Two Kinds of Faith

TWO KINDS OF FAITH

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One of the modern deceptions is the emphasis on soulish faith. Soulish faith can lead to demonic assistance and to the pride of Satan. True faith comes from God into the spirit of the believer. Soulish faith proceeds from the soul of the believer. Those who practice true Bible faith are led by the Spirit of God. Those who practice soulish faith are led by their mental knowledge of the Scriptures.

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One of the modern deceptions is the emphasis on soulish faith. Soulish faith can lead to demonic assistance and to the pride of Satan.

Let us point out some differences between true Bible faith, and soulish faith.

True Bible faith can operate only in the context of a consecrated Christian discipleship. Soulish faith, positive thinking, imaging, verbal confession, call it what you will, can be practiced by those who are not living as faithful disciples of the Lord Jesus. In fact, soulish faith can be exercised by non-Christians or even by worshipers of demons.

True Bible faith praises God and presents its request to God. Then it waits and trusts God to answer. Soulish faith pronounces its desire and then demands an immediate answer.

True Bible faith always will accept a change or a denial of what is being requested. True Bible faith always says, “Not my will but Yours be done.” Soulish faith regards saying “Not my will but Yours be done” as weakness and lack of positive faith. Soulish faith regards any hindrance to the answer to its specific request as being from Satan.

True Bible faith looks to the Lord and follows His timing, watching for the doors God opens. True Bible faith waits on the Lord (sometimes for many years) for the answer to come in God’s time and God’s way. Soulish faith finds a promise in the Scriptures and demands its fulfillment now. Soulish faith is blind to God and knows nothing of God’s timing.

True Bible faith seeks worthy objectives. Soulish faith often seeks selfish objectives.

True Bible faith recognizes that we must be willing to suffer and remain in “prison” until God is ready to give us the desire of our heart. Soulish faith rejects all suffering and all “prisons” as being of Satan.

The heart of redemption is our participation in the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ. God has many “prisons” that bring about the death of our adamic nature and press us into the resurrection of Christ.

The Lord’s supreme goal is that we be crucified with Christ and live henceforth as part of His resurrection Life.

The means God uses to slay are adamic personality are a cross, a grief to us. Sometimes we are required to walk before God for many years before the desires of our heart are granted us.

The person who chooses to remain “alive” in his or her adamic nature will refuse to accept the pains and pressures to which God subjects us. Many times the Lord uses Satan to harass us, as in the case of Paul’s “thorn,” and sometimes the Lord uses people to hurt us. The believer who rejects God’s way of the cross, and then seeks power from God, is a member of the False Prophet. He is part of the spirit of religious seduction that will support the Antichrist world system of the last days.

The only way in which we can escape being deceived, escape being part of the False Prophet and Antichrist, escape being part of Babylon (man-directed, Christianity), is to bear our cross patiently after the Lord Jesus.

The personal cross of the believer is God’s answer to the deceit and lawlessness of our adamic nature.

The False Prophet, the spirit of delusion, is a counterfeit of the Christian saint. The difference is, the deeds of the false prophet are directed by the soul of the believer; the deeds of the Christian saint are directed by the Spirit of God because his soul has been pressed into the death of Christ.

The spirit of deception cries, “In Jesus’ name,” and then goes forth to set up a “Christian” kingdom on the earth.

The true saint cries, “Not my will but Yours be done,” and plods along faithfully after his Master.

Today, only those who wait on the Lord with utmost faithfulness are able to distinguish between the voice of Satan and the voice of God.

Great tribulation and temptation are coming upon the world. The only persons able to escape being harmed spiritually by the darkness of the last days will be those who have died in Christ and now are part of His resurrection Life.

We understand, therefore, that arrogant, soulish faith is the opposite of the goal of Divine redemption. It is of Satan, not of God.

True Bible faith comes from God into the spirit of the believer. Soulish faith comes from the soul of the believer.

Those who practice true Bible faith are led by the Spirit of God. Those who practice soulish faith are led by their mental knowledge of the Scriptures.

True Bible faith leads to trust, humility, courage, patience. Soulish faith leads to arrogance and satanic pride.

True Bible faith holds steady in the belief that the answer will come from God in His time. Soulish faith presumptuously states that it already possesses what it has declared and demanded, that the object of the request already is a reality because “the Bible says so.”

True Bible faith is restful and confident. Soulish faith often is brash, boastful, arrogant, demanding, self-centered, full of bluster.

True Bible faith trusts and hope in God’s scriptural and personal promises. True Bible faith is a normal part of righteous living and is the basis for righteous living. Prayer becomes the means for proving and bringing to pass God’s will in our life. True Bible faith is displayed by our obedience to God and stands as our testimony of the faithfulness of God’s Character.

Soulish faith leads us into the occult. It is of religion, of magic. People who are not Christians practice positive thinking in order to get what they want. Soulish faith is the application of supernatural forces (directed by the believer, not by the Lord) in order to manipulate people, things, and circumstances according to the desires and understanding of the believer. It is a form of sorcery.

True Bible faith flows from a crucified life. Soulish faith rejects the personal cross of the believer and anything else that denies the fulfillment of the desires of self.

True Bible faith regards physical symptoms as real and accepts these limitations until God removes them or tells us what to do about them, or says to ignore them. Soulish faith states that the physical symptoms are of Satan or due to our unbelief, or an illusion. Soulish faith and “positive thinking” are similar to Eastern mysticism and Christian Science.

