Christ's Intercession for Tried Faith

Part 2 Christ's Intercession for Tried Faith

"Christ's Intercession for Tried Faith"

And the Lord said, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not." Luke 22:31-32

There is not, perhaps, a single truth which occurs more frequently or with greater clearness in the sacred writings, and which is more holy in its tendency and effect, than the doctrine of the present security and final glory of the saints of God. Standing as it does in the closest relation to the Divine glory- every perfection of God being involved in it- it is not surprising that the Holy Spirit of Truth should assign to it a position so prominent, and should ascribe to it an influence so mighty, in neutralizing the doubts, in soothing the fears, and in establishing and stimulating the soul in all practical godliness.

He who imagines that the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints acts as a moral opiate to the soul, lulling it in a false security, soothing it to a state of inglorious quietude, has, we fear, either rejected the doctrine without investigation, or has studied it with a mind entangled by error, or warped by prejudice. But the truth is revealed, and as such we are bound to receive it. It is declared- written as with a sunbeam. "The righteous shall hold on his way; and he that has clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger." "The Lord does not forsake not saints." "He keeps the feet of his saints." "Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down for the Lord upholds him with his hand." "You shall guide me with your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory." "Being confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." "Kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." "They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand."

It would be easy to multiply these proofs, so replete is the word of God with them, but surely these Divine declarations and assertions place the doctrine beyond the region of doubt. The holy influence of this truth is equally revealed. After assuring the believer of the promises of God- that He would dwell in His people, and walk in them, and that He would be their God, and that they should be His people- thus affirming the final salvation of the whole church- with what gracefulness of manner and earnestness of spirit does the apostle then proceed to educe and enforce the practical influence of the doctrine- "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."

It may at first glance be thought that the case which we have selected for our present reflections- the fall of the apostle Peter- involves a contradiction of the doctrine which we have just laid down. A minute examination of each point, however, will decide the question, how far it contains any warrant for believing that He who has commenced a good work in the soul will be found, in any single instance, either incapable or unwilling to complete it, or to have resembled the man who began to build and was not able to finish. We trust, on the contrary, that its spiritual investigation will be full of encouragement to those who are weak in grace, establishing to those whose minds are unsettled and wavering, sanctifying to the heart thirsting after deeper holiness, and tending to endear to all, the person and work of God's beloved Son.

It suggests for our meditation two deeply important and interesting topics- first, that the faith of the believer may be severely assailed, and, at times, may greatly waver; and, second, that the great reason why tried faith cannot absolutely and entirely fail is, the especial and ceaseless intercession on its behalf, of Jesus the great High Priest. Descend, Holy Spirit, and anoint, and teach, and guide us while endeavoring to unravel the mysteries of the kingdom of God within the soul, and while attempting to penetrate the glories of the kingdom of God within the veil.

That FAITH SHOULD BE MORE FREQUENTLY AND SEVERELY ASSAILED than any other grace of the Holy Spirit, will cease to create surprise as we become acquainted with the rank and position it occupies in the renewed soul. Placed in the very front of the battle, itself the strongest, the most determined and successful foe of the assailing powers of darkness and of sin, in effecting its overthrow; all their force, and skill, and malignity are marshaled and directed. But who is its chief and most formidable assailant? It is Satan, the accuser of the brethren, the tempter, the sworn enemy of God and man. It is he, the master spirit of darkness and woe, who, without possessing a single attribute of Deity, yet approaches so near in resemblance to the Divine, that in every place and at each moment of time he is present, narrowly watching, and closely studying, and incessantly working to deceive, and to overthrow, were it possible, the faith of the very elect. By what power or agency he is enabled to prosecute the dark designs of his gloomy intellect, and to effect the malignant purposes of his depraved heart, we cannot now venture at any length to premise. Whether with the subtlety and velocity which belong to light, there is an incessant expansion of thought, imparting a kind of personal ubiquity or omnipresence to the ruling mind of the infernal empire; or whether without being personally present, we may account for the extent of his agency, operating alike in every place, and at the same moment, by supposing intelligence communicated to, and commands issued from, him through the medium of that innumerable host of myrmidons who compose those 'principalities and powers' over which Jesus triumphed, 'making a show of them openly,' must, however strong the presumption, still remain points involved in much doubt and obscurity.

But there is one fact respecting which we are not left to conjecture. I allude to the eager and restless machinations of Satan to weaken, dishonor, and destroy the faith of God's elect. "And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat." Observe here, the limitation of Satanic power in reference to the believer. "Satan has desired to have you." This is its utmost extent. He has no power nor control over the redeemed, but that which God permits. He can but 'desire,' and long, and plot; not a hand can he lay upon them, by not a single temptation can he assail them, not a hair of their head can he touch, until God bid him. "Satan has desired to have you."- there stood the arch-foe waiting permission, as in the case of Job, to destroy the apostle of Christ.

