QUESTION:
Why Does Faith Not Reason?
ANSWER:
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” [Hebrews 11:1]
“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” [Hebrews 11:3]
“But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” [Hebrews 11:6]
“In order to have faith, faith has to have a basis. You just can't let faith be loose and wild. Faith has to rest itself, not upon the shifting sands of man's reasoning. Faith is based on the solid Rock of God's Word. Faith rests right on God's Word.” [Jairus A Secret Believer, Macon, GA 55-0604]
“Just because I was passing those people through the line, just tell them one thing, and my strength goes from me. I can't talk to them. As long as I believe they got faith enough to be healed, why not? You was reasoning that in your mind up there. That don't do no good. I just letting them pass, here longer you talk to anyone, more happens. What's the use of talking to the people? If they're here to believe, they'll either believe or not believe. So I can't make them believe.” [Do You Now Believe, West Palm Beach, FL 53-1206E]
“He turned, just like to that woman then, perceiving their thoughts. Is that right? To the audience He said, perceiving their thoughts He said to a certain person, "Why are you reasoning in your heart?" The same Jesus that rose from the dead just said to that woman there. Is that right? It's the same Jesus just working in His power.” [Faith, Chicago, IL 53-1213E]
“Faith cometh by what then? Hearing the what? Word of the Lord. The Word of God settles it. Abraham believed faith--believed God by faith, because God's Word said so. He never reasoned; he never questioned; he just believed God's Word. Is that right? Well, that's the same way we get faith tonight, is believing God's Word. That's it.” [Faith Cometh By Hearing, Chicago, IL 54-0320]
“That's the reason Joshua and Caleb had no fear that they could not take the--the promised land. Because all the rest of the nine came back, or the ten, and said, "We can't do it. Why, those cities walled high, and we look like grasshoppers up side the people. They're so big and they're armed," and said, "We just can't do it." See, they were looking at the sense of reasoning. You can't look at the sense of reasoning; you've got to look at the promise of God. Now, God had already sent His Angel, and the Angel was in the camp moving on. And the revelation of God had brought the Word of God manifested, and now they was ready to push into the promised land.” [The Believer's Position In Christ, Chicago, IL 55-0116A]
“If ever I had a time of success of praying for anyone, is when I could enter into the fellowship with them, feel their infirmities, feel their conditions. Then something in you goes down beyond the reasoning and prays the prayer of faith for the sick. You've got to feel for a man. You've got to sympathize with him. You've got to be with him before you can help him. Then you enter into some sort of a deepness; it's the love of God. It's beyond human love.” [God Projecting His Love, Edmonton, AB 57-0806]
“Philip was positive. He knew what he was talking about. He said, "We found the Messiah." Not "Come, let us go over here and see. Let's--let's reason it out together, and see if this could be the Messiah. Let's you and I just take our books and go down and find out." It wasn't no reasoning with him. He wasn't presume it was the Messiah. He knowed it was. He knew it was.” [Presuming, Phoenix AZ 62-0117]
“Wisdom has reasoning. Faith has no reasoning. But wisdom has reasonings.” [Wisdom Versus Faith, Jeffersonville, IN 62-0401]
“Wisdom will reason, now, but faith don't have no reasoning. It does nothing but hold to the Word. It holds the promise.” [Wisdom Versus Faith, Jeffersonville, IN 62-0401]
“Faith, what kind of faith? What kind of way you using your faith, to fight the conflict? Are you going to use your faith on some theory, on some reasoning, something? "Isn't it reasonable that the most the people comes to this church? Isn't this the big church?" No, sir, it isn't. If that church don't preach every Word of that Bible there, and "amen" to every Word of It, believe every sign, every wonder, and see them working right among them, I'd get away from it, no matter how big, how little. See?” [The Conflict Between God And Satan, Clarksville, IN 62-0531]
“One of them smacked him in the mouth, said, "Now, we'll never take you into the association." Said, "Let me show you something, Micaiah. Isn't it reasonable..." I don't care how much reasoning it in, if it's against God's Word, it's against God's Word. If a intellectual giant come, said, "We don't need no Holy Ghost. We don't need this Divine healing." I don't care how much reasonable it looks like; if it's contrary to the Word, God gave the promise.” [To Take On The Whole Armor Of God, Santa Maria CA 62-0701]
“One time One come to die for the rest of us, and God raised Him up on the third day. And five hundred man stood there and seen Him being taken up into the clouds, with a Voice saying, "I will come again." And Angels come back and said, "This same Jesus that was taken up, the Master Astronaut, will return again in like manner, in the same kind of an apartment that He's in, a body, immortal." Hallelujah! "And we'll have a body like His Own glorious body, for we shall see Him as He is." Oh, hallelujah! He broke all the sound barriers, all the reasoning barriers, and went beyond reasoning, went beyond anything else.” [Countdown, Jeffersonville, IN 62-0909M]
“The Bible said we should cast down reasonings. Faith does. Now, REASON, "Isn't it reasonable, Brother Branham, that the church is in a better state today than it was at Azusa Street, or back in that time?" No, sir. They've got away from the Word. They've got away from their--where their--their--their shield. The Word is our Protection. And though people wouldn't dare to say they didn't believe it... They claim it, but their actions speaks louder than their words.” [Convinced And Then Concerned, Shreveport, LA 62-1125M]
