Folly of Unbelief
Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, August 28th, 1887, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At the [2]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that
the prophets have spoken." Luke 24:25.
THE TWO DISCIPLES who walked to Emmaus and conversed together, and were
sad, were true believers. We may not judge men by their occasional
feelings. The possession of gladness is no clear evidence of grace; and
the existence of depression is no sure sign of insincerity. The
brightest eyes that look for heaven have sometimes been holden so that
they could not see their heart's true joy. Be not cast down, my
brethren and sisters, if occasionally the tears of sadness bathe your
cheeks. Jesus may be drawing near to you, and yet you may be troubled
by mysteries of grief.
The Lord Jesus Christ came to the two disciples, and took a walk of
some seven miles with them to remove their sadness; for it is not the
will of our Lord that his people should be cast down. The Savior does
himself that which he commanded the ancient prophet to do. "Comfort ye,
comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to
Jerusalem." Thus he spake and thus he acts. He was pleased when he went
away to send us another Comforter, because he wishes us to abound in
comfort; but that promise proves that he was, and is, himself a
Comforter. Do not dream, when in sadness, that your Lord has deserted
you; rather reckon that for this very reason he will come to you. As
her babe's cry quickens the mother's footsteps to come to it more
speedily, So shall your griefs hasten the visits of your Lord. He hears
your groanings; he sees your tearsare they not in his bottle? He will
come to you as the God of all consolation.
Observe that, when the Savior did come to these mourning ones, he acted
very wisely towards them. He did not at once begin by saying, "I know
why you are sad." No; he waited for them to speak, and in his patience
drew forth from them the items and particulars of their trouble. You
that deal with mourners, learn hence the way of wisdom. Do not talk too
much yourselves. Let the swelling heart relieve itself. Jeremiah
derives a measure of help from his own lamentations: even Job feels a
little the better from pouring out his complaint. Those griefs which
are silent run very deep, and drown the soul in misery. It is good to
let sorrow have a tongue where sympathy hath an ear. Allow those who
are seeking the Lord to tell you their difficulties: do not discourse
much with them till they have done so. You will be the better able to
deal with them, and they will be the better prepared to receive your
words of cheer. Often, by facing the disease of sorrow the cure is half
effected; for many doubts and fears vanish when described. Mystery
gives a tooth to misery, and when that mystery is extracted by a clear
description, the sharpness of the woe is over. Learn, then, ye who
would be comforters, to let mourners hold forth their wound before you
pour in the oil and wine.
Learn also a sacred lesson, O ye mourners! It is well for you, when you
are pouring out your griefs, that you do so before the Lord. These two
troubled wayfarers, though they knew it not, were telling their sorrow
to him who best of all could help them to bear it. You may tell your
friends, if you will, and it will be some relief to you; but if you
seek the throne of grace, and make the Redeemer your chief confidant,
your relief will be sure. Get you alone; shut to the door; bow there
apart from the disciples, and say, "Jesus, Master, I would tell thee
that which saddens me! Thou great High Priest, who wast compassed with
infirmities, thou wilt understand me better than my nearest friend, and
I would place myself beneath thy care!" How great the privilege that we
have access with boldness to the ear and heart of Jesus our Lord!
Again, learn another point of wisdom. When our Lord had heard their
statement of distress he might immediately have comforted them: a word
would have done it. Did he not say "Mary," and did she not at once turn
and say, "Rabboni" with ecstatic delight? He went more wisely to work
than to administer hurried consolation: he rather rebuked than
encouraged them. He began by saying, "O foolish men, and slow of heart
to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!" Observe that I quote
the Revised Version, for the Authorized is too harsh. Our Lord did not
call them fools, but foolish persons. The difference is rather in the
manner than in the sense. He chided them; gently, but still wisely. He
let them know that their unbelief was blameworthy, and he called them
foolish for indulging it. O beloved brother, if thy Master chide thee,
do not doubt his love! If, when thou goest to him in grief, he answers
thee roughly, it is his love scarcely disguised, which thus seeks thy
truest welfare. If thou believe in thy Lord, thou wilt reply, "Master,
say on." If he call thee foolish, thou wilt wonder that he does not say
something worse of thee; and in any case thou wilt trust him after the
manner of Job when he said, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in
him."
