Intro
The essential key to the kingdom of God is faith. Your future depends upon believing the promises of God. When Israel finally went into the Promised Land, there were only two men from those who left Egypt who entered in: Joshua and Caleb. All the others failed to enter into what God had provided for them. And Hebrews 3 and 4 tell us why they failed to enter. It was because of their unbelief.I thought a lot about those people this week. They saw amazing miracles. They saw the ten plagues on Egypt. They saw the Pillar of Cloud by day and the Pillar of Fire by night. They not only saw the Red Sea part, but they themselves walked across on dry land. After all that, you would think those people would be full of faith. But their opportunity came at Kadesh Barea. At that point of decision, instead of pressing into the purposes of God, they drew back in unbelief. For the rest of their lives they just walked around in circles and finally died. What a tragedy! Wasted lives, lived out in unbelief. And these were God’s people. We are not talking about the Egyptians. We are talking about the Israelites. It is a profound lesson concerning faith.
In his book, Ever Increasing Faith, Smith Wigglesworth wrote, “I believe that there is only one way to all the treasures of God and that is the way of faith.”ii How do we lay hold of the treasures of God? We must do it by faith. Hebrews 11:6 says without faith, it is impossible to please God. That statement is followed by examples of people in the Bible who lived by faith and pleased the Lord. The key phrase throughout the chapter is two words, “by faith.” “By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain….” (vs 4). “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out….” (vs 8). “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down…” (vs 30). The theme throughout the chapter is “by faith.” Are you living “by faith.”? Are you trusting God, even when it looks impossible? Wigglesworth also wrote, “I am not moved by what I see. I am moved only by what I believe. I know this--no man looks at appearances if he believes. No man considers how he feels if he believes. The man who believes God has it.”iii
Our subject today is faith, and specifically the gift of faith listed in 1 Cor. 12:9. Follow with me as we read verses 7-9: “But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: 8 for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit.”iv
EXPRESSIONS OF FAITH
Faith operates at various levels in people’s lives.
(1) Natural faith operates even in non-Christians. Every time you proceed through a green light, you are exercising faith in the system and in other people. You are trusting that when the light is green for you, it is red for those who need to stop. You are trusting that when they see that red light, they will stop. It would be hard to function in life at all without some level of faith. Every time you plop down on a chair, you are exercising faith. You are trusting the structure of that chair to sustain your weight. When you put your money in the bank, you are trusting the fidelity
of the system. When a farmer plants his crop, he is trusting the life in that seed to germinate and bear fruit. We all operate in faith at this natural level.
(2) Saving faith is the faith God gives us to believe the gospel and be born again. Ephesians 2:8 talks about saving faith. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” We cannot boast of our salvation because even the faith to believe in Christ was given to us by the Lord. Romans 10:9 gives us the practical way saving faith works: “That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” The faith to believe the gospel and be saved is expressed by our confession of Jesus as our Lord and Savior. How many here have experienced the saving faith that Romans 10:9-10 declares?
(3) Christian faith is the trust we operate in as believers. Saving faith is faith God gives us to believe the message of the cross and receive the Lord as our Savior. As Christians, we learn to walk by faith, not by sight.v This is a faith that is developing in us each day of our lives. It is something that grows and matures as we walk with the Lord.vi It becomes a part of our character. We go from faith to faith as we learn to trust in the Lord. Abraham demonstrated faith when he left Ur of Chaldees, not knowing where he was going, just obeying the Lord. He demonstrated greater faith when he offered up Isaac, believing God was able to raise him from the dead.vii
This is the faith that trusts the Lord through the trials of life and grows in the grace and knowledge of the Lord as we walk with Him. This is the faith that is purified and strengthened through daily exercise. Like the words of the old song say, “Through it all, through it all, I’ve learned to trust in Jesus, I’ve learned to trust in God. Through it all, Through it all, I’ve learned to depend upon His word.”viii This is the faith that comes forth as fruit in our lives.ix This is faith for Christian living and Christian ministry to others. This is the faith that we exercise daily as an act of our will.x
However, the faith that Paul is talking about in 1Corinthians 12:9 is at a level above this. Everyone has natural faith. A step above this is saving faith, which comes as a gift from God and enables us to believe the message of the cross. Saved people then develop during their walk with God a growing capacity to trust the Lord and to believe Him to answer their prayers.
