The Fourth Step — Believers with a Faith of High Mountains and Deep Valleys

1He brought me back to the door of the house; and behold, waters flowed out from under the threshold of the house eastward, for the front of the house faced toward the east. The waters came down from underneath, from the right side of the house, on the south of the altar. 2Then he brought me out by the way of the gate northward, and led me around by the way outside to the outer gate, by the way of the gate that looks toward the east. Behold, waters ran out on the right side. 3When the man went out eastward with the line in his hand, he measured one thousand cubits, and he caused me to pass through the waters, waters that were to the ankles. 4Again he measured one thousand, and caused me to pass through the waters, waters that were to the knees. Again he measured one thousand, and caused me to pass through waters that were to the waist. 5Afterward he measured one thousand; and it was a river that I could not pass through; for the waters had risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be walked through.

Climb onto the fourth step of faith and you will have spiritual experiences both of a fullness like a high mountain and of a pain like falling into an abyss, like a deep valley.

Believers can discern through the Word what is good and what is evil, so they will suffer whenever a full faith collides with human instinct. When they are full they devote themselves, thinking they can carry anything; but once greed takes hold of them they show a frailty that falls in a moment. That is why a believer who was full is harder to restore once he stumbles. Even a man like the apostle Paul confessed that when human righteousness and faith collided he buffeted himself into submission daily and begged to die.

The apostle Paul was born into a good family of the tribe of Benjamin and grew up without hardship, under a strict education at the feet of Gamaliel. He was a legalist who kept the law like his own life, and so he had been taught that acting according to the law was the faith that served God whole. He believed that persecuting Christians was God’s work, so he persecuted a church that did not keep the law. He watched Stephen stoned to death and thought it a matter of course, and he threatened the disciples and killed believers too.

When he had come near Damascus in order to arrest everyone who believed in Jesus, man and woman, young and old, a light he could not bear suddenly surrounded him from heaven and he lost his sight. Then a severe voice came — “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” — and in his shock he asked who it was. “I am Jesus, whom you persecute. Get up and go into the city, and I will let you meet someone who will tell you what you are to do.”

The strange thing here is that there were many people, and no one but Saul heard Jesus’ voice, and only Saul saw the strong light. This is because God had chosen and called Saul in particular in order to use him as apostle to the Gentiles, and so he worked in a way that only Saul could hear and see. The apostle Paul’s eyes were darkened by the strong light of Christ. He had been racing on with his eyes ablaze to kill Christians, and suddenly Jesus’ fierce light left him blind.

In that moment Paul came to see that Jesus is the living God. While Christ was meeting Paul an astonishing thing happened: the Holy Spirit came to Ananias in the city and gave him a command — get up and go to Straight Street, look for Saul of Tarsus, and lay hands on him. God was working on Saul and on Ananias at the same time. On Saul through a light and a voice, on Ananias through the Holy Spirit; Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit were working together to fulfill God’s plan.

Ananias was a little taken aback at first when he heard the word to heal the eyes of Saul, the Christians’ enemy. Humanly it made no sense to lay hands on Saul, but he knew that when God commands there is always a reason, and he obeyed without conditions. You must believe that God does not work without a purpose. When suffering comes there is a reason for it, and there is a reason for a calling given; know that and obey.

Until then Paul had denied Christ himself, and that is why he had felt no sense of sin in killing Christians and had thought instead that they deserved to die. But after meeting Jesus he was greatly shocked by the fact that the people he had killed were the people of a living Jesus Christ. He had worked at keeping the law even to the point of killing them, and the moment he met Christ he saw how wrong his own faith had been.

The apostle Paul at once abandoned the Jewish faith and received Christ. And he began preaching the gospel immediately; carrying it into action the instant you grasp the gospel, as Paul did, is plainly a hard thing, and he did it.

Romans 7:22-23

22For I delight in God’s law after the inward man, 23but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.

The more human wisdom develops, the wider in proportion the world of ignorance grows. Compare knowledge to a circle: as the circle grows, the world outside the circumference that the circumference touches grows in proportion too. King Solomon, who wrote three thousand proverbs, had more wisdom and more knowledge than anyone else, and he confessed that the more wisdom the more anguish, and that as knowledge increased so did sorrow. Solomon enjoyed wealth and honor, and in Ecclesiastes, written in his old age, he confesses sincerely that life is vanity of vanities. Knowing that money and power are empty, he looked at believers who feared God and confessed that they were far more mature than he was, and even envied them. That confession finally means that the world cannot fill a person’s heart. In the same way, the more knowledge of God piles up, the more you will see our spiritual ignorance piled higher still than that knowledge.

The apostle Paul, too, the more he came to know Jesus Christ, the more he came to know that there is a limit to a human being knowing and serving God whole. While he kept the law he believed God by works, and once he met Jesus Christ he grasped the fact that salvation is faith and not works. But preaching to people a faith that can only be kept by letting go of human righteousness was so hard that he went through severe conflict. Paul saw two hearts fighting fiercely inside himself. He too was a human being with a body, so he could not be free of sin. Thankfulness for being saved by Jesus Christ’s sacrifice collided with human thinking and temper, and he must have been in spiritual conflict. These two hearts were always in conflict, and he could keep his faith because God’s grace, wholly, was holding him.

If the high mountain peak is the place of a full faith, the low place is the place of conflict with human nature and the world’s temptation. Believers must know that their faith is sometimes as full as a high mountain, and that there are also times of pleading in tears over the weakness of their own flesh; only then can they overcome it in faith. You too were afraid of nothing whatever problem came when you were spiritually full, and were afraid of the world and of people when you were not. Everyone has times of a bold faith standing on the mountain and of a weak faith as though fallen into the valley, so do not be proud when you are full, and when you lose heart do not hesitate but ask God for help.

2 Corinthians 11:23

23Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself) I am more so; in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths often.

After meeting Christ the apostle Paul’s life changed completely. He threw away the human thinking and habits he had carried until then and armed himself with the Word, to live as a Christian to the marrow. After receiving the Lord, the apostle Paul’s interest was in the saving of souls alone, which is why he poured all his passion into evangelism. He was seized while preaching the gospel and given thirty-nine lashes five times, was beaten with rods three times, and was nearly stoned to death more times than can be counted. He was shipwrecked three times, and the times he was shut in prison hungry and thirsty cannot be counted, and the times he was betrayed by people were beyond number. It is astonishing enough that Paul the legalist lived the life of an evangelist as soon as he met the Lord; and the persecution he suffered was an enormous affliction that even a believer full of the Holy Spirit could not easily carry. Paul, who gave his life for the gospel alone, held a faith standing tall on a high mountain.

Who was the apostle Paul? He was born into a family people envied, learned at the highest schools, and was a nobleman holding Roman citizenship, able to enjoy whatever he wanted. And he threw away as refuse the worldly conditions the people of the world so long to have, and lived the rest of his life by the Word alone. If you were told to give up your possessions and even your family for the gospel, could you obey?

Paul knew that giving up the world gains a greater world, and he had grasped that there is a spiritual world greater than the world you can see, and so he could come into Christ gladly. But Paul too was a person with a body, and though he resolved, there were times he lost heart and sat down as though fallen into a valley. At such times you can only avoid stumbling by leaning on the love of the Christ who saved you by the blood of the cross.

Paul was terribly persecuted by the Jews, and he prayed earnestly that the churches he had built with tears would overcome that persecution and stand tall. He knew the gospel is life, so he prayed earnestly that all the churches he had built in Asia Minor and Macedonia would flourish. God entrusts his Word to a believer who stands on a high mountain like this and keeps his faith, and works so that souls can be saved. You too must become a large vessel, able to hold souls.

2 Corinthians 12:7-8

7By reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations, that I should not be exalted excessively, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, that I should not be exalted excessively. 8Concerning this thing, I begged the Lord three times that it might depart from me.

Paul received the blessing of going up into heaven himself and seeing paradise, and he held the power to heal disease with no more than a handkerchief laid on someone; and his own body was as weak as could be. The Jews followed him about to torment him and would have mocked him, watching a man who healed others suffer with disease himself. The common thought is that believing God should mean no disease, no poverty, no enemies; but look at Paul suffering with illness, and you see how even-handed God is.

The grace God gave Paul was to make him grasp that the apostle Paul too was a frail being who could not be healed unless God healed him, and to make him know through an enemy that he too was a being who needed God’s protection. Paul’s faith was as high as a mountain, and he had a human weakness in him too, and so he could not live without God.

If Paul were in front of you preaching the gospel with his eyes sore and crusted and half blind, what would you think? Would you not say, never mind healing others, heal your own disease first? It would not be easy to receive grace from someone preaching the gospel in that state. And believers say openly that they cannot preach the gospel out of shame if they are poor or not healthy, while saying they believe in Christ’s atonement. If that is so, then they should not envy the spiritual blessing of the apostle Paul, who chose the poor place himself and suffered for the gospel.

