As we consider together the matter of God-filled faith, our text is found in Psalm 81:30: “I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it.”
In the day when Asaph wrote this psalm, it was the Persian custom when the King wanted to honor an eminent visitor, to ask him to open his mouth wide. Then the king would cram it full of sweet meats as it would hold, and sometimes even with jewels. Even so, our God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.
In Psalm 34 we read the righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.
Job 5 is even more specific:
“He shall deliver thee in six troubles. Yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee. In famine, he shall redeem thee from death. And in war, from the power of the sword. Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue. Neither shall thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh.
Of destruction and famine thou shalt laugh. Neither shalt thou be afraid of the beasts of the field. For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field, and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee, and thou shalt know that thy tabernacle shall be in peace. And thou shalt visit thy habitation, and shalt not sin.”
So, child of God, if affliction has come your way, draw nigh to God and pour out your whole soul. Sorrow and distress will give you an earnestness and an eloquence that you never knew you had. Come boldly to the throne of grace. Open your mouth wide. Lay hold of God, and hang on until you find mercy and grace in the time of need. And remember that those who expect MOST from God, are those that receive the most.
According to your faith, so be it unto you. In Genesis 18, the Lord said to Abraham, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” In Jeremiah 32, again, “Is anything too hard for Me?” And then, down in verse 17 we have the answer: “Ah Lord God, behold thous hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and outstretched arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee.”
In Psalm 145:2-3, “Every day will I bless Thee, and I will praise Thy name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised. And His greatness is unsearchable.” And, my friend, you can certainly say that again. The sun is over one million greater times than the earth, and it’s 93 million miles in space. And yet the star Beetlejuice is so vast, that the earth and its orbit around the sun could pass within the circumference of that great star.
Then you take a look at the minor things of earth. You take a look at the sting of a wasp, and compare that with a needle. The needle under highly magnified glass looks just like a rusty poker, but the sting of a wasp looks absolutely perfect.
Jesus said, “Consider the lilies of the field. They toil not, neither do they spin. Yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these.” You take the petal of a lily and put it under a magnifying glass and it looks perfect. Then you take the robe of Solomon that looks so beautiful when we look at it, and it looks like coarse gunnysacking.
My Bible tells me that the very hairs of our head are numbered. It doesn’t say “counted.” When God put them in, they were numbered. He knows how many hairs we have in our head. Now, such knowledge and power is frightening. And yet God is not a harsh and arbitrary despot. Jesus suffered the little children to come to him, and even rose to the defense of a helpless harlot.
As Jeremiah put it so beautifully in Lamentations 3, “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed. Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness! The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore I will hope in Him.” So the Lord is not only able to deliver us from all our troubles and miseries, but the Lord is willing to do so.
Prayer is something that God has already said, and you are simply asking Him to do it. God’s promise is ammunition in the gun, but it takes the hand of prayer to pull the trigger.
Today we see Christians deluged in a sea of misery, and God’s condemnation of us is “Ye have not because ye ask not.” Again, in Romans 8:32, “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us ALL things?”
The Lord, then, is both willing and able to meet your every need. To affect your most vital deliverance. But without prayer, the promise is useless to you. It was Jeremiah’s promise plus Daniel’s prayer that snapped the Babylonian captivity.
But I am Such a Sinner
But Christ was absolutely pure and holy. Will He extend His mercy to one who has sinned so often?
To Be Continued…
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Hello Daniel, I used to listen every day to Lennard on the radio as I painted houses. I visited him two times in his home in West Seattle. I have a copy of the book Tongues: The Dynamite of God. Is that still in print? Does it have a copyright? That little book is utterly needful for today’s spiritual leaders. It is powerful in the way that Lennard had a knack for getting at the root of things in a hurry and with amazing insight.
My father did The Last Days Bible translation and since his death I have taken it over. Blessings, Ross Johnson