Faith Essential to Pleasing God
DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 18, 1889,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that comes to
God must believe that He is and that He is a Rewarder of them that
diligently seek Him." Hebrews 11:6.
MEN have lived who have pleased God–Enoch was one of them but he was
not the only one. In all ages certain persons have been well-pleasing
to God, and their walk in life has been such as was His delight. It
should be the aim of everyone of us to please God. The thing is
possible, notwithstanding all our imperfections and infirmities–let us
aim at it in the power of the Holy Spirit. What has been worked in one
man may be worked in another. We, too, may be well-pleasing unto God.
Therefore let us seek after it with hopefulness. If we so live as to
please the Lord, we shall only be acting as we ought to act. For we
ought to please Him who made us and sustains us in being. He is our God
and Lord–and obedience to Him is the highest Law of our being.
Moreover, the glorious Jehovah is so perfectly good, so supremely holy,
that the conduct which pleases Him must be of the best and noblest
sort, and therefore we should seek after it. Should we not aspire to
that character upon which God Himself can smile?
The approbation of our fellow men is pleasant in its way. But they are
always imperfect and often mistaken. And so we may be well-pleasing to
them and yet may be far removed from righteousness. It may be a
calamity to be commended in error, for it may prevent our becoming
really commendable. But God makes no mistake. The Infinitely Holy knows
no imperfection. And if it is possible for us to be pleasing to Him, it
should be our one object to reach that condition.
As Enoch, in a darker age, was pleasing to Him, why should not we, upon
whom the Gospel day has dawned? God grant us to find Divine Grace in
His sight! If we please God, we shall have realized the object of our
being. It is written concerning all things, "For His pleasure they are
and were created." And we miss the end of creation if we are not
pleasing to the Lord. To fulfill God's end in our creation is to obtain
the highest joy.
If we are pleasing to God, although we shall not escape trial–for even
the highest qualities must be tested–yet we shall find great peace and
special happiness. He is not an unhappy man who is pleasing to God–God
has blessed him, yes, and he shall be blessed. By pleasing God we shall
become the means of good to others–our example will rebuke and
stimulate. Our peace will convince and invite.
Being himself well-pleasing to God, the godly man will teach
transgressors God's way and sinners shall be converted unto Him. I
therefore, without the slightest hesitancy, set it before you as a
thing to be desired by us all, that we should win this testimony–that
we are pleasing unto God.
Here the Apostle comes in with needed instruction. He asserts that
faith is absolutely needful, if we would please God. Then, to help us
still further, he mentions two essential points of faith–"He that
comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a Rewarder of them
that diligently seek Him." When I have spoken on these two points, I
shall close, as God shall help me, by showing that He then teaches us
many valuable lessons.
I. First, then, THE APOSTLE ASSERTS THAT FAITH IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL
TO THE PLEASING OF God. Take, as a keyword, the strong word
"impossible." "Without faith it is impossible to please God." He does
not say it is difficult, or so needful that without it success is
barely possible. He declares it to be "impossible." When the Holy
Spirit says that a thing is impossible, it is so in a very absolute
sense. Let us not attempt the impossible. To attempt a difficulty may
be laudable, but to rush upon an impossibility is madness. We must not,
therefore, hope to please God by any invention of our own, however
clever, nor by any labor of our own, however ardent–since infallible
Inspiration declares that, "without faith it is impossible to please
God."
We are bound to believe this statement, because we have it in the
Sacred Volume, stated upon Divine authority. But, for your help, I
would invite you to think of some few matters which may show you how
impossible it is to please God without faith in Him.
For, first, without faith there is no capacity for communion with God
at all. The things of God are spiritual and invisible–without faith we
cannot recognize such things but must be dead to them. Faith is the eye
which sees. But without that eye we are blind and can have no
fellowship with God in those Sacred Truths which only faith can
perceive. Faith is the hand of the soul, and without it, we have no
grasp of eternal things.
