I believe that there is only one way to all the treasures of God, and that is the way of faith. By faith and faith alone do we enter into a knowledge of the attributes, become partakers of the beatitudes, and participate in the glories of our ascended Lord. All His promises are Yea and Amen to them that believe.
God would have us come to Him by His own way. That is through the open door of grace. A way has been made. It is a beautiful way, and all His saints can enter in by this way and find rest. God has prescribed that the just shall live by faith.
I find that all is failure that has not its base on the rock Christ Jesus. He is the only way, the truth and the life. The way of faith is the Christ way, receiving Him in His fullness and walking in Him; receiving His quickening life that fills, moves, and changes us, and brings us to a place where there is always an Amen in our hearts to all the will of God.
As I look into the twelfth chapter of Acts, I find that the people were praying all night for Peter to come out of prison. They had a zeal but seem to have been lacking in faith. They were to be commended for their zeal in spending their time in prayer without ceasing, but their faith, evidently, did not measure up to such a marvelous answer.
Rhoda had more faith than the rest of them. When the knock came to the door, she ran to it, and the moment she heard Peter's voice, she ran back again with joy saying that Peter stood before the gate. And all the people said, "You are mad. It isn't so." But she constantly affirmed that it was even so.
Zacharias and Elisabeth surely wanted a son, but even when the angel came and told Zacharias that he should have a son, he was full of unbelief. And the angel said, "Thou shalt be dumb, because thou believest not my words."
But look at Mary. When the angel came to her, Mary said, "Be it unto me according to thy word." It was her Amen to the will of God. And God wants us with an Amen in our lives, an inward Amen, a mighty moving Amen, a God-inspired Amen, which says, "It is, because God has spoken. It cannot be otherwise. It is impossible to be
otherwise."
Let us examine this fifth verse, "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God."
I pray that God will so quicken our faith, for translation is in the mind of God; but remember that translation comes on the line of holy obedience and a walk that is pleasing to God.
This was true of Enoch. And I believe that we must have a like walk with God in the Spirit, having communion with him, living under His divine smile, and I pray that God by His Spirit may so move us that we will be where Enoch was when he walked with God.
Two Kinds of Faith
There are two kinds of faith. There is the natural faith. But the supernatural faith is the gift of God. In Acts 26:19, Paul is telling Agrippa of what the Lord said to him in commissioning him. "To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Me."
Is that the faith of Paul? No, it is the faith that the Holy Ghost is giving. It is the faith that He brings to us as we press in and on with God. I want to put before you this difference between our faith and the faith of Jesus: Our faith comes to an end.
Most people in this place have come to where they have said, "Lord, I can go no further. I have gone so far and I can go no further. I have used all the faith I have, and I have just to stop now and wait."
There is a process on this line. Enoch walked with God. That must have been all those years as he was penetrating, and going through, and laying hold, and believing and seeing and getting into such close cooperation and touch with God that things moved on earth and he began to move toward heaven. At last it was not possible for him to stop any longer. Oh, Hallelujah!
In the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians we read of the body being "sown in weakness," to be raised in power. It seems to me, that, as we are looking for translation, the Lord would have us know something of that power now, and would have us kept in that power, so that we shall not be sown in weakness.
There is one thing that God has given me from my youth up, a taste and relish for my Bible. I can say before God, I have never read a book but my Bible, so I know nothing about books.
It seems to me better to get the "Book of books" for food for your soul, for the strengthening of your faith, and the building up of your character in God, so that all the time you are being changed and made meet to walk with God.
"Without faith it is impossible to please Him; for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."
I can see that it is impossible to please Him on any line but faith, for everything that is not of faith is sin. God wants us to see that the plan of faith is the ideal and principle of God.
In this connection I love to keep in my thoughts the beautiful words in the second verse of the twelfth chapter of Hebrews: "Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith." He is the author of faith. God worked through Him for the forming of the world.
"All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made." And because of the exceedingly abundant joy of providing for us so great salvation, He became the author of a living faith. And through this principle of living faith, looking unto Him who is the author and finisher of our faith, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even by the Spirit of the Lord.
God has something better for you than you have ever had in the past. Come out into all the fullness of faith and power and life and victory that He is willing to provide, as you forget the things of the past, and press right on for the prize of His high calling in Christ Jesus.
Excerpt permission granted by Gospel Publishing House
Smith Wigglesworth was born to a very poor family. At the age of six he had to go to work. As a consequence, he never learned to read well until he was an adult. Later he claimed he never read anything but the Bible. He became a plumber by trade.
