Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2513
“But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6.
“Without faith,” says the text, “it is impossible to please God.” Yet all men have not faith. Even among those who have heard the Gospel, many have not obeyed it. Isaiah is not the only one who has had to cry, “Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” If it is so, that, “without faith it is impossible to please God,” what becomes of the multitude who have heard, but believed not, to whom the Word of this salvation has come, but who have rejected it? It is to be feared that God may again swear in His wrath, “They shall not enter into My rest.” The Israelites could not enter into Canaan because of unbelief— and men in this day cannot enter into the privileges of the Gospel because of unbelief. Let us pity and pray for those who have not faith. Oh, that God would hear the cries of His children and work faith in men, for this, also, is the gift of God! Not only the blessing which He promises, but even the hand whereby we receive it must come from Him!
There are some men who have a kind of faith, and these are, perhaps, in a more dangerous condition than those who have none at all because they are apt to deceive themselves and fancy that they are in a state of Grace, whereas they are still in a state of nature. The faith which pleases God is no mock faith, no dead faith, no false faith, no faith in a lie! It is faith in the Truth of God, it is true faith, it is spiritual faith. The faith that saves the soul and makes it pleasing before God is real faith. Many say that they believe a thing, but they do not truly believe it—it is not real to them. They say, “Yes, such-and-such a doctrine is true,” and they write it down in their creed and then put the creed away on the top shelf of their bookcase—and it lies there covered with dust. A man only believes that which affects his life. If it is an important Truth of God, if he has reallybelieved it, it will touch every nerve of his being. It will often hold him back from one course and, with equal force, impel him to another. True faith is the most active motive power in the whole world! “Faith, which works by love,” works all sorts of marvels, and where there is this true faith, it will prove its reality by its practicalness. The faith of God’s elect is not a dead faith. “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Neither is He the God of dead faith, but He is the God of living faith. God grant that we may, each one of us, possess this real God-given blessing! But if we have merely a notional, nominal, historical faith which does not affect our lives at all, we are in the same condition as those who have no faith—and we come under the description of the text, “without faith”—and “without faith it is impossible to please God.”
Before I enter upon the consideration of the text, I should like to make a sort of search through this place to find out any who are without faith. Without faith, you are without God, for God is only apprehended by faith. Without faith, you are without hope, for a true hope can only spring out of a true faith. And you are without Christ—consequently, without a Savior, without the means of the removal of your sin, without a help with which to daily fight the battle of life against sin. Without Christ? Oh, it were infinitely better to be without your eyes, without your hearing, without wealth, without bread, without garments, without a home rather than to be without the faith which brings everything that the soul requires! Without faith we are, indeed, spiritually naked, poor, miserable, lost and condemned—and without a hope of escape. “Without faith.” Could that be written as a correct label and hung upon your back, you might not, perhaps, be ashamed to wear it. But if an angel can see it on your brow as the description of your character, I am sure that he is greatly concerned about you. But your brother man, who would gladly speak that you shall not leave this place without faith, feels troubled that there should be anyone in this land of Bibles, this land of Sabbaths, this land of revivals, this land of the Gospel who should have come to years of discretion and yet should be so dolefully indiscreet as to live “without faith.”
The text says, “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” And I am going to keep to the text. So note, first, dear Friends, the necessity of faith asserted. After we have asserted it, we shall pass onto the necessity of faith proven, that you may see, each one with his own mental eye, that it must be so, that, “without faith it is impossible to please God.” And then, we will close with the necessity of faith used for profit—we will try to gather some lessons from it for our own practical guidance.