Especially observe that our Savior's rebuke was aimed at their
unbelief. Unbelief, which we so often excuse, and for which we almost
claim pity, is not treated by our Lord as a trifle. It is for this that
he calls them foolish; it is about this that he chides the slowness of
their hearts. Do not let us readily excuse ourselves for mistrust of
God. If we ever doubt our gracious Lord, let us feel ourselves to be
verily guilty. Regard unbelief as a fault rather than a weakness. Brace
yourselves to seek a braver and more constant faith than you have
reached as yet. Why should we go on blundering, and misjudging, and
therefore fretting when a little consideration will set us right, and
at the same time cause us to honor our Lord, and to be ourselves filled
with joy and peace through believing?
I am going to handle this rebuke as God the Holy Spirit shall help me;
first addressing it to the true believer, and secondly, to the seeker.
I shall have to bring forth some bitter things which will act as a
tonic, but by giving tone to your system, they will, in the end, remove
your fears better than sweeter matters would have done. Hear then our
Lord say, "O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the
prophets have spoken!"
In speaking to believers, I would have them observe that our Lord
rebuked their unbelief under two heads: first, as being folly, and
secondly, as arising from slowness of heart.
First, then, UNBELIEF IS FOLLY. Not to believe all that the prophets
have spoken, and not to draw comfort out of it, is great folly. Folly!
Note the word. "O fools! O foolish men!" It is folly such as makes the
tender Jesus cry out.
It is folly because it arises from want of thought and consideration.
Not to think is folly. To give way to sadness, when a little thought
would prevent it, is foolishness. Is it not? If these two disciples had
sat down and said, "Now the prophets have said concerning the Messias
that he shall be led as a lamb to the slaughter, and thus was it with
our Master," they would have been confirmed in their confidence that
Jesus was the Messiah. If they had said, "The prophet David wrote,
'They pierced my hands and my feet,'" they would have recognized in
this their crucified Lord. And if then they had turned to the other
passages of the prophets in which they speak of Messiah's future glory,
they would have been refreshed with hope. In the Scriptures they would
have found types, and figures, and plain words, in which the death and
the rising again, the shame and the glory of Christ are linked
together, and his cross is made the road to his throne. Had they
compared the testimony of the holy women with the prophecies of the Old
Testament, they would have obtained ground of hope. The women reported
that the body was no longer in the tomb, and that they had seen a
vision of angels, who said that he was alive; two apostles went to the
sepulcher, and gave in a like report; and this tallied with the Lord's
own words, in which he made Jonah his type, because he came up from the
deep on the third day. But they forgot the Scriptures; they did not
think of that great source of hope. Their eyes were dimmed with tears,
so that they did not see what was plain before them. How many a
precious text have you and I read again and again without perceiving
its joyful meaning, because our minds have been clouded with
despondency! We take the telescope, and try to look into heavenly
things, and we breathe upon the glass with the hot breath of our
anxiety till we cannot see anything; and then we conclude that there is
nothing to be seen. Do you not think, beloved, you that are depressed
and sorrowing to-day, that if you thought more of the promises revealed
in God's Word, you would soon see things differently, and would rise
out of your downcast condition? You put your Bibles away, and read
nothing but the roll of your troubles. There are no handkerchiefs for
the tears of saints like those which are folded up within the golden
box of God's Word. He who inspired this volume is "The Comforter"; will
you not apply to him in your dark hours? O you, whose melancholy arises
from forgetfulness of the words of your heavenly Father, of the tender
Savior, and of the divine Spirit, I beseech you be more considerate!
Think of God's providence, his unchanging love, his power, his
faithfulness, his mercy. Think of the promises, and as you handle them
by thought, they will exhale a sweet perfume which will delight you.
Holy thought will charm you out of your griefs. But what folly it is
that, for want of thought, we should bow our heads like the bulrush,
when, like the sunflower, we might look at the light till we became
little suns ourselves!
