#A LECTURE FOR LITTLE-FAITH
"We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting, because that your faith grows exceedingly and the charity of every one of you all toward each other abounds."
- 2 Thessalonians 1:3
"WE are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting." Whether we shall praise God or not, is not left to our opinion. Although the commandments say not, "You shall praise the Lord," yet praise is God’s most righteous due and every man, as a partaker of God’s bounty, and especially every Christian, is bound to praise God, as it is fitting. It is true we have no authoritative precept for daily praise. We have no commandment left on record especially prescribing certain hours of song and thanksgiving. But still the law written upon the heart teaches us with divine authority that it is right to praise God. And this unwritten mandate has as much power and authority about it as if it had been recorded on the tablets of stone, or handed to us from the top of thundering Sinai! The Christian’s duty is to praise God. Think not, you who are always mourning, that you are guiltless in that respect! Imagine not that you can discharge your duty to your God without songs of praise. It is your duty to praise Him! You are bound by the bonds of His love as long as you live to bless His name! It is fitting and comely that you should do so. It is not only a pleasurable exercise, but it is the absolute duty of the Christian life to praise God! This is taught us in the text—"We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting." Let not your harps, then, hang upon the willows, you mourning children of the Lord. It is your duty to strike them and bring forth their loudest music. It is sinful if you cease from praising God—you are blessed in order that you may bless Him! And if you do not praise God, you are not bringing forth the fruit which He, as the divine husbandman, may well expect at your hands. Go forth then, you sons of God, and chant His praise! With every morning’s dawn lift up your notes of thanksgiving—and every evening let the setting sun be followed with your song! Girdle the earth with your praises! Surround it with an atmosphere of melody. So shall God Himself look down from heaven and accept your praises as like in kind, though not equal in degree, to the praises of cherubim and seraphim.
It seems, however, that the apostle Paul in this instance exercised praise not for himself but for others—for the church at Thessalonica. If any of you should in ignorance ask the question why it was that Paul should take so deep an interest in the salvation of these saints and in their growth in faith, I would remind you that this is a secret known only to the men who have brought forth and nourished children— and therefore love them. The apostle Paul had founded the church at Thessalonica—most of these people were his spiritual offspring. By the words of his mouth—attended by the power of the Spirit—they had been brought out of darkness into the marvelous light of God! And they who have had spiritual children—who have brought many sons to God—can tell you that there is an interest felt by a spiritual father that is not to be equaled even by the tender affection of a mother towards her baby! "Yes," said the apostle, "I have been tender over you as a nursing father." And in another place he says he had, "travailed in birth," for their souls. This is a secret not known to the hireling minister. Only he whom God has Himself ordained and thrust forth into the work—only he who has had his tongue touched with a live coal from off the altar can tell you what it is to agonize for men’s souls before they are converted—and what it is to rejoice with unspeakable joy and full of glory when the travail of their souls is seen in the salvation of God’s elect!
And now, beloved, having thus given you two thoughts which seemed to me to arise naturally from the text, I shall repair at once to the object of this morning’s discourse. The apostle thanks God that the faith of the Thessalonians had grown exceedingly. Leaving out the rest of the text, I shall direct your attention this morning to the subject of growth in faith. Faith has degrees.
In the first place, I shall endeavor to notice the inconveniences of little faith. Secondly, the means of promoting its growth; and thirdly, a certain high attainment, unto which faith will assuredly grow if we diligently water and cultivate it.
I. In the first place, THE INCONVENIENCES OF LITTLE FAITH. When faith first commences in the soul, it is like a grain of mustard seed of which the Savior said it was the least of all seeds. But as God the Holy Spirit is pleased to bedew it with the sacred moisture of His grace, it germinates and grows and begins to spread until at last it becomes a great tree! To use another figure—when faith commences in the soul it is simply looking unto Jesus—and perhaps even then there are so many clouds of doubts and so much dimness of the eyes that we have need for the light of the Spirit to shine upon the cross before we are able even so much as to see it! When faith grows a little, it rises from looking to Christ to coming to Christ. He who stood afar off and looked to the cross by-and-by plucks up courage, and getting heart to himself, he runs up to the cross—or perhaps he does not run, but has to be drawn before he can so much as creep there—and even then it is with a limping gait that he draws near to Christ the Savior. But that done, faith goes a little farther—it lays hold on Christ! It begins to see Him in His excellence and appropriates Him in some degree, conceives Him to be a real Christ and a real Savior—and is convinced of His suitability. And when it has done as much as that, it goes further. It leans on Christ. It leans on its beloved—casts all the burden of its cares, sorrows and griefs upon that blessed shoulder and permits all its sins to be swallowed up in the great red sea of the Savior’s blood! And faith can then go further still. Having seen and run towards Him, laid hold of Him, leaned upon Him—faith in the next place puts in a humble, but a sure and certain claim to all that Christ is and all that He has worked! And then, trusting alone in this, appropriating all this to itself, faith mounts to full assurance— and out of heaven there is no state more rapturous and blessed!
But, as I have observed at the beginning, faith is but very small and there are some Christians who never get out of little faith all the while they are here. You notice in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, how many Little-Faiths he mentions. There is our old friend Ready-to-Halt who went all the way to the Celestial City on crutches but left them when he went into the river Jordan. Then there is little FeebleMind who carried his feeble mind with him all the way to the banks of the river and then left it and ordered it to be buried in a dunghill that none might inherit it. Then there is Mr. Fearing, too, who used to stumble over a straw and was always frightened if he saw a drop of rain because he thought the floods of heaven were let loose upon him! And you remember Mr. Despondency and Miss Much-Afraid who were so long locked up in the dungeon of Giant Despair, that they were almost starved to death, and there was little left of them but skin and bone. And there was poor Mr. Feeble-Mind who had been taken into the cave of Giant Slay-Good who was about to eat him, when Great-Heart came to his deliverance! John Bunyan was a very wise man. He has put a great many of those characters in his book because there are a great many of them. He has not left us with one Mr. Ready-to-Halt, but he has given us seven or eight graphic characters because he, himself, in his own time, has been one of them, and he had known many others who had walked in the same path. I doubt not I have a very large congregation this morning of this very class of persons. Now, let me notice the inconveniences of little faith.
The first inconvenience of little faith is that while it is always sure of heaven, it very seldom thinks so. Little-Faith is quite as sure of heaven as Great-Faith. When Jesus Christ counts up His jewels at the last day, He will take to Himself the little pearls as well as the great ones! If a diamond is ever so small, yet it is precious because it is a diamond. So with faith, be it ever so little, if it is true faith, Christ will never lose even the smallest jewel of His crown! Little-Faith is always sure of heaven because the name of Little-Faith is in the book of eternal life! Little-Faith was chosen of God before the foundation of the world. Little-Faith was bought with the blood of Christ—yes, and he cost as much as Great-Faith. "For every man a shekel" was of redemption. Every man, whether great or small, prince or peasant, had to redeem himself with a shekel. Christ has bought all, both little and great, with the same most precious blood! Little-Faith is always sure of heaven, for God has begun the good work in him and He will carry it on. God loves him and He will love him unto the end; God has provided a crown for him and He will not allow the crown to hang there without a head. He has erected for him a mansion in heaven and He will not allow the mansion to stand untenanted forever. Little-Faith is always safe, but he very seldom knows it. If you meet him, he is sometimes afraid of hell—very often afraid that the wrath of God abides on him. He will tell you that the country on the other side of the flood can never belong to a worm so base as he. Sometimes it is because he feels himself so unworthy. Another time it is because the things of God are too good to be true, he says, or he cannot think they can be true to such a one as he is. Sometimes he is afraid he is not elect. Another time he fears that he has not been called aright—that he has not come to Christ aright. Another time his fears are that he will not hold on to the end, that he shall not be able to persevere—kill a thousand of his fears and he is sure to have another host by tomorrow—for unbelief is one of those things that you cannot destroy! "It has," says Bunyan, "as many lives as a cat." You may kill it over and over again, but still it lives. It is one of those ill weeds that sleep in the soil even after it has been burned and it only needs a little encouragement to grow again. Now, Great-Faith is sure of heaven, and he knows it. He climbs Pisgah’s top and views the landscape. He drinks in the mysteries of paradise even before he enters within the pearly gates. He sees the streets that are paved with gold. He beholds the walls of the city, the foundations of precious stones. He hears the mystic music of the glorified, and begins to smell on earth the perfumes of heaven. But poor Little-Faith can scarcely look at the sun. He very seldom sees the light—he gropes in the valley, and while all is safe, he always thinks himself unsafe. That is one of the disadvantages of little faith.
