BUT IF NOT ... !         GP 313   9/74

         1. FAITH & OBEDIENCE COME FIRST, THEN GOD ANSWERS PRAYER! So many people have told us, "If God will HEAL me, THEN I'll serve Him, THEN I'll believe." It means nothing else in the world but that you're putting SELF FIRST, trying to make a DEAL with God! "If God will serve ME FIRST, THEN I'll serve HIM. You work for ME FIRST, God, THEN I'll work for You!"--And He just doesn't work that way!
         2. HE STILL HAS THE SAME OLD FORMULA: "SEEK YE FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD & HIS righteousness, THEN all these things shall be ADDED unto you."--Mat.6:33. The BLESSINGS don't precede OBEDIENCE: You don't say, "Lord, You BLESS me, then I'll OBEY." But God tests YOU first to see if you'll obey, & THEN He can bless you. It's such a common mistake people make!
         3. It's a real test too, but it often ends in murmuring: People hold it against God because He won't heal them! "If He'd DO it, THEN I'd SERVE Him.--So He doesn't love me, He doesn't care, because He won't HEAL me!" A lot of times even I FEEL like quitting because things don't go just right, but I DON'T QUIT! I just keep on plugging along and eventually the Lord works things out.
         4. IT'S KIND OF A "ME FIRST" ATTITUDE: "You heal ME FIRST, then I'll believe You, THEN I'll obey." It's really a form of SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS, because it's PRIDE. It's just like the Scribes & Pharisees told Jesus: "Do us a MIRACLE, THEN we'll believe!"--Jn.6:30.--But He'd already DONE all kinds of miracles & they STILL didn't believe! So He said, "If I'd even raise somebody from the dead you still wouldn't believe, because you don't believe what I've already said!"--Luk.16:31.
         5. THIS BUSINESS OF HINGING YOUR FAITH ON THE ANSWER INSTEAD OF ON THE WORD IS LIKE A WORKS RELIGION! It's like, "SHOW me!--I'll believe it when I SEE it!--SEEING is BELIEVING!" But that's not the way FAITH works: With FAITH, BELIEVING is SEEING! FAITH works on BLIND OBEDIENCE no matter whether you ever get the ANSWER or NOT! You can't make the answer conditional to your service for God.
         6. GOOD NIGHT!--JOB LOST EVERYTHING!--His family, his fortune--& finally his HEALTH--EVERYTHING! He was COVERED with boils from HEAD to TOE, but HE STILL said it didn't matter!--It didn't matter if God KILLED him, he'd STILL keep on trusting Him! Job had been serving the Lord all his life, & look what happened to HIM!
         7. YOU JUST CANNOT MAKE YOUR OBEDIENCE CONTINGENT ON YOUR TERMS & the way YOU think God ought to answer, & providing everything goes all RIGHT. You can't just only be God's FAIR-WEATHER friend! You have to KEEP ON serving the Lord even when everything goes all WRONG! If you're only going to be willing to believe & obey the Lord as long as everything goes all RIGHT, you won't be believing or obeying very much, because a LOT of things go wrong when you're serving the Lord!--"MANY are the afflictions of the righteous!"--Psa.34:19.
         8. BUT THERE ARE PLENTY OF EXAMPLES IN THE BIBLE OF HOW THE PEOPLE WHO KEPT AFTER HIM & KEPT FOLLOWING Him no matter WHAT eventually got healed even when it seemed like He was IGNORING them!--Like the blind beggar & the woman with the sick daughter & others. (See Mk.10:46-52; Mat.15:21-28) The ones who QUIT BEFORE they got healed, of course, NEVER got healed!
         9. GOD WANTS TO TEST YOUR FAITH & WILLINGNESS TO OBEY BEFORE HE'S GOING TO HEAL YOU, & He wants to see if you'll BELIEVE & OBEY Him even if you think you may NEVER get healed! What's your HEALING got to do with FAITH & OBEDIENCE?--NOTHING!--But your FAITH & OBEDIENCE have a lot to do with your HEALING! Whether you get HEALED or NOT should have NOTHING to do with whether you BELIEVE or OBEY the Lord or not!
         10. YOU'VE GOT TO BELIEVE & OBEY THE LORD EVEN IF HE NEVER HEALS YOU! Paul had a thorn in HIS flesh to the day of his DEATH to keep him HUMBLE! He couldn't even be TRUSTED with full HEALTH because it probably would have made him too full of PRIDE, because he'd been HONOURED by the Lord in so many OTHER ways.--But his thorn in the flesh didn't keep him from SERVING GOD!--2Cor.12:7-9; Gal.4:13-15.
