p. 6 (454) | Seeing by Faith

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 17, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 29.

Seeing by Faith

STUDIES IN FAITH.—NO. 3.

“For we walk by faith, not by sight,” says an apostle. 2 Cor. 5:7. But by this we are not to understand that faith is blind or deaf or senseless in any way. May faith not be the surest way of walking, after all? Let us study the text.

By walking is to be understood Christian progress, following Christ, pursuing His steps in the path of life.

Faith is taking God at His Word; yielding absolutely to Him in all things; to be or not to be, to do or not to do, as He wills.

In walking we make use of three senses especially, namely, sight, feeling, hearing.

In walking physically we do not always see the way. Sometimes we must feel our way in the darkness. A friendly wall on the right, a tree or a post on the left, a kind hand to lead, are always helpful in the deep, black darkness, when sight is useless.

But there are times when no human eye can see the way, no foot is sensible to the beaten path (for there is none), no friendly wall or guide-posts direct the way; we toss our hands in darkness, and reach forth to touch some familiar object, but find none. One thing only is left. We listen, O how intently we listen, for some sound to guide us; and like the ship enshrouded in the dense fog on a pathless sea, we heed the sound, the warning bell, the loud whistle, the friendly voice, and are safely guided. Thrice blessed is he who can use all these precious helps.

Seeing by Faith.

Faith is not blind. She sees,—not in the dim vision of eyes blurred by sin, but by clearer sight than earth knows. The seeing, however, is not ours, but God’s. The prophet Ezekiel helps us into the secret in the following: “The hand of the Lord was upon me, and He brought me thither. In the visions of God brought He me into the land of Israel, and set me down upon a very high mountain; . . . and behold, there was a Man [Christ], . . . and the Man said unto me, Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thine heart upon all that I shall show thee; for to the intent that I might show them unto thee art thou brought hither. Declare all that thou seest to the house of Israel.” Ch. 40:1–4.

“Visions” means “seeings.” “Visions of God” means “seeings of God.” Unbelieving Israel looked upon their condition and environments with the eye of flesh; they saw only with human vision. God wished them, as He wishes all, to see with His seeing, to view things as He views them, in all their eternal importance. As with Ezekiel, so with the other prophets and writers of Inspiration. They saw with the seeing of God. They heard His messages as He gave them, and they have revealed to His people the things of God. Their word is His word. Their visions are His seeings translated to us thru the human messenger.

We look upon the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life (1 John 2:16)—as pleasing in its incipient stage. Its flowering is gaudy, and sometimes even beautiful; its fragrance is intoxicating, and we love to lie in the lap of “sensuous ease.” Self questions: “Why not indulge ‘appetite a little? surely it can do no harm, and ministers pleasure. Why not enjoy the indulgence of sensual clamoring? These things are a part of our nature; why not follow that which seems beautiful? Why not adorn ourselves with it? Why not indulge the lust, the overweening or unlawful desires of the eye? Why may we not gaze upon secret things, and minister to the curious and prurient? Why not foster our pride? Why not boast of our strength, our wisdom, our knowledge, our riches, our possessions—in short, the pride of life?—Why not?” To human vision these things in a degree seem laudable.

But these things minister only to the flesh and its perverted desires. They are sinful; they miss the mark; they “come short of the glory of God.” Rom. 3:23. “Sin, when it is finished [“full-grown,” R.V.], bringeth forth death.” James 1:15. God sees the fruit in the flower; He desires you to do the same. He sees the full-grown plant in the seed. He wants His children to see it. These things are of the world, “and the world passeth away, and the lust thereof.” God sees it all. He tells it all. He anxiously longs that His children shall see as He sees, shall know that in the enticing flower of lust there is deadly fruit; that in the pleasurable companionship of sin’s sirens there is the loathsome body of death, that would drag us down to destruction with its clutch of skeleton hands, hidden now with sensual, glowing flesh. Sin is death. The last enemy lurks in every part of it. The only way, the only sure, certain way to know and conquer our deadliest enemy, is to look upon it with the seeing of God, and then turn from it with all our heart.

But not alone the evils of the way does faith show us. Righteousness is life. In its sowing is the seeding of life. In God’s Book are the wonderful words of life, and “he is in the way of life that keepeth ‘instruction.’” “The labor [the seed-sowing] of the ‘righteous tendeth to life.’” “He that is steadfast ‘in righteousness shall attain unto life;’” that is, absolute, everlasting life. Prov. 11:19, R.V. “The ‘fruit of the righteous is a tree of life.’” “In the ‘way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway ‘thereof there is no death.’” “The Spirit is life ‘because of righteousness.’”

That way of life may be by the path of self-denial, ending with Gethsemane and the cross and the grave; but there is no sepulcher so strong that it can lock in its embrace the child of righteousness. In his seed-sowing he may meet all the opposition of the world; all the contumely and reproach of a popular apostate church; he may be accounted an enemy to religion and the State; but he sows to righteousness, he forsakes sin, he lives the Word; and faith knows and sees that it is well; God is working out all things with them for good who trust in Him, who see with His seeing. Faith sees not only the beginning in unswerving allegiance to right and good and truth, but the end—immortality in the everlasting kingdom of God.

What, then, are all the honors, the pleasures, the indulgences, the wealth, the power of the world? In a little while the eye of faith sees the dream in the past, and the “Dead Sea apples” of earthly sowing turn to ashes.

What, then, are the few trials and conflicts and sorrows and self-denials and losses and deprivations and sacrifices! They are but “light afflictions,” which consume the sin and work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

“We walk by faith,” because we see farther, clearer, truer, better than in any other way.

There is still more. We will continue the study next week.