Another disadvantage is that Little-Faith, while always having grace enough (for that is Little-Faith’s promise, "My grace shall be sufficient for you") yet never thinks he has grace enough! He will have quite enough grace to carry him to heaven. And Great-Heart won’t have any more than he! The greatest saint, when he entered heaven, found that he went in with an empty wallet—he had eaten his last crust of bread when he got there. The manna ceased when the children of Israel entered into Canaan. They had none to carry with them there—they began to eat the corn of the land when the manna of the wilderness had ceased. But Little-Faith is always afraid that he has not grace enough. You see him in trouble. "Oh," he says, "I shall never be able to hold my head above water." Blessed be God he never can sink! If you see him in prosperity, he is afraid he shall be intoxicated with pride—that he shall turn aside like Balaam. If you find him attacked by an enemy, he is scarcely able to say three words for himself. And he lets the enemy exact upon him. If you find him fighting the battle of the Lord Jesus Christ, he holds his sword tight enough, good man, but he has not much strength in his arm to bring his sword down with might. He can do but little, for he is afraid that God’s grace will not be sufficient for him. Great-Faith, on the other hand, can shake the world. What cares he about trouble, trial, or duty?—
"He that helped him, bears him through,
And makes him more than conqueror, too."
He would face an army single-handed, if God commanded him. And "with the jawbone of an ass, he would slay heaps upon heaps, and thousands of men." There is no fear of his lacking strength. He can do all things, or can bear all sufferings, for his Lord is there! Come what may, his arm is always sufficient for him. He treads down his enemy and his cry every day is like the shout of Deborah, "Oh my soul, you have trod down strength." Little-Faith treads down strength, too, but he does not know it—he kills his enemies, but has not eyesight enough to see the slain! He often hits so hard that his foemen retreat, but he thinks they are still there! He conjures up a thousand phantoms and when he has routed his real enemies he makes others—and trembles at the phantoms which he has himself made! Little-Faith will assuredly find that his garments will not grow old that his shoes shall be iron and brass, and that as his day is, so shall his strength be. But all the way he will be murmuring because he thinks his garments will grow old, that his feet will be blistered and sore. And he is terrified lest the day should be too heavy for him and that the evil of the day shall more than counterbalance his grace. Yes, it is an inconvenient thing to have little faith, for little faith perverts everything into sorrow and grief.
Again, there is a sad inconvenience about little faith, namely, that if Little-Faith is sorely tempted to sin, he is apt to fall. Strong-Faith can well contest with the enemy. Satan comes along and says, "All these things will I give you if you will fall down and worship me." "No," we say, "you can not give us all these things, for they are already ours." "No," says he, "but you are poor, naked and miserable." "Yes," we say to him, "but still these things are ours and it is good for us to be poor, good for us to be without earthly goods, or else our Father would give them to us." "Oh," says Satan, "you deceive yourselves. You have no portion in these things. But if you will serve me, then I will make you rich and happy here." Strong-Faith says, "Serve you, you Fiend? Avaunt! Do you offer me silver?—behold God gives me gold! Do you say to me, ‘I will give you this if you disobey?’—fool that you are! I have a thousand times as great wages for my obedience as you can offer for my disobedience." But when Satan meets Little-Faith, he says to him, "If you are a son of God cast yourself down." And poor Little-Faith is so afraid that he is not a son of God, that he is very apt to cast himself down upon the supposition. "There," says Satan, "I will give you all this if you will disobey." Little-Faith says, "I am not quite sure that I am a child of God; that I have a portion among them who are sanctified." And he is very apt to fall into sin by reason of the littleness of his faith. Yet at the same time I must observe that I have seen some Little-Faiths who are far less apt to fall into sin than others. They have been so cautious that they dared not put one foot before the other because they were afraid they should put it awry—they scarcely even dared to open their lips, but they prayed, "O Lord, You open my lips," afraid that they should let a wrong word out if they were to speak—always alarmed lest they should unconsciously be falling into sin, having a very tender conscience. Well, I like people of this sort! I have sometimes thought that Little-Faith holds tighter to Christ than any other. A man who is very near drowning is sure to clutch the plank all the tighter with the grasp of a drowning man which tightens and becomes more clenched the more his hope is decreased. Well, beloved, Little-Faith may be kept from falling, but this is the fruit of tender conscience and not of little faith! Careful walking is not the result of little faith. It may go with it and so may keep Little-Faith from perishing, but little faith is, in itself, a dangerous thing, laying us open to innumerable temptations and taking away very much of our strength to resist them. "The joy of the Lord is your strength." And if that joy ceases, you become weak and very apt to turn aside.