Unbelief is folly because it is inconsistent with our own professions.
The two disciples professed that they believed in the prophets; and I
have no doubt that they did do so. They were devout Jews who accepted
the Holy Books as divinely inspired, and therefore infallible; and yet
now they were acting as if they did not believe in the prophets at all.
Are we not often found guilty of like inconsistency? O brethren, it is
one thing to say, "I believe the Bible," but it is quite another thing
to act upon that belief! We have more of seeming faith than of real
faith. That Book is true, and every promise in it is true, and I know
and believe that it is so; and yet, when I come to the test, how much
of faith evaporates, and how sadly my fluttering heart proves that my
belief was more in fancy than in fact! There is more infidelity in the
best believer than he dreams of. We think we believe in the gross; and
yet, when it comes to the detail, and we have to deal with this promise
and with that as a matter of fact in every-day life, we have to light a
candle, and sweep the house, to find our faith. What folly this is! If
the Word of the Lord be true, it is true, and we ought to act upon it;
if it be not true, why do we profess to believe it? That which is
unquestionably true will bear all the strain and pressure which life
and its trials may put upon it, and it is for us to act upon this
belief. Brethren, it ill becomes us to play at believing; let us have
our wits about us, and make serious business of that which is not sent
to delude us, but soundly to instruct us. The Word of the Lord is in
harmony with his providence; and as we believe him as to the one, we
must trust him as to the other. We may safely rest the weight of our
body and soul, our present and future, upon the sure promise of a
faithful God; and we are bound by our profession to do so. It is folly
to call ourselves believers in the Bible, and then to doubt and
distrust.
Folly, again, is clearly seen in unbelieving sadness, because the
evidence which should cheer us is so clear. In the case of the brethren
going to Emmaus they had solid ground for hope. They speak, to my mind,
a little cavalierly of the holy women as "certain women." Yet there
were no better disciples in the world than those women. They were
surely the best of the chosen companyMary and the Magdalene. Even the
testimonies of Peter and John, the very chief of the apostles, are not
sufficiently valued, for they speak of "certain of them which were with
us." I say not they speak disrespectfully; but there is a slurring of
their witness by casting a doubt upon it. Concerning these godly women
they leave an impression on my mind as if they had said, "Women will
talk, and these women said that they had seen a vision of angels, which
said that he was alive." It is rehearsed as hearsay of a hearsay: they
said that they had seen those who had said. If they had been pushed to
the point, the two disciples would not have allowed that the Magdalene
and the other women, or Peter, or John, were unworthy of credence; and
yet they were by their sadness acting as if the witnesses were
mistaken. If those who were at the empty sepulcher were to be believed,
why did they doubt? The evidence which they themselves detail, though
we have it only in brief in this place, was conclusive evidence that
Christ had left the tomb; and yet they doubted it. Now, dear friends,
you and I have had superabundant evidence of the faithfulness of God,
and if we are unbelieving, we are unreasonable and foolish. At least, I
stand here to confess that whenever I doubt my God it is on my part a
superfluity of naughtiness. I have never had any reason to distrust
him. These many years that I have trusted in him he has never failed me
once. Experienced Christians, how can you waver in your confidence? If
we disbelieve, is it not folly? If the Savior does not call us fools,
we are forced to call ourselves so.
We could not suppose that the promise, covenant, and oath of God could
fail. The supposition cannot be tolerated for an instant. Thousands of
souls are resting everything upon the faithfulness of God, and desire
no other security; but if God be unfaithful, what will become of them?
If the foundations be removed, what can the righteous do? Then they
that have fallen asleep in Christ have perished; or, even if they be in
heaven, what security have they there, if God can change? I feel quite
safe on board the ship of the covenant, for all the saints are floating
in this one vessel. If God fails, then we all fail together, and there
is an end of faith, and hope, and all things. Wherefore, let us not be
so foolish as to sin against the light of clear truth. Let us believe
what we have known, and tasted, and handled. Let past experience anchor
us firmly as to future circumstances.