(4) Faith, as a manifestation of the Holy Spirit, listed in 1 Corinthians 12:9, is supernaturally imparted by God to meet the need of the moment. We use the same criteria to understand the gift of faith that we used to understand the other gifts of the Spirit. There is natural wisdom, and there is Christian wisdom gained through living out the word of God, but the word of wisdom comes supernaturally by the Spirit for the moment. The same is true for the word of knowledge. In like manner, there is natural faith that drives through the green light. There is saving faith that embraces the message of the cross and the person is born again. There is Christian faith that is developed by prayer, meditating on the word of God, and trusting the Lord in situations that arise in our lives. That is something God is working in us on a daily basis. But the gift of faith comes in moment, at the time of need, and is supernaturally imparted by the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit manifesting Himself in a situation, granting supernatural ability to believe. The gift of faith might be defined as the supernatural ability to believe God, imparted by the Holy Spirit for a particular occasion. It goes beyond our own exercise of faith, and is a manifestation of God’s faith. Just as a word of wisdom is the impartation of a fragment or piece of God’s wisdom, the gift of faith is an impartation of a fragment or piece of God’s faith.
EXAMPLES OF THE GIFT OF FAITH IN OPERATION
So let’s see the gift of faith in action.
Sometimes it is expressed by a supernatural ability to trust God for PROTECTION.
Daniel was a man of prayer. God had given him significant influence in the Persian kingdom. His political enemies wanted to do away with him. First, they tried to find something he had done wrong that they could accuse him of before the king. But Daniel’s life was squeaky clean. The only thing they could think of was to somehow entrap him concerning his consecration to God. They knew that he prayed openly to the Lord every day. So, they hatched a plot in which they got the king to sign a decree that for the next thirty days, no one could make a petition to any God or any person other than the king himself. You know the story: Daniel continued to pray openly every day. The king could not reverse his decree, and Daniel was thrown in the lion’s den. God gave Daniel a supernatural trust in the Lord for that situation. He rested in God’s protection, and the lions did not harm him.xi We can see the gift of faith operating in a way that gave Daniel complete trust in God’s protection.
When I was in my twenties, God brought me to my hometown from Dallas. My uncle, Howard, was five years older than me and had been in a gang there for years. He turned his life over to the Lord, and we began evangelizing the gang. One evening, he and I were traveling to Oklahoma to pick up a car. One of the gang members who had gotten saved was with us. We stopped to fill up with gas in Groom, Texas. While there, we talked with the attendant for a while and shared the gospel with him. I was just about to pray with him to receive Christ when suddenly Howard yelled, “There are some guys coming and one of them has a gun.” To this day, I don’t know why they were coming at us with a gun. Normally, when people are coming at you with guns drawn, you deal with that as the priority. But faith arose in my heart, and I said, “Ignore them, I’m going to lead this man to the Lord.” I had faith to ignore the crisis. As I was praying with the man, these guys came up to the garage where we were; suddenly, they had a startled look on their faces, turned around, and fled to their car. They left immediately. Howard said they looked like they had seen a ghost or angel or something. I have no idea why they were coming, and I don’t know why they left. I paid no attention to them at all. I led the man to the Lord. The faith God gave me at that moment kept me on focus for what God was wanting to do. The Devil’s distraction did not work. I had an overwhelming peace that God would take care of me while I led that man to the Lord. And He did.
In Acts 12, King Herod put James, the Apostle, to death. Then, he arrested Peter and put him in prison. He did not kill Peter immediately because it was the Passover, and Herod didn’t want to upset the Jews with an execution on the Passover. So, Peter is scheduled to be executed when the holiday is over. He has seen what Herod did to James. So, this is no idle threat. Peter is in chains, guarded by four squads of soldiers, and what does Peter do? He goes to sleep. Can you imagine getting any sleep in that kind of danger? Yet God gave Peter such faith for the situation that he was able to lay down and go to sleep. The rest of the story is that God sent an angel who led Peter out of prison and rescued him. When God gives supernatural faith, you can sleep in the midst of the storm. Jesus did that on the troubled sea. What would normally terrorize you is of no concern whatsoever. Sometimes a gift of faith comes as an overwhelming, supernatural assurance there is nothing to worry about.
