Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2335
“In the shadow of Your wings will I make my refuge.” Psalm 57:1.
“Cast your burden upon the LORD, and He shall sustain you.” Psalm 55:22.
“Let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God.” Isaiah 50:10.
IT is the preacher’s business to endeavor to make plain to the people the meaning of the word, FAITH. Inasmuch as salvation comes by believing, it is most important that men should know what believing is—and though we have to preach upon many topics and take the whole range of the Word of God—yet it often behooves the minister of Christ to dwell especially upon the way whereby men are saved and to explain what is that step by which they enter into eternal life. You may think that it is very easy to explain faith and so it is, but it is still easier to confuse people with your explanation. There is nothing simpler in the world than to believe in Christ Jesus, yet probably there is nothing more difficult than to explain to a man what it is to believe in the Lord Jesus—not that the thing, itself, is difficult, but the explaining of it is not so easy.
You remember the story, perhaps, of Mr. Thomas Scott, a very excellent commentator, who brought out an edition of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, to which he had written very excellent and, I think that I must add, very dull notes. On going round his parish, he called on an aged person and found her studying the book. “Well, my good woman,” said he, “I see that you are reading Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.” “Yes, Sir,” she replied, “I always enjoy that book.” “And, pray, do you understand it?” “Yes, Sir, I understand it very well and I think that, by the Grace of God, I shall one day understand your explanation of it”—which was not very complimentary to Mr. Scott! So, I have no doubt that there are many who better understand what faith is without our explanations. It is so easy to darken counsel by words without knowledge and to give illustrations which, themselves, need to be illustrated, and definitions which need to be defined. I am afraid of doing that, tonight—I see my difficulty and I cry to God to help me to put faith very plainly before every sinner here—that you may all know what it is and may at once exercise it.
I have met with a large number of persons who have believed in Christ who were accustomed to hear the Gospel preached and to have faith explained to them, but in almost every case they have told me that they did not know what faith was till they, themselves, believed and, although they were told a hundred times over that it was simply trusting in Christ, they still did not get a hold of the right idea—they still entertained the thought that there was something to be felt, something to be done, something to be endured, something or other more than the simple casting of themselves upon Christ for eternal salvation! I have also noticed how, when I have tried to use illustrations, the friend to whom I have spoken has not been affected by them and has not understood my illustrations.
Speaking to a young man, once, I quoted to him that verse of Dr. Watts which begins—
“A guilty, weak and helpless worm, On Your kind arms I fall.”
“But,” he said, “I cannot fall.” “Oh, my dear Friend,” I replied, you do not catch the idea at all, because it is not a thing that a man can do. He falls because he cannot help it—there is no effort in falling, it is cessation from effort.” Still,
though I put it, as I thought, so that he ought to understand it, he did not comprehend it. It was sometime later when the Holy Spirit revealed it to him, that he came to understand what faith was. Perhaps you ask, “Are we such dolts that we do not even understand plain Saxon language when it has to do with spiritual things?” Ah, my Hearers, sin has made fools of us! Sin has so befooled us that even God’s Word, itself, does not convey God’s meaning to our stupid minds until the Spirit of God comes and teaches our reason, reason—and takes the film from our eyes and helps us to see what is, in itself, plain as a pikestaff—but is not plain to us by reason of our sinful and corrupt nature! Before I try, then, to preach about what faith is, may I ask you to pray the Holy Spirit to come and open men’s eyes, that they may see what faith is? For truly, as we know not what we should pray for as we ought, we know not how to believe as we ought! And we make mistakes on this simplest of all subjects until the Holy Spirit sets us right. Divine Spirit, we believe in You, but we do not believe in ourselves! We see, in some measure, how stupid, how ignorant we are. Come, we pray You, and teach us even the first lesson of the Doctrines of Christ, teach us to believe in Jesus!
If you want to cut a diamond, you must cut it with a diamond—so, if you want to explain Scripture, you must explain it with Scripture. I thought, therefore, that I would take three expressions from the Old Testament which may help to set forth what faith really is.