Maintaining Our Spiritual Confidence In God’s Presence
Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye require patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.
For yet a litde while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.
Hebrews 10:35-39
Read and Learn More Bible Verses about the Presence of God
The key to maintaining our experience in God’s presence is a spirit of fervency. Coming into the presence of God is only half the battle.
Staying there is the most difficult part. Many things will cross our path to hinder our progress and avert our attention away from this, mostly a life full of occupation. Our fervency in this area needs the proper fuel or it will give out.
The man of God who wrote the book of Hebrews did not make that mistake.
Neither did our Lord. But while they were very faithful to rebuke, chasten, exhort, and warn, at the same time they were very careful to encourage. We have here an encouraging passage of Scripture.
This is for your encouragement. The writer to the Hebrews says, “Call to remembrance the former days” (Heb. 10:32).
Here is the correct use of “remembrance.” It is to unite our yesterdays with our today and our tomorrows.
If we had no remembrance of what had been, we would be vegetables and not men. By the mystery and wonder of remembrance, we make yesterday today, and today will be tomorrow. Because our memory unites things, our human life is like a painting.
A painter begins with his canvas in one corner or at the top or bottom and lays stroke after stroke and line after line and color upon color and shade upon shade.
When it is all finished, he has a painting composed of all the brushstrokes he gave it during the time he was painting it.
Human life is very much like that. What if a painter laid on a brushstroke and then when he dipped in the paint for the next brushstroke the first one disappeared? And that continued through the painting.
When he put on number two, number one disappeared; when he put on number three, number two disappeared. When he was finished, he would have a blank canvas. The only stroke would be the last one he laid on, and it would disappear shortly.
Life is not like that. Life is to be a composite of all of its experiences so that we are to call to remembrance, and that is the correct use of “remembrance.”
Some say we should not remember at all, and they quote the apostle Paul who said that he forgot the past things (see Phil. 3:13). This is a misunderstanding because we are forcing a statement out of its context.
Any figure of speech or any passage of Scripture, if forced out of its proper meaning and not corrected by other passages of Scripture will lead you wrong.
For instance, if you take the word “leaven” and make it always mean something bad, then you take that authority on yourself to do that. But if you do, you will miss much of the meaning of the Scripture.
Take the expression “dead in sin.” The Bible says, “But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth” (1 Tim. 5:6). Because the Bible teaches about sinners being dead, some therefore claim that a person is dead.
He is unable to think, to help himself, to reason, or to want to do right. He cannot make up his mind to fight or repent. He is unable to do anything until he has been regenerated by a sovereign arbitrary act of God.
Then he repents, believes, and turns to God only after he has been regenerated. That is taking the passage of Scripture “dead in sin” and making it simply ridiculous.
What is meant here, of course, is that he is dead to God; the “he” in this case, is dead to God, dead to good, dead to righteousness, dead to heaven but a long way from being dead.
Some women who love pleasure are a long way from being dead. They keep the drugstores and other stores in business by the amount of extra adornment they buy.
They keep the clothiers and the hat makers in business; also, they keep their husbands jumping to keep them with a new car under them and generally are a long way from dead. But they are dead in the sense the Bible meant it.
And so it is with sheep. In John 10:27, Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”
If we were to take that as meaning always that the Lord’s people are sheep, then of course, we could not be men anymore; we would have to be sheep.
But it is a figure of speech. So when Paul says, “Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before” (Phil. 3:13).
He doesn’t mean that we are to cease to remember all that is past and let the brushstrokes of our experience disappear like disappearing ink. If we did, we would have a blank memory and no experience at all.
Forget About It
What did Paul forget? Paul tried to forget what kind of man he had been before. “Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh.
I more: Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law.
A Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ” (Phil. 3:4-7). But he forgot these things and pressed on, not allowing any memory of yesterday to slow him down.
So the proper use of remembrance is to remember the things that help us and try to forget the things that do not.
Paul forgot only those things that slowed him down and hindered him from making progress, but he said that we are to remember other things. In any time of crisis, keep in mind your past.
Keep in mind your fight of affliction when you became a Christian.’Keep in mind that according to Hebrews 10:33-35, you are a gazingstock (publicly exposed to reproach).
Keep in mind that you endured the spoiling of your goods (your property was plundered), and cast not away, therefore, your confidence.
Like a soldier or a group of soldiers that become suddenly frightened, lose heart, throw away their guns—the only protection they have—and make a headlong dash toward the rear. A Christian can get in that same fix.
We get the impression from some preachers that
Christianity is a pink cloud upon which God floats you off to heaven without any discipline, without any will.
Without any purpose, without any settled confidence, but simply with a great deal of emotion, we are swept along.
The Bible has more to say about confidence and vows and purpose and will and determination than it does about joy.
The Lord knows that a man can be happy and be a scoundrel, but the Lord also knows that if a man has set his face like a flint to do the will of God, he will not be a scoundrel but will make it through.
