The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature. 2 PETER 1:4

In the late 1880s, in the middle of the hardest years of his life, Spurgeon published a small book of daily readings. Each day has a single promise of Scripture and a short page of comment. He called it The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith, and in the preface he explained the title with a picture any Victorian businessman would understand. It is one of the most useful pictures he ever drew, and it sums up his whole approach to the promises of God.

A cheque, not a picture

A promise from God, he says, may be compared to a cheque made payable to order. It is given to the believer to bestow some good thing on him. And then comes the sentence on which everything turns: “It is not meant that he should read it over comfortably, and then have done with it.” Nobody frames a cheque and hangs it on the wall to admire. You take it to the bank.

So with the promises. The believer must first endorse the cheque with his own name, by receiving the promise personally as true for him. Then he must present it at the counter, by pleading it in prayer and expecting God to honour it. If the date has arrived, he receives the payment at once. If the cheque is post-dated, he must wait; but he may count it as good as money in the meantime, because the bank is sure to pay when the day comes.

For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. 2 CORINTHIANS 1:20

Some people, he observes, never endorse the cheque, and so receive nothing. Others never present it. The fault is not in the promise but in their failure to deal with it in a plain, businesslike way. And he states his confidence in words that could stand over the whole book: “God has given no pledge which He will not redeem, and encouraged no hope which He will not fulfill.”

Written in deep water

What gives the Cheque Book its authority is the circumstances in which it was written. Spurgeon says in the preface that he began the daily portions while wading in the surf of controversy — the Down-Grade struggle that cost him so many friends. Since then, he writes, he had been cast into waters to swim in. Mental depression had been followed by sharp bodily pain, and both by bereavement and by illness in one dear to him as life. He mentions it, he says, not to gain sympathy but so that the reader will know he is writing from experience. “I am no dry-land sailor.”

He adds that the promises had never been so precious to him as then, and that some of them he had never understood until that season. He had not reached the date on which they matured. That is a striking admission from a man who had preached for more than thirty years. There are promises which cannot be cashed until the trouble for which they were written arrives.

This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me. PSALM 119:50

Pleading the promise

For Spurgeon the promises were chiefly material for prayer. On one page of the Cheque Book he comments on David’s prayer in 2 Samuel 7, where the king takes what God has said and turns it back to God as a petition: Thou, O Lord God, hast spoken it. This, Spurgeon says, is a promise pleaded. We receive what God has said as surely true, and then we plead it at the throne. “We do not pray because we doubt, but because we believe.”

And now, O Lord God, the word that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant … establish it for ever, and do as thou hast said. 2 SAMUEL 7:25

This gives prayer a solid floor. Much praying is vague: we tell God what we would like and hope He agrees. Praying the promises is different. We come with His own words in our hand and ask Him to do what He has said. That is not presumption; it is taking Him seriously. Chapter thirteen follows this further.

Rich beyond telling

In a passage gathered in Gleanings Among the Sheaves, Spurgeon piles up pictures to describe the promises. They are, he says, “an inexhaustible mine of wealth.” They are an armoury full of weapons, a dispensary with a remedy for every disease, a granary like Joseph’s in Egypt, the title deeds of a heavenly estate, a jewel room where the believer may already handle the crown he will wear. The piling up is typical of his style, and it can overwhelm a modern reader. But the point beneath it is plain. Most Christians live far below their means, because they do not know what is written to their account.

Blessed be the Lord, that hath given rest unto his people Israel, according to all that he promised: there hath not failed one word of all his good promise. 1 KINGS 8:56

Reading the cheque correctly

The picture of a cheque also contains its own caution, and Spurgeon supplies part of it himself. A cheque is made out to a particular payee, for a particular sum, on a particular date. Not every promise in Scripture is addressed to every person in every situation. Some were given to Israel as a nation, some to particular individuals, some on conditions that must be met. The promise of long life to those who honour their parents is not a guarantee that every obedient child will reach old age. The cheque must be read before it is cashed.

Spurgeon was also careful about what the promises do not say. On the verse I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee, he writes in the Cheque Book: “This priceless Scripture does not promise us exemption from trouble, but it does secure us against desertion.” That sentence is a needed corrective to any gospel that treats the promises as guarantees of comfort, health or wealth. What God promises above all is Himself — His presence, His faithfulness, His grace sufficient for the day.

For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. HEBREWS 13:5

And some cheques are post-dated. The believer may plead a promise for years and not see it paid in this life. Spurgeon knew this. The bank is sure; the date is God’s. Faith is the confidence that the payment is certain even when it is not yet due.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Choose one promise of Scripture that speaks directly to your present situation. Write it out and put your own name on it, as an endorsement.

2. Read the promise in its context. Ask to whom it was first given, on what conditions, and whether it applies to you as it stands.

3. Turn the promise into a prayer this week, using God’s own words: Lord, You have said… do as You have said.

4. Think of a promise you once found dry that has since come alive in a hard season. Thank God for it, and share it with someone passing through something similar.

5. If you are waiting on a promise that seems post-dated, tell God honestly how long it feels, and then tell Him you trust the bank.

A PRAYER

Faithful God, You have given no pledge that You will not redeem, and I have left so many of Your promises unread and uncashed.

I have admired Your word and then walked away from it. Teach me to take You at Your word.

Where the date has come, let me receive. Where it has not, let me wait without doubting.

Above all, thank You that You have promised never to leave me nor forsake me. That promise I take today, in Jesus’ name. Amen.