The logical outcome of believing that our physical symptoms are due to our unbelief or are an illusion, or that any other problem in the material world is due to our unbelief or is an illusion, is that we can remake reality by choosing to call into existence what we desire.

We state what we want to be true, picture it, and then act as though it has happened already. If we wish to make this supernatural process acceptable to Christian people we add Jesus’ name to what we are imaging. However, God’s will doesn’t enter the process (unless we are under the delusion that what we desire is automatically God’s will because we desire it).

The “faith” passages of the Scripture stress that it shall happen, not that it has happened because we have said it or claimed it.

Miracle-working faith is a gift of the Spirit (I Corinthians 12:9).

There have been Christians to whom the Spirit of God has imparted a special gift of faith, and they have been able to work extraordinary miracles. For most of us, however, impartations of Divine faith for the purpose of working dramatic miracles are rare. Yet they do take place on occasion and then we are able to perform miracles.

Those who have experienced such impartations of Divine faith, whether for the healing of the body or for the remedying of some other kind of problem, know the difference between Divinely imparted faith, and the efforts of the soul to believe. The author has experienced Divine healing as well as other miracles, and such Divine intervention actually changes the physical realm. It is quite different from the futile efforts of the soul to “believe.”

The Lord Jesus made some statements that seem to invite soulish belief and presumption. Let us consider this aspect of the problem.

The disciples of the Lord were unable to cast the devil out of a child. They asked Jesus why they were unable to do so. The Lord’s response was as follows:

So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. (Matthew 17:20)

This appears to be an invitation to human beings to manipulate nature at their convenience. It is nothing of the kind. Rather, it is a comment of the Lord regarding the fallen state of man. Man’s sin in the beginning cut him off from a normal, loving relationship with his Father in Heaven. A once joyous, responsive material realm died under the Divine curse.

It always has been God’s will that man rule nature and that nature respond to man’s needs and will. It is a normal, natural thing to walk on the water, to get money from the mouth of a fish, to multiply food. We now are imprisoned by the dead material realm and exist in a subnormal, unnatural condition. Our faith has been destroyed to such an extent that the Lord Jesus continually marvels at our unbelief.

No, this is not an invitation to presumption. Rather it is a commentary on our fallen state.

Can we grow up into a normal faith in which miracles are a daily occurrence? Yes, we can. In order to do so, three things must be true of us. First, the Lord Jesus must be King on the throne of our life. King self must be dethroned. Second, our position always must be, “Not my will but Yours be done.” We always must be ready to suffer and to be imprisoned for the Gospel, just as was true of our Lord.

Third, we must be living our life as servants of Jesus and not according to our own desires. When these three aspects are true of us at all times we then are ready to grow into mountain-moving faith, and to exercise such faith when obstacles arise to hinder our service to the Lord.

Today, lukewarm believers who are governed by self-will are challenged to move mountains by faith so they can get whatever they want. This doctrine is an abomination. The Lord Jesus never comes to lukewarm, self-centered, worldly believers and invites them to use their faith to get what they want of worldly gain. Such perversity is taking place in our day and is of Satan, not of God.

The eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews is known as the “faith” chapter of the Bible. Modern soulish faith, as well as the effort to “do big things for God”, to “get things from God,” does not appear in this chapter. Rather, the faith of these saints did not always bring them material prosperity but often resulted in “cruel mockings and scourgings” and the other suffering described in Hebrews 11:35-38. If we will allow Jesus to rule in our life, if we will follow Him into suffering and death, and if we will serve Him faithfully, coming out of the world, denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and patiently accepting His decisions concerning us, we can ask what we will and it shall be done.

We may not receive the answer immediately. But when we ask in Jesus’ name, God either will give us our request (in minutes, or after forty years have passed), or else He will show us that what we have asked is not His best for us.

After we ask we are to maintain an attitude of hope and expectancy, waiting for God’s response. He immediately sets the machinery in motion that will answer our request in the best possible manner and at the best possible time. The Scripture cannot be changed. If we are abiding in Jesus, whatever we ask the Father in Jesus’ name, God will give it to us.

“And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you.
“Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. (John 16:23,24)

“That day” is the day when Christ has been formed in us and is governing us. The Scripture cannot be broken, it shall materialize.

The so-called “faith” message is leading to the pride of Satan. Some of the preachers are stating we are just like Jesus, we are gods, we can have every desire fulfilled, we can be rich and successful in the present world, through faith we can install the Kingdom of God on the earth now—before the Lord appears. This, of course, is the opposite of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.

Notice, rather, the attitude we should be adopting.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,
who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery [not to be grasped] to be equal with God,
but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)

True Bible faith leads to loving union with Jesus and the Father. Soulish faith leads to the kingdom of Antichrist in which a fulfilled and all-powerful self rules the creation.

True Bible faith is the path to the Throne of God. Soulish faith is the path to the throne of Satan.

Our only protection from deception is the personal cross that has been given to us. When we carry it faithfully and patiently, following the Lord Jesus, we are guarded against deception. This is the meaning of the following verse:

“Because you have kept [guarded] My command to persevere, I also will keep [guard] you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth. (Revelation 3:10)

Soulish faith has faith in “faith.” True faith has faith in the Lord Jesus. It is the difference between Christ and the False Prophet.

(“Two Kinds of Faith”, 3376-1)