Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 677
Delivered by C. H. Spurgeon, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
“For we walk by faith, not by sight.” 2 Corinthians 5:7.
I THINK the Apostle is explaining here how it was he could say that while he was at home in the body, he was absent from the Lord—and through what means he felt that this was not the state in which he wished to be forever. Having been possessed, and actuated, and moved by the principle of faith, he was not content to tabernacle in a body which could only be dwelt in satisfactorily through the influence of the faculty of sight. The Apostle, however, mentions here a great general principle—“We walk by faith, not by sight.” In talking upon this text this evening, we shall—without pretending to go into it fully—speak, first of all, upon the posture mentioned. Then upon the two principles contrasted, and finally upon a certain caution which is here implied.
I. First, a word or two about THE POSTURE MENTIONED. Paul, speaking of Believers, says: “We walk by faith, not by sight.” Walking is, of course, a posture which implies the possession of life. You can make a dead man sit in a certain position, or even stand in a chosen attitude—but to walk necessitates the possession of inward life. It becomes with us, therefore, a question, in the first place, whether we have the life of God within us.
In the sense in which the term “walk” is here used, the ungodly man does not walk at all. He hastens after his own lusts and he treads in the way of the flesh. But in a spiritual sense he is, and always must be a stranger to “walking” until God has quickened him. When we see corpses walking along our roads and pass them at eventide in our streets, then shall we expect to see Christian feelings, Christian emotions, and Christian character exhibited by unconverted men—but not till then! There must first be an inward life before there can be the outwardsign of it.
Walking is a position which also signifies activity. You would suppose, from the way in which some Christians deport themselves, that their whole life was spent in meditation. It is a blessed thing to sit—
” With Mary at the Master’s feet,” but we walk as well as sit. We do not merely learn, but we practice what we know. We are not simply scholars, but, having been taught as scholars, we go on to show our scholarship by working in the vineyard or wherever else the Master may be pleased to place us. The quietists and mystics are a class of people who have a peculiar attraction for my mind, and I suppose the mention of such a name as that of Madame Guyon, who, among females, stands at the very head of the school, will awaken in many of you many sweet remembrances of times enjoyed in reading her blessed hymns and of her sweet and admirable life.
But, after all, it is not the highest style of Christian living to be a mystic or a quietist. “We walk.” Some Christians seem as if they always sit, but, “we walk.” You would gather, indeed, from what others say, that the whole life of a Christian is to be spent in prayer. Prayer, it is true, is the vitality of the secret parts of Christian life, but we are not always on our knees! We are not constantly engaged in seeking blessings from Heaven. We do, “continue in prayer,” but we are also engaged in showing forth to others the blessings which we have received, and in exhibiting in our daily actions the fruits which we have gathered on the mountaintop of communion with God. “We walk,” and this implies activity.
Oh, I would that some Christians would pay a little attention to their legs instead of paying it all to their heads! When children’s heads grow too fast it is a sign of disease and they get the rickets or water on the brain. And there are some very sound Brethren who seem to me to have got some kind of disease—and when they try to walk, they straightway make a tumble of it—because they have paid so much attention to perplexing doctrinal views instead of looking, as they ought to have done, to the practical part of Christianity.
By all means let us have doctrine! But by all means let us have precepts, too. By all means let us have inward experience, but by all means let us also have outward “holiness, without which no man can see the Lord.” “We walk.” This is more than some can say. They can affirm—“We talk. We think. We experience. We feel”—but true Christians can say, with the Apostle Paul, “We walk.” Oh that we may ever be able to say it, too! Here, then, is the activity of the Christian life.
In the posture of walking there is also implied progress. A man does not walk unless he makes some headway. We are not always practicing the goose-step. We are not always lifting our foot and then putting it down in the same place. This may do very well for the beginners in the awkward squad at drill, and I am afraid that a great many of us are still in that squad—but the Christian who has got through his childhood, and has grown somewhat, makes progress. There are some who will tell you that they do not know that they have made any progress, or, if they do not say this, you can see that they have made none.