Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1294
“Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might ha ve a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters into that within the veil; where the Forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an High Priest forever after the order of Melchisedec.” Hebrews 6:17-20.
FAITH is the Divinely-appointed way of receiving the blessings of Grace. “He that believes shall be saved,” is one of the main declarations of the Gospel. The wonders of creation, the discoveries of Revelation and the movements of Providence are all intended to create and foster the principle of faith in the living God. If God reveals anything, it is that we should believe it. Of all the books of Holy Scripture it may be said, “these are written that you might believe and that believing you might have life.” Even if God conceals anything, it is that we may be able to confide in Him since what we know yields but little space for trust compared with the unknown.
Providence sends us many different trials, all meant to exercise and increase our faith and, at the same time, in answer to prayer, it brings us varied proofs of the Divine faithfulness which serve as refreshments to our faith. Thus the works and the Words of God cooperate to educate men in the Grace of faith. You might imagine, however, from the doctrine of certain teachers, that the Gospel is, “Whoever doubts shall be saved,” and that nothing could be more useful or honorable than for a man’s mind to hang in perpetual suspense, sure of nothing, confident of the truth of no one, not even of God, Himself!
The Bible raises a mausoleum to the memory of its heroes and writes upon it as their epitaph, “these all died in faith.” But the modern gospel derides faith and sets up, instead, the new virtue of keeping abreast with the freshest thought of the age! That simple trust in the truthfulness of God’s Word, which our fathers inculcated as the basis of all religion, would seem to be at a discount, now, with “men of mind” who are able to cope with “modern thought.” Shame upon professed ministers of Christ that some of these are worshipping at this shrine and are laboring after the repute of being intellectual and philosophical by scattering doubts on all sides!
The doctrine of the blessedness of doubt is as opposed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as darkness is to light, or Satan to Christ, Himself! It is invented as a quietus to the consciences of those proud men who refuse to yield their minds to the rule of God! Have faith in God, for faith is, in itself, a virtue of the highest order! No virtue is more truly excellent than the simple confidence in the Eternal which a man is helped to exhibit by the Grace of the Holy Spirit. No, not only is faith a virtue in itself, but it is the mother of all virtues! He that believes becomes strong to labor, patient to suffer, fervent to love, earnest to obey, zealous to serve!
Faith is a root from which may grow all that can adorn the human character. So far from being opposed to good works, it is the ever-flowing fountain from where they proceed. Take faith away from the professed Christian and you have cut the sinew of his strength. Like Samson, you have shorn him of his locks and left him with no power either to defend himself or to conquer his foes. “The just shall live by faith”—FAITH is essential to the vitality of Christianity and anything which weakens that faith weakens the very mainspring of spiritual power!
Brothers and Sisters, not only does our own experience teach us this, and the Word of God declare it, but the whole of human history goes to show the same Truth of God. Faith is force! Why, even when men have been mistaken, if they
have believed the mistake, they have displayed more power than men who have known the truth, but have not heartily believed it. The force that a man has in dealing with his fellow men lies very much in the force of conviction which his beliefs have over his own soul. Teach a man the Truth of God so that his whole heart believes in it and you have given him both the fulcrum and the lever with which he may move the world.
To this very moment the whole earth is tremulous like a mass ofjelly beneath the tread of Luther, and why? Because he was strong in faith! Luther was a believer in the Word of God and the schoolmen with whom he had to contend were mere disputers. The priests, cardinals and popes with whom Luther came into contact were mere traders in dead traditions! Therefore he smote them hip and thigh, with great slaughter. His whole manhood believed in what he had learned of God—and as an iron rod among potters’ vessels, so was he among the pretenders of his age! What has been true in history all along is most certainly true now. It is by believing that we become strong—that is clear enough.