Paul knew this about people’s minds, and that is why he pleaded earnestly that the bodily illness and the Jews persecuting the church, which hindered the gospel, be driven away; and God did not answer. It was a matter of the saving of souls, so Paul’s prayer must have been desperate. But God said he could not answer, because the grace Paul had received was so great that without the thorn in his body he might grow proud. The grace he had received was so great that God made a device specially to regulate it, and that device, he said, was bodily weakness. The thorn in his body was terribly painful and hard for Paul, and he grasped that it too was the heart of a God who loved him, and gave thanks sincerely. This is what a mature believer with hope in heaven looks like, even while holding a human weakness that has fallen into a valley.

Believers with the faith of high mountains and deep valleys carry the responsibility of leading other people’s souls as well as their own, so they must be careful in everything and judge wisely. In the world, if the road you are on is the wrong one you can turn back; but with salvation, follow someone without faith and both of you can only fall into the pit. On the road of salvation you can meet Christ at the end of your life only by discerning spirits.

A country’s president, elected badly, can be waited out until his term ends; but a pastor who does not preach the truth becomes Satan’s tool blocking the way into heaven, so it is a very grave matter. At the seat of judgment, making the excuse that you met a bad pastor and were not taught the Word, or that many people were going the wide road so you followed, will never bring a chance of forgiveness. God has already given us the Bible and the Holy Spirit walks with us, so the excuse of a bad pastor and bad circumstances does not hold.

Adam and Eve heard God’s word directly and were deceived by the devil’s temptation, and they took eternal death as the responsibility for eating the fruit. So you must examine yourself, as to what word you have heard and what faith you hold. If you do not know the words of scripture, then even if I preached what is not the truth right now you would have no ability to judge it and could only be deceived. But piling up knowledge of the Bible is not the same as grasping the Word, so you must grasp what the Word is trying to say, and believe.

Ezekiel 28:12

12“Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and tell him, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “You were the seal of full measure, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

Satan was once a perfect seal, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty; and now that he has left God’s side there is nothing but darkness. Driven out from God, Satan deceives people as though he were a perfect god, and he can never be the same as Christ. Just as a poisonous mushroom is splendid in color and shape and kills when eaten, a person’s spirit dies the moment they are deceived by Satan and take in another gospel, so you must work at discerning spirits.

Satan knows that people want the world’s blessing and want to be raised as high as God, so he has made another gospel that people are easily deceived by. That is why heretical doctrine uses the Bible and changes its end, making something similar in order to lead people astray.

To judge a lying spirit well you must lean on the Holy Spirit. Led by the Spirit your spiritual eyes are opened, which is why you can discern easily even when a fallen angel imitates Christ. God says that only by letting go of human righteousness can God’s righteousness be lifted up, while false pastors and cult leaders tell the lie that lifting up human righteousness is how you can be raised as high as God. This is exactly why believers must know the words of scripture accurately.

God evangelizes by the most foolish method of all, preaching the gospel through a believer’s mouth. So think that a soul can die or receive eternal life by a believer’s words, and the answer to how believers must live comes out. Salvation has its opportunity only while a person is alive in this world, so pastors and believers who preach the Word must not mix their own thinking into the word of truth but must preach a right gospel.

Now the people who have heard the gospel must choose their own road. They must choose whether to take the wide road that many people go, or the narrow and hard road of truth, and they must take the responsibility themselves.

One day every person will report to God, before the judgment seat, what they did while they lived. Confessing with one’s own tongue, to the judge, what one did in the world is a truly fearful and terrible thing. Even so, the verdict does not change according to what is said before the judgment seat; it is telling him how many sins one committed. It is admitting for oneself that one was given many opportunities in the world and did not live by the truth, and that one could not complain even if cast into hell.

The reason you must live today well by faith is exactly that you will have to report every word and act of your own to God. Standing before God, we may want to lie and our tongues will tell it exactly as it was, and that is what makes that place so terrible. God’s forgiveness has its opportunity only while you are still breathing. Once the life of the body ends, the chance of being forgiven by God disappears too. If you think that your being made to hear this word now is another chance given you to turn, it will become grace.

There is no other name given us under heaven by which we can be saved than the name of Jesus, so Jesus alone is salvation and the power that overcomes death. So you who believe in that Jesus are greatly blessed people. If you hold a faith that stands on a high mountain, show the humility of lowering yourself further; and if you meet the suffering of falling into a deep valley, may you have the wisdom to cry out to God. The glory of the world collapses in a moment when God takes it away, so a believer who leans on God must be full of hope and joy and thanks.

In this dark world only your faith can shine the light of Christ. So may you live as a holy bride who holds a lamp that does not go out and goes to meet the bridegroom. Live the life of a believer who pities souls as God does, who sacrifices himself as Christ did, and who drives off evil firmly as the Holy Spirit does, and you will receive and enjoy an astonishing blessing from heaven.

May you be a believer who lives out a faithful life, always with an honest faith.