Personal Discoveries in the Faith Life — Manley Beasley

And as we talk to you today about this matter of faith, I want to talk to you about some discoveries that I have made after preaching on this subject for about fifteen years. And I trust living the subject for about twenty-seven years.

The thing that I am finding in the course of my activity is the fact that a lot of people are trying to regulate God to a formula. In other words, they would like to just come up with a formula, you know, and reach in and if you do this and do this and do this on the basis of a formula that you get this and this and this kind of result.

So I have found a lot of people that hear the material about trusting the Lord, I have seen them go out and just fall on their face. And they fall on their face because they are not aware that there are some laws that govern this life of faith.

Faith Is a Relationship With God, Not a Formula

It absolutely governs the life of faith, these laws. And I want you to get this into your heart today and I trust that you will be praying that the Lord will make it real to your heart. Because people every day are discovering the truth of God, but they are not able to take the truth of God and relate it to their own given situation and see God work in that given situation.

And I believe the reason is, is because they have either picked up on a formula that they think, you know, when they do certain things, God will do certain things, and of course they have reduced the walk of a Christian to a formula rather than the walk of a Christian with a person.

And I hope you underline that word person. And then they haven't done this. They have found some man or some woman out here that they feel is really getting the job done, and all they do is try to imitate that man or that woman.

So I come to this first law that I believe is absolutely important, and that's the law of relationship. Now, in John 3, 1 through 6, we find Nicodemus coming to Jesus, and we find Nicodemus saying to the Lord Jesus, What must I do to be saved?

What must I do to get to heaven? And the Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus, You must be born again. And of course Nicodemus did not understand what the Lord meant when he said, You must be born again. And it's obvious that Jesus didn't stop to explain to Nicodemus what he meant when he said, You must be born again.

But he simply proclaimed the truth. And of course a lot of us today are getting into trouble because we're trying to explain the truth instead of proclaim the truth. But Jesus proclaimed the truth to Nicodemus, You must be born again.

And of course as he proclaimed the truth, You must be born again, Nicodemus had a difficult time understanding that. But you know as well as I know that when a person is born again, they are born into the family of God.

And there is a relationship established between that individual that's born into the family of God and the Lord Jesus. And that relationship is with a person, with a person. And that person is Jesus Christ himself, the Son of the living God.

And this is so important that we realize that the Christian walk and the walk of faith is a walk with a person. It's of utmost importance that we get this into our hearts, that our walk is with a person.

It has amazed me through all these years that I'm constantly out trying to find a formula to work whereby I'll not have to pay the price to walk with a person. You know it costs you something to walk with a person and I guess because it costs you something to walk with a person, this is the reason that we're looking for a formula whereby we do not have to walk with a person.

You know if you are married and you fellowship with your wife or your husband, it's going to cost you something to have a genuine relationship with that individual, right? And I suppose that's why we're running around here looking for a formula somewhere that we can rake up and use, because of the fact that it costs so much to walk with a person on a definite relationship.

Fellowship With Christ Requires Obedience

But there's another law. There's not only the law of relationship, but there is the law of fellowship. If a person is going to believe God, they must not only have a relationship established with Jesus, but they must have a fellowship maintained.

In other words, they need to learn how to walk with Jesus personally and walk with him in the Spirit. They need to learn how to obey the truth, to obey the word of God, to obey God as he moves upon their lives.

And so we see that the Lord wants us to maintain a fellowship, and this fellowship with Jesus is maintained by obedience. I think 1 John 1, from about 7 through 10, would give you a good idea of the fact that our fellowship with Jesus is maintained by obedience.

Of course, there's a great deal of confusion about what fellowship means, but I believe that fellowship means an awareness, a conscious awareness, that you are in the presence of a holy God. Now it's not difficult for you to believe God if you have a conscious awareness that you are in the presence of a holy God.

I believe this is one of the things that's necessary, this fellowship is one of the things that's necessary, if you're going to believe God. Another law that's absolutely necessary if you're going to believe God is the law of lordship.

