HAVE FAITH IN GOD

INTRODUCTION

Oscar C. Eliason, the Swedish born hymnologist, attended the Northwestern Bible and Missionary Training School in Minneapolis, and graduated in 1929.[10] Soon after Eliason and his brother Paul were diagnosed with tuberculosis, which resulted in their hospitalization at the Glen Lake Sanatorium in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[11] After the death of Paul on 16 June 1929, and the collapse of Eliason's right lung,[9][12] Eliason was "very depressed and discouraged".[2] After reading accounts of healing in the Pentecostal Evangel, Eliason requested prayer.[12] Eliason credits his healing from tuberculosis to the prayers of a visiting Presbyterian minister.[13] In 1964 Eliason recalled his healing:

During the summer of 1929, after graduating from the Northwestern Bible and Missionary Training School in Minneapolis, I went through some severe testings. My brother passed away, and I, also, became seriously ill and was not expecting to live. During the time that I was attending Northwestern, I had learned to know a Presbyterian minister,- C.K. Ingersol who had great faith in God, especially in praying for the sick. Although the pastor of the First Baptist Church, Dr. W.B. Riley, felt that he, himself, was not gifted along the line of praying for the sick, he knew that prayer for the sick, also, was the duty of the church, and has been neglected down through these last centuries. Therefore, he had asked brother Ingersol to conduct these services every Sunday afternoon in room 118, - one of the Sunday School rooms at the church, and many were the answers to prayer in that room. I had also been reading a paper about answered prayers in many places, and on my sickbed I felt led to send word to brother Ingersol to come and pray for me. The result was that I was healed of tuberculosis.[10]

After his healing, Eliason served as an evangelist and itinerant preacher in the Iron Range area of Minnesota.[9] On 3 October 1936 Eliason married Norma Olson (born about 1911).[14] Among their children were Rev. Victor Carl Eliason (born 14 May 1936 in Fort Dodge, Iowa), a conservative Christian television evangelist,[15] and another son, Verner Paul Eliason (born January 10, 1942 at their home in Cook, Minnesota).[14]

After their marriage Eliason and his wife, Norma, started and co-pastored an Assembly of God church in Huron, South Dakota, and another in Virginia, Minnesota, that affiliated with the Assembly of God denomination in January 1940. Later the Eliasons pastored an Assembly of God church at Fort Dodge, Iowa, before traveling as itinerant music evangelists. When his health forced him to abandon this ministry, Eliason worked as a piano tuner.[2]

Eliason died on 1 March 1985 in Cook, Minnesota.[16]

"Got Any Rivers" (1931)[edit]

One of Eliason's best-known compositions is the song "Got Any Rivers", which is also known commonly as "God Satisfies". The chorus was based on part of a poem by Berton Braley called originally "At Your Service: The Panama Gang",[20] that was published as early as 1912,[21] and later as "Ready!".[22] It became "a song that built the Panama Canal, an enthusiastic song that workmen sang everywhere with vim and punch",[23] Braley's poem was widely disseminated and was published in 1914's A Course in Citizenship,[24] a textbook used in the first year in hundreds of American elementary schools.[25] In 1925 the chorus was included as "Song of the Panama Builders" in Lettie Burd Cowman's popular Christian devotional classic Streams in the Desert.[26] During the Great Depression, a triumphalistic anthropocentric version of the song, with the example of the Panama Canal miners cited, was being sung by the delegates at the PCUSA Assembly in 1931: "We specialize on the wholly impossible/ Doing things that no one can do".[27]

In Spring 1931,[12] "as he was getting better he saw an adv[ertisement] in the Minneapolis Star Tribune by a construction company that used the slogan".[28] While acknowledging his indebtedness to the original song, Eliason believed that "only God can say that!"[12] Eliason recalled:

The words of the chorus of this song, although slightly different, originally was a slogan, used by the Construction Company which dug the Panama Canal. The word "God" was not there, but the word "we" was in its place. ... After the healing took place, I felt led to make a slight change in the slogan and write music for it, making it into a gospel chorus. This I did, and it seemed that it was God's plan. I introduced it in North Minneapolis, and in a short while, the chorus was sung all over the English speaking world. So far, it had no verses.[10]

The first two lines of Eliason's chorus were identical to lines in the second stanza of Braley's original. While in Braley's poem the next two lines were: "We make a specialty of the wholly impossible/ Doing things "nobody ever could do'",[20] Eliason changed them to: "God specializes in things tho't impossible;/ He does the things others cannot do."[29] Eliason first performed Got Any Rivers at a home in North Minneapolis in Summer 1931.[30] Two women who performed as the Harmony Twins soon began to sing the song and helped spread it as they traveled from church to church.[12]

Uncrossable Rivers of Life

January 23, 2019 by Pastor Chuck Swindoll

Scriptures: Luke 18:27

We often find ourselves bogging down in our spiritual growth simply because the challenges before us look absolutely impossible. Such frustrations are not new. Jeremiah tells us: "Ah Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You" (Jer. 32:17).

