The Victory That Overcomes

by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 4 - The Triumph of Faith

Reading: Heb. 11.

"Withal taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one" (Eph 6:16).

"For whatsoever is begotten of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." (1 John 5:4).

When we turn to the letter to the Hebrews, and the eleventh chapter, there is a very real sense in which we might write at the beginning of the chapter 1 John 5:4: "This is the victory that overcometh the world... our faith." If you take that passage as the key to the chapter, you can carry it through every part and see how it is true in the case of every one referred to in the chapter. It is not our intention to do that throughout, but it might be indicated in a word or two.

A Ruined World

Take verse 3: "By faith we understand that the worlds have been formed (framed, ASV) by the Word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of the things which appear." Take that passage back to the commencement of the book of Genesis, and, noting the state of things there - darkness and chaos, wreckage and ruin, hopelessness and despair - see that that condition is overcome by faith; that world, so to speak, is conquered by faith.

An Unrighteous World

Or take the next, with reference to Abel. Abel overcame a world by faith. It was a state of universal unrighteousness, all were included in unrighteousness before God. Abel, through faith, emerged into a place where he had witness borne that he was righteous. He overcame the world's unrighteousness by faith and triumphed through faith unto a righteousness which is of faith.

A World Displeasing to God

Follow on to Enoch, and here the whole world is Godless, living apart from God, leaving God out of account, denying God, giving God no place. Enoch, through faith, overcame that world, had witness borne that he was well pleasing to God. In a world displeasing to God, there was one man pleasing to God. A Godly man in a Godless world. It was the triumph of faith.

A Judged World

Pass to Noah, and we know the state of things in the days of Noah, the state of the world. The whole world was lying under the judgement of God. Universal judgement was proclaimed. Noah triumphed over that world in its state of judgement, through faith he overcame the judgement, by faith he escaped the judgement.

A Purposeless World

From Noah we pass to Abraham. A world estranged from or bereft of Divine purpose, without the purpose of God in it, and through faith Abraham became the instrument by which Divine purposes were recovered in the earth: a purposeless world overcome by faith. One thing which characterised Abraham's life was that he marked the introduction in a new way of Divine purpose. He came into oneness with God in His purpose in this world. He overcame that estrangement from, or loss of, Divine purpose through faith, and became the instrument through which the purpose of God was realised in this world.

A Hostile World

So we could go on through the whole chapter, and see how every one, mentioned in some way, overcame the world in which they were. If it were Moses, then he represents faith overcoming all the positive hostility in the world against the Lord's testimony. Abraham had introduced the testimony; his seed was the vessel of the testimony; now in Egypt you find Abraham's seed crushed, imprisoned, smothered, and the Divine testimony quenched by this positive hostility to what is of God. Pharaoh and Egypt represent the positive aspect of antagonism to what is of God, and that is drawn out and revealed in its intensity by the judgements of God. How deep-seated and intense that antagonism and hatred really was! Moses overcame the world of positive spiritual antagonism to the Lord's testimony through faith.

That is only a key to one line of understanding this chapter, and all the history that is in it. Chapter 11 of Hebrews can be seen from so many points of view, it has so much in it that you can approach it along quite a number of lines quite properly, to tremendous value. That is one way of seeing how the principle operates in the overcoming of the world by faith.

The Reaction of the Enemy to Faith

Another aspect of things is in our mind in connection with this chapter. It can at most only be introductory again, it is the reaction of the enemy to faith. That is suggested by the passage in the Ephesian letter: "Withal (over all) taking the shield of faith." Literally, take the big, or overall, shield of faith, "Wherewith to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one". That means that there is a reaction of the evil one to faith, that when faith has been taken, or a position of faith has been adopted, the enemy reacts to that and tries to break through that guard, to overcome that defence, to pierce that resistance. And it is true that we can never deliberately take an attitude of faith on any matter without there being - usually before long - a reaction of the enemy to that faith. I want you to see the working of that fact in some of these people's experience mentioned in Hebrews 11 and what the reaction really meant.