Sometimes a gift of faith brings supernatural confidence to believe God for something utterly IMPOSSIBLE. In Joshua 10, Israel was fighting against five kings of the Amorites. Israel was winning, but the day was ending. They needed to defeat this enemy. They needed a decisive win. The night would give the enemy cover to escape and fight again. In that situation, God gave Joshua faith to believe for a miracle. Instead of accepting a partial win, Joshua looked up at the sun and, with a supernatural faith, said, “Sun stand still over Gibeon.” At Joshua’s word, God extended the day so that Israel could utterly defeat those kings.xii
Very often, the gift of faith works in conjunction with other gifts of the Spirit. The extension of that day was a miracle. It superseded the laws of nature. So, Joshua operated in a gift of faith, and a miracle followed. Jesus operated in a gift of faith when He commanded the storm to cease on the Sea of Galilee.xiii He operated in a gift of faith when He told the man with the withered arm to stretch forth his arm.xiv Miracles followed the gift of faith. On Mt. Carmel, Elijah was operating in a gift of faith as he drenched the altar with water before calling the fire of God down on it.xv It defied all reason.
The gift of faith will give you boldness to do things you would not ordinarily do. One time in New Zealand a frail old lady came forward for prayer in Smith Wigglesworth’s meeting. She was suffering from a severe stomach problem. Smith Wigglesworth doubled up his fist and hit the woman in the stomach, commanding her to be healed. And she was healed! That’s not something you would want to do without the gift of faith. On another occasion, two sisters had their brother brought up on a stretch to receive ministry. Because of his fragile condition, they urged Wigglesworth to be gentle. Wigglesworth reached back and slugged that man in the stomach. The man fell unconscious. One of the sisters cried out, “You have killed him, call the police.” The man was taken to the hospital. Imagine with me for a moment what it would have been like to be in that meeting. You see all that happening. You do not see a healing at that time. You see the man hauled off to the hospital. However, when the man regained consciousness at the hospital, the doctors could find nothing wrong with him. He was totally healed. You don’t take those kind of risks, without the gift of faith in operation.xvi
During a meeting in Arizona, a young woman came for healing. She was in a terrible condition from tuberculosis. Wigglesworth stepped up to her and said, “I am going to pray for you and then you will run around this building.” He prayed and then shouted, “Run, woman, run!” The woman said back to him, “I cannot run. Can scarcely stand.” What would you do at that moment? Operating in a gift of faith, Wigglesworth, shouted back at her, “Don’t talk back to me, do as I have said.” He jumped down from the platform, grabbed her. And began running. She
held on for dear life until she began to gather speed. She then ran around the auditorium by herself.xvii The gift of faith in operation can look mighty strange to the natural mind. Who would ever do those things without an impartation of God’s faith.
The gift of faith is an important companion with the discerning of spirits. It is faith that enables us to cast the spirit out once it is discerned. Remember when Jesus came down from the Mt. of Transfiguration in Matt. 17? A father met him in distress. He had asked the disciples to cast an evil spirit out of his son. The disciples tried but were not able to do it. Jesus cast the spirit out of the boy. Afterward, in private, the disciples asked Him why they were not able to cast the spirit out. Jesus gave them this simple answer, “Because of your unbelief.” (Matt. 17:20). It took faith to cast out the evil spirit. Then Jesus explained, “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.” If you get a little bit of God’s faith, even as the smallest of seeds, you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move. You can say to this evil spirit, “Go,” and it will go. A gift of faith will often operate in conjunction with discerning of spirits. We may cast out evil spirits with our faith, but when our faith hits its limit, the gift of faith may be granted to accomplish the task.
Sometimes the gift of faith operates to bring PROVISION.
George Muller often operated in the gift of faith while taking care of orphans in Bristol, England. On one occasion, there was no food to feed the 300 orphans. The housemother told Muller that the children were dressed for school, but there was nothing to feed them for breakfast. He told her to take the children to the dining area and have them sit down at the tables. Muller thanked God for food, and they waited. Within minutes, a baker knocked on the door. He told Muller that he was not able to sleep last night. He said, “Somehow I knew you would need bread this morning. So, I got up and baked three batches for you.” He brought in the bread. Soon, another knock came at the door. It was the milkman. His cart had broken down in front of the orphanage. The milk would spoil by the time the wheel was fixed. He asked George if he could use some free milk. The man brought in ten large cans of milk. It was just enough for the 300 thirsty children.xviii
In Exodus 17, Israel came to a place in the desert where there was no water. They were in an upheaval against Moses. So, Moses went to the Lord with the need. God gave Moses a word of wisdom telling him to gather the elders together, stand on the rock and strike it with his rod, and water will come out of the rock. With a bold faith, Moses did what God told him to do and water came out of the rock.
Jesus was in the desert with 5000 men plus women and children. The only food available was five loaves and two fishes. A gift of faith operated in Jesus that led to a miracle. The miracle did not operate without the gift of faith. By faith, Jesus prayed over the five loaves and two fishes and gave them to the disciples to distribute to the crowd. That act of faith opened up the miraculous. The food was multiplied to feed all those people with twelve baskets full left over.xix
When I left a lucrative job at Bell Helicopter to go into full-time ministry, I knew God would take care of my family. Viewing that move naturally, I was going from a successful corporate career to a $ 9,000-a-year assistant pastor job. We had three daughters. People said I was crazy. But God gave complete assurance that He would take care of us. In time, our ministry grew, and a reasonable salary was easy for our church to give. During our journey, there were times when God would have us walk away from a good salary and trust Him to provide. We always limited our ministry salary so that the churches we pastored could thrive. However, when it came time for our daughters to go to college, we had no money for that. It was getting close to time for our oldest daughter to graduate from high school, and we wondered how God would provide. One day a millionaire came to me and said God had told him to that I was to have his house. I said, “There is no way I can afford that house.” He said, “I don’t know what to do because I know that’s what God told me.” We had a little bit of equity in a house near Sunshine Street. To make a long story short, we sold that house and gave the man that equity, and he gave us the remaining value of the house. It was a gift of over $ 100,000. That equity provided funds for our daughters’ college. We have always tried to do what the Lord told us to do, no matter what it looked like financially. And God has always taken care of us. I think it was a gift of faith that enabled me to walk away from my career in complete confidence that God would provide. I have found Him faithful every step of the way.
But a gift of faith is not the faith we normally walk in during our journey with the Lord. That I am calling Christian faith. That is the trust we have in the Lord in our daily living. It is a faith that develops and grows over time. The gift of faith comes supernaturally to meet the need of the moment, just like the other gifts of the Spirit. It is like the supercharger on the Batmobile. Have you seen those depictions of the Batmobile? Batman is riding along at a pretty good pace, but when he hits the supercharger he is off at the speed of light. We operate in faith, but when the Holy Spirit manifests His faith in a situation, it is supercharged. It is like Popeye on spinach.xx It is Samson under the anointing, slaying 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. It is supernatural ability to believe and do exploits.
In Mark 11:12 Jesus and the disciples are walking into Jerusalem from Bethany. Jesus sees in the distance a fig tree lush with green leaves. He went to it hoping to gather some figs. But when he got to it, he found that it had no figs, just leaves. In that moment, Jesus operated in a gift of faith and said to the fig tree, “Let no one eat fruit from you ever again.” They proceeded into Jerusalem and spent the day there. On their way back to Bethany that evening, Peter saw that the fig tree had dried up from the roots and pointed that out to Jesus. Then, Jesus gave a lesson on faith. He said to the disciples in verse 22, “Have faith in God.”xxi Verse 23 continues, “For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. 24 Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.” How do you not doubt in your heart? A gift of faith comes with no doubt. It is a piece of God’s faith expressed by the Holy Spirit. It is a perfect faith. It may only be the size of a mustard seed, but if it God’s faith, it will accomplish its purpose. That is what happens with the gift of faith. God imparts a fragment of His faith, and His faith never fails. Our faith is in a maturing process and is not yet perfect. We need to exercise our faith, and sometimes, that sets the stage for God to release His faith. When that supernatural faith is released, you can believe without doubting.