Submitting to the Lordship of Jesus

You know the Bible teaches that Jesus is Lord of the living and he's Lord of the dead. Now, he is Lord whether you accept him as Lord or not. But for you to get in on the benefits of his lordship means that you have to submit to him as Lord.

And when I say you must discover the law of lordship, I'm saying that you must discover the fact of something greater than fellowship, something greater than relationship. It's the fact that you must recognize him as Lord to the extent that you realize he controls you and all your circumstances.

And boy, this brings us into a dimension of understanding that is a little difficult for us to handle. And that is this, the Lord, when he's Lord of our lives and our circumstances, that means that everything that comes to us, comes to us as from the Lord.

Now, all these years of walking with Jesus, out of all these years of walking with Jesus, the most difficult pill that I've had to take as a child of God is that difficult thing that the devil has delivered to my door.

And then I would have to say, Lord, you did it. Boy, that's another issue. But friends, if he's Lord, if he's really genuinely Lord of your life, there's not a thing that's going to touch your life that doesn't come through the permissive will of God.

And everything that comes your way comes to you as from the Lord. Of course, we misinterpret the things that come to us because we get so tied up with the delivery boy, the devil, that we do not get the message that the delivery boy is bringing.

But nevertheless, the truth is still there. The Bible teaches us in Hebrews 12 about the disciplined life. And of course, when most of us think of discipline, we think about getting a whipping or spanking or something like that.

But if you make a careful study of the disciplined life in Hebrews 12, you will find that a child of God is supposed to so commit themselves to the Lordship of Jesus that he will discipline them because he loves them.

And this discipline is not necessarily a correction known as chastisement, but this discipline is more than chastisement. It's a continual work of God in the life of the believer, bringing them into circumstances that enlarges their life, and it will do three things for them.

It will teach them the wickedness of their hearts, the weakness of their flesh, and then that man shall not live by bread alone, but every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. So when we discover then that discipline is more than chastisement, but it's the sovereign work of God in our lives and on our circumstances, and God using all factors, every factor there is in the world, even the devil, to bring about this discipline in you to expose the wickedness of your heart, to reduce you to utter weakness, and to teach you that man shall not live by bread alone, but every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, then you start taking delight in discipline.

Amen? That's a little hard to say amen to that, I know, but I want you to know that's still the truth. And so if we're going to believe God, we're going to have to discover the law of lordship, the law of lordship.

Revelation Makes Faith Personal

And if we're going to believe God, we're going to have to go a little further than that, we're going to have to discover the law of revelation. The law of revelation, Romans 10, 17, says that faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by what?

The word of God. Now it amazes me that the author of the Bible, the Holy Spirit, can teach some of us folk the truth. It doesn't amaze me that he has the capacity to teach me, it amazes me that he can teach me the truth.

That's what amazes me. I'm not amazed at his capacity, I'm amazed at mine. You know, if the Lord can teach me the truth, he can teach anyone the truth. But for years, I've been working on this tremendous truth of the faith life.

And somewhere back there, without any background in Greek, the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and said, now the word comes to a believer on different levels. The word of God is there, and it stands alone, and it's the truth.

But then the word of God comes to a believer on the basis of the Holy Spirit taking the word and making it real and personalizing that word to you in a given situation. And of course, not knowing anything about the Greek, you know, I didn't know that the Greek was so plain in this.

I missed out on all those blessings, but I discovered that the Bible refers to the word of God as, in the sense of logos, and then it refers to the word of God on the basis of the Holy Spirit taking the word of God and making it real to you on a personal basis in a given situation as rhema.

And it's amazing to me that the word rhema is used here in Hebrews 10, 17. The fact that God's Spirit takes the word of God and makes it personal to you in a given situation. Now it's that word, it's that word that is the unique basis of faith which leads us to believe that revelation is a very definite part in this matter of faith.