         11. AS LONG AS IT IS POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO KEEP ON SERVING GOD, YOU'VE GOT TO KEEP ON SERVING HIM regardless of whether He ever sees fit to HEAL you or NOT! You may be a whole lot more useful to the Lord, or a whole lot more HUMBLE & BELIEVING with a whole BODY covered with boils like JOB was, than if the Lord would HEAL you!
         12. A LOT OF PEOPLE JUST WANT TO USE GOD: I've known a lot of people whom God healed too EASILY, & then they just took off & went their own way! They were really LYING to God: They'd sworn up & down if He'd just HEAL them THEN they'd serve Him.--But the minute He DID they just took off & forgot all about it & were worse than EVER--MORE unbelieving & MORE disobedient!
         13. GOD MAY JUST BE TESTING YOUR FAITH to see if you're going to BELIEVE & OBEY Him no matter WHAT! But the minute some people have a little TEST they QUIT believing & QUIT obeying, & so they NEVER make it.
         14. WHEN PEOPLE START ASKING GOD WHY IN A MURMURING SPIRIT IT IS PURE SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS, because the Lord said: "Can a MAN be found righteous with GOD?"--Or compared to GOD?
         15. PEOPLE WITH THAT SELF-RIGHTEOUS ATTITUDE ARE SAYING, "WELL GOD, IF I WERE YOU, I'D DO THINGS BETTER THAN YOU'RE DOING THEM!--I'D be more RIGHTEOUS!--I'D HEAL me!" In other words, "I'M more righteous than GOD! I'M BETTER than God! I'm more GOOD than God! God isn't good, or He wouldn't let all these things happen!"
         16. BUT THAT'S JUST BECAUSE THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND GOD. They don't understand WHAT He's doing or WHY He's doing it, & they'll NEVER understand until they have FAITH to TRUST Him that HE KNOWS BEST!--It's just like a CHILD has to trust a PARENT even though he doesn't understand WHY he must do this or that or NOT do it, or WHY he has to behave this way or that way. He just has to "DO it because Daddy SAYS so!"
         17. HE HAS TO BELIEVE & OBEY WHETHER HE LIKES IT OR NOT, because DADDY KNOWS BEST, & he'll probably find out Daddy was RIGHT in the LONG run! But if he DOESN'T believe & obey, he'll probably find out he was right ANYWAY, but the HARD way!--It's just that simple!
         18. GOD TESTS OUR FAITH TO SEE IF IT'S REAL GOLD FAITH & WE'LL STILL BELIEVE & OBEY HIM NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS! He says that "The TRYING of your faith is more precious than GOLD!"--The TESTING of it!--"Yea," He says, "than much FINE gold!"--1Pet.1:7. GOLD will go through the FIRE & STILL come out PURE GOLD, even PURER gold, if it is REAL gold!
         19. THAT'S THE EXACT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REAL FAITH & SUPPOSED FAITH: REAL faith can STAND the test & GO through the fire & STILL come out better than ever before, like GOLD! But that something that LOOKS like faith, like the PAPER-PIG-MONEY which only LOOKS like it is valuable, the minute IT goes through the fire, see what you've got left!
         20. GOD DOESN'T JUDGE YOU BY HOW MUCH YOU GIVE.--HE JUDGES YOU BY HOW MUCH YOU'VE GOT LEFT!--And He doesn't even judge you by how much you CLAIM to have, but by how much you have when HE gets THROUGH with you!
         21. SO IF YOU'VE GOT REAL FAITH YOU'LL KEEP ON GOING FOR GOD EVEN IF IT KILLS YOU!--And it WILL kill you, because it means DEATH to SELF & PRIDE & all that damned SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS as you DIE DAILY.
         22. WHAT IF GOD QUIT EVERY TIME YOU GAVE HIM A LOT OF TROUBLE?--Then we'd ALL be in a helluva mess! What if God quit every time YOU, HIS face, break out in a bunch of ugly spots & pimples & boils & acne & whatnot?--YOU'RE THE ONLY FACE HE'S GOT!--What if He quit just because you're UGLY sometimes? You're the only face He's GOT & He's GOTTA keep going no matter HOW ugly you are or HOW bad His BODY behaves sometimes, in spite of what His HEAD tells it to do!
         23. THAT'S THE KIND OF A BODY GOD HAS TO PUT UP WITH! So why should YOU be griping about a few little AFFLICTIONS?--Look at the mess GOD'S Body is in! Only the love, grace & mercy of GOD can ever pull her through by faith & obedience to His Word, or she'd never make it! Even if she's diseased, crippled, disorganised, deaf, dumb, blind & UGLY, she's STILL gotta KEEP GOING to take care of her CHILDREN! And I'm sure if she DOES, God will probably HEAL her so she can even do a BETTER job of it!
