#A PAINFUL AND PUZZLING QUESTION [This sermon is the 1000 th issued since the beloved preacher was "called home" at Mentone on January 31 st , 1892. Regular readers of the Sermons will praise the Lord that the publication of them has been continued through all the intervening years, and they will rejoice to know that sufficient unpublished manuscripts still remain to continue the weekly publication of the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit for several years.]
"How is it that you have no faith?"
- Mark 4:40
[Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon upon the same text is #1964—Volume 33—WHY IS FAITH SO FEEBLE?]
THIS question may be very properly put to those who have no faith at all—and we intend to so put it in the second part of our discourse. But it was originally put to men who had some faith, men who had faith enough to make them disciples of Christ, faith which brought them to sail in the same vessel with Him. Even when they reproached Him and said, "Care you not that we perish?" they had faith enough to make them call Him, "Master." Yet, in comparison with the faith which they ought to have had, Christ calls their faith no faith at all! They were so wavering, so tossed about with unbelief that though they were His hearty, honest and sincere followers, He yet speaks to them as if they were unbelievers and says to them, "How is it that you have no faith?"
I shall address this question, then, first of all, to God’s people, and in the next place, to the unconverted.
I. First, LET US SPEAK TO GOD’S PEOPLE.
Let me say to begin with, that this is a question which must have been peculiarly painful to Him who asked it. The faith in which they were lacking was faith in Him—their Master, their Lord who had loved them from before the foundation of the world and who intended to shed His precious blood for them— and to make them His companions in glory, world without end! Yet they had no faith in Him! Let the Lord Jesus come to you, my brothers and sisters, and I think you will detect much sorrow in the tone of His voice when He asks, "How is it that you have no faith, or so little faith in Me? I have loved you. I have loved you to the death—remember Gethsemane and Golgotha—remember all that I did and am still doing for you. How is it that you doubt Me?" Beloved, if we doubt our fellow men, it is not strange, for Judas is one of a large family. But to doubt the Savior, the faithful and true friend that sticks closer than a brother—this is a cut as unkind as any of the lashes which fell upon His shoulders when He was chastised in Pilate’s hall!
You will see that the question must have pained Him if you notice to whom He addressed it. "How is it that you have no faith?" You chosen twelve, you who have been with Me from the beginning, you to whom I have expounded the mysteries which have been left dark sayings to the multitudes—how is it that My choicest friends, the picked ones of My band, have no faith in Me? And the Lord seems sorrowfully to put this question to some of us—"How is it that you have no faith, you whose names are written in My book of life, no, written on My hands, and engraved on My heart—you who have been bought with My precious blood, snatched out of the claws of the lion by My almighty power and restored from all your wanderings by My loving care? How is it that you, My favorites—the King’s own chosen companions—how is it that you have no faith?"
And the question was painful to Him for yet a third reason—namely, that they had no faith upon a matter in which one would have thought they might have believed. They were in the vessel with Him and if the ship went to the bottom, they would go to the bottom in good company, for their Lord was with them! And yet they had not enough faith in Him to believe that He would save their lives! Perhaps they knew His ability—if so, they questioned His willingness. Perhaps they knew His willingness—if so, they questioned His ability! In either case, it was very painful that they should think their own dear friend, their Lord and Master, would let them sink when the glance of His eyes could save them, or the will of His heart could deliver them!
And now, this question, as Jesus Christ puts it to us, must be very painful to Him. "Do not you, O My children, do not you believe Me? Mine is an unchangeable love, a love that is stronger than death, a love which led Me down into the grave for you—do you not believe Me? If others, who do not know Me, doubt Me, I can endure their unbelief—but unbelief from you, My close personal acquaintances, My own familiar friends—oh, this is hard, indeed! You have sat under My shadow with great delight and do you doubt Me? You have eaten of My fruit and it has been sweet to your taste, and do you doubt Me? My left hand has been under your head and my right hand has embraced you—I have brought you into My banqueting house—I have fed you with food such as angels never tasted, I have filled your mouths with songs such as seraphs never sang, I have promised you a heritage such as princes upon earth might well envy—and do you doubt Me? Do you doubt Me and do you doubt Me about such a matter as whether you shall have food to eat and raiment to put on? Do the lilies doubt Me? Do the ravens doubt Me? And will you doubt Me about a matter concerning which lilies have no care and the ravens have no thought? Do your doubts relate to your eternal salvation? But have I not guaranteed to save you? Have I not sworn that I will surely deliver every soul that trusts in Me? What have I done to make you doubt Me thus? Wherein have I failed you? Show Me which promise I have broken, to which of My oaths I have been a traitor, or in what case I have turned My back upon My friends? Oh, doubt me no longer!"—
"‘O fearful! O faithless!’ In mercy He cries,
‘My promise, My truth, are they light in your eyes?
Still, still I am with you, My promise shall stand,
Through tempest and tossing I’ll bring you to land.’"
I wish I could speak in a way that would give some idea of the tenderness of the way in which my Master would put these questions to you. I think if He were here in bodily presence and showed you His wounds, He would then say to you, "can you distrust Me with these tokens of love in My hands, My feet and My side? Can you doubt Me now?" And as He put the question, He would make you feel that it stirred intense anguish in His soul if it did not in yours. So you see that this was a painful question to Him who asked it.
But in the second place, it was a necessary question for them to hear, and it is a necessary question for us to hear, too. I should like to individualize a little, to hold the mirror up before some of you that you may see yourselves.
There are some here who doubt Christ because they are in temporal trial. You never were in such a sad position as you are in just now. Business seems to go all contrary to your designs. Your flood tide has suddenly ebbed and your vessel threatens to be high and dry on a shoal. You have a promise from God that it shall not be so, for He has said, "Trust in the Lord and do good; so shall you dwell in the land, and verily you shall be fed." He has said, "Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain you: He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved." Yet for all that, you still doubt. There is a trouble coming upon you tomorrow, or there is a season of trial coming in a week’s time. You have taken it before God in prayer and yet, even after you had prayed over it, and asked God’s help, you said to a friend, "I do not know how I shall ever get through it." Now, was that right? Was that trusting your heavenly friend? Has He not helped you before? Has He not delivered you in six troubles, and in seven shall any evil touch you? Come, dear sister, come, dear brother, come at once to the mercy seat with your burdens and may God give you faith enough to lay your case before Him, and you shall then hear
"In every condition—in sickness, in health,
In poverty’s vale, or abounding in wealth.
At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea,
As your days may demand, shall your strength
always
be."
Another person is here whose trouble is not about gold and silver, food and raiment—it is much worse—it is a trouble about his soul. He has lately been overwhelmed with a very terrible temptation and wherever he goes, it haunts him. He tries to run away from it, but he thinks he might as well try to run away from his own shadow! It clings to him. It seems to have fastened upon his hand as the viper did upon Paul, and he cannot shake it off. He is afraid, indeed, that he will never be able to overcome this strong temptation. Have you never read this inspired verse, "There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able; but will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it"? Then, "how is it that you have no faith?" Did not the Lord Jesus teach you to pray, "Lead us not into temptation"? You have prayed that and did He not tell you to add, "But deliver us from evil," as though, if the first petition were not answered, the second one might come in? You have prayed that and you believe that God hears prayer—how is it, then, that you have no faith to believe that He will hear you in this particular case? Beloved, Christ is not a Savior merely for some things, but for all things. And He does not come in to help His people simply on some days under certain assaults—but under all temptations and under all trials, He comes to their rescue! Weak as you are, He can strengthen you—and fierce though the temptation may be—He can cover you from head to foot with a panoply of proof in which you shall stand right gloriously clad and be forever safe!
The question of the text might just as properly be asked of some Christians in view of service which they might render to Christ. You do not preach in the street, though you have the ability to do so—you say you never could stand up to face the crowd. "How is it that you have no faith?" You do not teach in the Sabbath school, though you sometimes do think you ought to try it, but you can hardly get enough courage. "How is it that you have no faith?" You would like to say a word or two to an ungodly companion, but you are afraid that it would be of no use and that you would be laughed at. "How is it that you have no faith?" Can you not say as Nehemiah did, "Should such a man as I flee?" Who are you that you should be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man that is crushed as easily as a moth? Be of good courage and do your Master’s will! Has He not most certainly said, "Fear not, you worm, Jacob, and you men of Israel; I will help you, says the Lord, and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel"? You know that these are His words—then "how is it that you have no faith?" If we had more faith, dear friends, we would be doing a great deal more for our Lord and we would succeed in it—but for lack of faith we do not try, and for lack of trying we do not perform—and we are little nobodies when we might serve the Master and do much if we had but more faith in Him!
