Faith in God
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Faith in God
Then Jesus said to the disciples, "Have faith in God." Mark 11:22
In laying the foundation of our faith in Himself, God has made it as firm and durable as Deity itself. Had He proposed for our confidence another and an inferior object, it had been but a mockery of the necessity and the woe He sought to relieve, the most bitter and humiliating. Faith is a divine principle. The object of its trust must necessarily be Divine. It is its privilege, as its boast, that all its concerns are transacted with Deity. It deals with nothing less. It is the queen grace of the royal priesthood, its home is the king's palace, and its position is always near, and its communion is always directly and exclusively with, the King himself. Descending from God, its tendencies are ever ascending to God. It struggles upward from the lowest degree, fighting its way through a host of the fiercest and most formidable foes, until it reaches Him, its Divine and blissful object. This will account for the indestructibleness of the principle of real faith; springing from, it is perpetually nourished by, God.
The church of the Apocalypse, driven into the wilderness, and nourished there, may illustrate the life of faith. It cannot really perish. Its operations may for a season be embarrassed, its actings for a while suspended, its pulsations fluctuating and tremulous, its oppositions and its trials formidable and severe, but it cannot perish. No power can draw it entirely away from God. Voyaging to the better land, faith is the believing soul's compass. The needle points to God, its one object and center. Nothing can divert it. As you cannot destroy the magnetic principle, although you may for a while disturb the regularity of its movement by the false attraction of a foreign object, so does true faith defy all annihilating power. Its movements may for a moment be tremulous, and its pointing not always true- for example, when second causes and creature confidence interpose between it and God- but relieve it of its pressure, and remove its false attraction, and, like the magnetic needle left to its free and uncontrolled operation, it will return again to its center, and point once more to its God.
And yet no exhortation does the believer more constantly need than that which has suggested the theme of the present chapter. In consequence of the many and sharp trials of faith, the temptations by which it is assailed, and the difficulties with which it has to cope, we require those inspiring words of the Savior to be ever sounding in our ears, "Have faith in God." And in what, my Christian reader, does this high exercise of the soul consist? Need I remark- and yet of elementary truths we should never lose sight- that it commences with the very first principle of the Gospel, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?" Our Lord embodies the same important sentiment in His remarkable words, "You believe in God, believe also in me." All professed faith in the Father, which ascribes not equal glory to the Son, is an awful delusion. Faith approaches God by Christ. Through this medium only can it behold Him. By this door only can it enter and hold audience with God. A faith, so called, that excludes the Savior, and by sequence denies the atonement, will make shipwreck of the soul whose course to eternity it proposes to steer; guided by such a compass, its doom is fixed and fearful- it must eventually strand the noble vessel upon the bleak, dark shores of eternity. It never will conduct it to the haven of eternal blessedness. As a sinner, what confidence can I have in the holy Lord God apart from faith in the atoning Savior? He is so great, so holy, and so true, that I cannot, I dare not approach Him, except through the mediation of One whom He has appointed and accepted. "I think of God and am troubled." Sin makes me afraid, but when I see the sin atoning blood upon the mercy-seat, and when God sees the sin-cleansing blood upon my soul, there is agreement, there is confidence, there is peace, there is fellowship. "How can two walk together except they be agreed?" Impossible! Here, then, is the ground-work of faith in God- believing with all the heart in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And now, supposing myself to be addressing a true believer in Jesus, I would endeavor to open up to his mind this- the great principle of all holiness and happiness- faith in God. Have faith in Him 'as God'. His character justifies it, His word invites it, His promises encourage it, His Son imparts it, His Spirit creates it, His blessing crowns it. How frequently in the word does God condescend to invite the exercise of faith in Himself by a declaration, and on the ground of what He is! Thus to Abraham: "And when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God: walk before me, and be perfect." And again to His Church: "I am the Lord God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt; open your mouth wide, and I will fill it."
How kind and condescending in God is this mode of asking and encouraging the confidence of His people! How signally does He come down to our weakness and infirmity! What a foundation for faith to build upon does He reveal; what a field for faith to work in does He open; what amplitude, what scope, and what riches amid which it may revel! "I am God all-sufficient. Is anything too hard for me?" Faith needs and asks no more. Less than this would not meet its case; more than this it could not have. When faith feels that it has God's word for its warrant in believing, God's command for its rule in obeying, God's promise for its encouragement in suffering, and God Himself as the foundation of its confidence and the center of its rest, it becomes invulnerable, and almost omnipotent.
The exact measure of our faith is the extent of our experimental knowledge of God. Acquaintance with God must inspire the mind with confidence in Him. The more truly we know, the more implicitly we trust in Him. It is in this way, among others, that He answers the prayer of His people, "Establish your word unto your servant, who is devoted to your fear." God establishes the truth of His word by enlarging the believer's knowledge of Himself, and this knowledge is mainly attained through the truth. The word reveals God, and an experimental knowledge of God confirms the truth of the word; the one thus establishing the other. Our faith, then, if it be a real principle, must have respect to God 'as God'. "Have faith in God." Acquaint yourself now with God, and be at peace; thereby good shall come unto you."
We have already hinted that true faith in God supposes Him reconciled in Christ. This is the ground-work of all holy, humble converse with God. But here we must be cautious of placing a limit, as, too many do. It is a great display of sovereign grace, that we should have peace with God. God reconciled to us in Jesus is, of all Divine and experimental truths, the greatest. Until this is experienced, we can affirm of no individual that he is safe for eternity. Yet, alas! what numbers reject this truth, and still dream on of heaven! But great as is this grace, it is not less our mercy to be advancing, on the ground of assured peace, to more matured attainments in universal holiness. We are, at best, but dull scholars in the science of spiritual arithmetic. We have imperfectly learned one of its first rules, that of adding grace to grace. "Giving all diligence," exhorts the apostle, "add to your faith virtue". Peace through the atoning blood being obtained, the movement is to be progressive, the course onward; each day, if possible, augmenting the measure of our grace, and adding to the number of the Spirit's graces.
Reconciliation with God is but the starting-post in the Divine life, not the goal; it is the commencement, and not the end of our course. In other words, vast numbers rest in their first reception of Christ. They are hopefully converted, they unite themselves with a particular section of the church of God, and settle down under an attached ministry. But here they seem to abide. There is no advance, no progress, no forgetting of the things that are behind, pressing upwards to higher rounds in the glorious ladder, which a gracious Father has let down out of heaven, by which we may ascend to heaven. Content with having placed the foot upon the first step, there they remain. There is no "following on to know the Lord." And yet why has the Lord removed the burden from the shoulder, but that we might mount upward? Why has He broken the chains from our feet, but that we may go forward? Thus are we constantly forgetting that the cross is our starting-point in our race- and yet ever to be kept in view; while holiness, breathed after upon earth, and in some blessed degree attained, but perfected in heaven, is our bright and certain goal.
Again, the exhortation of our Lord warrants the most implicit reliance upon the 'Divine faithfulness'. To have faith in God necessarily implies faith in Him as a God of truth. Hence the security which the believer possesses, that all that God has promised, He will assuredly perform. He has made all His covenant engagements to rest upon His faithfulness. With what frequency and earnestness He alludes to this! "God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent: has he said, and shall he not do it? Or has he spoken, and shall he not make it good?" "I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it." Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor allow my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips." Once have I sworn that I will not lie unto David." "If we believe not, yet he abides faithful; he cannot deny himself."
But precious as these words are, they are only Divine asseverations of the truth. Faith has something still more substantial and firm to rest upon; something even superior to the averment of the promise- even the faithfulness of the Divine Promiser Himself. Here it is that faith has its stronghold- not the word of God merely, but the God of the word. God must be faithful, because He is essentially true and immutable. "He cannot deny Himself." "God that cannot lie." "It is impossible for God to lie." What asseverations of any truth can be stronger? And now, O believer, have faith in God, as true to His word, and faithful to His promise. Has the Spirit, the Comforter, caused your soul to rely upon His promises, to hope in His word? Have you nothing but the naked declaration to bear you up? Stand fast to this word, for God, who cannot lie, stands by to make it good.
Have faith in His faithfulness. In doubting Him, you cannot dishonor Him more. If to discredit the word of man, were an impeachment of His veracity, and that impeachment were the darkest blot that you could let fall upon His character; what must be the dishonor done to God by a poor sinful mortal, distrusting His faithfulness, and questioning His truth! But, "God is faithful." Have faith in Him as such. He is engaged to bring to perfection that which concerns you, to supply all your need, to guide your soul through the wilderness, to protect your head in the day of battle, and to guide you to ultimate victory, and rest. Oh, trust Him! It is all that He asks of you. Is it now with you a day of trouble? a time of trial? a season of pressure? Is your position perilous? Are your present circumstances embarrassed? Now is the time to trust in the Lord. "Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will answer you, and will deliver you, and you shall glorify me."
Oh if God were to speak audibly to you at this moment, methinks these would be the words that He would utter: "Have faith in my faithfulness. Have I ever been untrue to my engagements, false to my word, forgetful of my covenant, neglectful of my people? Have I been a wilderness to you? What evil have you found in me, what untruth, what wavering, what instability, what change, that you do not now trust me, in this the time of your need? " Oh let your soul be humbled that you should ever have doubted the veracity, have distrusted the faithfulness of your God. But though we believe not, yet he abides faithful, he cannot deny himself." "A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he."
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