Beloved, you who are Little-Faiths, I tell you it is inconvenient for you always to remain so, for you have many nights and few days. Your years are like Norwegian years—very long winters and very short summers! You howl a lot, but very little shouting. You are often playing upon the pipe of mourning, but very seldom sounding the trumpet of exultation. I would to God you could change your notes a little. Why should the children of a King go mourning all their days? It is not the Lord’s will that you should be always sorrowful. "Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice." Oh, you who have been fasting, anoint your heads and wash your faces so that you appear not unto men to fast! Oh, you who are sad in heart, "light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart." Therefore rejoice, for you shall praise Him! Say unto yourselves, "Why are you cast down, oh my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him who is the light of my countenance, and my God."
II. Having thus noticed the inconveniences and disadvantages of little faith, let me give you A FEW RULES WITH REGARD TO THE WAY OF STRENGTHENING IT. If you would have your little faith grow into great faith, you must feed it well. Faith is a feeding grace. It does not ask you to give it the things that are seen, but it does ask you to give it the promise of the things that are not seen, which are eternal. You tell me you have little faith. I ask you whether you are given to the meditation of God’s Word; whether you have studied the promises; whether you carry one of those sacred things about with you every day? Do you reply, "No"? Then I tell you I do not wonder at your unbelief! He who deals largely with the promises, will, under grace, very soon find that there is great room for believing them. Get a promise, beloved, every day, and take it with you wherever you go. Mark it, learn it and inwardly digest it. Don’t do as some men do—who think it a Christian duty to read a chapter every morning—and they read one as long as your arm without understanding it at all! But take out some choice text and pray the Lord during the day to break it up to your mind. Do as Luther said—"When I get hold of a promise," he sids, "I look upon it as I would a fruit tree. I think—there hang the fruit above my head, and if I would get them, I must shake the tree to and fro." So take a promise and meditate upon it! Shake it to and fro—and sometimes the mellow fruit will fall into your hand. At other times the fruit is less ready to fall, but never leave off till you get it! Shake, shake all the day long! Turn the text over and over again and at last the pomegranate will drop down and your soul will be comforted with apples, for it was sick of love. Do that, Christian. Deal much with the promises. Have much commerce with these powders of the merchant—there is a rich perfume in every promise of God! It is an alabaster box—break it by meditation, and the sweet scent of faith shall be shed abroad in your house!
Again, prove the promise, and in that way you will get your faith strengthened. When you are at anytime placed in distress, take a promise and see whether it is true. Suppose you are very near lacking bread. Take this promise, "Your bread shall be given you, your water shall be sure." Rise up in the morning when nothing is in the cupboard, and say, "I will see whether God will keep this promise." And if He does, do not forget it—set it down in your book! Make a mark beside it in your Bible! Do as the old woman did, who put "T and P" beside the promise and told her minister that it means, "tried and proved"—so that when she was again in distress, she could not help believing. Have you been exercised by Satan? There is a promise that says, "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Take that and prove it—and when you have proved it, make a mark beside it and say—"This I know is true, for I have proved it to be so." There is nothing in the world that can confirm faith like proof! "What I need," said one, "is facts." And so it is with the Christian. What he needs is a fact to make him believe! The older you grow, the stronger your faith ought to become, for you have so many more facts with which to buttress your faith and compel you to believe in God. Only think of a man who has come to be 70 years of age—what a pile of evidence could he accumulate if he kept a note of all God’s providential goodness and all His loving-kindness! You do not wonder when you hear a man, the hairs of whose head are white with the sunlight of heaven, get up and say, "These 50 years have I served God and He has never forsaken me. I can bear willing testimony to His faithfulness—not one good thing has failed of all that the Lord has promised—all has come to pass." Now, we who are young beginners must not expect that our faith will be as strong as it will be in years to come! Every instance of God’s love should make us believe Him more. And as each promise passes by and we can see the fulfillment of it, we must be compelled and constrained to say that God has kept so many of these promises and will keep them to the end! But the worst of it is that we forget them all—and so we begin to have gray hairs sprinkled on our heads—and we have no more faith than when we began because we have forgotten God’s repeated answers, and though He has fulfilled the promises, we have allowed them to lie buried in forgetfulness!
