Faith The Key To Life And Enlargement
"So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief" (Heb. 3:19).
Faith please God Jesus demonstrated faith in action over all things and powers.
Of course, it is not, but it is one very comprehensive angle. You will at once see how that theme runs right through. But suppose we change the metaphor, and say that there is a whole bunch of keys to the Bible - quite a large bunch of keys - every one of which seems to be a master key to open the whole of the Bible; and on this large bunch of keys there seem to be three that are linked together, so to speak, on their own separate ring. Those three keys are - faith, life, enlargement.
Faith opens the first door. That door leads to the next, which is life, and through life to the next, which is enlargement. Those three things always go together through the Word of God. Of course, this is clearly seen by the opposite.
Unbelief is always shown in the Scripture to result in limitation. Where there is unbelief, you just do not get any further - you stop short and stop dead: there is no enlargement, and therefore there is no life, no greater, fuller life, beyond. You cannot separate these things; they always hang together - faith, life, enlargement.
All the great crises in the history of God's people, as recorded in the Scriptures, had these three features. Beginning right at the beginning, with Adam, in the first chapters of Genesis, it is perfectly plain there that the whole question of establishment, of enlargement and of life hung upon faith, and that when he refused, or ceased, to believe God, that was a dead stop, a full stop.
There was no more. At that point death entered in. The possibility of fellowship with God, and of all that God can mean in the life, hung entirely upon his faith - or upon his refusal to believe. If only he had believed God, the way would have been wide open to enlargement, establishment and life, continuous and unceasing.
As we open our Bibles at the first page of Genesis, what is almost the first thing that we read? After: "In the beginning God…", and then a few words more, we read: "And the earth was without form and void" - that is 'waste and empty' - "and the Spirit of God…" The earth was empty, and the Spirit of God - did what? - reacted against the state of emptiness.
It was as though God said, 'This is not My mind at all; this is altogether contrary to My thought. I am against this, and I am going to do something about it.' God would have everything in Divine fullness - that is, in abundance. That is His thought for the earth, and for His people.
And so the Spirit of God, brooding over this void, this emptiness, begins to work, and every stage and phase of the Divine activity is to fill. He fills the earth with the vast range of the vegetable kingdom - seeds in abundance and life within the seeds capable of endless production and reproduction. He fills the earth with the immense variety of the animal kingdom. He fills the sea, and says: "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures" (Gen. 1:20).
And then, creating man, He says: "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth" (v. 28). 'I am against this emptiness, this void'. And on He moves on that principle, governed by that thought. Reaching Abraham, He says: "I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore" (Gen. 22:17). Comprehend that, if you can! That is Divine thought. Beyond all comprehension, God thinks in terms of enlargement.
The Danger Of Passivity (Luke warm)
He spoke of a certain 'house', which was a man, possessed of a demon, an unclean spirit; and He visualized the casting out of the unclean spirit: but, although the house is 'swept and garnished', it is left empty; and, because no other occupant takes possession, the unclean spirit comes back to his old home, taking seven other more evil than himself, and fills the empty house (Matt. 12:43-45).
It is a dangerous thing to be empty, to leave a void. If God does not fill, the Devil will. Beware of negative conditions, of not being positive and not being definite. Beware of vacuums in your heart, in your mind, in your life.
David was one day on the house-top in a state of 'vacuum', at a time when kings go out to war (2 Sam. 11:1-2) - and he was a king, and a warring king. But instead of being occupied in a positive way, he was in a passive state, and we know the disaster that overtook him, from which he never recovered all his life. It is a dangerous thing to be empty. The Devil will see to the filling up of any space that he can occupy. The Lord wants to fill to the exclusion of all else.
It's life of self rejection, despite our own conflicts the battle rages both inwardly and outwardly, I have message for those lost in darkness the only hope form the occult and the dark side of it's grip is getting to know Christ. To escape the fast bond condition of it's hideous practices and use of others in any way for power can be changed to hope and freedom and love.
True our amusement park culture left many people unable, made it's easy for those things to operate in almost in impunity sir. Doubt is huge victory for them, God sees what we do and done all of us, the use of human life is unwise and evil.
Praying for you al,l those every day folks, as well, we lost our way for quite some time, and the explosion of darkness and the denial of our present culture bares testimony to it's end results.
In so saying my prayers go out to you and for you, Romans one , John 3;16 , 1 Corinthians 1-4 KJ3 YOUNG'S we're praying for all peoples we meet and see, ...
Thinking of the homeless and the hungry, those given over, JESUS CHRIST IS HOPE.
FS