If I were to mention all the images by which faith is set forth, each
one would help you to see that you must have faith in order to know God
and enter into converse with Him. It is only by faith that we can
recognize God, approach Him, speak to Him, hear Him, feel His Presence
and be delighted with His perfections. He that has not faith is toward
God as one dead. And Jehovah is not the God of the dead, but of the
living. The communion of the living God goes not forth toward death and
corruption. His fellowship is with those who have spiritual life, a
life akin to His own. Where there is no faith, there has been no
quickening of the Holy Spirit, for faith is of the very essence of
spiritual life. And so the man who has no faith can no more commune
with the living God and give Him pleasure, than can a stick or a stone,
a horse or an ox, hold converse with the human mind.
Again, without faith the man himself is not pleasing to God. We read,
"Without faith it is impossible to please God." But the Revision has it
better–"Without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing unto God."
The way of acceptance described in Scripture is, first, the man is
accepted–and then what that man does is accepted. It is written–"And
he shall purify the sons of Levi, that they may offer unto the Lord an
offering in righteousness."
First God is pleased with the person, and then with the gift, or the
work. The unaccepted person offers of necessity an unacceptable
sacrifice. If a man is your enemy, you will not value a present which
he sends you. If you know that he has no confidence in you, but counts
you a liar, his praises are lost upon you. They are empty, deceptive,
things which cannot possibly please you.
O my Hearers, in your natural state you are so sinful that God cannot
look upon you with complacency! Concerning our race it is written–"It
repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and it grieved Him
at His heart." Concerning many, God has said, "My soul loathed them and
their soul also abhorred Me." Is this true of us? "You must be born
again," or you cannot be pleasing to the Lord. You must believe in
Jesus. For only to as many as receive Him does He give power to become
the sons of God. When we believe in the Lord Jesus, the Lord God
accepts us for His Beloved's sake and in Him we are made kings and
priests and permitted to bring an offering which pleases God. As the
man is, such is his work.
The stream is of the nature of the spring from which it flows. He who
is a rebel, outlawed and proclaimed, cannot gratify his prince by any
fashion of service. He must first submit himself to the law. All the
actions of rebels are acts done in rebellion. We must first be
reconciled to God, or it is a mockery to bring an offering to His
altar. Reconciliation can only be effected through the death of the
Lord Jesus and if we have no faith in that way of reconciliation we
cannot please God. Faith in Christ makes a total change in our position
towards God–we who were enemies are reconciled. And from this comes
towards God a distinct change in the nature of all our
actions–imperfect though they are, they spring from a loyal heart–and
they are pleasing to God.
Remember, that in human associations, want of confidence would prevent
a man's being well-pleasing to another. If a man has no confidence in
you, you can have no pleasure in him. If you had a child and he had no
trust in his father, no belief in his father's kindness, no reliance on
his father's word–it would be most painful and it would be quite
impossible that you should take any pleasure in such a child. If you
had a servant in your house who always suspected your every action and
believed in nothing that you said or did but put a wrong construction
upon everything, it would make the house very miserable and you would
be well rid of such an employee. How can I take pleasure in a man who
associates with me and pretends to serve me, but all the while thinks
me a sheer impostor and gives me no credit for truthfulness? Such a
person would be an eyesore to me.
It is clear that want of confidence would destroy any pleasure which
one man might have in another. When the creature dares to doubt his
Creator, how can the Creator be pleased? When the Word which worked
creation is not enough
for a man to rest upon, he may pretend what he will of righteousness
and obedience, but the whole affair is rotten at the core–and God can
take no pleasure in it.
Note again–unbelief takes away the common ground upon which God and
man can meet. Two persons who are pleasant to one another must have
certain common views and objects. God's great object is the
glorification of His Son. And how can we be pleasing to Him if we
dishonor that Son? The Father delights in Jesus–the very thought of
Him is a pleasure to God. He said, as if to Himself only, "This is My
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." This He said, afterwards, to
others, that they might regard it, "This is My beloved Son. Hear Him."
He delights in what His Son has done–He smells a sweet savor of rest
in His glorious sacrifice. If you and I believe in God's plan of
salvation through Jesus Christ, we have a common ground of sympathy
with God. But if not, we are not in harmony. How can two walk together
except they are agreed? If we have thoughts of Jesus such as the Father
has, we can live together and work together. But if we are opposed to
Him on a point which is as the apple of His eye, we cannot be
well-pleasing to Him. If Jesus is despised, rejected, distrusted, or
even neglected, it is not possible for us to be pleasing to
God.
