Difficulties Concerning Faith

Faith is the next step after consecration, leading the soul into the fullness of Christian life. It is not a tangible feeling but simply believing God’s promises, much like trusting others in daily life. True faith means resting in God’s word without worry or doubt, trusting Him as we trust those around us. Just as slaves had to believe in their freedom to experience it, we must believe in God’s promises to receive His blessings.

Trusting God glorifies Him and leads to the fulfillment of His will in our lives .

After consecration, the next step is faith. It leads the soul out of the wilderness of Christian experience into a land flowing with milk and honey. And here, as in the first step, the enemy is very skilled at creating difficulties and obstacles. The child of God, seeing the fullness in Jesus for him, longs to grasp it. But, every teacher he asks asserts that only faith can receive it. But, his mind is a mystery about faith. This assertion, instead of helping, makes it more difficult and complex than ever.

“Of course it is to be by faith,” he says, “for I know that everything in the Christian life is by faith. But then, that is what makes it so hard, for I have no faith, and I do not even know what it is, nor how to get it.” And, baffled by this difficulty, he is plunged into despair. This trouble arises from a misunderstanding of faith. In truth, faith is the simplest thing in the world, and the easiest to attain.

Your idea of faith, I suppose, has been something like this. You view it as a sort of thing. It's either a religious exercise of the soul or a gracious disposition of the heart. It's something tangible. When you have it, you can rejoice in it. You can use it as a passport to God's favor, or a coin to buy His gifts. You have been praying for faith. You expected to get something like this. But, you never received anything.

So, you insist that you have no faith. Now faith, in fact, is not in the least this sort of thing.

It is nothing at all tangible.

It is simply believing God, and, like sight, it is nothing apart from its object. You might as well shut your eyes and look inside to see if you have sight, as to look inside to see if you have faith. You see something, and thus know that you have sight; you believe something, and thus know that you have faith. For, as sight is only seeing, so faith is only believing. The only necessary thing about seeing is, to see the thing as it is. So, the only necessary thing about believing is, to believe the thing as it is.

The virtue does not lie in your believing, but in the thing you believe. If you believe the truth, you are saved; if you believe a lie, you are lost. The belief is the same in both cases. The things believed in are exactly opposite. This is what makes the mighty difference. Your salvation comes, not because your faith saves you. It is because it links you to the Saviour who saves. Your faith is really nothing but the link.

I beg you to see, then, the simplicity of faith. It is just believing God when He says He has done something for us, or will do it. Then, we must trust Him to do it. It is so simple that it is hard to explain.

If anyone asks what it means to trust someone to do a job for me, I can only answer this: It means letting them do it. I feel it is unnecessary to do it myself. We have all trusted others with important work. We felt perfect rest in this trust. It was because we had confidence in those who took it on. How often do mothers trust their precious infants to nurses, without a hint of anxiety?

We all trust our health and lives to cooks, coachmen, engine drivers, and train conductors. We do this without fear. These paid servants could ruin us in an instant if they chose to or if they were careless.

All this we do, and make no fuss about it. We often trust people after a brief acquaintance. We need only a general knowledge of human nature and common social rules. We never feel we're doing anything remarkable. You have done all this yourself, dear reader, and are doing it continually. You could not live in this world for a day if you could not trust your fellow men. And it never enters into your head to say you cannot.

But yet you do not hesitate to say, continually, that you cannot trust your God! Please, imagine acting in your human relations as you do in your spiritual ones. Imagine you must start tomorrow with a thought in your head: you could trust nobody, as you had no faith. At breakfast, you would say, "I cannot eat anything on this table. I have no faith. I can't believe the cook hasn't poisoned the coffee. Or that the butcher hasn't sent diseased meat. So you would starve. Then, you'd say, "I cannot ride the train. “I have no faith, so I cannot trust anyone."

