Is there power in positive confession?

"Death and life are in the power of the tongue; and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof" (verse 21). The Epistle of James (chapter 3) speaks in the same manner of the power of the tongue and its misuse. Evil words will bring evil results. But the tongue speaking the words of life and love, as given in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a power for good, the power of life--and oh! what shall the harvest be in that day!

"The belly" has a bad name in both Old Testament and New; but not always, as John 7:38 conclusively proves. And so it may be here, where it seems employed in its twofold application for the innermost affections, good or evil. The mouth indicates the heart, as the Lord tells us both of the good man and of the wicked. Out of its abundance the mouth speaks. Here it is the other side — a man's inwards satisfied with the fruit of his mouth, with the increase of his lips. How weighty then our every word if we bring in God! But if this satisfies man, the child of God can be satisfied with nothing less than God's Word and grace. Hence too are life and death said to be in the power of the tongue, and so the issues in both good and evil. All Scripture declares it; all experience confirms and illustrates it.

The king of Persia, who had commanded the work to cease, might appear as a great mountain, an insurmountable obstacle before God's people, but He says to them for their encouragement. "Who art thou. O great mountain? before Zerubbabel (thou dost become) a plain." Later, when on earth, the Lord Jesus said to His disciples, "Have faith in God; for verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed, and he thou cast into the sea: and shall not doubt in his heart … he shall have whatsoever he saith" (Mark 11:22-23). When faith rests its eye on God, the great mountain becomes a plain.

Again spending the night outside the city, they return in the morning to find the fig tree the Lord had cursed dried up from the roots. Peter drew the Lord's attention to this strikingly rapid result of His words. The Lord answers, "Have faith in God," and assures them absolutely that one could say to a specific mountain, "Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea," and if he had no doubts about the matter, if would definitely take place. Of course the Lord is not speaking of a literal mountain, but "this mountain" is clearly the obstacle of Israel's condition at the time, lust as the fig tree spoke of her condition. The obstacle was Israel's opposition to the Lord Jesus. Its being removed and cast into the sea actually took place not long after the death of Christ, when the nation was driven from her land and absorbed by the sea of the Gentile nations.

They wondered at the power which made the fig tree wither, and He calls their attention that the power of God is ready to answer their faith. The connection is obvious. Israel had no faith in God, hence their bareness. If they have faith, it shall be far different; the power of God is then at their disposal. The mountain is the type of an obstacle. Every obstacle can be and will be removed out of the way in answer to prayer. That there is a reference to Israel in these words is no doubt true. The nation was a mountain and by its disobedience and rejection of the Lord, the nation was an obstacle in the path of the Gospel. But on account of faith this mountain was indeed cast into the sea, the type of the nations. Precious to faith has ever been and ever will be the Word, the author and finisher of the faith speaks here. "And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." Let us not limit them, nor say as some have said, it is not for us. They are for the children of God and there is no limit to them. All things -- whatsoever; surely there is no limit here; and then the three steps -- asking in prayer, believing and receiving. He, the King, who has all power spake these words; and what a meaning they should have for us! May we cast ourselves upon them in childlike faith.

The disciples are in amazement when they see the fig-tree withered; but the Lord uses the miracle to assure them of the power which was ready to manifest itself for them in response to faith. Not only should they do what was done to the fig-tree, but if they had faith and doubted not, even a mountain standing in their way should be removed and cast into the sea, and whatsoever they asked in prayer, believing, would be done. We may well see in this a veiled assurance of how Israel, now nothing but an obstacle in the path of faith would disappear politically in the sea of the nations. But the promise here is of course, of very various application, and it would be entirely wrong in any way to limit it, save as the Lord Himself does; who distinctly makes His last assurance as full as possible. To faith nothing shall be denied; but it is not limitation to insist that faith must be faith.

1910 43 The promises to prayer, of which the following are some of the more prominent, are, in general, dependent on specified conditions: — (1) "All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive" (Matt. 21:22). (2) "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you" (John 15:7). (3) "Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight" (1 John 3:21-22). (4) "If we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us; and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him" (1 John 5:14-15). (5) "If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. 18:19-20). (6) "Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him" (James 5:14-15). (7) "Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you" (John 14:13-14; John 15:16; John 16:23).

The condition attached to the first of the foregoing is believing. It will be said that believing, or faith, is necessary to all prayer. Though this is true, Scripture recognises specific faith about a specific thing. Thus one of the subjects of the miracles had faith to be healed (Acts 14:9); and it is expressly taught in 1 Cor. 12:9 that there is a distinct spiritual gift of faith which some have, and some have not — a gift alluded to in chap. 13 where Paul corrects the tendency to glory in gifts. "Though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing" (1 Cor. 13:2). It is perhaps to this special character of faith that the Lord refers when He says, "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them" (Mark 11:24). Genuine, divinely-given faith, not mystical or fancied faith, is what is here meant. Probably many have experimented upon this promise, only to be disappointed. Mahomet, it is said, audaciously commanded a mountain to come to him, and when his folly was manifest to all, tried to evade humiliation by saying, "If the mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the mountain." But the promises of God, and the power of His Spirit, are not bestowed to be the subject of curious experiment, or the means of subserving private ends.

In answer to the disciples' marveling at how quickly the fig tree withered away, the Lord tells them that if they have unquestioning faith, they themselves could not only do what was done to the fig tree, but could, by speaking to a certain mountain, cause it to remove and be cast into the sea. It is certainly not that faith decides what it wants to do. Faith rather depends on the will of God had decided that the fig tree (Israel) would wither: faith therefore could act upon God's will in the matter. Just so, the specific mountain, the obstacle of Israel's opposition to the truth, would very soon be set aside by God, in fact cast into the sea of the Gentile nations. The faith of dependent confidence in God could discern this, and therefore speak prophetically about the matter. For faith makes no independent decisions: it confides simply in the word and will of God; and His will in this matter could have been found in His word (the Old Testament). Consider for instance Deut.28:15-68, specially verses 64 and 65.

(Vv. 20-26). The Lord instructs His disciples in the great principle that enables the feeblest saint to overcome the greatest difficulty and the most subtle opponent. Outwardly all the power and authority of the established order was in the hands of those who were opposing the Lord and His teaching. How then were a few poor fishermen to stand against the wisdom and power of men in high places? The Lord's answer is, "Have faith in God." All the power of those who were represented by the barren fig tree would vanish before the power of God used by faith. The Jewish nation which represented the whole system of the law, loomed large in the eyes of the disciples, even as a mountain that had stood for ages. Nevertheless, though to sight the nation looked so stable and enduring, faith could discern that it was about to be cast into the sea of nations. But though the mountain would be removed, God would remain, the unfailing resource for faith.

119 Mark 11:22. — "Have faith in [of] God," or Divine faith. See note 54, and cf. the Pauline phrase "righteousness of God."