Another plan I would recommend for the strengthening of your faith, though not so excellent as the last, is to associate yourselves with Godly and much-tried men. It is astonishing how young believers will get their faith refreshed by talking with old and advanced Christians. Perhaps you are in great doubt and distress. You run off to an old brother and you say, "Oh my dear friend, I am afraid I am not a child of God at all, I am in such deep distress! I have had blasphemous thoughts cast into my heart. If I were really a child of God I would never feel like that." The old man will smile and say, "Ah, you have not gone very far on the road to heaven, or else you would know better! Why I am the subject of these thoughts very often. Old as I am, and though I hope I have enjoyed the full assurance for a long time, yet there are seasons when if I could have heaven for a grain of faith, I could not think heaven was mine, for I could not find so much as a grain in me, though it is there." And he will tell you what dangers he has passed, and of the sovereign love that kept him—of the temptations that threatened to ensnare him—and of the wisdom that guided his feet. And he will tell you of his own weakness and God’s omnipotence— of his own emptiness, and God’s fullness—of his own changeableness, and God’s immutability. And if after talking with such a man you don’t believe, surely you are sinful, indeed, for "out of the mouth of two witnesses, the whole shall be established"—but when there are many such who can bear testimony to God, it would be foul sin, indeed, if we were to doubt Him!
Another way whereby you may obtain an increase of faith is to labor to get as much as possible free from self. I have striven with all my might to attain the position of perfect indifference of all men. I have found at times, if I have been much praised in company—and if my heart has given way a little and I have taken notice of it and felt pleased—that the very next time I was censured and abused, I felt the censure and abuse very keenly, for the very fact that I took the praise rendered me liable to lay hold upon the censure! Therefore I have always tried, especially of late, to take no more notice of man’s praise than of his censure, but to fix my heart simply upon this—I know that I have a right motive in what I attempt to do; I am conscious that I endeavor to serve God with a single eye to His glory—and therefore it is not for me to take praise from man nor censure, but to stand independently upon the one rock of right doing! Now the same thing will apply to you. Perhaps you find yourself full of virtue and grace one day and the devil flatters you—"Ah, you are a bright Christian. You might join the church, now—you would be quite an honor to it—see how well you are prospering?" And unconsciously to yourself you believe the sound of that siren music and you half believe that you really are growing rich in grace! Well, the next day you find yourself very low, indeed, in godly matters. Perhaps you fall into some sin and now the devil says, "Ah, now you are no child of God—look at your sins!" Beloved, the only way in which you can maintain your faith is to live above the praise of self and the censure of self—live simply upon the blood and merits of our Lord Jesus Christ! He, who can say in the midst of all his virtues, "These are but dross and dung—my hope is fixed on nothing less than Jesus Christ’s finished sacrifice"—such a man or woman, when sins prevail, will find his faith remains constant! He will say, "I once was full of virtue and I did not trust in myself. Now I have none, still do I trust in my Savior, for change as I may, He changes not; if I had to depend on myself in the least degree, then it would be up and down, up and down! But since I rely on what Christ has done; since He is the unbuttressed pillar of my hope, then come what may, my soul does rest secure, confident in faith." Faith will never be weak if self is weak, but when self is strong, faith cannot be strong, for self is very much like what the gardener calls the sucker at the bottom of the tree which never bears fruit but only sucks away the nourishment from the tree itself. Now, self is that sucker which sucks away the nourishment from faith—you must cut it up or else your faith will always be little faith and you will have difficulty in maintaining any comfort in your soul!
But, perhaps, the only way in which most men get their faith increased is by great trouble. We don’t grow strong in faith on sunshiny days. It is only in strong weather that a man gets faith. Faith is not an attainment that drops like the gentle dew from heaven. It generally comes in the whirlwind and the storm. Look at the old oaks—how is it that they have become so deeply rooted in the earth? Ask the March winds, and they will tell you. It was not the April shower that did it, or the sweet May sunshine, but it was March’s rough wind—the blustering month of old Boreas shaking the tree to and fro and causing its roots to bind themselves around the rocks! So must it be with us. We don’t make great soldiers in the barracks at home. They must be made amidst flying shot and thundering cannon! We cannot expect to make good sailors on the Serpentine. They must be made far away on the deep sea where the wild winds howl and the thunders roll like drums in the march of the God of armies. Storms and tempests are the things that make men tough and hardy mariners—they see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep! So with Christians—Great-Faith must have great trials. Mr. Great-Heart would never have been Mr. Great-Heart if he had not once been Mr. Great-Trouble! Valiant-for-Truth would never have put to flight those foes and have been so valiant if the foes had not first attacked him. So with us—we must expect great troubles before we shall attain much faith!
