The Power of the Word of God

Further, the Word of God has power to produce faith. In Romans 10:17 we read: “So, then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” You can never get faith by merely praying; you can never get it by any effort of the will; you can never get it by trying to pump it up in any way. Faith is the product of a certain cause, and that cause is the Word of God. It is so, for example, with saving faith. Suppose you want a man to have saving faith. Simply give him something definite from God’s Word upon which he can rest. The Philippian jailer asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Acts 16:30, and Paul answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” But he did not stop there. Read verse 32: “They spoke the word of the Lord to him, and to all who were in his house.” They did not merely tell the Philippian jailer to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and then leave him there floundering in the dark, without giving him something to believe or something for his faith to rest upon. They gave that which God has ordained to produce faith.

It is at this point that we often make a mistake. We tell people, “Believe, believe, believe,” but do not show them how, nor give them anything definite to believe. The biblical way and the intelligent way are, when you tell a man to believe, to give him something to believe. Give him, for example, Isaiah 53:6, and thus hold up Christ crucified; or give him 1 Peter 2:24. Here he has something for his faith to rest upon. Faith must have a foundation. Faith cannot float in thin air. It is pitiable to see men told to believe but then given nothing to rest their faith upon.

Not only does saving faith come through the Word of God, but prevailing faith in prayer does also. Suppose I read Mark 11:24: “Therefore, I tell you, all things whatever you pray and ask for, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them.” I used to say, “The way to get anything I want is to believe I am going to get it.” I would kneel down, pray and try to believe, but I did not get the things that I asked for. I had no real faith. Real faith must have a warrant. Before I can truly believe I am to receive what I ask, I must have a definite promise of God’s Word, or a definite leading of the Holy Spirit, to rest my faith upon.

What, then, shall we do? We come into God’s presence. There is something we desire. Now the question is, is there any promise in God’s Word regarding this which we desire? We look into the Word of God and find the promise. All we have to do is to spread that promise out before God. For example, we say: “Heavenly Father, we desire the Holy Spirit. You have said in Your Word, ‘If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?’ And You have said again in Acts 2:39 that ‘the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all who are far off, even as many as the Lord our God will call.’ I am a called man; I am a saved man. And here I have Your word for it. You have promised it. I ask You now to fill me with the Holy Spirit.” We then take 1 John 5:14-15, and say, “Father, this is the boldness which we have toward you, that if we ask anything according to Your will, You listen to us. And if we know that You listen to us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of You.” Then I rise up, standing upon this promise of God, and say, “It is mine.” And it will be mine. The only way to have a faith that is victorious in prayer is to study your Bible, and know the promises, and lay them before God when you pray. George Mueller is one of the mightiest men of prayer in this century. But he always prepares for prayer by studying the Word, John 15:7.