Unbelief is folly, because it very often arises out of our being in
such a hurry. They said, "Beside all this, this is the third day." I
know that they had expected great things on that third day, and were
justified in expecting them; but still, the day was not yet over, and
they were in as great a fever as if it was past a month ago. Although
the Savior had said that he would rise on the third day, he had not
said that he would appear to them all on the third day. He told them to
go into Galilee, and there they should see him; but that meeting had
not yet come. "He that believeth shall not make haste;" but they that
do not believe are always restless. Well is it written, "Ye have need
of patience." God's promises will be kept to the moment, but they will
not all be fulfilled to-day. Divine promises are some of them bills
which are payable so many days after sight; and because they are not
paid at sight we doubt whether they are good bills. Is this reasonable?
Are we not foolish to doubt the sure handwriting of a God that cannot
lie? Because the Lord has not carried out your interpretation of his
promise in the way of your own dictation, therefore you question his
truthfulness! If the vision tarry, wilt thou not wait for it? It will
come in its own appointed time, wouldst thou have it hurried on for
thee? What next? Shall the sun and moon be quickened in their pace to
suit thy rashness? Must God himself alter his purposes at thy bidding?
Truly, things have come to a pretty pass! Art thou man or God? If thou
be a man, wait God's time, and in thy patience possess thy soul. If
thou do not, but, like a fretful child, must have everything now, or
else cry and fight, thou deserves the rod, and well may the Lord say to
thee, "O foolish one!"
Yet, again, I think we may well be accused of folly whenever we doubt,
because we make ourselves suffer needlessly. There are enough bitter
wells in this wilderness without our digging more. There are enough
real causes of sorrow without our inventing imaginary ones. I believe
that the sharpest griefs in the world are those that men make for
themselves. No asp ever stung Cleopatra so terribly as that which she
held to her breast herself. Certain of our friends spend all their days
in stitching away to make themselves garments of sackcloth. I have seen
the cobbler with his lapstone cobbling up a trouble, and he has done
his work so well that the shoe has pinched his foot for many a day. It
seems a pity, does it not? Yet, brethren and sisters, we have those
about us who are great adepts at self-worrying. When you were boys, I
do not suppose you ever went into the woods to find a stick for your
father to beat you with; but you have done so again and again since you
have been men; and the more is the pity that you should be so foolish.
If these two travelers had considered and believed, they would have
known that Christ was risen from the dead; and as they walked along to
Emmaus, if indeed they had ever taken that walk at all, their faces
would have brightened at the prospect of soon seeing him they loved so
well.
I want you to notice yet further that it was folly, but it was nothing
more. I feel so thankful to our Lord for using that word. Though we
ought to condemn our own unbelief with all our hearts, yet our Savior
is full of tenderness, and so freely forgives, that he looks upon our
fault as folly, and not as wilful wickedness. He does not take our
doubt as an affront, but he calls it folly. He knows that it is true of
his children, as it is of ours, that folly is bound up in the heart of
a child. He puts that down to childish folly which he might have called
by a harsher name. I am sure that any dear, obedient child will feel
thankful if his father calls his fault by the lighter name of folly,
because it will prove that he loves him, and will endeavor to teach him
better. It was not wicked rebellion; there was no enmity in it. They
loved their Lord, though they feared he had not risen from the dead. I
do not want you to draw undue comfort from this gentle word, but yet I
would have you lose none of the cheer it is meant to convey. You that
are vexed at your own doubts are not to come to the conclusion that the
Lord utterly rejects you. He discriminates between the folly of a child
and the wickedness of a rebel: he knows what is in your heart, and
knows that you are his. You are like a ship that is well anchored, and
though the tide is rushing in, and makes your vessel roll from side to
side, so that you yourself stagger, yet the vessel is not loosed from
its moorings, neither are you in any danger. Your faith is fixed on
Christ, and this anchor holds you; though you are tossed about a
little, you will suffer no shipwreck because of sin, but much
sea-sickness because of folly. So much concerning unbelieving sadness
as folly.
In the second place, our Lord rebuked them for SLOWNESS OF HEART TO
BELIEVE.