In other words, I'm saying to you that people cannot take the Bible and have some issue in their life and just go through the pages of the Bible without any reservation and find a scripture that might relate to that given situation and strictly on a humanistic basis says I'm going to believe God.

You cannot believe God. You cannot have faith in God in the sense of Bible faith any time you want. But you can have faith, real, genuine, full functioning faith in the Lord when there is a need in your life and the word of God, the rhema God is made real in your given situation.

Then you not only can have faith, you are obligated to have faith. And the Bible tells us that we're condemned if we do not have faith in God. So I believe if we're going to really learn the faith life, know what it means to walk with God by faith, we're going to have to discover the law of revelation.

Many, many people that I find that are in error today are people that have violated this law right here, especially in the area of divine healing. People have the idea that healing is in the atonement, therefore all sicknesses of the devil, therefore here's a verse on divine healing.

Believing Before Receiving

I believe it, I'm well, and they go out declaring that they're well and they die. And they have violated the principle of the law of divine revelation to that given situation. Then there is the law of believing, Mark 11, 24.

This is a unique law, and that is this, most people want to receive before they believe, but the careful study of the word of God will teach you that you have to believe in order to receive. And of course, if we're going to get into the faith life, we're going to have to learn the key, that there is a law, the law of believing in order to receive.

To show you what I'm talking about, you've been praying for years that God will do this or that and the other, right? Well, when are you going to believe your prayers are answered? Most people say, well, Preacher, when they're answered.

Well, my friends, anyone can believe them then, or believe then, right? As you see, you need to learn that you need to believe in order for God to answer those prayers. And you have to learn to believe in order to receive.

And this is a law that's absolutely necessary to discover. Not only that, but you need to discover the fact that there is the law of warfare. Law of warfare, 1 Timothy 6, 12, tells us that there is a fight of faith.

The Fight of Faith

And once a child of God has believed, they have entered into the position of faith, and then there is a fight of faith. Jesus told Peter, I'm going to pray for you that your faith fail not. Now, the devil is constantly after your faith.

Do any of you remember when you first got saved and you were wobbling in your faith? You know, you didn't know a lot about the things of God, but you knew Jesus was real in your heart, and the devil, he'd come along and give you a real lick here and there and try to knock you over.

He was fighting your faith, but there came that time when you got to the place where you had full assurance in your heart that you were really saved by the grace of God. Well, there was a warfare going on.

The devil was fighting your faith. Of course, everyone that's been saved has entered into that fight to some measure. But a little more than that. Once we enter into the position of faith in the faith life, in the Christian life, boy, we're going to get into the fight of faith.

Now the biggest fight I've ever been in, the fight of faith, that I've ever been in my own personal life, was the time when I was dying in 1970 and 71. In January 71, the Lord gave me a promise that I would not die.

Now he did not give me a promise that I'd ever recover to the extent that I have recovered, but he gave me a promise that I would not die. That was in January. And did you know from January to July, I continued to die.

I dropped on down from about 60 pounds down to 140, and everything about my life felt death, death, death, death. And that was the biggest fight. It lasted for six months, almost seven months, that fight went on.

The devil would say, you're dying. And the Lord said, here is the truth. There was a fight, the fight of faith. That is unusual. And what I'm saying to you is this. If we are going to learn to walk by faith, we're going to have to learn that there's the law of warfare.

There's a genuine law here. We're going to have to deal with these areas. Now the reason I have shared this with you today is because this is absolutely essential if you're going on with God. So many people are trying to believe God without a relationship established.

So many people are trying to believe God without a fellowship maintained with the Lord Jesus Christ. And so many people are trying to believe God with a mixture of understanding about why they're having difficulties in their life when the devil delivers them some awful blow.

They do not accept it as from the Lord to mature them and grow them and so on. So many people, so many people are trying to believe God when they have not discovered the truth of God by divine revelation about their given situation.

So many people are trying to believe God without realizing, friends, that you must have to believe in order to receive. They want to receive so they can believe. And therefore they're failing. So many people are having the difficulty.

