Source of Faith — Manley Beasley

We can convert the world. I don't know how in the world I can expect to get up here and get you stirred up and do anything about it. But I'll just add to your condemnation. I think that's about the essence of it, isn't it?

Amen. I had a meeting back about, oh, I guess maybe four or five years ago. You know, the older you get, the closer together these years pass. They pass about every three months. So sometime back I was in a meeting in Albertville, Alabama, and they invited this singer up to sing, and he canceled out a few weeks before the time of the meeting.

And they asked him why he canceled out. And he just happened to be one of those old boys that's just flat honest, you know. And he told them. He said, I was with Brother Manley four years ago and I hadn't experienced yet what he preached and said, I'm not going to come up there and get any more.

Amen. So he was a very intelligent person. Amen. I'm just saying a few things because I want to say some things today that could be life changing. I was just, I just walked up here and outside I ran into two men, old, old friends, old, old, old friends.

God's Initiative in the Christian Life

And they are in a turmoil over their future. And I was amazed that everything they have lived for for the last twenty years could go down the drain today just like that. I was amazed at one simple fact that they had that was so basic, and yet they were doing everything they could to obey God and solve the problems they were facing.

But there was one thing that really, that was the underlying factor in what they were saying, is they were saying, God initiated this, and if he's ready to shut it down, I'm ready. Now, whether or not you realize it, that's a very basic factor in the Christian life as to walking with God.

And that is, who initiated your involvement? Who initiated your involvement? And if God initiated it, the second important factor is, have you been obedient to what he has initiated to the extent that it takes a miracle to sustain you?

Faith as a Life of God-Initiated Dependence

Now, what I'm trying to do is tell you simply this. People ask me all the time, because I preach a lot on faith. They ask me a lot of times, Brother Manley, what is the faith life? And my dear friends, the faith life is not just trusting God for money.

That's just one of the little facets of the faith life, is a life of involvement that God has initiated. And you have been obedient to God to that extent, to the extent that it takes a miracle to sustain you.

Now, that's a faith life. Whether it involved marriage, your marriage should be a faith life. Keeping it together should be a faith life. Your finances, your children, every facet of your life should be a faith life.

And what the Bible says whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Everything that's not God initiated and sustained in your life and my life is sin, as far as I can tell. You just shall live by faith. And without faith, it's impossible to please God.

I found that if I had the faith, I could believe God for anything that I had faith for, anything I had faith for. But the big issue is, where is the source of faith? That's the big issue. Where is the source of faith?

The Biblical Source of Faith

Now, you can say God and you'd be right. You'd say Jesus and you'd be right. You could say the Living Word and you'd be right. But I want to look at this this morning and just see how it's really laid out in the Word of God.

Romans the twelfth chapter. This helps, this really helps me. It really does. And maybe it'll help you. Romans the twelfth chapter, the third verse and the sixth verse. For I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man, the measure of faith.

Another, one paraphrase of this verse, not a translation, but a paraphrase, says that your worth before God is according to your ability to trust him. Oh, I really like that. Your worth before God is according to your ability to trust God.

Well, the sixth verse says, having been gifts differing according to the grace that is given unto us with prophecy, where the prophecy let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith. Now, in 1017 it says, so then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

Grace, Gifts, and the Impartation of Faith

I believe these passages gives us grounds to what I call the grace of faith. There's no new term, if you've listened to much of my stuff at all, but grace of faith. Then in 1 Corinthians, the twelfth chapter, the ninth verse, it talks about the manifestation gifts, and it talks about that the Spirit of faith has been given, just in that one verse.

But it's actually talking about the gifts of faith, the gifts of the Spirit. And then in Galatians 2 .20, it talks about what I call the impartation of faith. You're familiar with this verse. I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.

And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to the, I'm going to deal with these backwards, because I want to deal with the grace of faith a little longer than the other two, if I have time.

And this is one of those messages, if I can handle it physically, you know, that I could just go on and on, and I don't want to keep you here all day. But Paul says in that Galatians 2 .20 that he has discovered Christ as his faith.

Now, I have no problem with the theology of this verse. I just have problems with the reality of this verse. Now, I understand the theology of it, but the reality of it I have problems with. The theology of this verse is that Paul has, on an experiential level, discovered Christ that inhabits him as his Savior, his peace, his health.

He has discovered that same Christ as his faith. Mark 11 .22 puts it like this. In the King James translation it says, have faith in God. But in some other translations, you know what it says? It says, have God faith.