This is an evil greatly to be fought against, but it is by no means a
rare sin among the people of God. Let me try and bring home the charge
made by our Lord against the two disciples, since I fear it applies to
us as much as to them. Our hearts are full often sluggish in believing;
at least, mine is so, and I suppose we are much alike.
First, we are slow in heart to believe our God, for we are much more
ready to believe others than to believe him. I am often amazed with the
credulity of good people whom I had credited with more sense. Credulity
towards man and incredulity towards God are singular things to find in
the same person. We cannot help seeing in the daily papers how easily
people are duped. Get up a prospectus, and a list of names as
directors, including a titled pauper, and you can bring in money by
waggon-loads. The confidence trick can still be successfully performed.
One impostor lived for months by calling at the door of guileless old
people in almshouses, and telling them that a cousin in America had
died, and left them a fortune, but it was essential that fees should be
paid at the government offices, and then the legacy would at once be
handed over. Times and times the money has been scraped together, the
rogue has gone his way, and no more has been heard of the cousin in
America. There are so many simpletons about that rogues reap harvests
all the months of the year. And yet the God of truth is doubted! Yet
the incorruptible Word is mistrusted! This makes our slowness of heart
in believing God all the more sad a sign of our inward depravity of
nature. We can believe, for we believe in man. In the course of our
lives we are fools enough to believe in men to our cost; in fact, it is
not easy to rise out of this snare: and yet we are slow at heart to
believe our God. Oh, my brethren, can we excuse ourselves? The Lord
forgive and cleanse us! Let us henceforth accept every syllable of
God's Word as infallible, while we turn our unbelief towards man and
his philosophies and infidelities!
Is it not clear that we are slow of heart to believe, since we judge
this of others when they are mistrustful? When we see our brethren in
trial desponding and distrusting, we are very apt to think them
needlessly dull, and sinfully slow to grasp the promise; and yet, if we
come into the like case, we are by no means better than they. That
which we censure we commit. The beam is in our own eye as well as the
mote in our brother's eye. You have come home from visiting a friend
who was distressed at heart, and you have said, "I cannot make her out,
I have put the promises before her, but she is so foolish that she
refuses to be comforted." Yes, and from this learn what you may be!
Within a month's time, you may be sinking in the same mire. An evil
heart of unbelief is to be found in many a breast where its existence
is least suspected. But if we see the folly of others, will we not
confess our own? Dare we commit what we condemn? Did you ever say of
Job, "It was a pity that after all his patience, he spoke so bitterly,
and cursed the day of his birth"? I wonder how many of us would have
been any better than Job. I dare not hope that I should have been
worthy to unloose the ratchets of his shoes. If I had been bereaved as
he was, and tortured with like burning boils, and, worst of all,
irritated by critics with their cruel candour and malignant sympathy,
could not have behaved so grandly as he did. Let us not severely judge
others. They ought to believe, of course; they ought to be more
cheerful; they ought not to let their burdens crush them so completely:
but when we also are tempted shall we be so very much superior? I fear
not. Let us see ourselves in the weakness of our brethren, and confess
that the Savior's words are true: we are "slow of heart to believe."
There is another point in which we are very slow of heart to believe,
namely, that we do believe, and yet do not believe. We must be very
slow of heart when we say "Yes, I believe that promise," and yet we do
not expect it to be fulfilled. We are quick of mind to believe
mentally, but we are slow of heart to believe practically. The very
heart of our believing is slow. Our dear friend, Mr. George Muller,
whom may God long preserve, says that one of his objects in journeying
about, at his advanced age, from church to church, is to try and lead
God's people to real faith in the promises of God. He says, "As for
fifty-seven years I have seen how very little real trust in the living
God there is (generally speaking), even amongst true Christians, I have
sought, in these my missionary tours particularly, to strengthen their
faith; because, in the course of my pastoral labors, the blessed
results of real confidence in God on the one hand have come to my
knowledge, and the misery of distrusting him on the other." Mr.
