Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1, NIV)
I love to quote Hebrews 11:1 where Paul says faith is the SUBSTANCE of things hoped for, the EVIDENCE of things not seen... This isn’t the confidence by which you stride down the street, with which you face all opposition and whatever the devil throws at you. Faith here is ‘substance and evidence’. Something that will become FACT. Confidence is a present attitude, a current reality: I’m confident, I’ve stepped out the door; I’m confident, when I put the key in the ignition, my car will start.
The faith Paul is describing in Hebrews 11:1 is remarkable. For so many Christians, ‘faith’ is something ‘mythical’, ‘mystical’, something they should have, but they are not sure they do have it: I’m sick, and I wish I had the faith to believe that I could be healed... This is unfortunately an error and a tragedy in the Church. So many people say to me, “Oh I wish I had your faith that I could be healed, will you pray for me?” Yes, the gift of faith is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. When I received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit when I was 13, I read carefully where Paul says, “Covet earnestly the best gifts.” I read through the list and decided I would ask for the gift of faith. That has transformed the whole of my life. But it’s one gift you can never say you’ve got! Because ‘faith’ is only as good as your life today.
I like the way Paul describes faith as ‘the substance of things hoped for’. You’re hoping for something, you’re asking for something – and this is where confidence comes in... This is what I had to do when I had the throat cancer in 1964. I had prayed, supposedly ‘in faith’ for three months – and wasn’t healed... But what happened after three months? Well, I’d had no medical treatment and I ‘believed’ God had healed me, so I went back to the doctors and told them that I believed in a God of miracles and that I was healed. The doctors examined me, and said, “Your faith is a waste of time, there is no God, your cancer has not gone – it’s grown and become so big, that if we don’t operate immediately, you will die.” So where was my faith?
But I still had enough ‘confidence’ in my faith! That was the Friday and I was to go in on the Monday for the operation. On the Saturday I was fasting and praying, “O God heal me!” Nothing happened. On the Sunday I changed my prayer, “Lord, if You want me to stay in England and remain as pastor in the church, don’t heal me! But if You want me to leave my church and go to Israel and Russia, then I need a miracle! If this is what You want me to do, then heal me!” I’m not sure whether this was faith, or confidence? I had faith to believe that God would heal me, but I had the confidence to KNOW that whatever happened would be God’s plan! My faith told me, I’ve seen so many miracles – cancer, blind eyes – I had FAITH to KNOW God could do it. But I had CONFIDENCE that whatever happened would be the perfect Will of God.
I had one of those old-fashioned ‘promise boxes’, and I pulled out a text, it was from Romans 8:28, all things work together for good to them that love God... I was angry, I preach that to other people, I wanted a clear answer, YES or NO! My life was in the balance! So I opened my Bible and read Romans 8, from the beginning until I got to vv26-27 where it says, ‘The Holy Spirit helps us in our infirmities, for we know not what to pray for...but the Spirit makes intercession for us – ACCORDING TO THE WILL of God’! When I read those words, I KNEW I was healed. My faith had told me that God could heal me, now confidence told me, HE WILL! And He had! Because when I went the next day, the doctors examined me and they were amazed, they said, “Somebody has cut the cancer out with a knife! Who did it?!” I had scar tissue that demonstrated the Hand of God! God had done it! Faith became the substance of the thing I had hoped for! It became the evidence!
The reason I’m so positive in my faith and preach the way I do, is because I KNOW that I KNOW that my sin is forgiven. I KNOW that Christ died for ME. When He died on the Cross, He was the Atonement for MY sin. I KNOW! This is why I preach with CONFIDENCE! The confidence I have when I pray with the sick is that I KNOW, Christ healed ME! I KNOW with the same confidence I have when I jump up and down, that the floor won’t collapse under me! Faith has to be translated from a ‘mystic theory’ into SUBSTANCE.
In Hebrews 11 Paul describes the substance of faith. In vv5-6, we see that by faith Enoch was ‘translated’ – he didn’t die – God took him into Heaven, because Enoch’s faith pleased God and without faith it is impossible to please Him! In v7 we see Noah was warned by God of ‘things not yet seen’ and told to build an enormous ark on dry land – he was laughed at! But he did it, and his faith became substance! And in v8 we see Abraham, who, when called to go out into a land he would later receive as an inheritance, obeyed – and went out, not knowing where he went! WOW! Abraham actually left a luxury lifestyle to go and live in a desert! His faith was translated into obedience, into action. And then there’s Sarah! She believed that despite her age and her husband’s age, she could conceive – and out of that came Isaac, and from him a whole multitude of descendants. But later, when Abraham was tested, he offered up his only son, the son born by faith in old age, the son from whose seed Messiah would be born, ‘by faith’ took this son of promise up to the mountain top to let him become the sacrifice... How could Abraham do that?! Because he had confidence in his faith that God would fulfil the Promise, even IF he killed the son of promise... God could not, would not fail to keep His Promise.
Do you understand the power of faith to convince us that God will never ever, ever fail to keep His Promise?!! Even if everything around us seems to conspire against it, God won’t fail!!!
Somebody once said, there are three levels of faith. The first level of faith is that you believe in something because all the evidence is there that it is going to happen. The second level is when you are believing for something and there is nothing at all to support or convince you that it could happen. But the third level of faith is when everything is against you – it can’t happen! Faith when it’s impossible, absolutely impossible. Like me with that throat cancer. It was impossible! On the Friday the doctors said the cancer was so big I’d choke to death. But I had faith to believe that when I went for the operation on the Monday I would be totally healed! Do you understand the power of faith in your life? But faith has to bring that level of reality, the substance and evidence of what you are believing for!
In Hebrews 11:24-25, Paul tells us that Moses, when he came of age, refused to be called to son of Pharaoh’s daughter, but chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season! Ooof! He chose by faith rather to suffer affliction, than to take the present rewards of sin! Faith always has to be translated into action! Faith is that moment when you make the choice, when you come under conviction and have to decide – by faith – to turn back to God, to change.