Hope For The Unseen - The Mystery Of The Faith

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. Hebrews 11:1-3 (Underline mine)

But without faith it is impossible to please and be satisfactory to Him. For whoever would come near to God must [necessarily] believe that God exists and that He is the rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek Him [out]. Hebrews 11:6 AMPLIFIED

My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him. I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock. I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer. The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me. I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem , if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love. Song Of Solomon 5:4-8, (Underline mine)

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; Ephesians 6:10-18

But if [one is ill-treated and suffers] as a Christian [which he is contemptuously called], let him not be ashamed, but give glory to God that he is [deemed worthy to suffer] in this name. For the time [has arrived] for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will [be] the end of those who do not respect or believe or obey the good news (the Gospel) of God? And if the righteous are barely saved, what will become of the godless and wicked? [Prov. 11:31.] Therefore, those who are ill-treated and suffer in accordance with God's will must do right and commit their souls [in charge as a deposit] to the One Who created [them] and will never fail [them]. 1 Peter 4:16-19

(2 Visions)

(1^st Vision)

“The “believer”, who was seen by the Lord as one who was counted to overcome, was seated at a small wooden desk with the open scriptures in front of their eyes, the Bible resting upon the desktop. As the “believer” was sitting there consuming the scriptures great realms of tribulation came to the mind from dark clouds of evil spirits which attacked and sought to destroy the “believer” in their reading. As the reading continued so did the attacks from the minions of hell which did not wish for the scriptures to be read and to be learned. Great attacks increased as time went by, the attacks from these dark clouds of negative forces continued in huge realms of assault, some being subtle, some being forced, but all of them coming in great storms. However the “believer “would simply rest upon the chair when these things assailed the mind and the reading of the scriptures continued unabated and without any tiring in the eyes or in the mind. The light of understanding would only increase as the storms increased. As the attacks increased the mind endured great realms of shaking and torment. But as the attacks increased and as the shakings and torments increased so too did the UNDERSTANDING FROM THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH INCREASE IN THE MIND OF THE “BELIEVER”. The understanding only became greater; the knowledge of the Lord through His word only became stronger. The more the attacks, the more stronger the understanding and the knowledge of God. So great was the Lord’s ability to make strong the mind and the thinking of they that would overcome even during this time of heavy assault from the forces of darkness in this hour.”

(End Vision)
(2^nd Vision)

“Before the Lord stood the Overcomer. The Overcomer faced the Lord, face to face, standing in front of the Lord to be judged by the Lord. As the Overcomer stood there I saw huge appendages of flesh on both the right side of the Overcomer’s body and on the left side of the Overcomer’s body. These huge appendages of flesh were attracting a great stench in the spirit. They were putrid areas of the Overcomer’s life which had come to full measure in them and these appendages were realms of personal iniquity in the life of the Overcomer pulling their eyes to distractions causing them to look to the right and to the left and not to centering the focus of their eyes upon the Lord who stood directly in front of them. The appendages of flesh on the right and on the left were magnets attracting huge clouds of darkness and hordes of evil spirits, demons and those of the spirit world that were fallen from their first estate. These would attach themselves to the appendages of flesh and would begin to torment, to deceive, to carry away into delusion those who should know to keep their gaze only upon the Lord Jesus Christ who stood in front of them. As the flesh appendages increased on either side of them, swelling up and growing, so would the attached demonic forces increase in holding fast to all that “extra” flesh. The Lord then drew out His double edged sword and with great strength in His right arm He swung the sword severing off first the right side, then the left side of all this flesh that was growing and was putrid and had the realms of deception and darkness attached to their bodies. The sword of the Lord would strike only once on the right, then on the left and sever away all that was not to be part of the life of they that overcome. At the end of the striking of the sword the Overcomer was left without the extra appendages and their gaze was once more fixed straight and their eyes once more only upon the Lord who stood and dwelt directly in front of them who had never left that place nor had ever forsaken the Overcomer even during this judgment and this hard correction.

(End Vision)

Beginning the first chapter of The Mystery Of the Faith. Hebrews 11:1 states that “faith” is the “substance” of things hoped for, the “evidence” of things not seen. So to paraphrase that one could say that faith defined is “hope for that which is unseen.” If you will, “belief in simplicity for that which the natural eye cannot physically behold.” No one reading these pages is a novice or is foreign to faith. Everyone reading these lines has been long versed in the exercise of faith especially during this time where the world has been shaken apart and the hope for the appearing of Christ , His promised return seems to be so very long in coming. But our faith tells us that no matter what the time frame or the length of seasons, the purpose of the Lord will be fulfilled and His work will be done perfectly, nothing will prevent Him from answering the faith of His people who trust in Him and in His Kingdom which to date has been unseen. This natural creation will be swallowed whole by the spiritual creation so that the natural and the spiritual melded together as one will be full of all the splendour of the Lord. In the study of this mystery we will see that faith is the one singular element which causes the Holy Spirit to move in a life and which causes the fruit of the Holy Spirit to bear richly upon all the branches of the tree of life in the human soul. There is NOTHING that the Lord will not eventually bring to full perfection because of the act of faith by simple souls who love the Lord and His salvation.