Verse 4: "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he had witness borne to him that he was righteous, God bearing witness in respect of his gifts...". The Revised Version margin is: "over his gifts". The first movement was clearly one of faith. Abel moved in faith in his offering. It was a faith offering. It represented a definite expression of faith as over against Cain's works. Abel took up a faith position and acted upon that ground.

The next thing was a Divine attestation. God bore witness over his gifts. God attested that he was righteous. In some way as Abel offered his sacrifice, God there, over the sacrifice, gave him the sign that his sacrifice was accepted and the witness that he was righteous, the attestation of his faith. It came into his own heart.

Following that was a challenge of the evil one. Cain slew his brother. Cain slew one whose righteousness God had attested, whose standing before God as a justified one had been witnessed to by God. The evil one made that attested one, that man of faith, the object and target of his malice, and put forth his power and enmity in a definite way unto his destruction.

The point is this, that although God had attested that faith, and borne witness that he was righteous, God did not protect him from the evil one. That is so often a reaction to faith which it is exceedingly difficult to bear because it is so difficult to understand, and which really does prove the nature and quality of the faith. What we mean is this: the fact that one is by Divine attestation righteous, or justified, does not carry with it of necessity immunity from the evil work of the devil. Because that is true, it is in that realm that the conflict of faith has raged so bitterly in the lives of so many of the Lord's people. Somehow in our hearts there is rooted the idea that if we are accepted of God, attested of God, and God is for us, and not against us, God is on our side, and we stand in Divine favour, then we ought to be protected from the bitter malice and destructive work of the devil. It is along that line that Satan assails, and God allows him to assail so that faith shall still remain faith.

Think of the consequence of its being otherwise. Supposing everybody who accepted the Divine ground of justification immediately became, once and for all, immune from all the evil that the devil could bring upon them. The whole world would take that ground at once! It would be worthwhile. Indeed, we should be able to say we did not serve God for nothing. But, you see, God does not want people on that cheap basis to believe in Him, just because of what they get out of Him.

Faith is faith, and history shows that it is the men of faith, the men whom God has most mightily attested, who have been through the deepest waters of satanic opposition and subtlety, and God has not protected. But let us remember that the fact that the enemy is allowed so to assail, and to smite, and to go so far in his injuries, never for a moment argues, of necessity, that God is against us, that we do not stand justified before God. That is no argument at all. Abel introduces that truth, that a justified and righteous man is not therefore necessarily immune by the protection of God from the assaults of the devil, even unto much harm, apparently. So I like the last part of that verse: "...he being dead yet speaketh".

There is something which goes on beyond the worst that the devil can do, which is of abiding spiritual value. That is the quality of faith overcoming the world, overcoming the devil, overcoming death, overcoming hatred. Faith has perpetuated something of Divine value for all generations, and for eternity.

Let us note then that with Abel it is a question of faith bringing onto a ground of righteousness under Divine attestation, and then being challenged up to the hilt by the devil by Divine permission. God is associated with that and vindicates such faith.

Verse 5: "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and he was not found, because God translated him; for before his translation he hath had witness borne to him that he had been well-pleasing unto God."

The thought that has come to me in connection with Enoch in this special relation is the loneliness of Enoch's life. By deduction you conclude that Enoch was an exception. He walked with God, we are told. Well, why is that said if there are a dozen other men doing the same? Why mention Enoch alone if there were other men doing it? "Enoch walked with God...". It seems therefore that Enoch was an exception. This walking with God must therefore have been a very lonely thing. He must have been one by himself. He had no others to walk with. He had to walk on this earth alone with God. That requires some faith. That calls for faith in quite a number of directions.