There is another man here who is afraid to die. He has been a Christian for many years, but whenever the thought of death crosses his mind, he tries to shake it off. He is a believer in Christ, but he is afraid that he shall not be able to endure the last trying hour. I recollect a sermon which my grandfather once preached and which was a rather curious one. His text was, "The God of all grace," and he said that God would give His people all grace, "but," he said, at the close of each point, "there is one kind of grace you do not need." The refrain came several times over, "There is one kind of grace you do not need." I think his hearers were all puzzled, but they learned what he meant when he closed by saying, "and the kind of grace that you do not need is dying Grace in living moments, for you only need that when dying time comes." It may be that as we are at this moment, we could not play the man in death, yet I am persuaded that the most timorous women here, the most desponding man, if they are but resting upon Jesus, will be able to sing in death’s tremendous hour! Do not be afraid, beloved—there will be extraordinary courage given you when you come into extraordinary trial. Like Hopeful in the river, you will be able to say to your brother, Christian, "I feel the bottom and it is good." There is a good foothold through the river of death since Jesus Christ has died! Do not trouble yourself about dying if you are already dead with Christ, for His word is sure, "He that believe in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die." Be of good courage, or else the next time you are in bondage through fear of death, I shall venture to put to you the question of the text, "How is it that you have no faith?"
So might I run through the whole congregation, but perhaps it would be best to conclude the list by saying that this question might often meet us at our closet doors. I hope all of us who profess to be believers in Christ know the power of prayer, for if we do not, we are fearful hypocrites! But, brothers and sisters, is it not very possible that after you have been praying, you come down from your closet doubting whether you have been heard? You have asked for a certain mercy, but you do not really expect to receive it—and so the Lord might as well say to you, "How is it that you have no faith?" You often do not get the blessing because you do not believe that God will give you what you ask for! But remember that "all things are possible to him that believes." God denies nothing to a fervent heart when it can plead His promise and lay hold upon Him by the hand of faith. I would that we had in all our churches a growing band of men who could really pray. One of the Caesars had what he called, "a thundering legion"—they were men who were Christians and could pray! It is truly said that the man who is mighty on his knees is mighty everywhere. If you can conquer God in prayer—and that can be done—you can certainly conquer your fellow creatures. If, when wrestling with the angel as Jacob did, you can come off victor, you need not be afraid to wrestle with the very devil, himself, for you will be more than a match for him through the Lord Jesus Christ!
And now, thirdly, dear friends, I think that this is a very humiliating question for us to answer. I do not wish to answer it for you, but I want to propose it to every Christian so that he may answer it himself. But I will help you to answer it.
Can you make a good excuse for your unbelief? I will stand and frankly confess that I cannot find any excuse for mine. This is my history—I will tell it because I should not wonder if it is very much like yours. I was a stranger to God and to hope, but Jesus sought me. His Spirit taught me my need of Him and I began to cry to Him. No sooner did I cry than He heard me and, at length He said to me, "Look, poor trembler, look to Me, and I will give you peace." I did look and I had peace—a peace which I bless God I have never wholly lost these many years. I looked to Him and was lightened and my face was not ashamed!
Since then, He has led me in a very singular path in providence. My trials have been not as many as I deserved, but enough—and as my days, my strength has been. There has been in temporals an abundant supply. And in spirituals the fountain has never dried up. In my darkest nights He has been my star. In my brightest days He has been my sun. When my enemies have been too many for me, I have left them with Him and He has put them to the rout. When my burdens have been too heavy for me to carry, I have cast them upon Him and He never seemed to make much of them, but carried them as some great creature might carry a grain of sand! I have not a word to say against Him and if He acts to me as He has done, if I could live to be as old as Polycarp and were asked to curse Him, I would have to say with him, as I say now, "How can I curse Him? What have I to say against Him? He never broke His promise. He never failed in His word. He has been to me the best Master that ever a man had, though I have been one of the worst of His servants. He has been true and faithful to every jot and tittle, blessed be His name!" If He were to say to me, "How is it that you have no faith?" I am sure I do not know what I could answer—I could only hide my face, and say, "My Master, I seem to be almost a devil to think that I cannot believe more firmly in such an one as You are—so good, so true, so kind." No, I cannot make any excuse for myself and I do not suppose that you can make any excuse for yourselves, either!