Have God faith. And this is in the context of where Jesus Christ walked up to this fig tree, there was no figs, and he cursed it, and it dried up from the roots up. It dried up. And, you know, a couple of days later they were back by that fig tree, and there they saw that fig tree, and Peter made mention of the fig tree, and Jesus said, have God faith, and you can act like this.

You can act like this if you have God faith. I believe they're talking about the fact that Christ is the living faith. I mean Christ is experienced in the life of the believer as the living faith. So we're talking about the source of faith, and I believe that Christ is our source, the living faith.

Christ as the Believer's Living Faith

Now, I can't talk too much about it, like I said, on an experiential level, but I can teach you what the Word says. Now, I can illustrate this a couple times. Back in 1972, I was in the Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas.

I'd been in in 1971, and I was back in in 1972. And I was in awful shape. I mean, I was hurting, I was in awful pain, and Jack Taylor and some of his men had flown over from San Antonio, Texas, to visit me.

And they were visiting me there in that room, and to our amazement, Corrie Tinboon walked in that room. And she walked in there, and she started talking. And you know, she would talk to me for a minute, and then she would just walk off into glory.

And she'd just walk off and talk with Jesus for a few minutes, and after a while she'd come back. And it fascinated me that this woman could move in and out of the material and the spiritual, and never have to go through a crisis.

You know, it would amaze you what kind of crises you have to have to have a spiritual experience. But I mean, this woman could just go and come. And how well, I thought how wonderful, how well she knew Jesus Christ.

She, in other words, she and Jesus were on such a relationship, such a plane together, my friends, whether she was here, he was here, and whether she was there, he was there. I mean, it was, and she was there.

I mean, she just moved in and out. Well, it's no, it's no surprise to me that when she and the Graham organization started making the hiding place about halfway through, they ran out of money. And they called Miss Corrie and said, Miss Corrie, we are out of money.

Now let me remind you, no crises. She said, that will be no problem. My father owns a cattle on a thousand hills. He'll simply sell some cattle. I mean, no problem. No crises. Amen. I mean, no crises whatsoever.

She just moved right in, just like it was another time for a meal. You know, as a time to eat, a time, it's just beautiful. I believe she understood something as Christ as her life, her faith, her life, her being, her whole being.

Faith Expressed Through Obedient Action

Now I remember this story about a man that's been gone many years, but when he left, he left the Christian world, $60 million. One of the men that was close to him told me, R .G. Letourneau. He was asked this question.

He said, sir, if you know something to be the will of God, absolutely the will of God, and you do not feel like you have the faith to do it, but you know God about it. He said, what do you do? He said, I just go ahead and act like I have the faith.

Yes, sir. I think he was saying something about I'm talking about, but the Bible talks about Jesus being our faith. I live by the faith of the son of God. And what I'm doing is sort of laying this up there for you and letting you know that it's possible and it's probable and it's scriptural.

And my dear friend, you can have it if you want it, you can have it if you want it. And it's there and it's for you and it's for me. And that's as much as I can tell you about it. Then there is the gift of faith.

The Gift of Faith and the Sovereignty of God

And when we talk about the gift of faith, I'll tell you the eyes and the ears, the eyes open up and the ears perk up because everybody wants to talk about the gifts today. Now I, I don't know, I haven't been around enough to talk about the gifts around these boys.

And I'm just going to tell you what I've been saying all these years. And this is what I feel about it. And I believe it explains to me about the gifts of faith. I believe that the, the gift of faith is resident in every believer.

I believe the gift of faith. Now remember, we're talking about the origin of faith. Where does faith come from? I believe the gift of faith is resident in every believer and is manifested in any given believer according to the sovereign will of God for redemptive and sanctifying purposes.

I believe that's the way it is. Now it might be a little easier understood and broader understood and might be more helpful and applicable if we move from the gift of faith to the gift of healing, because they're right there together.

And I want to preach on healing a little bit anyway, so I just, I'll just move them over. And what I'll illustrate about one will be illustrated about other. Now, when I talk about all these gifts here, I said, these gifts are resident in every believer and is manifested in any believer according to the sovereign will of God for redemptive and sanctifying purposes.

Divine Healing Without Humanistic Formulas

Now there's a lot of folk going around saying all sicknesses of the devil. And if you want to be healed, you can get healed. All you've got to do is have the faith. Now I want you to know something. If you want to be healed, all you need is the faith.

But I want you to know my friend, you cannot claim faith on a humanistic basis. A faith is not a positive attitude period. It's more than that. And what we're going to say about, about it is this. I believe that my dear friends, anytime any man takes God out of his position of sovereignty by manipulating scriptures and organizing scriptures and coming up to the conclusion of the will of God with a set of scriptures on a humanistic level and make God their slave, they are rebellious against God almighty.