Notice the remainder of the statement: "...he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that seek after Him" (verse 6). That is one direction in which faith was required so far as Enoch was concerned. Godliness disappeared from the earth. What represented God was totally eclipsed. No one reflected anything of God. God apparently vanished from the earth. All the others, the multitudes of men and women, were without God. And one man believes that God is. He is not here, you cannot trace Him, no one can tell you anything about Him, no one has anything to do with Him, no one has any touch with Him, He is not to be found here, and yet God is. God is, so truly, so really, in spite of everything around, that you can abandon your whole being to Him as being more real than the world, more real than things seen and things as they are. It takes faith to abandon yourself to God on that basis, to utterly abandon yourself to a God of whom there is no evidence around you, with whom you can have no touch through others and through things, who is so completely outside of everything; and then to let yourself go, utterly repudiating all this, and saying, "He is more real than that"! That is faith.

Then think of what it must have meant to Enoch. It is so easy to say Enoch walked with God! Then undoubtedly he was singular! He was extraordinary! He was fanatical! He was being different from everyone else! He was trying to set himself up as something more than the rest! He was putting his way of things over against what was universally accepted! All those charges would have been laid against him, "Oh, Enoch, he thinks that he is right and everybody else is wrong! He has nothing to do with our way of things at all, he keeps himself apart!" When you find yourself isolated like that, and find that everybody else has another mind, and no one believes that you are right or agrees with you, it takes faith to go on. It requires a lot of faith to be lonely in the will of God; having your own knowledge of God, your own fellowship and communion with God, and to be prepared to follow that when no one else can go with you or will go with you and no one else will accept your way, but rather everyone else stands apart and regards you as singular and extraordinary, unusual, being different, and thinking yourself better, imagining that you know more and better than all the rest. To go on means that you must have a mighty faith in God.

We know so often that when we step out in a course which has been made perfectly clear to us as God's way for us and no one else has seen that, the enemy does so often come back upon us and react to that faith, and say, "Well, you know, you ought to give the large number of good Christians, Godly people, credit for knowing something, and being a little right, and not set yourself up as knowing better than all the rest of them..."! Do you know that argument? We have had it put to us so often by others, "Well, we know the Lord, and yet we cannot agree with the way you are going!" And the enemy would just encamp upon that, reacting to that faith which has led us along that line, as we are assured that for us, at any rate, it is God's will. The enemy will encamp upon that ground and try to break our faith, and turn us back, because of the loneliness of the way.

Remember that the way of faith is always a lonely way. It does not matter how many have gone that way or are going that way at the same time, for the individual concerned it is as though no one had ever been that way before.

True faith is personal. Faith is not a mass thing. When there is a mass movement, faith in the individual is weakened. It is so easy to go with a crowd, but faith is always an individual, personal thing, and therefore it is a lonely thing. As I see Enoch, I see a man who walked a lonely path with God, and no one else was able to go with him, or understand him, and he could not walk with anyone else; not because he would not, but there was no one else to walk with in that particular way. The quality and character of Enoch's faith was that it was ready to go on with God alone. If no one else in all the universe could go on with him, he was going on with God.

Coming back to our point. There is always a reaction of the enemy in that realm, and I am quite sure that Enoch met many a reaction to his lonely life; a hit-back, fiery darts. We can understand the nature of some of those fiery darts beating upon our faith, suggestions that we are mistaken after all, and that the mass mind is more reliable, and it is always dangerous to be singular, to be different from the rest. There is a kind of separateness that is wrong. Some people cannot get on with anyone else, they will always be a law unto themselves, but we are not speaking of such, we are speaking of such as know God and are brought face to face with the question of going on with God alone or capitulating to the popular mind, the more generally accepted order of things, the traditional thing. It wants faith to go on with God when it is against tradition, against general acceptance, against what is recognised as the thing to do.

Verse 7: "By faith Noah, being warned of God concerning things not seen as yet, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; through which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith."