Once they believe, they think there's nothing else to it. And the warfare starts and they go all to pieces. And so these are some laws that we have to discover if we are going to live the life of faith.

Now this is what I found after walking with God all these years. And I thought that I needed to share those things with you as we enter into some of this material because it's absolutely essential that you discover these laws.

Faith as the Central Principle of Scripture

And of course the Bible is very plain about its teachings about faith. I've often asked the Lord this question and he's never given me an answer, by the way. But I asked him, I said, Lord, why faith? Why the faith principle is the principle that you honor?

Why is it that you designed man and the world and all that there is evolving around man? Why is it that it's this faith principle? Now I have some ideas, but I think they would be more meaningful to the philosopher than a good student of the Bible.

So I'll leave them out. But I am wanting to say this, the Bible is very, very distinct and plain about the place of faith as far as God is concerned, as far as man is concerned. And the Bible is just full of it.

The greatest history of what God thinks about faith is found in the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews. And of course it's a history of the Old Testament saints. So you will understand that this is an Old Testament history that's mentioned in the New Testament.

Discipleship Begins With Worship

But you know, we talk a lot about discipleship today. This business of discipleship is a big issue in the church today. And I just want to show you something out of the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews that relates to Old Testament history about God and about faith.

For instance, I want you to notice about the first man that's mentioned in the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews about faith is Abel, Hebrews 11 .4. And when we make a careful study of Abel's life, you know what we'll find him doing?

We will find Abel, first and foremost, worshiping God. Worshiping God. Now, you know, I've discovered, as far as I'm concerned, the first step in discipleship is worship, is worshiping. No person will experience God beyond their ability to apprehend God on a divine level.

And worship is that place where we, as human beings, have the unique privilege of apprehending or recognizing the Lord. And I believe you'll find that Abel was able to worship God. And a careful study of his life will show you that he was able to worship God by faith.

A lot of people have the idea that Abel's sacrifice was accepted, opposing that of Cain's, on the basis of the substance that he offered to God. But my dear friends, I believe an honest interpretation will indicate that Abel's sacrifice was accepted before God because it was offered in faith.

Offered in faith. And what I'm wanting you to see is just this simple fact, that faith is the very heart, the very basis of this whole Christian walk. If we're going to worship God, we're going to have to learn to worship God by faith.

By faith. One of our real difficulties in the Church today is that we are doing our best to create worship and a worshipful experience, a worshipful atmosphere, which lends to an experience strictly on the basis of the senses of man rather than by faith.

And let me say this to you individually as a prophet of God, be careful, my dear friends, of trying to create an atmosphere within you and about you where you can perceive God on a humanistic level and depart from simply worshiping God by faith.

Walking With God by Faith

Enoch walked with God. You know how he walked with God? Look at Hebrews 11, 5. He walked with God by faith. That's right. He walked with God by faith. It's interesting. Walking should be the expression of worship.

I'll assure you today, if your walk is not right, it's because your worship is not right. It's amazing that God gave us this progression here. Let me go on because I can get tied up on one point here and lose you completely or defeat our own objective.

Working With God Through Obedient Faith

Next is Noah. He's mentioned third there in your Bible, the book of Hebrews, 11th chapter, the seventh verse. And this brother Noah worked with God. It's interesting. Noah's a unique, he's a unique man.

He was a man that was able to perceive what God wanted to do and he had a simple faith in God to the degree that he joined him. You know it's amazing that Noah built that ark just like God planned it.

By the way, Noah didn't pull a typical scene. He didn't go out and build an ark and ask God to bless it. He went out and discovered what God wanted to do and God gave him the dimensions and he went out and cooperated with God.

And you know how he did this? It tells you, look, Hebrews 11, 7, he said he did it by faith. Isn't that amazing? You have your third step of discipleship. First is worship, second is walk, third is work.

Abraham and Spiritual Reproduction

You go on to the fourth and you have a man by the name of Abraham. And you'll notice that I'm not taking every person mentioned here, but most of them. Abraham 11, Hebrews 11, 8 through 19, sets forth a step in discipleship known as reproduction.

