pain, heartache and so many giant problems...I am going back! At least I can party and drink and get stoned and find a little peace."
Or, will faith prevail and you say, "I will not rebel! I will not fear what man can do! My enemies have no power, for their power is stripped! By faith my God will devour them, for God is with me. I'm going in!"
Going on with Jesus is a very serious matter with God.
"But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel. And the Lord said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? And how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shown among them? I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they" (Numbers 14:10-12).
Moses appealed to God's longsuffering and great mercy as he prayed, "Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy.... And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word: but..." (Numbers 14:19-21).
What a tragedy! To be forgiven, pardoned, and yet left to die in a dry, despairing wilderness, barred from going into the land of promise.
You have heard of the doctrine of eternal security: "Once forgiven always forgiven." This is not the issue. The issue here isn't forgiveness but going on into the inheritance in Christ. Those children of God were fully pardoned but — because of their unbelief, their unwillingness to go on, to go in — they spent the rest of their lives forgiven, but robbed of intimacy. They had only a dead religion, a form of godliness with no power. They were a pardoned people with no place to go.
They will never see the glory of the Captain of the Lord's army as He brings walls down. They will never enjoy the cool streams and green pastures or the victories "in the land." The milk and honey of fullness will never be theirs.
There are literally millions of Christians in this very place today. God brought them to a place of decision by calling them to a deeper walk, a walk of complete faith, leaving behind the death of the wilderness. It is a call to obedience, devotion and dependency by submitting to the Lord as captain.
They heard a "Caleb" somewhere calling them to continue to trust God for victory over self and the flesh. God is at work in their lives, but they have settled for forgiveness without growth. They go on living shallow lives of misery, cut off from the real work of the Holy Spirit. They are left behind to a life of spiritual boredom, dryness and death!
"Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness...surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it: but my servant Caleb...him will I bring into the land" (Numbers 14:22-24). God is always "moving on" with a people, a Caleb company. But those who go on are those whose faith endures the fire. They hold on when it looks hopeless.
"Morning-after faith" is not acceptable.
After hearing warnings about their carcasses wasting in the wilderness, the Israelites slept on it. "And they rose up early in the morning, and gat them up into the top of the mountain, saying, Lo, we be here, and will go up unto the place which the Lord has promised: for we have sinned" (Numbers 14:39-40).
But the test was over, the fire was dead. They had failed in the face of the hopeless odds. It was too late.
The Lord will have a people who trust Him in the fire and who glorify Him when tested. It is not faith to obey when the trial is over — it is presumption. There is no such thing as faith "after the fact."
In Luke 18:8 Jesus asked, "When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith in the earth?" He will find faith for rights, faith for blessings, faith for prosperity — but what Jesus is really asking is this: "Will I find a faith that brings a last-day people into full surrender to Me? How many will go on with Me into a walk that is submitted to the will of God? Will there be a people like Paul who count it all dung to win Christ? Will they have a faith to press on into a life of relying only on Me?"
Faith is the Word; Rest is the evidence.
Finally, in Hebrews 11:1 we read, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." That substance, that evidence is the Word of God! Jesus is the Word. The written word holds and records all the evidence we will ever need. Rest in the substance! Rely on the evidence! No one goes in without knowing the Word.
"Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it...for we which have believed do enter into rest" (Hebrews 4:1-3).