We come to another aspect of faith in faith's testing. What I see about Noah is this: that Noah had to work for a day which had not arrived. So far as the value of Noah's work went it was nil for the time in which he was doing it. What is the good of an ark if there is no water to float it on? He spent years (some say he spent one hundred and twenty years) building his ark. That is a small section out of his lifetime, which went into a good many more years than that, but it was long enough to constitute a fairly real and genuine test of faith. Year after year a man is working, not for the time being, but for a day yet to come, with no present justification for all his toil, preparing for a later on. The present, and the long present, being sacrificed to the future, and no one being able to appreciate, understand, or to enter into the meaning and value of all that he is doing now, year after year. The situation was not at all understood by the people. They could not appreciate it at all. They saw no use for this, no need for it, no meaning in it. And this that Noah was talking about had no precedent at all. Probably they had never known what rain was. The earth had been watered in other ways until that time. Rain? What is rain? They know nothing about it. No precedent for this at all! No history to go upon! And yet to something without precedent, without historic background, he laboured on; all meaningless to those around him.

Does not that provide very good ground for the devil to react to faith? Is not the whole of human nature bent upon having a quick return, having the bird in the hand, seeing something for your labours? To put it the other way, does not human nature find it exceedingly difficult to work in abstracts? How do you know that, after all, you are not mistaken? You have not proved that you are right! And yet it is laid upon you: the urge of God; you have got to do this thing, and at present no one understands what you are doing, no one appreciates what you are doing, no one can see the value of what you are doing. They are looking to see the result, and you can show them no result. They are looking to see the value and you can show them no value at present. They are looking to see the necessity for this, and it is very difficult to bring home to them that what you are doing is absolutely necessary, vital, essential. At any rate a very large part of the work relates to a day which has not yet come. God is preparing for that day. When that day comes there will be something prepared, something provided, a necessity will arise, a situation will come about, and then there will be those who thank God for those who in faith provided against that day. But, oh, how the enemy reacts to that faith, because it is so lacking in present proof that what you are doing is of value, is of meaning, is necessary.

I believe that very probably, something like that is going on today, and a situation is slowly creeping over this earth for the Lord's people; a new situation is coming about. The majority of them do not understand, do not recognise; they are occupied with the present, they do not even see that the thing is changing to any great extent. They are still bent upon the old order, the old method; they are not seeing that it is breaking down, and that a new position is becoming necessary, new resources are becoming essential, and that before very long they will find themselves unable to go any further on the old ground. God knows, and it may be that He puts into the heart of some to give themselves as to prepare for a coming day, when His own people will be thrown upon the last of their resources and that for which He has prepared will be the only thing which will save them in that day.

That is real faith, and there is a real test there. It is not nice or pleasant to the flesh to feel that you are spending the best part of your life for a day which is not yet, and which perhaps you personally will not see. The good of it will be entered into perhaps when you are gone. But is not that true of most of the men of faith? "These all died in faith, not having received the promises..." but they prepared the way and made a provision. The enemy does come in on that ground, "Yes, you are throwing your life away, you are accomplishing nothing, you think that your work is very important, but after all, what have you got, where have you arrived?" The only answer to that is to go on. It will be manifest sometime in the future, for what is of God is bound to come into its own sooner or later.

Verse 8: "By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing whither he went."

Here in this passage there are two or three things said about Abraham. The two things here about Abraham are the land and the son, and faith was challenged in both these connections, along respective lines.

As to the land. God in some way made it clear to Abraham that a certain course was related to His purpose. Abraham believed God, and went out and took that course, moved in that definitely indicated direction, and then that faith was met with a very severe challenge. A land was God's objective and intimation: "A land that I will show thee...". In faith Abraham took his journey towards the land, and I think we might say that Abraham would quite naturally expect to find certain conditions obtaining there, and expect that there would be an immediate realisation of God's intention, that everything would present to him a position which justified his faith. Whereas when he reached the land, nothing justified his faith so far as the situation, the position, the condition of things were concerned. His faith met a tremendous challenge. A God-chosen land! And the God-chosen land was full of idolatry from end to end, of the most wicked character. A land God-given! And yet it is impossible to live in it by reason of a famine - the reaction to faith by a position utterly opposed to that which faith would expect to find. Apparently one of those strange contradictions of God.

The enemy takes hold of a position like that very often. When you expect that your obedient faith is going to bring you into a certain situation, a situation which you have previsioned in your mind as being quite in keeping with God - God's wisdom, God's leading - the enemy will immediately pounce upon that and say, "Look here, you have gone wrong, this is not in keeping with God, this is all contradictory! You had the right to expect something other than this when you left all and trusted God!" That is a severe challenge to faith.