         24. "BUT IF NOT," SHE'S STILL GOTTA KEEP GOING & believing & obeying! Like the three Children of God who went into the fiery furnace in Daniel 3: They said, "Our God is ABLE to deliver us, but if He DOESN'T, we're STILL not going to bow down to your God-damned SYSTEM IDOL!"--And it looked like the END, because into the furnace they went, & it even killed their EXECUTIONERS! But because of their FAITH & OBEDIENCE, God was with them there, too, & they came out without even the SMELL of smoke on them!
         25. LIKE JOB, WHOM THE LORD LET THE DEVIL NEARLY DESTROY by killing his FAMILY & his FINANCES, & almost even killing HIM, but he STILL didn't say "Uncle" to the Devil, not even to his WIFE who told him to CURSE God & DIE!--Job 2:8-10. He just KEPT ON believing & obeying, with boils from head to toe, sitting on a heap of ashes & wearily scraping away the puss & the scabs & the sores with a piece of broken pottery, saying, "Though He SLAY me, YET will I trust Him!"--Job 13:15.--Can YOU?--I hope you don't HAVE to get in such a mess as JOB! But if you DO, DON'T QUIT, WHATEVER you do!
         26. KEEP GOING FOR GOD! Keep BELIEVING & OBEYING no matter WHAT happens! Maybe you'll come out without even the SMELL of smoke on you & with a BIGGER family & RICHER & HEALTHIER & HAPPIER & WISER than EVER, like JOB--if you will just HANG ON a LITTLE LONGER like HE did & NOT give up!
         27. LIKE THE FAMOUS CAPTAIN JOHN PAUL JONES, wounded, half his men dead or dying & his ship sinking & on fire, when asked by the enemy if he was ready to surrender he screamed, "Hell, no!--We haven't even BEGUN to fight yet!"--And he WON--in the LONG run!
         28. MAYBE YOU HAVEN'T EVEN BEGUN TO FIGHT THE OL' DEVIL YET! Maybe you haven't yet resisted unto BLOOD like JESUS did, even unto the DEATH of the CROSS!--Heb.12:3-4; Phil.2:8. But even though it KILLED Him, only three days later He rose in TRIUMPH from the TOMB! Even DEATH ITSELF couldn't hold Him down!
         29. HOW MUCH OF A TEST CAN YOU STAND BEFORE YOU QUIT & TURN TRAITOR & rat on your brethren! It doesn't take much for some! They turn colour easily & take the "easy" way out, like JUDAS!--At least he THOUGHT it was the easy way till he realised he'd betrayed his own SAVIOUR!--THEN his conscience hurt him so bad he HANGED himself!--Mat.27:3-5.
         30. OR WILL YOU TAKE GOD'S EASY WAY OUT: DEATH RATHER THAN DENIAL!--WHICH will it be for YOU? You that DENY Him, He says HE'LL deny before the FATHER! But you that are NOT ASHAMED of HIM nor His "WORDS before this wicked & adulterous generation," He says He'll CONFESS before God & all the Holy Angels, even if it KILLS you to do it, like it did the MARTYRS, who live FOREVER! Which will you be?--A DOUBTER, DISOBEYER & DENYER?--Or a BELIEVER, OBEYER & BROADCASTER of the Truth, even if it KILLS you!
         31. IF YOU GO BACK, YOU'LL MAKE GOD SICK! But if you go ON even if YOU'RE sick, you'll make God HAPPY in the end, even if it means your EARTHLY END!--The churches are always talking about "Sudden death, sudden glory!"--That's the way THEY wanna go!--No pain, no suffering, no dying daily!--But even if it means SLOW death, it'll bring you ETERNAL glory!
         32. SO WHICH WILL IT BE FOR YOU?--ARE YOU GOING TO QUIT JUST BECAUSE OF A FEW LITTLE TRIALS & problems & afflictions, much less TORTURE & CRUCIFIXION!--Or are you going to KEEP ON GOING with GOD even if the Devil's allowed to KILL you as a WITNESS to your BELIEF & OBEDIENCE to GOD?
         33. I HOPE YOU'LL BE A MARTYR, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT THE WORD MEANS: A WITNESS!--And what greater witness can you give than to both LIVE & DIE for JESUS? God bless & keep you! But if He DOESN'T--"But if NOT!"--DIE for Him & He'll keep you FOREVER! GOD loves you!--Remember that no matter WHAT happens! He WANTS to heal & help you if He can trust you to OBEY Him!
         34. "BUT IF NOT," IF HE DOESN'T HEAL OR HELP YOU YET, KEEP ON GOING FOR GOD until He DOES or you DIE, like JOB thought he was about to. But instead he was DOUBLY blessed & lives FOREVER! God bless & keep you keeping on!


Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family