“When Adam sinned by heeding his wife's reasoning, instead of holding to God's Word, that's what made Adam sin. His--his wife reasoned with Satan, and then produced the product to Adam, and Adam turned loose the Word and sold out. He lost also his inheritance when he lost his fellowship and right to Life. Remember, "The day you eat thereof, that day you die."Adam lost his inheritance: the earth. Now, it passed from his hand to the one he sold out to: Satan. He sold his faith in God to Satan's reasonings. Therefore, his Eternal Life, his right to the Tree of Life, his right to the earth belonged to him, and he forfeited it every bit to the hands of Satan. He passed it from his hand to Satan.” [The Breach, Jeffersonville, IN 63-0317E]
“Abraham received God in His Word, when he was an old man, seventy-five years old. Sarah was sixty-five. She was about twenty years past menopause. He had lived with her since she was about eighteen years old. His half sister; married to her. And God came to the old man one day, and told him he was going to have a baby by Sarah. And that Word, that Word, God in His Word! When God spoke that to Abraham, all reasonings of anything contrary to it left him. That's the way you do when you see God in His Word. You've got to receive It like that, though.” [Show Us The Father, Tucson AZ 63-0606]
“Want to ask you Lutheran, this morning, you Baptists, and you Catholic, and you, whatever you are, you denominational people around the world. How can you place your faith upon your denomination, when it's contrary to the Word? What kind of a faith have you got? You got reasoning power, and not faith. "For faith cometh by hearing," hearing the ecumenical council? Could you ever... Said, you might get that in the Old Ladies Birthday Almanac, but you never find it in God's Word.” [The Third Exodus, Jeffersonville, IN 63-0630M]
“Faith sees what God wants you to see. See? Faith sees what God sees. And reasoning and senses see what the world wants you to see. Notice reasoning, "Why, it's only human sense. It's only--only reason that this... Well, ain't this just as good?" See? That's just exactly, when you use those senses which is contrary to the Word, see, then that's what the world wants you to see. But faith don't look at that. Faith looks what God said. See? You know, you cast down reasons.” [Why Cry? Speak! Jeffersonville, IN 63-0714M]
“They were talking of Him when He appeared. Now, that's a good thing. We notice here in the Scripture, It said, "And while they talked of Him, while they spoke of these things, going along, talking about Him, sad," when they find out that He appeared. And when He appeared, He appeared unto them while they were going along, reasoning about Him. That's when He always appears, is when we talk about Him. Always, through the Scripture, it's when the people talk about God, that's when He appeared.” [When Their Eyes Were Opened They Knew Him, Tulare, CA 64-0212]
“Eve, which was no doubt an intelligent person; the first right off of Adam, who was the--the son of God. And Eve, certainly being in that spot where there had been no sin, no place for sin, she certainly must have had a wonderful conception of what God was. Because, every afternoon, she and her husband walked in the cool of the garden, in the evening, and talked face to face with God. What a--an UNREASONABLE thing that a person who would walk face to face with God, each day, and then would turn to the reasoning of something that reasoned her away from the Word of God! We still got them. They so easily be reasoned away from the Word of God, after sitting in the Presence of God. Seeing the Word of God preached, the Word of God made manifest, drunkards and sinners come to the altar and be converted and made new creatures in Christ, people of ill fame made ladies and gentlemen; and then to turn from that blessed Thing that led them to this Life, and then be perverted off after some kind of a creed, to become more popular or--or get into what they will call a better class of people.” [Lean Not Unto Thy Own Understanding, Phoenix, AZ 65-0120]
“What if Moses would have leaned to his own understanding, when God told him that he was to--to take Pharaoh... or the children of Israel out of Pharaoh's hand? What if he would have leaned to his own understanding, when he was there by the Pillar of Fire, when God said, "Go down and I'll be with you"? What if he would have leaned to his understanding when he brought them to the Red Sea, and there they was at the water, and here God had promised them the promised land? What if he would have leaned to his own understanding, "How am I going to get across there? We haven't time to build a bridge. Here is the army coming right behind us. Here is the mountains on either side. Here is the water in front of us, the Red Sea"? Now, if he had leaned to his own understanding, he'd throwed up his hands and run, fell at the feet of Pharaoh, said, "Pharaoh, forgive me, I did wrong." But he leaned not to his own understanding. But he prayed, and God told him to step forward, and the sea opened up, which was against all reasonings. But he leaned not to his own understanding.” [Lean Not Unto Thy Own Understanding, Phoenix, AZ 65-0120]
“It started at the beginning, that when the natural and the spiritual, yet Cain and Abel worshiped the same God. They both built the same kind of altars. And they both worshiped the same God, at the same church, same altar. But Cain, by carnal reasoning, brought in the fruits of the land and laid them upon the altar as a sacrifice, thinking that surely that this would answer to God for an atonement. So he must have brought in, as people think today, "apples that Adam and Eve took, that caused the sin." And, whatever, I think now they got it down to a "pomegranate" or something now. Some of them said, not long ago, it was something else. And, but Abel had the right sacrifice. He knowed that it was blood that did it, so he brought a lamb. And when God received his, now, Abel, by faith, by revelation, no other way. There was no Bible written. So, you see, the beginning of righteousness is God's revealed Truth, and the entire Church of the living God is built upon that.” [Does God Ever Change His Mind About His Word, Jeffersonville, IN 65-0418E]
Bible References: Hebrews 11:1, 3, 6
[Answer provided by Bro. Ken Andes, Minister, Lynden, Washington, USA]