According to the well-worn fable, two persons who are totally different
in their pursuits cannot well live together– the fuller and the
charcoal-burner were obliged to part. For whatever the fuller had made
white, the collier blackened with his finger. If differing pursuits
divide, much more will differing feelings upon a vital point. It is
Jesus whom Jehovah delights to honor. And if you will not even trust
Jesus with your soul's salvation, you grieve the heart of God and He
can have no pleasure in you. Unbelief deprives the soul of the Divinely
appointed meeting place at the Mercy Seat, which is the Person of the
Lord Jesus, where God and man unite in one Mediator and the Lord shines
forth on the suppliant.
Assuredly, again, want of faith destroys all prospect of love. Although
we may not perhaps see it, there lies at the bottom of all love a
belief in the object loved, as to its loveliness, its merit, or its
capacity to make us happy. If I do not believe in a person, I cannot
love him. If I cannot trust God, I cannot love Him. If I do not believe
that He loves me, I shall feel but slight emotions of love to Him. If I
refuse to see anything in the greatest display of His love–if I do not
value the gift of His dear Son–I cannot love Him.
We love Him because He first loved us. But if we will not believe in
His love, the motive power is gone. If we reject the Word which says,
"God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life,"
then we have put from out of the heart the grand incentive to love. But
love on our part is essential to our pleasing God–how can He be
pleased with an unloving heart? Is not the Lord's chief demand of men
that we love Him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our
mind, and with all our strength? Without faith love is impossible, and
God's pleasure in us must be impossible.
Again, dear Friends, want of faith will create positive variance on
many points. Note a few. If I trust God and believe in Him, I shall
submit myself to His will. Even when it becomes very painful to me, I
shall say, "It is the Lord: let Him do what seems Him good." But if I
do not believe that He is God and that He is aiming at my good, then I
shall resent His chastisements and shall kick against His will. What He
wills me to suffer, I shall not be willing to suffer. I shall rebel and
murmur, and proudly accuse my Maker of injustice, or want of love. I
shall be in a rebellious state towards Him and then He cannot have
pleasure in me. "The Lord takes pleasure in them that fear Him, in
those that hope in His mercy." But He will walk contrary to us, if we
walk contrary to Him by refusing to bow ourselves before His hand.
Without faith, moreover, I get to be at variance with God in another
way–for inasmuch as I desire to be saved, I shall seek salvation in my
own way–and go about to establish a righteousness of my own. Whatever
it may be, whether it is by ceremonies, or by good works, or by
feelings, or what not, I shall, in some way or other, set up a way of
salvation other than that which God has appointed through Christ Jesus.
God's love to Christ is supreme and He will not endure that a rival
should be set up in opposition to Him.
Another way of salvation is Antichrist and this provokes the Lord to
jealousy. If you are laboring to be saved in one way, while God
declares that through His Son is the only way of salvation, you are
acting in distinct opposition to the Lord in a matter which does not
admit of any compromise. Rejecters of Christ are enemies to God. If you
pretend that you are God's servants, you are convicted of falsehood if
you refuse to honor His Son by trusting in Him. If you believe in
Christ, whom He has sent, you work the work of God. But no way else.
Self-righteousness is an insult to Christ and a distinct revolt from
God. He who has no faith, seeks salvation by a way that is derogatory
to the Lord Jesus–and it is impossible for him to please God.
We must be at variance with God if we are without faith. It is a solemn
truth that, "He that believes not, God has made him a liar. Because he
believes not the record that God gave of His Son." This is the crime of
the Unbeliever–so is it stated by the Holy Spirit speaking by the
beloved John. Could you take any pleasure in a man who made you out to
be a liar? Perhaps with great patience you could bear with him, but you
could not be pleased with him–that would be out of the question. Does
a man daily, by the mode of his life and by the evident drift of his
actions, proclaim you to be a liar? How can he talk of giving you
pleasure? Nothing he could do would please you while he calls you a
liar.
He that makes God to be a liar, makes him to be no God. To the best of
his ability he undeifies the Deity. He uncrowns the Lord of All and
even stabs at the heart of the Eternal. To talk of being well-pleasing
to God in such a case is absurd.
Let me conclude this point by asking, by what means can we hope to
please God, apart from faith in Him? By keeping all His commandments?
Alas, you have not done so. You have already broken those commands. And
what is more, you still break them and are in a chronic state of
disobedience. If you do not believe in Him, you are not obedient to
Him. For true obedience commands the understanding as well as every
other power and faculty. We are bound to obey with the mind by
believing, as well as with the hand by acting. The spiritual part of
our being is in revolt against God until we believe. And, while the
very life and glory of our being is in revolt, how can we please God?
But what will you bring to the Lord to please Him? Do you propose to
bribe Him with your money? Surely you are not so foolish! Is the Lord
to be bought with a row of almshouses, or a Chapel, or a Cathedral? To
most of you, it would be impossible to try the plan for lack of means.
But if you were wealthy enough to lavish gold out of the bag, would
this please Him? The silver and the gold are His and the cattle on a
thousand hills. If He were hungry, He would not tell you. What can you
give to Him to whom all things belong?
Truly, you can assist in an ornate worship, or build a gorgeous Church,
or embroider the furniture of an altar, or emblazon the windows of a
Church. But are you so weak as to believe that such trifles as these
can cause any delight to the mind of the Infinite? Solomon built Him a
house, but "the Most High dwells not in temples made with hands." To
what shall I liken the most glorious erections of human genius but to
the anthills of the tropics, which are wonderful as the fabrication of
ants, even as our cathedrals are marvelous as the handicraft of men?
But what are anthills or cathedrals when measured with the Infinite?
What are all our works to the Lord? He who with a single arch has
spanned the world, cares little for our carved capitals and groined
arches. The prettinesses of architecture are as much beneath the glory
of Jehovah as the dolls and boxes of bricks of our children would be
beneath the dignity of a Solomon. God is not a man that He should take
delight in these things. "Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of
rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my
first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my
soul?"
It is not this that He asks of you, but to walk humbly with Him, never
daring arrogantly to doubt His Truth and mistrust His faithfulness. Go
not about by a thousand inventions to aim at what you will never
compass, but believe your God and be established. So much upon that
painful point. Remember the impossibility of pleasing the Lord without
faith–and do not dash your ship upon this iron-bound coast.
II. Now, secondly, THE APOSTLE MENTIONS TWO ESSENTIAL POINTS OF FAITH.
He begins by saying, "He that comes to God must believe that He is."
Note the keyword "must"–it is an immovable, insatiable necessity.
Before we can walk with God, it is clear that we must come to God.
Naturally, we are at a distance from Him and we must end that distance
by coming to Him, or else we cannot walk with Him, nor be pleasing to
Him. That we may come to Him, we must first believe that there is a God
to come to. More–we must not only believe that there is a God–for
only a fool doubts that–"The fool has said in his heart, There is no
God"–but we must believe that Jehovah is God and God, alone.
This was Enoch's faith–he believed that Jehovah was the living and
true God. You are to believe, and must believe, in order to be pleasing
with God, that He is God, that He is the only God, and that there can
be none other than He. You must also accept Jehovah as He reveals
Himself. You are not to have a God of your own making, nor a God
reasoned out,
but a God such as He has been pleased to reveal Himself to you. Believe
that Jehovah is, whoever else may be or may not
be.
But the devils believe, and tremble, and yet they are not pleasing to
God, for more is wanted. Believe that God is, in reference to yourself.
That He has to do with your life and your ways. Many believe that there
is a hazy, imaginary power which they call God. But they never think of
Him as a Person, nor do they suspect that He thinks of them, or that
His existence is of any consequence to them one way or another. Believe
that God is as truly as you are. And let Him be real to you. Let the
consideration of Him enter into everything that concerns you.
Believe that He is approachable by yourself and is to be pleased or
displeased by you. Believe in Him as you believe in your wife or your
child whom you try to please. Believe in God beyond everything, that
"He is," in a sense more sure than that in which anyone else exists.
Believe that He is to be approached, to be realized, to be, in fact,
the great practical factor of your life. Hold this as the primary Truth
of God, that God is most influential upon you. And then believe that it
is your business to come to Him.
But there is only one way of coming to Him and you must have faith to
use that way. He that died and lives forever says, "I am the Way. No
man comes unto the Father but by Me." He that comes to God must believe
in God as He is revealed and must come to God as God reveals the way of
approach. And this is an exertion of faith. Faith as to this point is
essential. You cannot come to Him in whom you do not believe. Are not
many hearers of the Word really as far from God as infidels? Let me ask
you, how many atheists are now in this house?
Perhaps not a single one of you would accept the title and yet, if you
live from Monday morning to Saturday night in the same way as you would
live if there were no God, you are practical atheists. And as actions
speak more loudly than words, you are more atheists than those
doctrinal Unbelievers who disavow God with their mouths and, after all,
are secretly afraid of Him. A life without God is as bad as a creed
without God. You cannot come to God unless you believe in Him as the
All in All, the Lord God beside whom there is none else.
Yet all this would be nothing without the second point of belief. We
must believe that, "He is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek
Him." How do we seek Him, then? Well, we seek Him, first, when we begin
by prayer, by trusting Jesus and by calling upon the sacred name, to
seek salvation. "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall
be saved." That is a grand promise and it teaches how we come to
God–namely, by calling upon His name. Afterwards we seek God by aiming
at His glory, by making Him the great Object for which we live.
One man seeks money, another seeks reputation, another seeks pleasure.
But he that is pleasing to God seeks God as his Object and End. "Seek
you first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And all these
things shall be added unto you." The man with whom God is pleased, is
pleased with God. He sets the Lord always before him and seeks to live
for Him. This he would not do unless he believed that God would reward
him in so doing. Take this as a certainty–we must believe that "God is
the Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him," or we shall not seek
Him.
We are sure that, somehow or other, it will be to our highest benefit
to honor the Lord and trust Him. Albeit we deserve nothing at His hands
but wrath, yet we perceive from the Gospel that if we seek Him through
His Son, we shall be so well-pleasing to Him as to get a reward from
His hands. This must be of Divine Grace–Free, Sovereign Grace! And
what a reward it is! Free pardon, graciously bestowed. A change of
heart, graciously worked. Perseverance, graciously maintained. Comfort,
graciously poured in, and privilege, graciously awarded. The reward of
godliness, even in this world, is immeasurable–and in the world to
come it is infinite. We may have respect unto the recompense of the
reward. Indeed, we should have respect to it, and therefore boldly seek
God and seek nothing else.
The Lord is "a Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." That is not
quite an exact translation–the Greek word means not only seek Him but,
"seek Him out." That is, seek Him till they find Him and seek Him above
all others. It is a very strong word. We hardly know how to transfer
its meaning into English, for though it does not say "diligently," it
implies it. We must seek, and seek out. That is, seek till we really
find. Those who with their hearts follow after God, shall not be losers
if they believe that He will reward them. You have to believe God so as
to seek His Glory.
Even when you do not obtain any present reward for it, you are to say,
"I shall have a reward ultimately, even if I am for a while a loser
through His service. If I lose money, respect, friendship, or even life
from following God, yet He will be a Rewarder and I shall be repaid ten
thousand-fold, not of debt but according to His Divine Grace." He,
then, that would please God, must first believe that He is. And then,
dedicating himself to God, must be firmly assured that this is the
right, the wise, the prudent thing to do. Be certain that to serve God
is in itself gain–it is wealth to be holy. It is happiness to be
pleasing to God. To us it is life to live to God–to know Him, to adore
Him, to commune with Him, to become like He is.
It is glory to us to make Him glorious among the sons of men. For us to
live is Christ. This, we are persuaded, is the best pursuit for us. In
fact, it is the only one which can satisfy our hearts. God is our
shield and our exceedingly great reward. And in the teeth of everything
that happens, we hold to this–that to serve God is gain. If God helps
us to trust Him, and therefore to live unto Him and seek to be
well-pleasing in His sight, we shall succeed in pleasing Him. We cannot
conceive that the heavenly Father sees, without pleasure, a man
struggling against sin, battling against evil, enduring sorrow
contentedly through a simple faith, and laboring daily to draw nearer
and nearer to Him.