As to the son. God promised the son, and then faith was met with a negative. In the case of the land it was an opposite position. In the case of the son, if it is not a contradiction in terms, it was a negative position: nothing whatever to uphold the promise of God, nothing in nature to offer any assurance whatever that God was right, that God would do it. We need not dwell long upon that. We keep closely to our point.

Every movement of faith is challenged, and there is always the possibility not long after we have taken a step in faith, adopted an attitude of faith, to question the whole thing. It is strange that it does not matter how much is involved of sacrifice, letting go, suffering in our step of faith in God, very rarely is there an immediate vindication of that faith up to the hilt, but usually (I think I could say invariably) there is the opportunity and the occasion for questioning the whole thing soon after. Have you not found that? You have known that God wanted a certain line followed, a certain course adopted. You have known that God was calling you to a step of faith, and you have taken the attitude, and you have adopted the course, and you have found yourself very soon in a position where you had every reason under heaven to question it and to doubt it.

The big question for every one of these could have been, "Well, am I right, after all? Have I not been wrong? Have I not been mistaken? Have I not thought that it was God, and it was not God?" And there is the temptation to recoil and go back upon your course! All these men's faith was a victorious faith because it pierced through that argument, which was so against their course, against their faith in everything of nature, the enemy using situations and circumstances to press home that argument. They won through.

Verses 24-28: "By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he looked unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover, and the sprinkling of the blood, that the destroyer of the firstborn should not touch them."

There are several things here about Moses. There is first of all his great renunciation: "refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter". That was no small renunciation. It was no small giving up, no small sacrifice. So far as this world was concerned, it meant everything. It was a step of faith, we are told. Just think for a moment of what that meant to Moses. It meant certainly all the resources of this world for his support, his maintenance. It meant more than that. It meant a great deal of luxury. Then it meant position, influence, prestige. It meant many advantages. It meant security, reputation. On the other hand, there were these oppressed Hebrews, driven, lashed, harassed, crushed, hated, loathed. By a sublime act of faith in God he forsook the one to take sides with the other. That is the faith.

Now comes a challenge. He went out and took sides with the Hebrews on the ground of that great renunciation, that great sacrifice, and the Hebrews did not appreciate it one little bit, had no room for him, and turned upon him. He would be the hero - they did not want him as their hero. He would be their champion - they did not want him as their champion. What an awful disillusionment! When you have made the full and utmost sacrifice in the interest of people and those people let you know very quickly that it is all wasted, they are not a bit interested in your heroics, in your visions, that they do not want you! He supposed that his brethren would have understood that God by his hand would deliver them, but it was a false supposition; they did not understand at all. That is coming up against things in a pretty terrible way. The very people for whom you give all that you have, and suffer the loss of all things, are the people who do not want you, and do not want your message, do not want what you have to give; they have no appreciation for that. You would lay down your life for your brethren in Christ, suffer for the Body's sake, and yet they suspect you, reject you, ostracise you, misunderstand, misconstrue, impute false motives. That is a fairly good challenge to faith, as to whether you are prepared to go on with this business.

It is a grand thing to see Moses fighting through for those people until he got them out. He fought for their deliverance even while they had no interest whatever in his scheme, in his enterprise, and gave him no co-operation, but rather suspected him. He fought through and got them out. Relics of that old attitude are discovered in the wilderness again and again: "As for this Moses we know not what has become of him. Why have you brought us out into this wilderness to die? Were there not enough graves in Egypt?" They had no personal love for Moses. It was all, after all, in their getting out, a matter of their personal advantage. If Moses could get them an advantage, and really get it into their hands, all right they will accept Moses, but it does not matter what he goes through for the advantage. And yet this man goes on, steadfastly enduring: faith through heart-rending disillusionment, faith that this is God's way, God's purpose, God's intention.