And they're acting as an antichrist. That's right. Now I am saying that my dear friends, God is in the healing business today. Amen. I mean, he's in a healing business today and he still heals according to the sovereign will of God.

Now listen to me carefully, not apart from man's responsibility, but including man's responsibility. In other words, this whole idea, well, if God's in it, it's going to be okay. That's a bunch of baloney.

Cut half in two. Amen. My answer, amen. My, my dear friends, God is in the healing business, but I'll tell you what he initiates who is and who isn't healed. And according to his sovereign will, my dear friends, people can know what God is up to.

Leave him Lord and master of the whole business. And they cooperate with God to accomplish God's end. Now I never will forget this. I was, Carl, I was riding home right here. One day when we lived here, I was riding in from Zachary past the little hospital out here at Zachary and the neighbor was in that hospital.

And I thought I'd stop by and say hello. And I was walking down the hall and I said to God, I said, Lord, what can I say to old Harvey today? He said, tell him he's healed. You remember that? And I, I walked in there and there was some men in there and I told Harvey, I said, God told me to tell you were healed.

And Harvey got in and got in on it, settled it. God miraculously healed him of tuberculosis. And I was called to the bedside of a dying man that I wanted to see healed as much as I ever wanted to see Harvey healed.

And not one thing happened. Not one thing happened. I mean, not one thing happened. That was, that was no way I could get God to do a thing. That was no gift of faith. That was no gift of healing. And my dear friends, man has to bow to the sovereignty of God.

And yet here was a man God gave, gave faith for. Here was a man God did not give faith for. You say, why didn't he? That's God's business. You talk to him about it. One of the reasons if God sets this thing up on a humanistic basis, there wouldn't be anything to it.

Faith Originates in the Holy Spirit

God has designed his economy, my dear friends, where a man has to get out of himself into a spiritual realm to meet God. How about every given situation? He hasn't set up formulas. That ought to make you afraid of these divine healers because they all set up formulas.

If anybody's got any spiritual maturity, immediately recognize that a formula to anything is to the flesh. It's not to God. My dear friends, the gift of faith originates with the spirit of the living God, according to the will of God, manifested in our lives for redemptive and sanctifying purposes.

So what happens is one place the Holy Spirit will manifest faith, the gift of healing, and another place it won't. For his end, not our end. Amen. So what we're talking about, we're talking about the origin of faith.

So we're saying, we're saying that the spirit of the living God has to originate that faith. We're right back to Jesus, aren't we? He has to manifest that faith. He has to quicken that faith. He has to reveal that faith, right?

We're right back to him. Amen. Then back in the Romans, the 12th chapter, and the 10th chapter, and that 17th verse, where it says, faith cometh by healing and healing by the word of God. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

Got that healing on my mind. But the word of God is the living word. And when we talk about the grace of faith, let me give you a definition of the grace of faith. And then I'll say something about it.

The Grace of Faith and the Believer's Responsibility

The grace of faith is that God-given ability and responsibility, whereby man can believe God by choice, according to the light of his word. Hebrews 3, or 4, excuse me, 1 through 3, says if there's a promise in the Bible left to you, and you fail to discover that promise and enter into that victory, he said that promise will raise up to judge you.

Amen. Boy, that's something else. Now what is he saying there? I am saying that man has the ability and responsibility on the basis of the truth, to believe God by choice. So what I'm really saying is, by the truth, man has the ability and responsibility to believe God, and what I'm basically saying is that faith cometh from the word of God.

And when I say the truth of God, I'm not talking about the letter. When I say the truth of God, I'm talking about the Holy Spirit taking the word of God and making it yours for a given situation, leaving God as sovereign over that situation, and you subject to him, and you're discovering his truth about that given situation.

And when God gives you that truth, you have the ability and responsibility. Your emotions have nothing to do with it. Your understanding may have something to do with it, but it's a revelation of God to your heart that has the basis to do with it, and you have that responsibility, and if you do not take it, God will judge you for it.

So you have the ability and responsibility to believe God according to the light of his word. That is so simple, so realistic, so practical. Now what I really said about where is the source of faith, I'm talking about the living word of God, the manifestation of the Holy Spirit of God, and Jesus Christ himself, but you will notice that it's all subject to God initiating it.

Now that doesn't mean, my dear friend, that God sits by and lets a lazy, lousy, ignorant person sit here and let the world go to hell. He takes the initiative to initiate and to stimulate and to manifest his glory.

And you and I have to discover what he's saying, how he's saying it, get in on it, and go with God in relationship to it. And I'll take that up in the morning. Good day.