In Reinhard Bonnke’s early ministry, finances were tight. He was renting a little office in Africa and did not have the $ 50 to pay the rent. He prayed all day long that God would give him the rent money. At the end of the day, the Lord spoke to him and said, “Do you want me to give you $ 1,000,000?” At that moment, Bonnke spoke out an answer of faith, “No, I want you to give me a million souls!”xxii That is the way the gift of faith works. It can believe for radical answers. It can believe for miracles. It can believe for deliverances. It can believe for resurrections.
On one hand, the gift of faith can grant supernatural rest and assurance. It can look extremely peaceful, like Daniel in the lions' den. At other times, the gift of faith can be expressed in bold, radical, assertive action, like Joshua commanding the sun to stand still. Those two extremes can look very different. Yet, they can be supernatural manifestations of the gift of faith.
Usually, we exercise our Christian faith based on what God has told us in His word, and God honors that faith. Occasionally, the Holy Spirit expresses God’s perfect faith for a situation by the gift of faith. That kind of faith moves mountains. George Muller, Smith Wigglesworth, and Reinhard Bonnke exercised their own faith in God on a daily basis. They lived in the word. They build up their most holy faith praying in the Holy Spirit.xxiii They believed the word and acted on it. On that foundation, occasionally the supernatural manifestation of the gift of faith enabled them to do great exploits. If we want the gift of faith operating in our lives, we must be about our Father’s business. These gifts come by the will of the Holy Spirit, to accomplish God’s purposes. They happen as we are on His mission, not while we comfortably sit on the couch and drink tea. They happen as we stretch our faith, sometimes to the limit. Then He imparts His faith for the situation.
Faith is the key to the kingdom. With God all things are possible, just as possible today as ever before! Those possibilities can come thorough you and me as we give ourselves to God. Are you available?
ENDNOTES
i Hebrews 3:19; 4:11; 1 Cor. 10:6
ii Smith Wigglesworth quotes from Ever Increasing Faith, retrieved at https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/191049.Smith_Wigglesworth.
iii Ibid.
iv All Scripture quotes are from the New King James Version unless indicated otherwise.
v 2 Cor. 5:7
vi 2 Thess. 1:3
vii The gift of faith may have come into play in either or both of these events. It is not always easy for us to know for sure when a person’s faith hits its limit and when the gift of faith is given by the Spirit. This gift operated somewhat different in the Old Testament versus the New Testament. In the Old Testament, the Spirit came upon the person enabling the faith. In the New Testament, the Spirit is in the believer and rises up in the believer expressing the supernatural gift. Externally, it looks much the same. God’s command to slay Isaac, however, would have been a greater test of faith for Abraham than the previous command to leave Ur.
viii Andrae Crouch song, “Through it All.”
ix Gal. 5:22
x Psalm 37:3-5; Prov. 3:5; 2 Cor. 1:9-10. Christian faith operates by the will of the believer, but the gift of faith operates as the Spirit wills (1 Cor. 12:11).
xi Daniel 6:22. Heb. 11:33 tells us this was “through faith.”
xii It’s interesting to see the interaction of divine intervention and human effort. As great a miracle as this was, Israel still had to defeat those enemies. Notice how the miracle occurred in conjunction with Joshua exercising faith, even though God supernaturally gave him the faith he exercised. It was still Joshua saying, “Sun stand still over Gibeon.”
xiii Mark 4:37-40
xiv Mark 3:5
xv 1 Kings 18:33-35
xvi “Considering Smith Wigglesworth's Fierce Healing Methodology,” by J.D. King, retrieved at http://worldrevivalnetwork.blogspot.com/2017/01/considering-smith-wigglesworths-fierce.html.
xvii Roberts Liardon, God’s Generals: Why They Succeeded and Why Some Failed (Tulsa, OK: Albury Publishing, 1996) p. 215.
xviii “George Muller, Orphanages Built by Prayer,” retrieved at http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/church-history-for-kids/george-mueller-orphanages-built-by-prayer-11634869.html.
xix Matt. 14:14-20.
xx Norval Hayes who seems to have a good understanding of the gift of faith used this illustration in one of his teachings.
xxi Young’s Literal Translation says, “Have faith of God.”
xxii I am sharing the story as I remember him telling it in one of his meetings. Also see Charisma Magazine as retrieved at http://www.charismamag.com/anniversary/pages-from-our-past/24060-ripped-to-shreds.
xxiii Jude 20.