Muller's object is a very desirable one; but what fools we must be that
this should be necessary! There are plenty of people who believe God
after a superfine kind of fashion up there on the edge of the moon, or
"at the back of the north wind"; but they do not believe the Lord in
their shops, and on their beds, and in their kitchens: they cannot
believe as to bread, and cheese, and house-rent, and raiment. They talk
about believing in the Lord for eternity, but for this day and next
week they are full of fear. True faith is every-day faith. The faith of
the patriarchs was a faith which dwelt in tents, and fed sheep. We want
a faith which will endure the wear and tear of lifea practical,
realizing faith, which trusts in God from hour to hour. Oh, to be
delivered from shams, and windbags, and to believe God as a woman
believes her husband, or a child believes its father! I hear of writers
of "the realistic school": we want believers of the realistic order. We
need faith in which there are backbone and grit. We are sham believers,
and so we lead sham lives. The promises of God speak to us as Jesus
spake to his disciples when he rose from the dead: each one cries
"Handle me, and see." God's words are not chaff, but wheat; not wind,
but bread. We are slow of heart because, while we think we are
believing all that God saith to us, it often turns out that our
believing is all a puff.
These two disciples must have been slow of heart to believe, again,
because they had enjoyed so much excellent teaching, and they ought to
have been solid believers. They had been for years with Jesus Christ
himself as a tutor, and yet they had not learned the elements of simple
faith. "Oh," say you, "they were very slow!" Are not you the same? How
many years have you been with Jesus? Perhaps for even thirty years. He
has himself taught you, has he not? Let me remind some of you of the
remarkable events of your lives. What wonderful providences you have
seen! What singular deliverances you have experienced! What divine
upholdings you have enjoyed! what heavenly consolations you have
received! If you doubt the Savior, you may well be called "slow of
heart to believe." After what you have experienced, my brother, the
shadow of a doubt should never fall upon you! Have you not said many
times, in the flush of your gratitude for some signal favor, "There, I
can never doubt my Lord again"? You were foolish when you made that
boastful observation; but you are more foolish still for running back
from it. You have passed through the Red Sea, and with your timbrel in
your hand you have sung unto the Lord; and yet, perhaps, after a short
march, you have tasted the bitter waters of Marah, and opened your
mouth in murmuring. God only is wise, and we are fools. He alone hath
understanding, and we are "slow of heart."
Once more, these two disciples were very slow of heart to believe,
because there is so much in the Word which ought to have convinced
them. See how the Savior puts it"Slow of heart to believe all that the
prophets have spoken." What a mighty "all" that is! Brethren, are you
half aware of the treasure hidden in the field of Scripture? Are you as
familiar with your Bibles as you should be? If so, you will join with
me in speaking of Scripture as having almost a redundance of
confirmatory testimony. There is rock enough here for us to build upon.
We have here, not only precept upon precept, but promise upon promise,
and all these confirmed by pledge, and oath, and covenant of the Lord
God Almighty. The teaching of Scripture is so full, so varied, so
convincing, that we are, indeed, slow of heart if our faith is not firm
and immovable. Brethren, a want of familiarity with the Word of God is
very often the seed-plot of our doubts! Half our fears arise from
neglect of the Bible. Our spirits sink for want of the heavenly food
stored up in the inspired Volume. God forbid that you should fly to
light literature to give your mind a fillip! Go to the solid literature
of the promises, and be established with food more suitable for an
immortal soul. Like Luther, say, "Come, let us sing a psalm, and drive
away the devil." There is no enchantment for the casting out of evil
spirits like a resort to the divine Word. When you see more of what God
has revealed, you will rise out of your doubts and fears, and your
slowness of heart to believe will depart from you.
Before I leave this point, I beg you to notice that the Savior does not
say that they were "hard of heart," but "slow of heart." I like to
notice that. When he is most severe, he is still tenderly
discriminating. "Slow of heart" we are, but there is no enmity in our
heart towards him. It is slowness, and that is bad enough, but our Lord
graciously helps our pace. Our face is in the right direction, and our
feet are going the right way; but we are slow in heart, and lame in
faith. As David spared Mephibosheth, and admitted him to his table,
though lame in both his feet, so the Lord loves us, and communes with
us, slow of heart though we are. It is bad to have a slow heart, very
bad; but it would be much worse to have an unrenewed heart. With all
our doubts and fears, we have no longer a heart of stone, but we have a
heart of flesh, which mourns because of its sinful unbelief. The Lord
knows the difference between the sin of hating the truth and the folly
of doubting it. Strive against this slowness of heart, but still let
not Satan come in as an accuser, and condemn you as though you were not
a child of God at all.
So there I leave it. There is the Master's gentle rebuke not meant to
discourage you, but to encourage you. He calls you foolish in order
that you may be so no longer. Believe, and this shall be your wisdom.
Will the Lord's people kindly pray for me while I now speak to the
unconverted? Ask that I may have God-speed while I try and speak to
those who are seeking the Lord, and have not yet believed in him. I
want to say to them just this: "O foolish men, and slow of heart to
believe!" Some of you are really seeking the Lord, but you say that you
cannot believe, though you long to believe. You are not like the
spider, whose motto is, "I get everything out of myself." You do not
hope to spin salvation out of your own bowels, but you own that
salvation must be through faith in Christ. So far so good: but how is
it that you do not at once believe? You say you cannot. How is it that
you cannot believe in Jesus? He commands you to believe in him, and
promises that you shall be saved. Trust him, and you shall live as
surely as his Word is true.
Listen! This unbelief proves you to be foolish, and slow of heart, for
there are other parts of his Word which you easily believe. If there is
a threatening or a condemnation, you believe it. If there is a text
that speaks of judgment to come, you believe it. You have a quick eye
for anything which reads hard and looks dismal. Have I not seen you
reading the Word, and stopping at a passage, and saying, "Alas! this
makes my case hopeless. I have sinned the sin that is unto death"? You
believe in more than God has said, for you read your own thoughts into
God's Word, and make it say more than it means. You are ready enough to
take in the hard things, but the gracious promises of the loving Christ
you will not believe. How can you justify this? How foolish you are!
The promises are in the same Book as the threatenings, and if you
believe the one, believe the other. Certainly, the cheering words come
from the same inspiration as the depressing ones: if you believe that
which looks dark, believe that which looks bright.
Next, you are very foolish, because your objections against believing
are altogether poor and puerile. I should think I have heard hundreds
of them in my time, but out of all the objections raised by troubled
souls against believing in Jesus, there is not one worthy of serious
discussion. One man cannot believe in Jesus because he does not feel
humble enough; as if that affected Christ's power to save. If he felt
more humbled, then he could believe in Jesus. Would not that be just
believing in himself, and trusting in his own humility instead of
trusting in Christ? One man cannot believe in Christ because he is not
like a certain great saint. Does he expect that he is to be like a
great saint when he first comes to Christ? Has not Christ come to save
sinners? Another says he cannot believe because he has not felt the
terrors of the law and the dread of hell. Does he think that his
terrors are to save him? Would his dreads and horrors help Christ to
save him? Would he not be trusting his terrors, and not Christ? The
Lord Jesus says, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the
earth." The gospel is to be preached to every creature, and every
creature that believes it shall be saved: but these people back out of
it, and begin hammering out reasons for their own destruction. A sadly
suicidal business this! Let the devil invent reasons for my not being
saved: it is not a business which can bring me any form of good.
Nothing can stand against the promise of God: he commands me to believe
on his Son Jesus, and I do believe, and I am saved, and shall be saved,
despite all the objections which may be raised by carnal reason.
Though you find it so hard to believe Christ, you have found it very
easy to believe in yourself. Not long ago you were everybody, and now
you cannot believe that Christ is everybody. You thought you were very
good; you were wonderfully easy in your own mind when you ought to have
been afraid. What! Was it easy to believe your poor self, and can you
not believe the faithful word of a good and gracious Savior who says
that if you trust him you shall be saved?
Moreover, you are very apt now to believe Satan if he comes and says
that the Bible is not true, or that Jesus will not accept you, or that
you have sinned beyond hope, or that the grace of God cannot save you.
Of course, you believe the father of lies, and you go mourning and
moping, when you might at once go singing and dancing if you would
believe your Savior. Jesus bids you trust and live, and Satan says it
is of no use your trusting; you believe Satan, and treat your Lord as
if he had intended to deceive you. "O fools, and slow of heart!"
Then you know how ready you are, you seekers, to stop short of Christ.
If you hear a sermon and get a little melted, and go home and pray a
bit, you get quite easy and say, "Now I am on the road." Why, your
meltings and your prayings are not the road to heaven: Jesus says, "I
am the way." You are not on the way till you get to him. You have been
in gracious company, and singing holy hymns; you feel quite good, and
are highly pleased with yourselves. What right have you to be restful
even for a moment? How dare you linger till you have reached the city
of refuge, which is Jesus Christ? Till you believe in Christ you have
no right to a single moment's peace, or hope, or joy; and yet you do
get a sort of peace and a kind of hope, which are only sparks of your
own kindling which will die out in blackness. Because you are content
to trust in something short of Christ, I say to youWhy not rest in
Jesus? O fools, and slow of heart! Refuges of lies you fly to, but the
true refuge of the finished work of Jesus Christ you do not accept? Why
is this?
And then some of you are foolish and slow of heart because you make
such foolish demands upon God. You would believe if you could hear a
voice, if you could dream a dream, if some strange thing were to happen
in your family. What! Is God to be tied to your fancies, that you will
not believe him unless he does this and that extravagant thing? If he
chooses to bring some to himself by extraordinary means, must he do the
same with you, or else you prefer to be cast into hell? Surely you are
mad. Who are you that you are to dictate to the Lord, and say he shall
do this, or that, or else you will refuse to believe him? And so you
will trample on the blood of Jesus, and turn our back upon the kingdom
of heaven, unless an angel is sent to you, or you hear a voice from
heaven! O fools, and slow of heart, to make these irrational demands
upon the ever-blessed God!
You are foolish and slow of heart because, to a great extent, you
ignore the Word of God and its suitability to your case. If a soul in
distress will take down the Bible, and turn it over, he need not look
long before he will light upon a passage which describes himself as the
object of mercy. "The whole need not a physician, but they that are
sick; I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
Does not that fit you? "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye
upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the
unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he
will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly
pardon." Does not that fit you? "Come unto me, all ye that labor and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Does not that apply to you?
Why, if you will but look through the Word, you shall find passages so
pertinent to your condition that, as a key fits a lock, they will seem
made for you! Those two disciples did not, for a while, see how the
prophets met the case of the crucified and risen Christ; but as they
did see it, their hearts burned within them. As you also see how God
has provided for your condition in his Word, in his covenant, in his
Son, your sadness will flee away.
I close with this one word of warning to those of you who are
distressed in heart, and are falling into the habit of looking for
reasons why you should not believe in Christ. I do pray you to leave
off this silly practice. Before this evil becomes chronic with you,
quit it as a deadly thing. People can reason themselves down, but they
cannot reason themselves up again. If thou seest a door open, in God's
name hasten in, for one of these days thou mayest be so blind as never
to see an open door again. Seize this opportunity, and while Christ
stands and says, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden,"
come along with you. If you sit down to argue against Christ, he may
allow your conclusions to stand to your own destruction. Those who are
so foolish as to find twenty unhallowed reasons to-day will be foolish
enough to find two hundred such reasons next year. A man may act the
cripple till he grows hopelessly lame. Mind what you are at. You may
lock a door, and open it again for many a year; but one of these days
you may so hamper the lock that it will not open again. Oh, that you
may at once believe in Jesus Christ unto eternal life!
I have come to this pass myselfif I perish, I will perish believing in
Jesus. If I must be lost, I will be lost clinging to his cross. Can any
man be lost there? No, "fools and slow of heart "though we may be, we
know that none shall perish who come to Christ, for that would greatly
dishonor the Savior's name. God bless you! Amen.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON Luke 24:13-35.
HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"676, PSALM 42 (Ver. I ). 191.