Dear reader, I need scarcely pause to remind you how consolatory is this truth to the believing mind. You have often trembled at the power of Satan, and perhaps well-near as often have been the involuntary object of his implacable hatred and deep devices. But press now this animating thought to your trembling heart- he has no control nor influence nor power over a redeemed soul but that which God permits, and which Christ allows. "Thus far shall you go, and no farther," are words which reveal his inferiority, prescribe his limits, and stay the progress of the proud fiend.

But let us inquire what is that which Satan desires to assault? It is the work of God in the soul. Against his own kingdom not a weapon is raised. It is his aim and his policy to keep all there undisturbed and peaceful. The chaff he never thinks of winnowing. But against the work of the Holy Spirit in the renewed mind, his battery is brought to bear; not a part of this work escapes him. Every grace comes in for its share of malignant attack; but especially the grace of faith. This he sifts and winnows to the utmost. As this is the queen grace, it is against this the treason plot is formed. When, for example, a repentant and believing soul approaches Christ with lowliness and hesitancy, and with the tremulous hand of faith, attempts to touch the border of His garment, or with a tearful eye looks up to His cross, then comes the assault upon faith in the form of a suggestive doubt of Christ's power and willingness to save- "Is Jesus able to save me? Has He power to rescue my soul from hell? Can He blot out my transgressions and redeem my life from destruction? Will He receive a sinner so vile, so unworthy, so poor as I? Has He compassion, has He love, has He mercy sufficient to meet my case?"

In this way Satan assails the earliest and the feeblest exercises of faith in the soul. Does this page address itself to any such? Believer, it is Satan's great effort to keep you from Jesus. By holding up to your view a false picture of His character, from which everything loving, winning, inviting, and attractive is excluded, by suggesting wrong views of His work, in which everything gloomy, contracted and repulsive is foisted upon the mind- by assailing the atonement, questioning the compassion, and limiting the grace of Christ, he would persuade you that in that heart which bled on Calvary there is no room for you, and that upon that work which received the Father's seal, there is not breadth sufficient for you to stand. All his endeavors are directed, and all his assaults are shaped, with a view to keep your soul back from Christ. It is thus he seeks to vent his wrath upon the Savior and his malignity upon you.

Nor does he less assail the more matured faith of the believer. The sturdy oak is swept by the storm equally with the feeble sapling. Not unfrequently the sharpest attacks and the fiercest onsets are made, and made successfully, upon the strongest believers. Seizing upon powerful corruptions, taking advantage of dark providences, and sometimes of bright ones, and never allowing any position of influence, or usefulness, or gift, or grace, that would give force, success, and brilliance to his exploit, to escape his notice, he is perpetually on the alert to sift and winnow God's precious wheat. His implacable hatred of God, the deep revenge he cherishes against Jesus, his malignant opposition to the Holy Spirit, fit him for any dark design and work implicating the holiness and happiness of the believer. Therefore we find that the histories of the most eminent saints of God, as written by the faithful pen of the Holy Spirit, are histories of the severest temptations of faith, in the most of which there was a temporary triumph of the enemy- the giant oak bending before the storm.

And even in instances where there was no defeat of faith, there yet was the sharp trial of faith. The case of Joseph, and that of his illustrious antitype, the Lord Jesus, present examples of this. Fearful was the assault upon the faith of both, sharp the conflict through which both passed, yet both left the battle-field victorious. But still faith was not the less really or severely sifted.

But there are trials of faith other than that which the case of Peter illustrates; his may perhaps be more properly denominated the temptation of faith. Faith has its trials as well as its temptations. Affliction is a trial of faith; sorrow in any of its multitudinous forms is a trial of faith; the delay of mercy is a trial of faith; the promise unfulfilled is a trial of faith; the prayer unanswered is a trial of faith; painful providences, mysterious dispensations, straitened circumstances, difficulties and embarrassments, all are so many trials of faith, commissioned and designed by God to place the gold in the crucible, and the wheat in the sieve, that both may be purified and tried. Ah! is it no trial of the believer's faith when the foundation upon which it rests is assailed? Is it no trial of faith to have distorted representations of God presented to its eye, dishonoring thoughts of God suggested to the mind, unbelieving apprehensions of Jesus, and His love, and His grace, and His word, foisted upon the heart? To entertain for one moment the idea that God is unfaithful to His word, or that in His dealings He is arbitrary and unkind; that Jesus is not what He represents Himself to be, an all-sufficient Savior of the lost, the healer of the broken in heart, the tender, gentle Savior, not breaking the bruised reed, but mending it, nor quenching the smoking flax, but fanning it? Oh yes, these to a holy mind are painful trials of faith, from which the tender conscience shrinks, and the sensitive heart recoils.

