This is the Victory that hath Overcome the world, even our FAITH (1 John 5:4). The world in this sense is that whole system and order and atmosphere and attitude of things which MUST have the SEEN, and the PRESENT.
What is the Mark of the world? It must See, it Must Have Now. Anything that is unseen and not present is utterly outside of the mentality of the world, and we know how much of the world there is in our nature and the battle is there.
Faith overcomes that world that is in our own natures and around us. "The things which are seen are temporal: but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Cor. 4:18). Faith has to do with those things. We could talk for many hours on the matter of faith. Please do not think I am laying down the law to you. God knows the battle in all of our hearts on this matter and how true we know this to be in our own experience. We simply talk to one another solemnly.
We shall always have to fall down before Him and say, Lord, increase our faith! There will be many times when we shall say, Lord, I have not faith for that, I have not faith to face this, to accept this.
It is a matter of a new dealing with the Lord on this question of faith. There is the fact, it has to be faced, to be settled, to be resolved again and again. Everything depends upon it - the Victory in every realm, going on with the Lord, getting through to what God has purposed. It is all this matter of faith in God, and thereby being well-pleasing unto Him.
He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him" (Heb. 11:6). Lord~increase our faith!
~T. Austin Sparks~
