The Experiences of the Saints of Old

God never wants His children to be weak; His ordained will is for them to be robust and healthy. His Word affirms that “as your days, so shall your strength be” (Deut. 33.25). This naturally points to the body. As long as we live on earth the Lord promises to give us strength for it. God never presumes to grant us an extra day of life without in addition providing extra stamina for that day. Because of the failure of His children to claim this precious promise by faith, they find their vitality unequal to their days on earth. In order to provide as much energy for His children as the days He gives require, God promises to make Himself their strength. As God lives and as we live, so shall be our strength. Believing God’s promise, we can say each morning upon arising and seeing the dawn that as God lives so shall we have enablement for the day, enablement physical as well as spiritual.

It was a common occurrence for the saints of old to know God as the strength of their body or to experience God’s life permeating their body. We can observe this first in Abraham: “He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb” (Rom. 4.19). By faith he begot Isaac. The power of God was displayed in a body as good as dead. The crux of the matter here is not so much the condition of our body as the power of God in that body.

The Scriptures describe the life of Moses by saying that he “was a hundred and twenty years old when he died; his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated” (Deut. 34.7). This is speaking beyond question about the power of God’s life in Moses’ body.

The Bible also mentions the physical condition of Caleb. After the Israelites had entered Canaan Caleb testified:

Moses swore on that day, saying, “Surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children for ever, because you have wholly followed the Lord my God. And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, as he said, these forty-five years since the time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness; and now, lo, I am this day eight-five years old. I am still as strong to this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war, and for going and coming. (Josh. 14. 9-11)
To this one who followed the Lord wholeheartedly God became his strength as He had promised, so that even after forty-five years he did not diminish in vigor.

In reading the book of Judges we learn about the physical prowess of Samson. Though Samson performed many immoral acts and though the Holy Spirit may not impart such towering strength to every believer, yet one point is sure: if we depend on the Holy Spirit we shall find His power supplying all our daily needs.

From what David sang as recorded in his psalms, we can ascertain that the power of God was in David’s body. Note the following passages:

“I love thee, O Lord, my strength. . . the God who girded me with strength and made my way safe. He made my feet like hinds’ feet, and set me secure on the heights. He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze” (18.1,32-34)

“Jehovah is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (27.1 ASV)
“May the Lord give strength to his people!” (29.11)

“Summon thy might, O God; show thy strength, O God, thou who hast wrought for us. . . the God of Israel, he gives power and strength to his people” (68.28,35)

“Who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s” (103.5)

Other psalms record also how God became strength to His Own people, for example: “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever”; “Blessed are the men whose strength is in thee”; and “With long life I will satisfy him, and show him my salvation” (73. 26, 84.5, 91.16).

Elihu related to job the chastening of God and its after effects.

Man is also chastened with pain upon his bed, and with continual strife in his bones; so that his life loathes bread, and his appetite dainty food. His flesh is so wasted away that it cannot be seen; and his bones which were not seen stick out. His soul draws near the Pit, and his life to those who bring death. If there be for him an angel, a mediator, one of the thousand, to declare to man what is right for him; and he is gracious to him, and says, ‘Deliver him from going down into the Pit, I have found a ransom; let his flesh become fresh with youth; let him return to the days of his youthful vigor.’ (Job 33.19-25)

This signifies how the life of God can be manifest in one who is near the gate of death.

The prophet Isaiah too bears testimony concerning this matter:

Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. (12.2) He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (40.29-31)

All this stamina is shown in the body, for the power of God is generated in those who wait on Him.

When Daniel beheld the vision of God he whispered: “No strength was left in me; my radiant appearance was fearfully changed, and I retained no strength” (10.8). But God sent His angel to increase Daniel’s strength. So in recording this incident Daniel explained how “again one having the appearance of a man touched me and strengthened me. And he said, ‘O man, greatly beloved, fear not, peace be with you; be strong and of good courage. ’ And when he spoke to me, I was strengthened and said, ‘Let my lord speak, for you have strengthened me”’ (10.18-19). Once more we see how God supplies power to man’s body.

The Lord’s children today ought to know that He doe care for their body. God is not only strength to our spirit He is equally so to our body. Even in the Old Testament time when grace was not manifested as much as it is today the saints experienced God as strength to their outer flesh Can today’s blessing be less than theirs? We should experience at least the same divine invigorating power as they did. If we are uninformed as to the riches of God, we perhaps may restrict them to what concerns our spirit. But those who have faith will not limit His life and power to the spirit by neglecting their application to the body.

We wish to underscore the fact that God’s life is adequate not only to heal sickness but also to preserve us strong and healthy. God as our might enables us to overcome both illness and weakness. He does not heal so that we may live afterwards by our natural energy; He is to be energy to our body that we may live by Him and find power for all His service. When the Israelites left Egypt God promised them by saying, “If you will diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give heed to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases upon you which I put upon the Egyptians; for I am the Lord, your healer” (Ex.15.26) . Later we find this promise wholly fulfilled as noted in Psalm 105: “there was not one feeble person among his tribes” (v.37 ASV). Let us hence understand that divine healing includes both God’s curing our sicknesses and His withholding diseases from us that we may remain hardy. If we are totally yielded to God, resisting His will in nothing but believingly receiving His life as strength to our body, we shall yet prove the fact that Jehovah heals.