Do you realize that whatever thing or things you're calling "impossibilities" could be superimposed over what God says is "nothing" to Him? Nothing!

Close your eyes for a moment. I want you to think about that which seems most impossible. Nothing is impossible with God. That includes your uncrossable river, your mountain, any impossibility. Is it your business? Or your school? Or your marriage? How about keeping the house clean, keeping up with the wash, having a ministry with others, or healing strained relationships with people? Will you ask the Lord to handle that specific impossibility, and then leave it with Him in a faith that simply will not doubt?

Do that right now . . . please!

Remember, the things impossible with men are possible with God.

Charles R. Swindoll

What seems most impossible in your life? Will you ask God to handle it and then trust Him in faith and not doubt?

FAITH

The Lexham Bible Dictionary Faith

FAITH (πίστις, pistis). Reliance upon and trust in God; a central emphasis of Christianity.

Introduction

Christianity is largely characterized by its emphasis on faith and beliefs. Christians are commonly called “believers,” and a commitment to Christianity typically involves a confession of faith. The centrality of faith in Christianity reflects the biblical significance of faith. For example, the author of Hebrews notes that one of the basic teachings of early Christianity involves “faith towards God” (Heb 6:1 NRSV). Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith also demonstrates the Bible’s emphasis on faith. Based on Paul’s teaching about faith in Romans and Galatians, Martin Luther argued that Christians must understand their salvation as sola fide—“by faith alone.”

At times, this emphasis on faith has degenerated into a checklist of beliefs that disregard a person’s life and practices. However, the biblical concept of faith is not meant to boil Christianity down to a set of religious ideas. The letter of James emphatically critiques such a distortion.

The Three Dimensions of Faith

There appear to be three distinct concepts of faith in Scripture: covenantal faith; epistemological faith; and eschatological faith. These concepts regularly overlap, and multiple dimensions of faith can be found in the same passage.

Covenantal Faith: Faith as Covenantal Commitment

The biblical language of faith concerns a relationship of faithfulness and cooperation (Leclerc, “Faith in Action,” 184–95). The concept of the covenant, which is especially explicit in the Old Testament, informs the biblical writers’ use of the language of faith. To have faith in God or Jesus is to be faithful to a covenantal bond, which is initiated by God and bound according to appropriate promises and expectations on both sides. The command for Christians to have faith is not merely a cerebral exercise or eager wish, but a command with the expectation of fidelity and trust. This definition of faith is apparent in Josh 24:14: When the Israelites renew their covenant to the Lord after taking possession of Canaan, Joshua demands, “Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord” (NRSV).

Epistemological Faith: Faith as Spiritual Perception

New Testament authors like Paul promote a concept of faith that is opposed to the common phrase “blind faith.” For example, Paul affirms that Christians live “by faith and not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7 NRSV). With this phrase, he refers to Christians’ capacity for a kind of spiritual perception that allows them to interpret the world in a godly way. God’s people are able to see and perceive His work in the world, while the rest of the world ignores or rejects it (Hays, “Salvation by Trust,” 218–223).

Eschatological Faith: Faith as the Living Eschatological Expression of Christian Hope

While faith in the present involves seeing as God sees, eschatological faith is necessary because sin has corrupted human understanding (Rom 1:18–32). To see properly is a dimension of present faith, but God promises that all that is hidden will be revealed when Christ returns (at the Parousia; 1 Cor 4:5). On the day of judgment, the righteous will be honored and rewarded, and the reprobate and corrupt will be exposed and punished. Part of Christian faith, according to Scripture, is living in light and anticipation of that “day of illumination.”

The Concept of “Faith” in the Old Testament

Christianity’s emphasis on faith is largely based on the themes and theological distinctives of the New Testament. However, Jesus and the New Testament writers’ teachings about faith are built on the foundation of the Old Testament—particularly in its descriptions of the covenantal life of Israel. The Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint) employs the term πίστις (pistis) to translate several Hebrew words: