Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1599
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, May 22, 1881
“The life which I now lire in the flesh Hire by the faith of the Son of God.” Galatians 2:20.
I am not about to preach from this whole verse, for I have done that before—this single sentence will suffice me. I shall not attempt to enter into the fullness of the spiritual meaning of this very deep and fruitful passage. I am merely going to bring out one thought from it and to try to work that out, I trust, to practical ends. It has sometimes been objected, of the preaching of the Gospel, that we exhort men to live for another sphere and do not teach them to live well in the present life. Nothing can be more untrue than this! I venture to say that more practical moral teaching is given by ministers of the Gospel than by all the philosophers, lecturers and moralists put together! While we count ourselves to be ordained to speak of something higher than mere morals, we nevertheless, no, for that very reason, we inculcate the purest code of duty and lay down the most sound rules of conduct.
It would be a great pity, dear Brothers and Sisters, if in the process of being qualified for the next life we became disqualified for this! But it is not so. It would be a very strange thing if, in order to be fit for the company of angels, we should grow unfit to associate with men! But it is not so. It would be a singular circumstance if those who speak of Heaven had nothing to say concerning the way there. But it is not so. The calumny is almost too stale to need a new denial. My Brethren, true religion has as much to do with this world as with the world to come—it is always urging us onward to the higher and better life! But it does so by processes and precepts which fit us worthily to spend our days while here below.
Godliness prepares us for the life which follows the laying down of this mortal flesh. But as Paul tells us in the text, it molds the life which we now live in the flesh. Faith is a principle for present use. Look how it has triumphed in ordinary life according to the record of the 11th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Godliness with contentment is great gain— it has the promise of the life that now is as well as of that which is to come. The sphere of faith is earth and Heaven, time and eternity—the sweep of its circle takes in the whole of our being—spirit, soul and body. It comprehends the past and the future and it certainly does not omit the present.
The faith of Christians has to do with the things that now are and it is concerning the life that we now live in the flesh that I shall now speak, trying, by the help of God’s Spirit, to show the influence which faith has upon it. There are seven points in which faith in Him who loved us and gave Himself for us will have a distinct influence upon the life which we now live in the flesh.
I. To begin—FAITH INCLINES A MAN TO AN INDUSTRIOUS LIFE. It suggests activity. I will venture to say of any lazy man that he has little or no faith in God, for faith always works—“works by love.” I lay it down as a thesis which shall be proven by observation that a believing man becomes an active man, or else it is because he cannot act and, therefore, what would have been activity runs into the channel of patience and he endures with resignation the will of the Most High. He who does nothing believes nothing—that is to say, in reality and in truth. Faith is but an empty show if it produces no result upon the life. If a professor manifests no energy, no industry, no zeal, no perseverance, no endeavor to serve God—there is grave cause to question whether he is a Believer at all.
It is a mark of faith that whenever it comes into the soul, even in its lowest degree, it suggests activity. Look at the prodigal and note his early desires. The life of Grace begins to gleam into his spirit and its first effect is the confession of sin. He cries, “Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before you and am no more worthy to be called your son.” But what is the second effect? He desires to be doing something! “Make me as one of your hired servants.” Having nothing to do had helped to make him the prodigal he was. He had wasted his substance in riotous idleness, seeking enjoyment without employment. He had plunged into the foulest vices because he was master of money but not master of himself.
It was not an evil thing for him when he was sent into the fields to feed swine—the company which he met with at the swine trough was better than that which he had kept at his banquets! One of the signs of the return of his soul’s sanity was his willingness to work, although it might be only as a menial servant in his father’s house. In actual history, observe how Saul of Tarsus, even before he had found peaceful faith in Christ, cried, “Lord, what will You have me to do?” Faith awakens the soul to action! It is the first question of believing anxiety, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”