Did you know it took Abraham 20 years to learn how to reproduce? And a lot of people I know today are having a difficult time learning how to reproduce spiritually, right? You know what? We keep bringing Ishmaelites into the world and not Isaacs because we're constantly floundering around with efforts in the flesh and means of the flesh to try to do a spiritual work and we've not learned how to reproduce.

Did you know what Abraham discovered? That if he was going to reproduce on God's level, God's way, my dear friends, he had to do one thing and that was to believe God. And here's the very heart of God right here expressed in this man believing God.

You can just go right on through to Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and all of these men learned to believe God. Right on down to Joshua, all of them believed God. The thing that I want you to see throughout the history of the Old Testament, the very heart of God's work was based upon men and women learning the key to believing God.

Faith in the Gospels and the Christian Life

And that key, of course, was a simple faith life. Now, the Lord reveals in the New Testament the place of faith in the Gospels. The Lord Jesus constantly taught men to believe God. Jesus constantly walked the life of faith himself.

And there are so many scriptures that would substantiate this position, not only in the Gospels but in the epistles. We find that the faith life is at the very heart. We find it is by faith that men are made just before God, that their hearts are made pure, that we are sanctified, that we are comforted, that we are justified, that we stand and we walk and we live.

And the Spirit, we wait upon the hope of righteousness by faith. We have access to God and confidence before God by faith. And we are children of God by faith. We have the promise of eternal life by faith.

And Christ dwells in our hearts by faith. Oh, every way you turn, you find that the key to man's needs, that the heart of this is this principle of faith. Man has to learn how to believe God, to receive that which he needs within himself.

Bible tells us that it's through faith that we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God. And this interests me in Romans 3 .30. The Bible says that the law is made void by faith. And that really challenged me for a long time.

The law of God made void by faith. What in the world does that mean? Now, Jesus Christ didn't do away with the law, did he? He fulfilled the law. And do you know, by faith the law of God can be made void in the life of the believer.

Not by taking the law away, but by faith a person can so trust the Lord that God can so inhabit their life and express himself in their life that the law is lived up to. And the law is void when the law is satisfied by the life of Jesus being lived through your life.

And you know how that's done? By the way, it's not done by works, it's done by faith. That's interesting, isn't it? Because most of us feel that the thing we need to do is get saved and try our best. But it's by faith that we make void the law of God.

We're justified through faith, we're saved by grace through faith, we attain righteousness through faith, and we're raised with faith, with him in faith, and we inherit the promises of God by faith. It's just on and on.

Mary’s Faith and the Birth of Christ

And you know, the life of Jesus illustrates this significance of faith. When I think about the birth of Jesus and I think about the angel of the Lord coming to Mary, and he announced to her the plans, God's plans, and a careful study of that illustration will really fascinate you.

You might want to look at it, Luke 1, 5 through 45. It really will interest you. When the angel of the Lord declared to Mary what they were up to, she had a few questions, like how in the world can this be, and a few other things.

And the angel of the Lord said, well, with God all things are possible, and made some statements like that. But she finally came to this decision. She said, be it unto me, according to thy word, according to thy word be it unto me.

A real careful study of that will indicate to you that here this woman came to the place when she heard about what God had in mind. She got to the place that she believed he could do anything. There was that moment of absolute surrender to where she believed.

And when she saw Elizabeth, the wording is so distinct, it says blessed, blessed be she that believed, past tense, for there shall be a performance. Isn't that beautiful? And you go right back to the very birth of Jesus Christ, and at the heart and the bases, you know what you find?

Jesus Tests His Disciples’ Faith

The principle of faith. People believing God. Now the ministry of Jesus was so filled with this truth. He was constantly leading his men into predicaments. They had to face issues where they had their faith tested.

I suppose the cardinal example of this is John 6, where Jesus turned to Philip, and there was 5 ,000 men, and Jesus asked Philip, said, listen, how are you going to handle this crowd? He said, we need to feed them.