The challenge to faith comes very often along the line of the romance of things being altogether upset and discovering that those people whom you dressed up with such sentiments, that they would devote themselves to you and to your cause if only you allied yourself with them, do no such thing. All your sentimental thoughts of these people all fade away; it is all an imaginary thing, and the real naked facts are that you are dealing with gross flesh which is hard to win over to God and the things of God, and because you bring them up against challenges, you become the object of their dislike. These are real factors in the work of God. If Moses had been energised by anything less than a mighty faith, he would have washed his hands of the whole lot of them and said, "They are not worth the sacrifice!" and the devil would have scored.

"By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king." Faith and fear never do go together. They are mutually exclusive. If Moses had feared the wrath of the king, then he would have had no faith in God. Having faith in God meant that he feared not the wrath of the king, for "he endured as seeing Him who is invisible." If he had seen the king he would not have endured. It is always like that. If we see the things seen, nine times out of ten we shall go down, but if we see the unseen things, we endure.

I am not absolutely certain as to what this verse refers to. The old expositors used to apply it to the day when he fled from Egypt, but there it says distinctly that he was afraid and that he fled in fear. I think it is more likely related to that day towards the end of the judgements when Pharaoh in great wrath ordered him out and said: "Depart! Go! Let me see your face no more!" And Moses, not fearing the wrath of the king, said: "I will see thy face again no more. All right, I leave you, and you shall not see my face again!" There is no fear of his wrath, leaving him abandoned to his fate. Whatever it was, we take it that in principle, at the heart of things, there is no contradiction in Scripture and the point is that it was his faith which triumphed over fear, and it was seeing Him who is invisible which made him bold in the presence of him who was visible.

"By faith he instituted the Passover" (RV). Now we come right back to this threefold reference to the faith of Moses to see a further inclusive reaction. He has made the great renunciation. He has met the cost and has gone through. He has gone on in faith to the final issue. He has instituted the Passover by faith, putting his entire confidence in the blood as victory over the death and him that had the power of death. Faith has gone through to complete victory, and takes its position in a full and final victory. Will it meet no more challenges? It is most remarkable that not long afterwards he, with the whole host, stands against a locked door of the Red Sea with no way out and the wrath of the king behind, the fury of the oppressor on his track. It looks, on the face of it, like a direct contradiction to every step that he has taken in faith. Now if Pharaoh overtakes and overcomes, his renunciations fail, his courage of faith is proved false, his faith in the power of the blood is proved false, the whole of his faith on every point is proved to be false. It is all gathered up into one inclusive test at the Red Sea. "By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land"! Triumph on every point.

Here is the challenge. It seems to me that as we go on with the Lord faith's tests become so severe as to touch almost everything in our whole life, to raise a question about the whole of the past. It is not just the last thing that we did, but everything leading up to it. There is a question raised by the devil about it now in a big, inclusive test. It looks as though almost step by step we were being led into a trap thinking we were being led by God, and the trap is an inclusive trap. The whole of our life in relation to God is gathered up in this one big trap that we seem to have been led into step by step, thinking that we were in the will of God. At that point faith rises to tremendous heights. It is not faith now upon a point, it is a faith which covers everything, and embraces and justifies everything.

You never do move in faith without the enemy coming in with a challenge and raising a question about whether you were right, after all, in doing the will of God as you thought. We never get far beyond a step of faith or an attitude of faith without having to question the whole thing. We are forced into a position in which we have plenty of room for question, to question our steps, but faith has not only to take a step, but also to repudiate the challenge. Faith is established, not by our taking a step in faith, but by our standing on the ground which we have taken when everything challenges that ground. Faith's victory is not always that we adopt a course of faith, but it is in our remaining victor on the ground when all the hosts of hell assail with their fiery darts to say we are wrong.

That is where the passage in Ephesians comes in. "Stand... withstand... having done all, remain victor...". Literally the words are: "remain victor on the field". It is one thing to stand; it is another thing to withstand; and then it is a still further thing to remain standing. Faith calls for the stand, faith calls for the withstanding, and faith calls for the remaining standing.