You would have to walk everywhere. You would grow very weary. Also, you could not reach many places you could have reached by train. When your friends or business agent brought you statements, you'd say, "I'm sorry, but I can't believe you. “I have no f aith and can't trust anyone." If you read a newspaper, you'd have to put it down. You'd say, "I can't believe a word it says. I have no faith. I don't believe there is a queen, for I've never seen her. And I don't believe in Ireland, for I've never been there." And I have no faith, so of course I cannot believe anything that I have not actually felt and touched myself. It is a great trial, but I cannot help it, for I have no faith.”

Imagine such a day. It would be disastrous for you. It would seem foolish to anyone who watched you throughout the day. Know your friends would feel insulted. Your servants would quit. Then ask yourself this: If it's so dreadful to distrust your fellow men, what of telling God you can't trust Him?

You say it's a great trial, but you can't help it; you have no faith. Can you trust your fellow men but not your God? That you can receive the “witness of men,” and cannot receive the “witness of God?” That you can believe man’s records, and cannot believe God’s record? You trust your weak, failing fellow- creatures with your dearest interests. Yet, you fear to commit your soul to the blessed Saviour.

He shed His blood to save you. He is "able to save you to the Uttermost."

Surely, dear believer, your name implies you can believe. So, you will never again dare to excuse your lack of faith. This means, of course, that you have no faith in God. You are not asked to have faith in yourself. If you did, it would be a very wrong state of soul. I beg you, when you think or say these things, to complete the sentence. Say, "I have no faith in God, I cannot believe in God." I am sure this will soon become so dreadful to you that you won't dare to continue it.

But you say, I cannot believe without the Holy Spirit. Very well; will you conclude that your want of faith is because of the failure of the blessed Spirit to do His work? If it is, then you are not to blame.

You need to feel no condemnation. All my urges to believe are useless. But, no! Do you not see that, in taking this position, you have no faith and cannot believe? You are "making God a liar." You are also showing a complete lack of trust in the Holy Spirit. For He is always ready to help our infirmities.

We never have to wait for Him, He is always waiting for us. I have complete faith in the Holy Ghost.

He is always ready to do His work. So, I say to you all: you can believe now, at this moment. If you do not, it is not the Spirit's fault, but your own.

Put your will then over on to the believing side. Say, “Lord I will believe, I do believe,” and continue to say it. Insist on believing, even when every suggestion of doubt tempts you. In your unbelief, throw yourself on God's word and promises. Dare to trust in the saving power of the Lord Jesus. If you have ever trusted a friend with something precious, I urge you to trust yourself now. Trust your spiritual interests to your Heavenly Friend. Never, never, NEVER doubt again.

And remember, trust and worry are more incompatible than oil and water. Would you call it trust? If you ask a friend to do something for you, then you spend your days and nights worrying if they will do it right. Can you call it trust? You have put your soul in the Lord's hands. But, you spend hours each day and night, filled with anxiety as you question it. When a believer really trusts anything, he ceases to worry about that thing which he has trusted.

And when he worries, it is a plain proof that he does not trust. Tested by this rule how little real trust there is in the Church of Christ! No wonder our L ord asked the pathetic question, “When the Son of Man comes shall he find faith on the earth?” He will find much activity and earnestness. There will be many devoted hearts. But, will he find faith? It is the one thing He values most. It is a solemn question, and I would that every Christian heart would ponder it well. But, may our past lives suffice us. We have shared in the world's unbelief. So, let us, who know our blessed Lord, prove His truth.

His trustworthiness is beyond words. We must, with our hearts, trust Him fully.

I remember, very early in my Christian life, an appeal in a volume of old sermons. It stirred my every tender and loyal impulse. It urged all who loved the Lord Jesus to show others His worthiness by their own steadfast faith in Him. I remember my soul cried out with a longing. I longed to walk those dark paths. My total distrust would be a blessed, glorious privilege.

"You have not passed this way before," it may be. But today, it is your happy privilege to prove, as never before, your loyal confidence in the Lord. Start with Him on a life of faith, lived in absolute, childlike trust in Him. You have trusted Him in a few things, and He has not failed you. Trust Him now for everything. See if He does not do for you more than you could ever ask or think. It won't be by your strength, but by His mighty power. It will work in you all the good pleasure of His most blessed will.