He said, how are you going to feed them? And Philip flunked the test. And Andrew didn't do much better. But nevertheless, these men were constantly faced with the issue of having to trust the Lord. Do you remember when Peter saw Jesus walking on the water and asked if he could come to him?

And so the Lord said, come. Remember that occasion? So the Lord constantly faced his disciples with the issue of believing. Now you can just go on and on and on. The reason I want to give you this material is this.

God Remains Consistent

God remains consistent. God doesn't change, friend. Back many years ago, because of a very severe problem with dyslexia, I could not read and I could not write. And because of this, I was very deeply confused as a little boy.

And I met Jesus at 17. And when I met Jesus, I told him whatever he wanted to do with my life, he could do it. Well, a year later, I surrendered to the ministry. Back in those days, there were about two things you could do for Jesus.

One was surrender to preach, and the other one was to be a missionary. And that's about all you could do. The rest of the crowd had to stay carnal. But it's just unreal. A year later, I surrendered to the ministry.

But now I was already surrendered to Jesus, but a year later it was to the ministry. And I could not read or write. And I got down on my face in what we call the boys' room in our home. And I said, well, Lord, if you can handle that end of it, the reading and the writing end, I'll obey you and do whatever you want me to do.

Well, I was shocked when I passed a test in about three weeks to enter into college. And it really shocked me, because there I was, entering into college, and I couldn't even read or write. And I want you to know, God just taught me how to read.

He never taught me how to write. He has sent me good secretaries along to do that. But it really shocked me as I began to walk with Jesus by faith, trusting Him for so much in my life, because there were so many needs.

And you know the thing that confounded me the most, that absolutely shocked me the most? That God would allow me to fail if I refused to trust Him. Well, that shocked me. I want you to know, that literally shocked me.

And He didn't, He wasn't merciful at all. Of course, He knew that I didn't need mercy. He just took me over there and let me see about several million, couple of million people dying in the wilderness, and their bones being bleached out white, being, their flesh being devoured by animals.

He let me see that. And it was the result of men and women failing to believe God. And He said, Now son, if you won't trust Me, if you will not trust Me, then I want you to know that I can not and will not bless.

You say, Well, Brother Manley, I have got blessings in my life when I was not trusting the Lord. All right. The children of Israel were led out of the land of Egypt with a cloud by day and a fire by night.

And friends, as long as they were going through the wilderness on a legitimate level, which means there is a legitimate time for growing up, God worked for them because of their immaturity. But when He got them to graduation day and said, Now believe, and they didn't, He cut His operation off and let them die.

Right. So I discovered that God will be merciful to the immature, but there comes a day when He says, Now believe. And if we will not change over to the faith principle of walking with the Lord, then my dear friends, He has nothing left to do but to leave us in carnality.

And carnality is different from immaturity to the extent that immaturity is just not knowing and obeying. But carnality is knowing and refusing to obey. And there is a difference. So I discovered that if I'm going to really move on with God, I must learn to believe God.

Choosing Trust Over Doubt

And then I learned that it's not the amount of faith that I have, but it's the choice of faith I make. Now that might interest you. A lot of folks get very confused because they do not feel that they have adequate faith for a given situation, or within themselves they do not have adequate faith for a given situation.

But I found that it's not the amount of faith that you have. The key is the choice of faith. Everything in your life that relates to God and Satan will basically, ultimately be reduced to a choice. You remember the children of Israel?

When they got to the land of Canaan, there at Kadesh Barnea, they sent the spies out and the spies came back with the reports and gave the reports. And of course all these people were so filled with unbelief, and Caleb and Joshua tried to stop the people from expressing their unbelief, and tried to encourage them to go on into the land immediately.

And the children of Israel decided, they made a decision, they decided not to go. And of course when they decided not to go, the glory of God departed out of their life. Remember that? Then after the glory of God departed, they discovered that they'd made a mistake.