THE EXPERIENCE OF THE SAINTS OF OLD
God never intends for His children to be weak and ill; His will is for them to be healthy and strong. He does not want His children to be afflicted with weakness until death. His Word says, "And as your days are, so shall your strength be" (Deut. 33:25). This refers to our body. If we live on this earth for even one more day, the strength that the Lord promises to our body will extend for one more day. God does not have the intention of giving us another day in our life without giving us the strength for that day. Because believers do not apply this precious promise by faith, their strength is far behind their days. God wants His children’s strength to be the same as their days; therefore, He promises that He will be their strength. Hence, as God lives, so we will live, and so also will our strength last. Because of God’s promise, every morning that we get up to find the break of day, we can say in faith that because God lives we will definitely have strength for the day, spiritual strength as well as physical.
It was very common for the saints of old to know God as their strength or to experience His strength being given to their physical body. We find this first in Abraham. "And not weakening in his faith, he considered his own body as already dead, being about a hundred years old, as well as the deadening of Sarah’s womb" (Rom. 4:19). He begot Isaac because he believed in God. God’s strength was expressed through a seemingly dead body. The matter of importance here is not the condition of our body but the strength of God in our body.
When we read about Moses, the Bible records, "And Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died; his eye was not dim, nor had his freshness left him" (Deut. 34:7). Clearly, the power of God’s life was expressed in him.
The Bible also records the physical condition of Caleb. After the Israelites entered into Canaan, he said, "And Moses sware on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance, and thy children’s for ever, because thou hast wholly followed the Lord my God. And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness: and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in" (Josh. 14:9-11). Caleb wholly followed God, and God became Caleb’s strength according to His promise, so that even after forty-five years he had not lost any of his strength.
When we read Judges and see the strength of Samson, it becomes clear to us that the Holy Spirit can bestow great strength upon man’s body. Although Samson did many immoral things and although the Holy Spirit may not necessarily give this great strength to every believer, one thing is certain: if we depend upon His indwelling, we will always obtain His strength to supply all of our daily needs.
(Spiritual Man, The (3 volume set), Chapter 41, by Watchman Nee)
