"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" 1 Corinthians 15:55.

From the dawn of that primordial age called Death, men have relentlessly searched with hopes of conquering its unyielding power. Over the centuries, more than a few have laid claim to having solved this dark mystery, only to fail like all those before them. The mysteries of both death and life have eluded humanity since the beginning of time. In grim defeat, their feeble efforts were carried with them to their appointed death. Today, like all the rest, they still heed the beckoning call of death's distant drums, as the rhythmic cadence beats out the name of every soul, perpetually calling each one unto itself.

Isolated cases of men's programs that have promoted the thought of never dying may seem to have had merit, for awhile; but being slaves to sin themselves they also gave way to that which had dominion over them. They yielded helplessly to a foe that could not be conquered. In the face of that awful day of relinquishing their hold on life they clung to a vague hope that somehow, sometime in the ages to come, victory would be seen, that they might someday rise from mortality's choking dust and live again. In the face of failure, this has been their last bastion of hope.

There is a minority, however, in the ranks of humanity who recognize Jesus as having overcome death, which gives them a more sure expectation of eternal life. With Jesus as their hope, the average person is comfortable to remain in faith and die in it.

This is good to a degree, for it is better than those who have no hope or faith at all. But still, they too return to that element from whence they came, back to the dust of the earth. They are comfortable with this thought, because there is something to which they can fasten a fragment of hope, and faith is at least something they can do themselves, presumably. Their faith, however, may be the type that the carnal mind possesses. If it is, there is not enough power in it to move an ant hill, much less the mountain of death.

This is that distant thing that the patriarchs of faith could not receive, for the Spirit had not been given. Deliverance from death was an impossibility. Only by faith could it be sought after. Their faith was such that it was, no doubt, as our Lord spoke to our dear friend years ago, Mary Rose. "Faith smells the fragrance when as yet there is no rose." The patriarchs smelled the sweet fragrance of life; but they could not lay hold of it. They had waited with great expectation for the Rose of Sharon to spread His unfolding pedals in them. And that Day dawned for after He said "It is finished!" The rose is still flowering! And we can hear a great rejoicing beyond the veil!

If our vision is narrow and fixed upon the events and problems of the day, faith will be our portion; however, if we peer from the heights of the heavens from where we should be sitting — we can see the end from the beginning and lay hold of that which faith had inspired.

Our walk as new creatures in Christ begins with the faith that comes by hearing the anointed Word of the Spirit. When the Deep calls to the deep of our darkened souls, and we hear that call, then comes faith. Jesus starts it, He is the Beginning of faith, He is the Initiator of it, but this is not all. He is also the Finisher of it. "Looking unto Jesus the AUTHOR and FINISHER of faith..." (Hebrews 12:2).

Ah, looking unto Jesus, or more accurately — looking into (Grk. eis) Jesus, the Chief Leader and finisher of faith. I have spoken and written more times than I can count that faith is ignited when we hear the Word of the Anointing, and this is true. But here we see that looking INTO Jesus finishes our faith.

Due to the extraordinary and meaningful visitation of Jesus to one of our family members, I have shared it more than once over the years to those of you on our mailing list as well and a number of others. Many of you remember that was our oldest grandson, Christopher Restaino, that when he was thirteen years old, Although, prior to that time, he had always thought it was great that his Mamaw and Papaw, along with his mother, Michelle, had deep-rooted lives in Christ — it simply was not for him. For that matter, as he told us, he was not even sure there was a God, since no one could prove His existence, and as a new teenager, spiritual matters did not fit into his curriculum. Nevertheless, something happened to him that he nor anyone else could have ever imagined.

While in Brownsville, Texas on a family vacation, he and his younger brother, Alex, were laying in bed talking. Alex was in the process of telling him something, and stopped abruptly in mid sentence, never finishing his thought, and didn’t say another word the remainder of the night, at least, that is the way Christopher remembered it, while Alex said he continued on with whatever it was that he was talking about.

From what Christopher related, it seems to us that God closed his ears to the natural world of his brother talking to him, as his attention was drawn to the bedroom closet where he unexpectedly saw the face of Jesus starring at him. He was looking at Christopher with no distinguishable expression. He was just intently looking at him.

Christopher said that the most profound thing he had ever experience took place as he peered into the eyes of Jesus. Although scared and confused, he knew everything there was to know about God. But at the same time he knew that he knew nothing about the God he did not believe existed. Although he could not explain it, he knew all there was to know about God. He also saw every person of all humanity and knew everything about each of them from the beginning to the end, including every good and evil thing that had ever been done in the entire world. At the end of all this, He heard these pronounced words: "ALL IS WELL!"

In his young mind, he could not grasp any of this; but he said that as long as he was looking INTO the face of Jesus, he knew all things! After several minutes, Jesus withdrew Himself and was no longer seen. Christopher was then the same as before. He knew nothing about God nor about humanity.

Can you see that this speaks so clear to what happens when we look INTO Jesus, the Chief Leader and Finisher of our faith. It brings us to the end of our faith. It opens the heavens and reveals the mysteries of God, even to a child, that no natural mind can conceive nor peer into.

Since Christopher was born with a nonfunctioning pituitary gland, and had seizures from the time he was three months old until his death due to his last seizure 19 years later. We do not know if he was nearing death and saw beyond the veil, or he was perhaps being shown what he would know at some time once he was called to pass through that veil.

Whatever it was, my spirit leaped when he related this visitation, and it was not because he is our grandson; but it opened to me how simple and true the revelation and manifestation of Christ is in anyone to whom He reveals Himself as they look into Him. Praise God!

Of course I am excited about how Jesus visited our grandson, and hopefully it is clear that what he saw while looking into Jesus speaks to us all.

Since He is not only the author of our faith, THE FINISHER of it as well, and He is, there is no reason to expect everything has to be reserved for tomorrow, or after we die. If we could see from His vantage point, from the height of the heavens, we would see that He has ABOLISHED OUR FAITH by SWALLOWING IT IN LIFE. If we cannot yet see this, which would hinder us from laying hold of it, then let us remain in the faith we have. However, for myself, I cannot remain forever satisfied in faith unfulfilled. There is too much of a yearning to know all there is to know about God; but my burning desire is to walk in that knowing! Although the inspiration and revelation are tremendous, they are exhilarating, but to simply live and walk with God is my heartbeat. That is what the inspiration and revelation of God’s mysteries are designed to do, to carry us to that place of ever abiding and living in Him.

It is good to have the revelation that Jesus is the resurrection and the life. And it is true that all who put their trust in Him shall never perish. So we must start with this God-given faith; but the problem lies in forever abiding in it, building a fence around it, homesteading it, and never receiving the promise. As long as faith is all we have, we shall continue to perish, to die — in faith.

Jesus was the Author of our faith; but that was only the beginning. In most believers He has not become the Finisher. When faith is finished, that for which we had faith has arrived, it is here. Once we possess it, there is then no need to believe for it any longer. From then on, rather than believing for an intangible thing, WE HAVE IT, WE EXPERIENCE IT, and WE KNOW  IT! Again, looking INTO Jesus the Chief Leader and Finisher of Faith.

For one, knowing is greater than faith; for faith is merely the seed of that which is to come, while knowing is the fruit of faith. Which would you prefer, to eat an apple seed of faith or the apple of knowing experientially? The answer is obvious.

The FAITH OF A MUSTARD SEED is good, but this is only the beginning of THE PROMISE OF A MOUNTAIN BEING REMOVED. A grain of faith enables us to believe for something not yet seen, but when we can see it and hold it in our hands, faith ceases as it is replaced with possession. Possessing a thing promotes experience, and with experience comes knowing. KNOWING is the result of experiencing the mountain moving, or holding a freshly picked apple firmly in your hands and sinking your teeth into it. When you snap off a large bite, and its sweet juice fills your mouth, FAITH becomes a thing of the past, for reality has made itself KNOWN.

Likewise, a green grape is good upon the vine, but it is better when it is fully ripe and can be plucked and eaten. It is much better yet when it is crushed and drank as our Lord's New Wine. We speak of Christ from His beginning as our faith, and finally as our Life-giving drink.

There is FAITH, HOPE, and LOVE, but the greatest of these is LOVE, for without the EXPERIENCE of KNOWING ,it is impossible to love. Do you want to love God with all your heart? Then get to know Him, for it is the only way He can be loved, otherwise you are only loving an ideal, an imagination, a mental concept, but not a person to person experience. You must possess love to know it, and remember, God is Love. Therefore, when you possess Christ in His fullness, you will fully love Him. Until then, the most you can do is to embrace the image of Him, at best, the seed of faith of Him. If you think your love for Him is great now, while you walk in faith, just wait until it is no longer faith, but the fullness of knowing Him.

Although the wholesome, living seed of Christ's faith sends its roots deep into our unseen earth, it will eventually grow to full stature, into a full-grown, manifested tree with much fruit. When it breaks forth into the light of day, bringing forth the abundance of its produce, the reality comes, and faith is abolished. When the knowing arrives, by experience, it always does away with the initial faith. This is the nature of things, of Knowing versus Faith.

More than a century ago Andrew Jukes wrote:

"'He that believeth in Me shall never die' (John 9:26)....At first, still bound in sense, we can only receive the symbolic form of truth, as yet incapable of understanding its true meaning. Yet even thus 'faith cometh by hearing' (Romans 10:17). And this faith, feeble as it seems, like a root without beauty, contains all that will in due time come forth from it. For this faith is the spring of life. And it is the life which gives us light. Only as we live any life do we really and truly understand it....Faith takes indeed before hand the future as a present possession, but we can only know as we live the life....We 'add to faith knowledge, and to knowledge love.' (2 Peter 1:5). Thus this knowledge is no result of intellectual power, or of any self-willed searching into the things of God...All experience shows that the really enlightened man is not he who desires to know God's secrets, but rather he who simply seeks to live and walk with God, and to do His will so far as it has been revealed to him....Thus do we come to 'know the truth,' which is more than knowledge about the truth. For there are more ways than one of knowing anything....But we do not know anything perfectly until we have it....So we do not really know the truth, till we have it in our very life, till in this divine conjunction, the life of understanding and the light understood, becomes one." The New Man, pgs. 114-117.

Today our souls are being awakened to the Light of the Day of the Lord. It is more so with some than others, that the time has come to no longer wait for it in faith, but to open our eyes and embrace it, God willing.

Freedom from the curse through the liberty of life is the promise to all mankind, and to all creation. We may not see this in its complete form; but like the writer of Hebrews said, WE SEE JESUS, the Captain of our salvation (Hebrews 2:6-14). The process has been long in human standards of time. Even so, His Word is stirring now and being heard in His Body. The end of our faith is surely drawing nigh.

Like the Law, the faith in which the patriarchs died was also lacking. Their faith was good, yet there was still something missing, and it was longing to be satisfied. It was the same thing that the law and everything else were lacking — LIFE! Their Faith was accounted to them for righteousness, but it was still void of the Promise. There was no Life to be found in it.

Jesus came and fulfilled, repleted, filled up the Law. He placed His Life into it. He then went away, but came back very shortly in the form of the Holy Spirit and planted a small seed in His church called Faith. This was perfect, but like the law, it was also lacking, but not in the same way. It lacked in the sense of being infantile. It was not full-grown. It was not complete. It was hidden from view. It had no visible expression to speak of. It was so small that if Jesus had not quickened it in the womb of our souls, we ourselves could not have believed it.

Nevertheless, even in its lack, His faith has been within and growing, and we are now called to fill it up. Bluntly speaking, we are called in this hour to cram faith so full of Life until there is no more faith! Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob could not REPLETE IT, FILL IT, SATISFY IT, or any other IT. Neither could any of the others who died in unfulfilled faith. But dear brethren of Christ, WE CAN, for we have what it takes, WE HAVE THE PROMISE! We have Him who is Life! We have Him who was the Author of our Faith! We have Him who caused that Faith to grow! And we have Him who is the Finisher of that Faith! Praise God, we have the End of our Faith, the Abolisher of that faith. WE HAVE HIM! This is that with which our Faith is filled — the substance of Christ Jesus Himself, the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And once the fulness of Him is come, then faith is no more. It becomes obsolete. Jesus was the End of the Law, and we are the End of Faith — filling it to the brim with HIS LIFE!

Until the repletion of this void comes to be, He will not be seen to any major degree in the world. In the same manner that the Spirit of Jesus was confined in the grave of His own flesh, so is our faith confined until we see the end of it. But at the end, we, along with creation, will see it together and rejoice; for He shall not remain unseen forever while in our grave clothes of death. He shall come forth after three days, swallowing up not only death, but faith also.

His wonderful words of promise that once echoed through the ages shall no longer be prophetic. They shall be realities. No longer will we live in faith with His words saying:

And know this brethren, and never let it escape the Spirit of your minds, as the Lord spoke many years ago to our dear friend, Dennis James, so it is: "WHERE I AM PERCEIVED, THERE  IS NO HELL." Of a truth, where Christ Jesus is perceived there is no hell, there is no death, and there is no grave! All there is to know of God is known, and those dark powers are consumed at the coming of His brilliant Light!

What form of death can remain in the presence of such blazing glory? What can remain hidden when He who is Light descends into the lowest regions of our hell and rises out of it? What form of death can survive when He who is from above, and above all, invades that which is from beneath? And when His unquenchable fire burns until it reaches the extremities of our utmost carnal being, and in fusion breaks forth to the outer surface, what realm of sin and sickness can endure? Can the carnal will and weakness of combustible flesh withstand the sovereign will and power of His flaming fire? If it can, then man would be sovereign over God, the creature would be mightier than the Creator, darkness greater than Light, hate stronger than Love. If the will of man can stand against the will and power of the omnipotent God, then there would be no guarantee that Life will ever prevail over death, that the hidden things of hell will ever be seen, or that the captives in the grave will ever go free.

But we KNOW HIM, in Whom we have had faith and in Whom we trust, and He shall deliver us from the dominion of sin and the power of death, and the grave!

Therefore, dear brethren, we shall no longer heed the death march of the mournful fifes and then die; but rather, we will hear the Voice of the Son of God and live. Let us not ABIDE IN FAITH and DIE, but hopefully we can EMBRACE THE PROMISE and LIVE!