There is no possibility of faith being swayed or tainted by any personal iniquity or fleshly tendency just so long as one keeps their gaze singular upon the Lord Jesus alone. There is no other object of faith than Jesus Himself. There is no other way of pleasing God the Father than to gaze upon Jesus who stands at the Father’s right hand as the great high priest, passed into the heavens on our behalf, ever living to make intercession for us. It is faith alone that is counted as righteous, not works, not noble causes, not charities or efforts, but faith IN Jesus, that alone is what the Overcoming life is boiled down to by trials and tribulations and the working of the personal cross. In fact, if you look at the promises given to all they that overcome in the 2^nd and 3^rd chapters of the book of Revelation, you will see that overcoming in each of the 7 churches is purely done by an act of faith. Whether it be the laying down of one’s life in sacrifice to obtain the victor’s crown or standing and receiving a stone written upon which no man knows about except that one who received it. In whatever gamut of promise given to the Overcomer it is all done by and kept by and held by the power of singular faith. Such a simple faith made and kept by a gaze fixed on Jesus alone and on nothing of this present world.

When the Lord moves forth from His Throne of eternal authority to reckon with the believer, He does so with one purpose, and that is to increase their faith. To do this however is what we often misunderstand for ignorance or error or deception. But if one has a love for the Lord and for His truth, faith made stronger is the final outcome of the life subjected to the Lord’s varied pressures. The Lord will speak to the minions of hell, to Satan himself, and order them to take His children one at a time or in groups into great realms of deception and discord. This happens repeatedly through history. The Lord has allowed many to fall by the wayside in their faith when their eyes are removed from beholding the Lord Himself and these faithful ones find themselves deluded by this present evil world or the many deceivers in it. This is however the great mystery of faith, because before the Lord does that with they that overcome, He first establishes in them the base cause of their hope, that is that they love truly the Lord and His gospel. They love the truth which sets them free. These know what it means when they know that verse “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” John 8:36. So then these who are such in love with the Lord find themselves deluded, they end up being shaken, taken away into a place they would not rather go and to find their way out needs a greater working of the cross. Such is the common ground for all those who want to walk in truth with the Lord and not be found in deception, they end up having their faith tried in the fires of His corrections.

The Lord will take the highest element of pride and ego in the believer’s life and the lowest place of overwrought contrition and despondency and fear and will bring it all to a place of utter deception. It is there that the Lord takes that child of His and allows all hell to torment them for a time. The highest reaches of their life and the lowest place of their vulnerability in lack is the entire gamut for the Lord to take, to move in, to destroy. Both the highest part and the lowest part the Lord must deal with at once. To do this the Lord speaks to Satan and to Satan ’s horde and orders them to take away His child into this land of darkness and delusion. “Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you,” 1 Peter 4:12. The child of God can quote every sort of anti demon scripture and command they know at this point, it will do no good, the Lord was the one who commanded the forces of evil to take them away into this delusion so that they would (for a time) believe a lie. All for ONE purpose; that is to raze down the high mountains and to lift up the low valleys because the Lord is going to use those areas as His personal walkway, and He is going to emerge through you after all of this is done. “As it is written in the book of the words of Esaias the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” Luke 3:4-6

It matters not how much wisdom you hold or how much understanding you may have. How much you have cried for wisdom and sought out understanding. The time comes when the Lord wants you to have more wisdom, more understanding, MORE OF HIS MIND. It is then that the Holy Spirit moves in you and that the Lord in you allows you to be sifted and tried, to be taken at times off into deluded wildernesses in desert places, all to bring you to the place where you can have just that much MORE wisdom and that much MORE understanding. Where the elements of fear and of dread become weaker and weaker and your faith, that sole singular thing which pleases the Lord, becomes stronger and more powerful than ever before. The Lord is in total control of the whole thing, both the descent into delusion and the recovery out of it, all to do ONE THING, and that is to give you GREATER AND GREATER FAITH.