You trust the Lord to manage the universe and all creation. Can your case be more complex than these?

You need not be anxious about his management of it. Away with such unworthy doubting! Trust in your God. Observe how all problems will vanish swiftly before a strong will to believe. Trust in the dark, the light, at night, and in the morning. You will find that, though faith may start as a mighty effort, it will become a natural habit of the soul.

All things are possible to God. Mark 11:23“And Jesus said to him , if you can’! All things are possible for one who believes" "Faith has, in the past, 'subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, waxed valiant in fight, [and] turned to fight the armies of the aliens.' And faith can do it again." Our Lord says, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you. “Mathew 17:20 If you are a child of God, you must have at least a mustard seed's worth of faith. So, you cannot say again that you cannot trust because you have no faith. Say, "I can trust my Lord, and I will. Not all the powers of earth or hell shall make me doubt my glorious, faithful Rede emer!"”

This century's greatest event, the emancipation of our slaves, is a great lesson in faith. The slaves received their freedom by faith, just as we must receive ours. They received the good news that the government had proclaimed their freedom. They became free the moment the Proclamation was issued.

But, they didn't truly believe it until they heard the good news. The fact had to come first. But, they had to believe before the fact was available. The feeling would follow last of all. This is the divine order always, and the order of common-sense as well.

I. The fact.

II. The faith.

III. The feeling.

But man reverses this order and says, I. The feeling. II. The faith. III. The fact. If the slaves had followed man's order about their freedom, they might have stayed in slavery for a time. They should have refused to believe it until they had felt it. I have heard of one instance where this was the case. In a remote Southern town, a Northern lady found, two or three years after the war, some slaves who hadn't claimed their freedom. An assertion of hers, that the North had set them free, aroused the attention of an old colored auntie. The auntie interrupted her with an eager question.

" Oh, miss, are we free?"

“Of course, you are," the woman replied.

“Oh, are you sure?" the woman urged, with intense eagerness.

“Certainly, I am sure,” the lady replied, her voice steady and assured. “Why, is it possible you did not know it?”

Well,” said the woman, “we heard that we were free, so we asked the master, and he said we weren’t, so we were afraid to leave. Then we heard again that we were free, so we went to the colonel, and he said we should stay with our old master. So, we’ve just been uncertain. Sometimes we thought we were free, and other times we thought we weren’t. But now, miss, if you’re sure we are free, could you tell me all about it?” Seeing that this was a real need, the lady explained everything to the poor woman.

She told her about the war, the Northern army, and Abraham Lincoln. She spoke about his Emancipation Proclamation and the freedom it brought.

The poor slave listened with the most intense eagerness. She heard the good news. She believed it. And when the story was ended, she walked out of the room with an air of the utmost independence, saying as she went, -- “I’m free! I’m not staying with that old master anymore!” She had at last received her freedom, and she had received it by faith. The government had declared her free long before. But, this had not availed her. She had never believed in this declaration. The good news had not profited her, not being “mixed with faith” in the one who heard it. But now she believed, and believing, she dared to reckon herself to be free. And this, not due to any change in herself or her surroundings, nor to any feelings of her own heart. But, because she had faith in another. He had come to her with the news of her freedom.

Need I make the application? In a hundred messages, God has declared our freedom. He urges us to see ourselves as free. Let your faith then lay hold of His proclamation, and assert it to be true. Declare to yourself, to your friends, and in the secret of your soul to God, that you are free. Refuse to listen for a moment to the lying assertions of your old master that you are still his slave. Let nothing discourage you, no inward feelings nor outward signs. Hold your beliefs despite all opposition. I promise you, based on the authority of our Lord, that you will see it done according to your faith.

Of all the worships we can bring our God, none is as sweet to Him as this, our utter, self-abandoning trust. None brings Him so much glory. In every dark hour, remember this: "Now, for a time, you are in heaviness through many temptations." It is so. "Your faith's trial is more precious than gold. Gold perishes, even if fire tests it. May you find your faith to praise, honor, and bring glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ."