The just shall live by faith.
“Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.” Eph. 4:31. Have you read those words and thought, “Oh, that it might be so?” Have you earnestly tried to put away that evil speaking, together with “the root of bitterness” from which it springs, and failed, because “the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison?” James 3:8.
Read the Divine exhortation, “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.” “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Phil. 2:3, 5. And similar to this is the admonition, “Let brotherly love continue.” Heb. 13:1. What a blessed state of mind this must be; and what a heaven there would be on earth, if such a state of things only existed, even among those who profess the name of Christ. Yet how many who have set this blessed ideal before themselves, find themselves wondering how it is to be attained.
It is the person who is “carnal, sold under sin,” who is obliged to say, “To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.” Rom. 7:18. God is just and kind. He is not a tyrant, and He does not set tasks before you without showing you the way to perform them. He not only shows the way, but supplies the power; the trouble is with the way we read His commands and exhortations. Let us read one more and see if it doesn’t begin to suggest a way out of the difficulty.
“Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye faithful.” Col. 3:15. Surely you cannot control the peace of God. You cannot manufacture it, and put it within your heart. No; only God can supply peace, and this he has already done. Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you.” John 14:27. “I will hear what God the LORD will speak; for He will speak peace unto His people, and to His saints.” Ps. 85:8. The fact that only God can put His peace into your heart, and cause it to rule there, should indicate to you that He is the One who will fulfill those other admonitions in you.
Once more we read, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly with all wisdom.” Col. 3:16. This, together with the previous text, tells us the whole secret. It is by the word of God that these things are to be done. “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.” Zech. 4:6. The word of the Lord, which sets before us these desirable attainments of thought and speech, is the agency by which they are accomplished.
What can the word of the Lord do? Read Ps. 33:6, 9 “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.” “For He spake, and it was; He commanded, and it stood fast.” “And this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you.” 1 Peter 1:25. The Gospel is the power of God for salvation, to everyone that believeth; and the power of God is seen in creation. Rom. 1:16, 19, 20. Therefore the power by which the commands and exhortations of the Holy Spirit are to be fulfilled in you is the power by which the heavens and the earth were made.
Turn to the simple story of creation. God said, “Let there be light; and there was light.” Gen. 1:3. Then God said, “Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place; and let the dry land appear; and it was so.” Verse 9. God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth; and it was so.” Verse 11. And this continues through the entire story of creation.
The darkness had no power in itself to bring forth light. The waters could not gather themselves together into one place. The earth could not make a mighty exertion, and send forth the trees laden with fruit. Much less could the sun and moon, and stars create themselves. That which did not exist could not bring itself into existence. But at the word of God, saying, “Let there be,” everything came into being. The words, “Let there be” carried with them the power of being. The thing created was in the word which created it.
Now “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before prepared that we should walk in them.” Eph. 2:10, margin. And “it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” Phil. 2:13. You are to remember that the commands that you read at first are not the commands of a person, but that they are the words of God to you. The same One that in the beginning said, “Let there be light,” and “Let the earth bring forth grass,” says to us, “Let all bitterness and wrath … be put away from you.” Just as the first was done, so will the other be accomplished. “For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the LORD God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.” Isa. 61:11. Therefore when you read the admonitions to let certain evil things be put away from you, and to let certain graces appear, you are not to regard them as commands for you to put them away, but as the agency by which the task is to be accomplished.
God’s power to create is as great now as it ever was. He who in the beginning caused the ground to bring forth fruit, and who made a perfect man of the dust of the ground, can take these earthen vessels and make them “to the praise of the glory of His grace.” You are to become so familiar with the fact that God is Creator, that when He says, “Let this be done,” you will at once and continually respond, “Amen, even so, let it be done, Lord Jesus;” and thus the new heart will be created, from which will proceed thoughts and words acceptable in His sight.
Living By Faith- E.J.Waggoner, and A.T. Jones
Let the people of the Living Almighty Yehovah say, Amen.