Sense knowledge faith is based upon physical evidence. One believes in what they can see, hear or feel. “We know we have the Holy Spirit because we have had physical evidences to prove it.”
Multitudes have taken this attitude, and have been unhappily deceived. Had they based their confidence upon the Word of God regardless of all sense knowledge evidences, life would have been different for them.
Others, when they have prayed for finances, have not believed the Word until they could see the evidences. “When I see the money, then I will believe the Word.”
That is not believing at all, because one needs not believe what they can see.
Faith is giving substance to things you cannot see, feel or hear.
One says, “I know that I am healed because the pain is gone.”
He did not say, “I know I am healed because the Word says, By His Stripes I am healed.”
His faith was not in what God had sid, but in what he could see, feel or hear.
These people give the Word a second place in their lives. They give their body, the home of the senses, the first place.
One says, “I know that I am saved, because I have repented of y sins, I have given up all of my bad habits.”
Every one of these things that he claims for his salvation are things that he did himself. He has given no Scriptural evidence of his salvation.
After a while, he makes the discovery that the evidences of the senses cannot satisfy the craving of the spirit.
Sense knowledge philosophy has gained control of the church, but it cannot answer the cry of the human spirit.
The human spirit seeks God as the flower seeks the sun.
Basing our fath upon what we have done and counting more on experiences than upon the Word, eventually leads us into darkness and doubt.
Acting on reason instead of the Word, means to trust in man instead of God’s Word.
“Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, that maketh flesh his arm.”
One form of trusting in man, is trusting in the faith of some other person. This is dangerous. We must trust in the Word of God ourselves.
Most people who are untaught in the word are seeking for someone who can pray the prayer of faith for them. The prayer of faith may deliver temporarily, but unbelief will annul the effect of the prayer eventually.
It is when you yourself have faith, trusting in the Word of God for yourself, that you will be saved, healed, be delivered, be protected receive finance, or receive other blessings.
It is not talking about faith, or the need of faith, but it is resting implicitly in the Living Word.
The prayer for faith will necessarily be a prayer of unbelief. Consequently, there can be no answer for it.
Praying for faith is simply unbelief trying to get what the Word alone can give.
Simple confidence in the Word is never sensible, practical, prudent, to the man who lives in the realm of the senses. He only believes what he can see, hear, or understand.
Faith is giving substance to things that sense knowledge cannot understand or see. It lifts one out of the realm of th senses into the realm of the recreated human spirit.
Faith of such people is a limited faith. Martha and Thomas are good examples. Martha said, “His body decayeth.”
Thomas said, “Unless I can see the wounds and put my fingers into His side, I will not believe.”
This is the kind of faith commended by modern religious leaders, but this is not the faith mentioned by Jesus or by the writers of the New Testament.
We have been trained to believe in the skill of men. We have more confidence in the surgeon than we have in the Word. Because of that, we see little manifestations of the real faith in the Living Word. For the skill of man, and “science”, have taken the place of the Word in the hearts of the people. Their faith is in man and they honor man with their lips.
Their confession is not that the Word of God is true, but that man and his words are true. They honor God with their lips, but they trust in the arm of flesh with their heart.
This assenting to the fact that God cannot fail to help us at a crisis period, and yet turning to the world for assistance, is a symptom of mental assent, an enemy to the life of faith. It looks and sounds so religous. It will go so far as to say, “I believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. I am contending for the faith once delivered to the saints.”
Yet they dare not act on the Word. They do not give it its place. They merely talk about its integrity.
The Mental Assenter is in the gravest of danger. He is where God cannot rech him, but where Satan can enter into his inner counsel. He therefore loses his rights and privileges in Christ.
The greatest battle that any child of God will ever fight is the battle of faith.
We often wonder why it is so hard to believe God. The reason is that we are surrounded by an antagonistic atmosphere that is presided over by the enemy of all righteousness. We live in his unreal world. We are surrounded by currents of unbelief so subtle that almost one does not realize them, and so resistless that only a few ever rise above them.
To believe in God for finances is a continual struggle against the materialistic currents that buffet us.
To believe in Christ for victory over sin is a battle during every hour of consciousness.
To believe in God for the physical body when one is ill is to put up a battle against the centuries of trust in medicine.
So it is not at all strange that so many break down in their faith-life and we should not be harsh or condemnatory against those who fail.
Faith is a noun; believe is a verb. An analysis of these two words may hep you in trusting the Lord.
Believing, being a verb, is an action word – it really means “taking”. To believe in a biblical sense means to take, to grasp.
To believe Jesus means to take Jesus for all that the Scriptures declare Him to be.
To believe on Christ as a Savior means to take Christ as your Savior. To believe in Christ as a healer means to take Him as your healer, and recognize Him as your healer.
Believing is an act of the will. When I believe, I have acted. Having acted I have reached what is called Faith. Faith is a noun. I take a step. Having taken the step, I have arrived. Arriving is Faith.
To believe, then, is to act on the Word of God. Doubting is refusing to act on the Word.
There are two kinds of Unbelief:
First, a refusing to act on the knowledge of the Word that we have. This can be called unpersuadableness – we refuse to be persuaded to act on what we know to be true; we refuse to act in the light of knowledge.
The other kind of Unbelief arises from lack of knowledge of the Word. We do not know, hence we cannot act. We do not understand, hence we are afraid to act. We would act, but we do not know how to act.
The cure for the second kind of Unbelief is knowledge.
The cure for the first is obedience.
Bibloscope 