Let’s picture a trial in a courtroom. It’s a very strange, a most unusual trial, for the one being tried is none other than God Almighty! And you, yourself, are sitting as judge and jury. The prosecuting attorney is your human nature. Attorney for the defense is the Holy Spirit. God is accused of lying, of unfaithfulness, and of obtaining things more valuable than money under false pretense! God is accused of willful non-payment of promissory notes.
You, now sitting as judge and jury, have read God’s command and written promise, in James 5:14, for your physical healing when sick. You have followed God’s instruction to His written promise. You have followed God’s instruction and called the elders of the Church, who have prayed over you the prayer of faith and anointed you with oil.
The prosecuting attorney, your human nature, attempting to convict God of obtaining your allegiance under false pretenses - that is of breaking His contract and of lying - presents before you as judge and jury his evidence.
“My evidence,” says your nature, “is literal, tangible evidence that is real evidence you can see and feel. You can see for yourself that you are not healed. The pain is still there! In fact, perhaps it has grown worse! God gave you a written promise, as certainly as anyone ever gave a promissory note. You conformed to all His conditions. You prayed. You called the elders of the Church, and they prayed. You believed! But you can now see my evidence, you can feel my evidence, you are still suffering. You are not healed! Therefore, God did not heal you! God did not keep His Word. God’s Word, the Bible lied to you. God failed! My evidence is that which you plainly see and feel! You are not healed! Therefore, I demand you bring in a verdict of guilty! Guilty in the first degree! I demand you find Almighty God guilty of lying, of obtaining your allegiance under false pretenses, and of not performing what He promised in His written promise.”
But now the attorney for the defense, God’s Holy Spirit, speaks to you quietly and calmly.
He says to you, “I now present my evidence that God’s Word is true, that God is faithful and that God cannot lie. My evidence is not simply anything you can see or feel. My evidence is simply faith, patience and trust in the veracity of God’s Word. It is impossible for God to lie. My evidence is your faith, in that fact, and in His promise. And faith is the evidence of that which is not seen, not felt!”
Let’s review the case to see clearly what happened. Let’s understand plainly where your human nature has clouded the issue and deceived you. God has told you in Exodus 15 that He is your Healer. In fact, that is one of His names, and God is named what He is. God sent his Son into the world to be beaten with stripes, to suffer the penalty of your transgressions of nature’s laws, in your place. His body was broken for you, and by His stripes you are healed! God gave you His Word that is His will to heal you. He commanded you to call the elders of the Church, which you did. He promised to heal you. But God has also made it a part of his contract, in His Word, that “according to your faith, be it unto you”, in the very words of Christ.
Now, faith is your evidence that God will do what He promised. You can’t see faith and, yes, you can’t feel it. What you see or feel has nothing to with faith. But the point your human nature wants you to overlook is that God did not promise when, or how he would heal you.
God’s purpose in you life is to transform you from what you’ve been into the very image of His Son, which is the very character of God Himself. Part of the character is the learning of patience. And God instructs you, in James 1:3, that the trying of your faith works patience into your character. God has revealed to you in this and other Scriptures that He will sometimes delay healing you in order to try your faith and to teach you to be patient. Your healing, God has promised, shall be according to your faith.
Faith is trusting God to do that which He has not yet done. After the healing is completed, you no longer need to exercise faith. Faith is the ingredient you must exercise until God heals you, until you can see and feel that you are healed. After God has healed you then you won’t need faith in it any longer, but your faith must remain firm and steadfast, and patient, regardless of what you see or feel, until God actually heals you, as He has promised to do.
Now, the prosecuting attorney in this case, your human nature, wants you to believe that faith is something you exercise about 30 seconds, while you are still praying, and then if God has not done what He promised as soon as you expect, you are to find God guilty of lying. The instant you yield to the devil’s influence over your human nature and render a verdict that God will not do what He promised just because He has not done it yet, that moment you make God out a liar, you lose all faith in Him; and you thereupon break your part of the agreement, which is to have faith and keep on having faith, and trusting God, and relying upon Him until He performs what He promised.
Faith is simple reliance upon God’s Word. It is the evidence of what you do not see or feel.
Therefore, I call upon you to have patience, to keep on trusting God until He heals you. I call upon you to find God innocent of this charge of lying. I call upon you to find Him faithful to His promises, and then you shall have them.
The evidence is now all in. You will now render the verdict.
You must render your verdict based upon the evidence.
Which, now, is the evidence you believe? That which you see and feel, the physical evidences that often are deceptive or your faith that God’s Word is true, that His promises are sure, that it is impossible for God to lie?
If you believe the latter spiritual evidence and reject the physical evidences of sight and of feeling, you pronounce sentence that His Word has been vindicated by your verdict and you shall be released from the disease, and what He promised shall be carried out.
But, if you decide that the physical evidences of sight or feeling are to be trusted over and above the Word of Almighty God and you reject His Word and His promise, and refuse to believe in it, in other words, to accept and trust in the evidence of faith until God completes it, then you yourself must render your verdict, “Not Healed,” and you will not be healed.
You see, God does not promise healing, or anything else, unless we believe. “According to your faith be it unto you,” said Jesus. And remember, the faith must precede and therefore is a condition to the possession.
One man expressed it very well, “Faith is the assurance that the things which God said in His Word are true, and that God will act according to what He said in His Word.”
This assurance, this reliance on God’s Word, this confidence, is faith! And it is a true Bible definition. This Work of God has been built by putting it into actual practice.