Satan tries to terrorize and stampede God’s people. God is saying to us, “You’re not green troops; don’t you remember how once in your early Christian life you suffered for Christ’s sake?
Remember your great fight of affliction. Remember that you were made a gazingstock; people looked at you as if you were a three-headed calf in a zoo.
They looked at you as if you were completely crazy. Remember that, remember the affliction you endured; remember that you became companions of people who were afflicted and persecuted.
And remember that you lost your property for Christ’s sake; you lost your goods for Christ’s sake. Therefore, have courage and keep up your confidence.”
Satan tries to terrorize you, but God says, “He that shall come will come, and will not tarry” (Heb. 10:37). He will either come now to your present help if you need Him and when you need Him.
Or He will come to your final appearance, whichever or both. The Lord will come, so do not let it bother you. I believe in this. He will come to terminate the evil and to diadem the right.
Live By Faith Not By Feelings
“The just shall live by faith,” not the just shall live by his feelings. Faith here is complete confidence. It is not an act of believing once done. It is not something you do and settle it.
It is a complete confidence that remains with you all the time. Faith is complete confidence. It is a state of confidence maintained—a state of confidence first in God.
We must believe in God, and then we must believe in His Son, Jesus Christ, in the work He did for us and the work He is now doing for us at the right hand of God.
We must maintain a state of confidence in the promises of God and the certainty that God will come to our aid. A Christian is completely thrown out on God.
He’s thrown out on God, and the writer of the Hebrews says here that you’ve turned away from the world and you’re attached to Jesus Christ; so be confident and maintain your confidence, for “the just shall live by his faith.”
There are many times when you will not have any spiritual feeling at all; so when that time comes, live by faith.
The fifteenth-century writer Thomas a Kempis said, “When the Lord withdraws his comforts from me, that is when I no longer feel like singing.
When he withdraws his comforts, it is my business to remain uncomforted until which time the Lord gives me back my comforts again.”
So we are therefore to have our confidence, but it is a long-range confidence, not a petulant demand for immediate vindication.
Recently, books have been written on prayer that never should have been written and, unfortunately, many people buy them. They have very little discernment, and so they buy a book if it has a nice cover and they read it.
Many books on prayer are dedicated to, as one man said, getting things from God. That was the name of his book, Getting Things from God (Charles A.
Blanchard, published in 1915). God has things, and you go and get them from God.
That is one aspect of prayer, certainly, but it’s only one aspect of prayer.
Develop The Long-Range View
The eleventh chapter of Hebrews is the chapter of faith and you will find that very few of the fruits of faith were given to the people while they were on earth.
They had a long-range faith that looked into the future and dared to count the things that were not as though they were, and the things that were as though they were not.
They dared to believe in the long-range view, and so most of them died without seeing the fulfillment of the promises, but they lived on and died and are now with the Lord—the souls of the righteous are in the hands of God.
The old apocryphal book, the Wisdom of Solomon, says this: “But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them.
In the sight of the unwise, they seemed to die: and their departure is taken for misery, and they are going from us to be utter destruction: but they are in peace55 (3:1-3).
The people of faith in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews were not the nickel-in-the-slot Christians who went to the Lord and got things from God.
They believed God for things too big to get now. If you are satisfied with ten-cent jewelry, God might be willing to give it to you now; but the great things, the mighty things, God is making you wait for to discipline you.
If you want a mushroom, it will grow overnight. Let it rain and you will have a mushroom in the morning. But if you want an oak tree, wait 70 years, take the long-range view, and believe in the future.
I think it is entirely possible to be petulant and demanding, and go to God and say, “God, I511 have this and this and this, and I’ll have that 55 And sometimes the Lord gives it.
But see what Scripture says about that: “And he gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul55 (Ps. 106:15).
I am not saying God does not answer prayer. There are times, critical times when God does answer prayer immediately and at once.
There are times when He has to answer at once. There are times when God has to send the answer in special delivery, with no time to wait for the regular mail, and he does it. I have had Him do it.
That is one aspect of prayer and one aspect of faith.
The other aspect is the long-range view: “The just shall live by his faith.” He feels good in the morning; he will thank God and go his way. If he does not feel good in the morning, he will thank God and go his way.
I remember hearing a man testify once; I smiled at the time, but I saw a lot of wisdom in what he said: “I feel just as good when I don’t feel good as I do when I feel good.” I believe in this kind of Christianity.
God takes delight in that kind of thing. If a man only loved his wife when he felt good, and as soon as he got a headache or a pain in his chest, he did not love his wife anymore, all the homes in the world would break up overnight.
But the simple fact is, love is not something that rides out on your emotions for the moment, despite Hollywood. Love is a fixed and settled thing.
We must have a settled determination to identify ourselves with God’s cause.
A Determination To Follow Jesus
In the Old Testament, Elijah went by and flung his mantle on Elisha. Elisha caught the meaning of it and decided he was going to follow the prophet.