Then he who would have great faith, must exercise what he has. I would not like tomorrow to go and shoe horses, or to make horseshoes on an anvil. I am sure my arm would ache in the first hour with lifting the heavy hammer and banging it down so many times. Whatever the time might be, I would not be able to keep time. The reason why the blacksmith’s arm does not tire is because he is used to it. He has kept at it all day long these many years till there’s an arm for you! He turns up his sleeve and shows you the strong sinew that never tires, so strong has it become by use. Do you want to get your faith strong? Use it! You lazy lie-a-bed Christians who go up to your churches and chapels, take your seats, hear our sermons, and talk about getting good, but never think about doing good—you who are letting hell fill beneath you! And yet you are too idle to stretch out your hands to pluck brands from the eternal burning! You who see sin running down your streets, yet can never put so much as your foot to turn or stem the current, I wonder not that you have to complain of the littleness of your faith! It ought to be little! You do but little. And why should God give you more strength than you mean to use? Strong faith must always be an exercised faith and he that dares not exercise the faith he has shall not have more. "Take away from him the one talent and give it to him who has, because he did not put it out to usury." In Mr. Whitefield’s life, you do not often find him complaining of lack of faith, or if he did, it was when he only preached nine times a week! He never complained when he preached 16 times! Read Grimshaw’s life—you do not often find him troubled with despondency when he preached 24 times in seven days—it was only when he was growing a little idle, and only preached 12 times!
Keep always at it—and all at it—and there is not much fear of your faith becoming weak! It is with our faith as with boys in the winter time. There they go round the fire, rubbing and chafing their hands to keep the blood in circulation and almost fighting each other to see who shall sit nearest the fire and get warm. At last the father comes and says, "Boys, this won’t do, you will never get warm by these artificial means. Run out and do some work." Then they all go out and they come in again with a ruddy hue on their cheeks, their hands no longer tingle and they say, "Well, father, we didn’t think it half as warm as it is." So must it be with you—you must set to work if you would have your faith grow strong and warm! True, your works won’t save you. But faith without works is dead, frozen to death—but faith with works grows to a red heat of fervency and to the strength of stability! Go and teach in the Sunday school, or go and catch seven or eight poor ragged children. Go and visit the poor old woman in her hovel. Go and see some poor dying creatures in the back streets of our great city, and you will say, "Dear me, how wonderfully my faith is refreshed just by doing something." You have been watering yourself while you were watering others!
Now, my last advice shall be this—the best way to get your faith strengthened is to have communion with Christ. If you commune with Christ, you cannot be unbelieving. When His left hand is under my head, and His right hand does embrace me, I cannot doubt! When my Beloved sits at His table, and He brings me into His banqueting house, and His banner over me is His love, then, indeed, I do believe! When I feast with Him, my unbelief is abashed and hides its head. Speak, you who have been led in the green pastures and have been made to lie down by the still waters. You who have seen His rod and His staff and hope to see them even when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death—speak! You who have sat at His feet with Mary, or laid your head upon His bosom with the well-beloved John— have you not found when you have been near to Christ your faith has grown strong—and when you have been far away, then your faith has become weak? It is impossible to look Christ in the face and then doubt Him! When you cannot see Him, then you doubt Him. But if you live in fellowship with Him, you are like the ewe lambs of Nathan’s parable—for you lie in His bosom—and eat from His table and drink from His cup! You will believe when your Beloved speaks to you and says, "Rise up My love, My fair one, and come away." There is no hesitation then! You must arise from the lowlands of your doubt up to the hills of assurance!