I suppose, however, that the real reason of our lack of faith lies in this—that we have low thoughts of God compared with the thoughts of Him we ought to have. We do not think Him to be so mighty, so good or so tender as He is. Then, again, we have very leaky memories—we forget His mighty arm, we forget what He did in days past. Hermon’s mount and Mizar’s hill we pass by and we let His loving- kindness be forgotten. I am afraid, too, that we rely too much upon ourselves. Was it not Dr. Gordon who, when he lay dying, said that the secret of strength in faith in Christ was having no faith in ourselves? I am inclined to think that the problem of weak faith in God is our having too much selfonly hope—then you give the grip of a sinking man and there is no hold like that! There is no hold like that of one who feels, "If I do not grip this, there is nothing else for me to cling to in all the world—
‘Other refuge have I none
Hangs my helpless soul on You.’"
I am afraid it is our self confidence that comes in to mar our trust in God. And besides that, there is our "evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God." I said, the other day, speaking of some sad, sad temptation into which a brother had fallen, that I wished the devil were dead. But after a while, I corrected myself and said I wished that I were dead, for if I were dead and gone, and Christ lived in me, I would not mind the devil—but when the devil and myself get to working together, we make a sorry mess of it. He might harmlessly bring the sparks if I had not any tinder, but it is the tinder in me that does the mischief! He might try his hardest to break into my house if my house were not such a poor clay tenement. O Lord Jesus, come and live in my heart! Fill it with Yourself, and then there will be no room for Satan! Hold me fast even unto the end—
"May Your rich grace impart
Strength to my fainting heart!
My zeal inspire!
As You have died for me
Oh may my love to Thee
Pure, warm, and changeless be,
A living fire!"
So here I leave this point with you Christians, only I shall beg to come round in spirit and say to all doubting Christians here, "How is it that you have no faith?" I will set you the question of my text for you to answer between now and next Sunday. Give an account of your unbelief—and if you can give a good account of it, pray let us hear it! I never heard any good excuse made for that wicked sinner, Mr. No-Belief. He cannot be put to death, I fear, but I often wish that he could be blown to pieces from the muzzles of the guns of the promises! Oh, that the last rag of him and the last remnant of him were clean destroyed! John Bunyan, in his Holy War, pictures the citizens of Mansoul going round to pick up the bones of the traitors and burying them all, "till," he says, "there was not the least bone, or piece of a bone of a traitor left." I wish we could get to that state—that there might not be the least bone, or piece of a bone of a doubter left, so that we might sing confidently concerning our God.
II. Now, solemnly and most affectionately, I WOULD SPEAK TO THOSE WHO HAVE NEVER BELIEVED IN CHRIST.
To some of you, that head that once was crowned with thorns is no object of reverence. You have never looked up to "the man of sorrows," and felt that "surely He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows." It is nothing to you that Jesus should die. Up to this moment you have been a stranger to Him, so I beg to ask you the question, "How is it that you have no faith?" The question is not an impertinent one, but a very natural one; allow one who would do you good to press it upon your minds.
Do you not know that faith makes the Christian happy? There are Christians here with very small incomes—a very few shillings a week. They are living in the depths of poverty and yet they would not change places with kings, for they are so happy because faith makes them rich! There are others of us who have an abundance of this world’s goods and yet we can truly say that we would give them all up if God so willed it, for they are not our gods. Our wellsprings of joy come from Christ! Faith makes men happy. "How is it that you have no faith?" You squander your substance to get a day’s amusement. You spend your money for that which is not bread and you labor for that which satisfies not—but here is something that is really bread and that would satisfy—how is it that you have it not? You working men, you sons of toil; with little here to make you blessed, "How is it that you have no faith?" Faith would make your cottage into a palace, and a scanty loaf to be better than a stalled ox!
You, know, too, that it is faith which enables the Christian to die well. You expect to die soon—then "how is it that you have no faith?" You are like the man who has to cross a river, but has made no provision for it! Or like one who is going a long journey, but takes no money with him, no shoes, no staff, and no scrip. How is it that you have nothing to help you to die? It is faith which conducts the Christian into heaven. We sing of "the realms of the blest," and of Canaan’s "happy land," but faith is the only passport to the skies, so, "how is it that you have no faith?" Do you not desire a blessed future? Have you no wish for immortal joys? Does your heart never leap at the thought of the joys that the saints have before the throne of God? How is it that you let these things slip by, having no faith? "Without faith it is impossible to please God," and the faithless will have their portion in the lake that burns with fire! "How is it that you have no faith?" Do you mean to venture into that state of misery? Do you intend to dare the Day of Judgment without an advocate and a friend? You will have to rise, again, from the grave though the worms destroy your body, yet in your flesh you will have to see God! The trumpet will be sounding, the angels will be gathering, the judgment seat will be set and you will be called to account—and without faith you must be driven from God’s presence into black despair! Then, "how is it that you have no faith?" When I think over these things, it seems to me to be strange that men should be living in utter indifference to Christ and in neglect of divine things! "How is it," can any of you tell us, "How is it that you have no faith?"
