Become a Spiritual Giant

Now, I want to speak about a number of specific results which the Bible produces. And I’m speaking out of the scripture, but in many cases, I’m also speaking out of personal experience. Very rarely do I preach theories. Nearly everything I preach arises out of things that I’ve experienced. And when God wants me to come into a new area of truth, I find that usually, He gives me some experience. He leads me into some situation that confronts me with the truth.

So, as I say, this is not theory that I’m passing on to you this evening. The first thing that I want to say about the Bible, I’ve already indirectly referred to, is if you don’t have faith, you can get it. This is a key scripture in my own life. Romans 10 and verse 17.

“So then faith ‘comes’ by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

How does faith come? By hearing. Hearing what? The word of God. Now, I’ve studied that verse. Well, let me tell you why it’s so real to me.

After I had met the Lord and was baptized in the Holy Spirit, still in the British Army, I was sent to the Middle East. And I spent three years in the deserts of North Africa. During that period, I became sick with a condition that the doctors were not able to heal. So, I actually spent one full year on end in hospital. And as I lay there in that hospital bed, I knew God. I had been baptized in the Spirit. I was reading my Bible, but I kept saying to myself, “I know if I had faith, God would heal me.” But the next thing I always said was, “But I don’t have faith.” And when I said that, I was in what John Bunyan in Pilgrim’s Progress calls the Slough of Despond, the long, deep, dark valley of despair. And I had no way to get out of the valley. So, I was there weeks and weeks in this attitude of depression and despair.

And then a brilliant ray of light shone into the darkness. And it came from Romans 10:17.

“So then faith ‘comes’.”

And when I read the word ‘comes’, I said, “That’s it. If I don’t have faith, I can get it because it ‘comes’.” So, nobody has to go on living without faith if they will meet the conditions. What are the conditions?

“Faith ‘comes’ by hearing, hearing by the word of God.”

Now, I see two stages in that, and I’m speaking really from my experience. When you open up to the word of God, when you read it, you meditate in it, it takes first place in your life, then hearing comes. Now, hearing is a kind of attitude where you are shut in with God. Other things are excluded. And if you continue in hearing, then faith comes. So, it’s a process. It doesn’t happen instantly.

First, there is the word of God. You hear it. You give it your attention. You open your heart and mind to it. You expose yourself to it. And out of the hearing develops faith. You see, if you’re just one of those people that read the Bible for 5 minutes a day, very probably, very little faith will develop in your life because it takes time. But it’s worth it. If I tell Christians in the West, and I don’t know about this particular part of the world, although I think it may not be too much different, I say, “If you really want to become a spiritual giant,”

there are just two things you need to exchange in your life. Change them over. Of course, this is not true of everybody. But the two things you need to change over are the amount of time you spend with your Bible and the amount of time you spend in front of the television. Just change that, and you’ll be surprised at the change that will come in your life. Now, that may not apply to all of you, but it does take time. It takes attention.