III. And now, in conclusion, there is A CERTAIN HIGH ATTAINMENT TO WHICH FAITH MAY, IF DILIGENTLY CULTIVATED, CERTAINLY ATTAIN. Can a man’s faith grow so strong that he will never afterwards doubt at all? I reply, no. He who has the strongest faith will have sorrowful intervals of despondency. I suppose there has scarcely ever been a Christian who has not, at some time or other, had the most painful doubts concerning his acceptance in the beloved. All God’s children will have sudden attacks of doubt even though they are usually strong in faith. Again—may a man so cultivate his faith that he may be infallibly sure that he is a child of God—so sure that he has made no mistake—so sure that all the doubts and fears which may be thrust upon him may not be able at that time to get an advantage over him? I answer, yes, decidedly he may! A man may, in this life, be as sure of his acceptance in the Beloved as he is of his own existence! No, he not only may, but there are some of us who have enjoyed this precious state and privilege for years! We do not mean for years together—our peace has been interrupted—we have now and then been subjected to doubts. But I have known some— I knew one, especially, who said that for 30 years he had enjoyed almost invariably a full sense of his acceptance in Christ. "I have had," he said "very often a sense of sin, but I have had with that a sense of the power of the blood of Christ. I have now and then, for a little time, had great despondency, but still I may say, taking it as a general rule, that for 30 years I have enjoyed the fullest assurance of my acceptance in the Beloved." I trust a large portion of God’s people can say that for months and years, and they have not had to sing—
"Tis a point I long to know."
But they can say, "I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him."
I will try to depict the state of the Christian. He may be as poor as poverty can make him, but he is rich. He has no thought with regard to the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. He casts himself upon the providence of God. He believes that He who clothes the lilies and feeds the ravens, will not allow His children to go starving or barefooted. He has but little concern as to his temporal estate. He folds his arms and floats down the stream of providence singing all the way! Whether he floats by a mud bank, dark, dreary and noxious—or by a palace fair and valley pleasant—he alters not his position. He neither moves nor struggles. He has no will nor wish which way to swim—his only desire being to "lie passive in God’s hand, and know no will but His." When the storm flies over his head, he finds Christ to be a shelter from the tempest. When the heat is hot, he finds Christ to be the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. He just casts his anchor down deep into the sea and when the wind blows, he sleeps. Hurricanes may come about his ears—the masts creak and every timber seem to be strained and every nail to start from its place—but there he sleeps! Christ is at the helm! He says, "My Anchor is within the veil, I know it will keep its hold." The earth shakes beneath his feet, but he says, "Though the earth is removed and mountains are cast into the sea, yet will we not fear, for God is our refuge and strength and a very present help in time of trouble." Ask him about his eternal interests and he tells you that his only confidence is in Christ—and that die when he may—he knows he shall stand boldly at the last great day clothed in his Savior’s righteousness! He speaks very confidently though never boastingly. Though he has no time to dance the giddy dance of presumption, he stands firmly on the rock of confidence. Perhaps you think he is proud—ah, he is a humble man! He lies low before the cross, but not before _you_—he can look you boldly in the face and tell you that Christ is able to keep that which he has committed to Him. He knows that—
"His honor is engaged to save
The meanest of His sheep—
All that His heavenly Father gave,
His hands securely keep."
And die when he may, he can lay his head upon the pillow of the promise and breathe his life out on the Savior’s breast without a struggle or a murmur, crying—"Victory," in the arms of death—challenging Death to produce his sting, and demanding of the grave its victory! Such is the effect of strong faith. I repeat, the weakest in the world, by diligent cultivation may attain to it! Only seek the refreshing influence of the divine Spirit. Walk in Christ’s commandments, and live near to Him, and you who are dwarfs, like Zaccheus, shall become as giants! The hyssop on the wall shall stare up into the dignity of the cedar in Lebanon—and you who fly before your enemies shall yet be able to chase a thousand—and two of you shall put ten thousand to flight! May the Lord enable His poor little ones so to grow!
As for those of you who have no faith in Christ, let me remind you of one sad thing—namely, that "Without faith it is impossible to please God." If you have not put your trust in Christ, then God is angry with you every day. "If you turn not, He will whet His sword, for He has bent His bow and made it ready." I beseech you, cast yourself on Christ! He is worthy of your trust—there is none other to trust to—He is willing to receive you. He invites you. He shed His blood for you. He intercedes for you. Believe on Him, for thus His promise runs, "He who believes and is baptized shall be saved." Do both of these things: believe on Him, and then profess your faith in baptism—and the Lord bless you, hold you to the end, and make you to increase exceedingly in faith to the glory of God. May the Lord add His blessing!