Make no mistake about it. The forces of darkness led by Satan and the minions of hell are intelligent. They are arrayed in forces which are never haphazard but instead with intelligent design they spend each and every second of time in the spirit devising ways and means by which they can destroy the life of the Overcomer. These forces of hell led by the chief minion himself are arrayed in armies of great delusion and in such a manner as to appear as realms of light and revelation. They come to the Overcomer in such a way as to delude them completely making them think that what they are giving to their faith is the fulfilled promises of the Lord. It is the faith element that is always first attacked! This attack is relentless, it is ceaseless, it is ongoing and it does not have an end to it at all. Once it is reckoned with and realized as being deception and as being a delusion designed to make one fall out of love for the Lord, then another entire new area of attack is used in an entirely different format and from a completely new direction. AND THE LORD IS THE ONE WHO HAS GIVEN ALL THESE MINIONS OF HELL AND SATAN HIMSELF FULL COMPLETE PERMISSION TO ATTACK HIS OWN SAVED PEOPLE. The ultimate responsibility for the reason you were attacked was because the Lord willed it to happen to you. Why did the Lord allow that to happen to you? TO SHOW YOU WHERE YOU ARE LACKING. Remember, you first have a love for the truth. Any delusion you may fall into won’t be because you did not love the truth and any lie from the minions of hell that they present to you as false light will only be temporary at best. The entire purpose of the Lord in this whole affair is to bring you to the place where you see the chinks in your armor and where you gave ground to the wrong things in your own soul. Then, and only then, will you overcome it. And you will overcome it by simple refusal.

One must wear all the time, applying each piece faithfully ALL THE TIME, the armor supplied to us in Ephesians 6. There is nothing outside of that armor that can touch you if you wear it faithfully, you can quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one, BUT IT WILL NOT STOP THE DARTS FROM BEING SHOT AT YOU. These darts can be anything from a soft place of relaxation and enjoyment to a hard place of tempest and storm. For a time the darts may affect you, they may discourage you, cause you to think you are far from the Lord, but they can only do this for a time IF you bear the armor. The greatest delusion that can happen to an Overcomer wearing the full armor, holding firmly the sword of the Spirit and bearing faithfully the shield of faith IS THE THOUGHT THAT BECAUSE OF THE ARMOR ONE IS IMMUNE FROM SPIRITUAL ATTACK. Not so, one is more prone to attack the more the armor is steadfastly held to in faith, so much more would the warfare in the spirit continue, so much more would the minions of hell in launching their fiery darts try to find a hole in your armor to assault your life. This is what the Lord’s will is for you, that YOU will be ATTACKED. “The Lord wants me to be attacked by the minions of hell?” YES! YES! YES! He does! Why? So I can FIND MY UNPROTECTED UNREGENERATE AREAS AND LEARN TO OVERCOME THEM. The enemy of your soul can only attack you where you are vulnerable and they can only attack you where you lack in spiritual growth in the Lord. The areas in your life where FAITH IS LACKING is the area in which you will be assaulted!

Hear the words of Jesus . “And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:7-8. The Lord is the avenger of that which was an injustice to you. It is His place to avenge anything you were once fallen short in. Will Jesus find faith in the earth when He comes? The answer is YES, in those who allowed their faith to be expanded, who allowed their faith to be exercised by bearing the weight of their armor. Not the outward signs, but the inward signs of the armor being worn where faith does not subject itself to emotion or to things of culture or personal ambition, but on the Lord’s pure truth alone in the inward parts. Everything else He must shake, He will shake, all of it must be shaken. The END RESULT of all the shakings, of all the judgments, of all the attacks by the minions of hell towards you and of you bearing your armor, the end result IS PURE FAITH WROUGHT MORE AND MORE IN YOU BY THE HOLY SPIRIT. It is faith alone that in the very end IS ALL YOU HAVE LEFT. It is that faith that will move this entire world into the age that is dawning, even the age of the Kingdom of God, that age wherein The New Jerusalem will come down out of heaven from God and will settle down upon the dust of this world, even humanity, and all this will be done BY FAITH IN THOSE WHOM THE LORD FINDS FAITHFUL AT HIS COMING.

You may endure the most unexpected, the most peculiar, the most strangest thing you can think of in your own life, but it matters not, the Lord sees it all and He allows it all to happen to you so that your faith in Him may grow and grow and that you life in Him may be more and more perfect unto that perfect day of His appearing. Love the truth, love the Lord, stay true to your love of Him and His gospel. Then no matter what befalls your footsteps, you will in the end emerge with greater faith than you had before and nothing will be impossible to you as the Lord uses your faith to heal this broken world.

To be continued………………….