Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2271
“Jesus answered them, Do you now believe? Behold, the hour comes, yes, is now come, that you shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.” John 16:31,32.
OUR Lord looks for faith as the result of His teaching and I think that I hear Him say, at the end of every service, “Do you now believe? You have listened. You have made remarks about the speaker—do you now believe? You have been made to feel, you have brushed the tears away, but do you now believe? For anything short of believing leaves you short of salvation.” I would like to put the question of my text to every hearer in this great house tonight. You have listened, now, to years of sermons—“Do you now believe?” You are getting gray. The Gospel is very familiar to you—you have heard it preached for many, many years—but, “do you now believe?” This is the crucial point. According to your answer truthfully given to this question, you may decide as to your condition before God, “Do you now believe?”
Christ loves faith wherever He sees it. It is to Him a precious thing. To you who believe, He is precious, He is an honor. And upon Him you who believe confer all the honor it is possible for you to confer. Your trust adorns Him with jewels, your confidence in Him puts the crown on His head! But our Lord is very discriminating. He distinguishes between faith and presumption, and between faith and our idea of faith. These disciples now said that they were sure— “Now are we sure that You know all things, and need not that any man should ask You.” “Yes! Yes!” the Savior seemed to say, “That is your measure of your own faith. But I do not measure it in the same way that you do.” If there are any here who say, “As to the matter of faith, I need no caution, I scarcely need admonition, I believe! Oh, you cannot tell how firmly.” No, my dear Friend, and perhaps you cannot tell how weakly you believe. At any rate, do not mistake your belief in your own faith for faith in Christ, for belief in your own faith may be only self-conceit, while faith in Christ gives glory to God and brings salvation to the Believer!
To take the disciples down a notch, the Savior reminds them that whatever faith they had, they were a long while coming to it. “Do you now believe? Three years have I been teaching you. Three years have I worked miracles in your midst. Three years have you seen Me and you might have seen the Father in Me, but after all this time have you at last come to a little faith?” Oh, Friends, we have never any reason to boast of our faith, for we have been very long coming to it! We now trust Christ—I hope that many of us can sincerely say that we lean all our weight on Him. We believe in God, we believe also in His Son, Jesus Christ—but it took months to drive us out of our self-confidence! It took years to lift us out of despair! It has taken all this time for the Lord, in the power of His own Spirit, to work out what little faith we have!
Then our Lord reminded them of another thing still more humbling—that as their faith was long in coming, it might be very quick in going. “Do you now believe?” He asks. “Behold, the hour comes, yes, is now come, that you shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone.” O Beloved, a little trouble arises—an unforeseen difficulty occurs—and where is your faith? A little persecution, the idle banter of an unbeliever, the sarcasm of an agnostic—and where is your faith? Is it not so with many, that while in good company they can almost brag of their faith, but if the company is changed, they certainly have no faith to brag of? The men who were so glib of tongue are now quiet and though, before, they wore their helmets bedight with plumes, they would now hide them away, and hide their heads, too, if they could! They are ashamed of Him, now, in whom, once, they gloried! O Friends, let him that glories, glory only in
the Lord! Let the Believer never boast of his believing, lest he be reminded how long he was in coming to it, and how soon he may be parted from it!
Our Lord’s disciples did not very readily take this caution. I do not suppose any of them took it. Certainly Peter did not, and the rest of them were very much like he. When Peter said to Jesus, “Though all men shall be offended because of You, yet will I never be offended.” And, “Though I should die with You, yet will I not deny You.” Then we read, “Likewise also said all the disciples.” We may say, tonight, “There is no man among us who will ever be a traitor to Christ! There is no woman here who will ever grow cold of heart!” That is our self-flattery. What others have done, however base and mean, we, too, are capable of doing. If we think we are not, it is our pride, and our pride, alone, that makes us think so. Our Savior, therefore, to call the particular attention of His disciples to their danger, said, not merely, “the hour comes,” but, “Behold, the hour comes.” He puts in a, “Behold!” An, “Ecce!” As the old writers used to put a hand in the margin, or an N.B., nota bene, to call attention to something special, so the Savior puts, here, a, “Behold!” “Look here!” “See this!” You who have just put on your armor think that you have won the victory—“Behold, the hour comes, yes, is now come, that you shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone.”