Sometimes, in getting over that fence and joining the prophet, he said to himself, “I’ve given up everything to follow Elijah,” and he did.
He turned back and said to himself, “If my cattle were alive I would be tempted to go back to my cattle; and if my plows, wooden plows, are in order I would be tempted to go back to my plows.
I know what I’ll do, I’ll kill my cattle and use the plow for fuel and we’ll have a big feast and celebrate the fact that I’ve quit farming and started following a prophet.”
Elisha settled it, and if anybody’s wife or somebody said afterward, “Elisha, do you ever think you’d go back?” Elisha said, “Go back to what? The cows are dead.
Go back to what? The plows don’t exist anymore; they’ve been burnt to ashes. There’s no place to go back to.” He had a settled determination that he was going to follow Christ.
I believe we ought to teach this to young Christians. We must get the idea ourselves, then teach it and show young people that when they become Christians.
One aspect of their conversion is that of a settled determination to follow Jesus Christ, regardless of what it may cost or how he or she may feel about it at any given time.
A Christian’s feelings are like loose change in his pocket, never the same twice. We must have a settled confidence that we are on God’s side.
I had a wonderful young doctor just getting his MD to visit me for two hours and 15 minutes. We discussed things about his life and psychiatrists and the anthropologists and all the rest that have greatly disturbed our young people, greatly disturbed.
They say that which was right to our fathers is not right to us, and that which our fathers believed in we do not believe in anymore.
“Don’t you see, Mr. To2er, that once our Christian people believed this was wrong, today they accept it?” So they make the morals to be relative.
That is what you call the relativity of morals—there is nothing pinned down and nothing is right in itself. It just floats. If you think it’s right, then it’s right; if you do not think it’s right, then it’s not right. Everything floats.
A Christian knows better than that; he has settled it; he believes in God the Father Almighty. He believes in his Holy Son who died for him.
He believes in the will of God as his righteousness. He believes in the Bible as the fixed revelation of divine truth.
Some of our Mennonite and Amish friends out through the state of Pennsylvania will not drive an automobile; they drive a horse and buggy.
I, for my part, cannot see any morality in that; that is, I cannot see a difference between a horse and buggy and an automobile except for convenience and speed; it is just a way of getting around.
I am willing to let them have their opinion about it. But that is not what you set your mind on; you set your mind to do the will of God.
You can do the will of God in an airplane. I suppose you could do the will of God in a space capsule, but that is one place I don’t intend to do the will of God unless He sends me; and of course, if He sends me, I will go.
I doubt that He’ll choose me for that.
We have to make up our minds with a long-range settled determination that we are going to bear the cross without ceasing and as far as possible without whimpering.
I read a story about a dear old Swedish woman who was dying. She was a sweet old saint and was praying to the Lord in English but with a kind of accent.
And then she turned and testified, “My Father has been with me all these years and he’s blessed me and kept me from sin . almost.” She was at least honest.
It was an approximation, but she remembered a few little things that did not exactly qualify as righteousness, So she said “almost.” I believe we are settled to bear the cross and do the will of God. And if there should be a necessity for a little
bracket, a little “almost,” then put it in there, be honest with God. But see to it that you carry the cross and live for another world than this, and serve and wait for God’s time and lose whatever God calls you to lose, whatever it might be, lose it. It is all right.
Lose it and honor God in everything. That is a settled determination.
God is saying to us, “I want you to call to remembrance and remember how you lived and don’t get panicky and don’t quit and don’t get discouraged.
And don’t give up because things aren’t moving the way you think they ought to move in your life or your church or in your home.
” Cast not away your confidence; the just shall live by faith. That makes me feel good just to hear Him say it.
Just to know that this is the way God wants His people to live. He does not give us little wings and then says, “Fly away.”
He says, “The just shall live by faith, and we walk by faith and not by sight.” If any man draws back, He says, he draws back because of fear or love of this world or love of life or because of impatience.
If God does not answer his prayer, he wants to get mad and quit. This is not faith. As one who believes, we are not of those who draw back; rather, we are of those who believe.
What should concern us is not how we feel but what we believe and how firmly we believe it.
We look like other people, but we are not like other people; we are God’s people. And when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, it is a remembrance:
“This do in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). As we look back at all God has done, and forward to all that God will do, it ties together our yesterdays, our today, and our tomorrows.
yesterday Today, Forever by R. B. Simpson (1843-1919)
Oh how sweet the glorious message
Simple faith may claim:
Yesterday, today, forever,
Jesus is the same!
Still, He loves to save the sinful,
Heal the sick and lame,
Cheer the mourner, Still the tempest.
Glory to His name!
Yesterday, today, and forever, Jesus is the same.
All may change but Jesus never!
Glory to His name!
Glory to His name!
Glory to His name!
All may change but Jesus never!
Glory to His name!