But there is something deeply instructive, as well as most consolatory, in one expressive word of our blessed Lord to His servant Peter, "Satan has desired to have you, that he might sift you as wheat." Here was that which marked the reality of his faith. It is only true grace that is really tried. No man puts mere dross into his furnace, or mere chaff into his sieve. All his toil and pains-taking would go for nothing, for it would come forth in its nature unaltered and unchanged- the dross would still be dross, and the chaff would still be chaff. Now the Lord tries, and Satan tempts, nothing but genuine grace. It is the wheat, and not the tares, that is made to pass through the fiery trial. Thus do afflictions and trying dispensations prove tests of a man's religion. When there is nothing but tinsel in a profession of Christianity, the fire will consume it; when there is nothing but chaff, the wind will scatter it. The furnace of temptation and the flail of affliction often prove a man's work of what sort it is, long before the discovery is made in a world where no errors can be corrected, and when it will be too late to rectify mistakes. Thus it is that so many professors, who have not the root of the matter in themselves, but endure for a while, are offended and fall away when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word.

But the wheat- the pure faith of the soul- is tried. "Other graces," remarks the holy Leighton, "are likewise tried in the same furnace; but faith is named as the root of all the rest. Sharp afflictions give the Christian a trial of his love to God, whether it be single and for Himself or not; for then it will be the same when He strikes as when He embraces, and in the fire of affliction will rather grow the hotter, and be more taken off from the world, and set upon Him. Again, the grace of patience is put particularly upon trial in distresses. And both of these spring from faith; for love rises from a right and strong belief of the goodness of God; and patience from a persuasion of the wisdom and love of God, and the truth of His promises. He has said, I will not fail you, and that we shall not be tempted above our strength, and He will give the issue. Now the belief of these things causes patience. The trial of faith works patience. For therefore does the Christian resign up himself, and all that concerns him, his trials, the measure and length of them all, unto God's disposal, because he knows that he is in the hands of a wise and loving Father. Thus the trial of these and other particular graces does still resolve into this, and is comprised under the trial of faith."

And why is the 'wheat' thus sifted? why is so Divine and precious a grace subjected to a process so humiliating and severe? Certainly not because of any intrinsic impurity in the grace itself. All the graces of the Spirit as they proceed from God, and are implanted in the heart, are pure and holy; as essentially free from sin as the nature from where they flow. But in consequence of the impurity of the heart, and the defilement of the nature in which they are deposited- the body of sin and death by which they are incased- they become mixed with particles of earthliness and carnality, the fine gold with dross, and the pure wheat with chaff. To purify and separate the graces of the Holy Spirit from these things, so foreign to their nature, the Lord permits these temptations, and sends these trials of faith.

We have remarked, that not only may the faith of a child of God be severely assailed, but that there are times when that faith may greatly waver. Is this surprising? No, the greatest wonder is, that with all these severe shocks, through which it passes, it does not entirely fail. Nothing but the Divinity that dwells within that grace, keeps it. Were it not Divine and incorruptible, it would entirely fail. Look at Abraham- on one occasion in the strength of faith offering up his son, and on another occasion in the weakness of faith denying his wife! Look at David- in the strength of faith slaying Goliath, and in the weakness of faith fleeing from Saul! Look at Job- in the strength of faith justifying God in the severest of His dealings, and in the weakness of faith cursing the day that be was born! Look at Peter- in the strength of faith drawing his sword and smiting a servant of the high priest's, and in the weakness of faith forced by a little maid to deny the Lord whom he had but just defended! Oh! the wonder of wonders is, that there remains a single grain in the sieve, or a particle of metal in the furnace, or a solitary spark in the ocean- that all is not utterly scattered, consumed, and annihilated! Nothing but the power of God, and its own incorruptible and imperishable nature, preserve it.

This thought suggests our second topic- THE INTERCESSION OF THE LORD JESUS IN BEHALF OF TRIED FAITH. "I have prayed for you that your faith fail not." That any one grace of the Holy Spirit in the renewed soul can ever utterly perish, would seem, from the nature of that grace, to be an utter impossibility. Nothing that is really holy and spiritual is ever destroyed. Divine principles, holy thoughts, spiritual desires, and Godlike actions, survive the period and outlive the occasion which called them forth, and gave to them an existence. Nothing perishes but the material and the fleshly. Upon these fleshly things, be they the fairest and the purest, the most magnificent and refined, 'passing away' is indelibly inscribed. "Meanwhile, heaven is attracting to itself whatever is congenial to its nature, is enriching itself by the spoils of earth, and collecting within its capacious bosom whatever is pure, permanent, and Divine, leaving nothing for the last fire to consume but the objects and the slaves of concupiscence; while everything which grace has prepared and beautified shall be gathered and selected from the ruins of the world to adorn that eternal city, which has no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it, for the glory of God does enlighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." (Hall)

Part 2 Christ's Intercession for Tried Faith

Back to GRACE AND TRUTH