Is it that there are a great many difficult things that you cannot understand? Now, what is it that you are asked to believe? Simply this—that sin was so evil and bitter a thing that God must punish it, and that His own dear Son became a man and suffered for the sins of all those who trust Him—so that those sins may readily be pardoned because Christ suffered the punishment of them. Really, that does not strike me as being a very difficult thing to believe! To trust my soul with the Son of God, bleeding and dying upon Calvary, does not strike me as being, in itself, a very difficult thing. And if it is difficult, it surely must be the hardness of our hearts that makes it so, for there is not beneath the cope of heaven a doctrine more reasonable, which more deserves to be received than this—that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," even the chief.
I do not think that the most of you, when you are asked why you have no faith, can reply that it is because you do not know what you have to believe. I know that I have tried to make it plain enough as far as my preaching is concerned. If I knew of any words in the English language that would be plainer than those I have used, though they should be so outrageously vulgar that I would be overhauled for using them by all the gentlemen in England, yet I would use them before I left this platform if I thought I could win one soul by them! The simple truth of God is that whoever trusts Christ is saved—and we have tried to put this to you in every shape and form and way that we could think of, so that lack of knowledge is not the reason why you have no faith!
I am afraid that in many of you, lack of faith is from a lack of thought. Oh, how many of you are mere butterflies! You think about your work, or about your pleasures, but not about your souls! It is not always a bad sign when a man begins to be skeptical. I would sooner he were that than that he were thoughtless, for even to think about spiritual things is good! Men are often like some bats which, when they get on the ground, cannot fly—they must get on a stone and then, when they are a little elevated, they can move their wings. So, thoughtless men are on the ground and cannot fly—but when God sets them thinking, they seem as if they were moving their wings. I pray you, think about these matters, for certainly it must commend itself to every reasonable person that the better part of men ought to be the most thought of. This poor mortal rag, which is to drop into the grave, ought not to command my highest and most continuous thought—but the immortal principle within me which will outlive the stars and be a thing of life and vigor when the sun has shut his burning eye from dim old age—this immortal part of my nature ought certainly to have my most serious and my best regard! If you have been obliged to say that you have no faith because you have not thought, I pray you think—and may God help you that this thinking may lead you to faith!
But to close—for our time is gone—the question I have put to you is a question which I hope will never need to be asked of you anymore. May this be the last time that any man shall have to look you in the face and say, "How is it that you have no faith?" In order to make this wish true, however, you must believe now! To believe is to trust Christ Jesus. The Son of the everlasting God takes upon Himself the form of man and suffers. And He tells us that if we rest on Him, just as I now lean here on this rail with all my weight, He will be better to us than our faith! There never yet was a man who trusted in Christ being saved will be this—that you will not be the same man any longer. All things will become new with you. You will be saved from sinning as well as from the guilt of sin. The drunk shall become sober, the unchaste shall become pure, the mere moralist shall become spiritual and the enemy of God shall become His friend as soon as He trusts Christ!—
"Loved of my God, for Him again
With love intense I burn!
Chosen of Him ere time began,
I choose Him in return."
I cannot but love Him who has saved me from my sins!
May God bless this question to you; but if it has not yet been of use to you, I hope that it will follow you. I should like to pin it to your backs, but it would be better if we could put it in your hearts. I hope that it will wake you up at night—I trust it may be with you at breakfast tomorrow. And between the intervals of business I hope there will come up a voice from under the counter, or from the back of the workshop, "How is it that you have no faith?" And at night-fall, when you walk alone in the street a while, may it be almost as though someone had touched you on the shoulder and said, "How is it that you have no faith?"
But mark you, if this question does not haunt you, now, the day will come when stretched on that lonely bed, when you must bid the world adieu, there may seem, perhaps, to be the form of the preacher who now stands before you—or the ghastly form of death, who with bony finger uplifted, shall preach such a sermon to you as your very heart and the marrow of your bones shall feel, while He says to you— "How is it that you have no faith?"
Oh, may you never need to be asked that question again, but may you now believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved! Amen.