God is not displeased with those who, by faith, live to please Him and
are content to take their reward from His hand. He must be pleased with
the work of His own Grace. The desire to come to God, the way to come
to God, the power to come to God, the actual coming to God–these are
all gifts of Sovereign Grace. Coming to God, however feebly we
come–and seeking Him, however much else we miss, must be well-pleasing
in His sight. For it is the result of His own purpose and Grace which
He gave us in Christ Jesus before the world began. But all this hangs
upon faith. Without faith there is no coming to God who is and no
seeking of God who is a Rewarder. And therefore without faith it is
impossible to please God.
III. WE WILL NOW GATHER A FEW LESSONS FROM WHAT THE APOSTLE HAS TAUGHT
US. Help us, O
gracious Spirit!
First, then, the Apostle teaches us here, by implication, that God is
pleased with those that have faith. The negative is often the most
plain way of suggesting the positive. If we are so carefully warned
that without faith it is impossible to please God, we infer that with
faith it is possible to please God. If you believe that He is and that
He is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. If you are willing
to believe all that He teaches you because He teaches it, and are
really a believer in Himself and in all that He is pleased to reveal,
then are you pleasing to Him.
He that believes in God believes in all the Words that God speaks and
he surrenders himself to all that God does. And such a man must be
pleasing to God. We believe in one God and in one Mediator between God
and man, the man Christ Jesus. We trust in the Lord as He thus draws
near to us–thus are we in the way of pleasing God. By faith we,
ourselves, have become pleasing to God, and our actions performed with
a view to His honor are pleasing to Him. What a joy is this! It is
bliss to think that I, who, in my unregenerate state, grieved the Holy
Spirit and vexed Him day by day, am now the object of pleasure to Him.
I, whose actions were contrary to the Law of God and the bent of whose
mind was against the Gospel of Christ, I, even I, who was once
obnoxious to Divine anger, an heir of wrath, even as others, have now,
through faith, become to God an object of His complacency! This is very
wonderful. If the Holy Spirit leads you to feel the full sweetness of
this Truth of God, you will rejoice with joy unspeakable. I feel like
singing rather than preaching.
Oh, guilty One, will you not now believe your God? This is the way to
come back to Him. When the prodigal said, "In my father's house there
is bread enough and to spare," he believed in his father's power to
supply all his needs. When he thought in his heart that his father
would receive him, he said, "I will arise and go to my father and will
say unto him, Father, I have sinned."
You must have so much belief in God as to believe Him to have the heart
of a father towards you, or you will never come back to Him. But when
you begin to trust your God, your face is already towards the heavenly
home, and before long your head will be on your Father's bosom. If
faith can make the vilest and guiltiest pleasing to God, will they not
believe in Him? What a transformation this would work in them! Oh, that
this morning all of us may stand out in the clear sunlight of Jehovah's
good pleasure and know ourselves to be well-pleasing to Him through
Jesus Christ!
Learn, next, that those who have faith make it the great object of
their life to please God. Am I speaking the truth? Will each one ask
whether it is true about himself? Do I, as a Believer, live to please
God? We need personal heart-searching on this point. The believer in
the invisible God delights to act as in His sight and in secret to
serve Him. I take a choice pleasure in rendering to my God a service
unknown to others, not done for the sake of my fellows but distinctly
that I may do something for my Lord. It is sweet to give or do simply
to please Him, without respect to the public eye.
Even such actions as must come under the gaze of others are not to be
done with the view of winning their approbation, but only to please
God. The doing of such actions is a singular fountain of strength to a
man's mind. It is ennobling to feel that you have only one Master and
that you live to please Him, even God. To please men is poor work. To
live to follow everybody's whim is slavery. If you let one man pull you
by the ear in his direction, another will tug at you from another
direction and you will have very long ears before long. Happy is he
who, pleasing God, feels that he has risen above seeking to please men.
It is grand to say, "This is what God would have me do and I will do it
in happy fellowship with others, or alone by myself, as the case may
be. But do it I must."
This gives a man backbone, and at the same time removes the selfishness
which is greedy of popular applause. It is a grand thing to be no
longer looking down for cheer but to be distinctly looking up for it.
The man who truly believes in God makes small account of men. Put them
together, they are vanity. Heap them up in their thousands, they are
altogether lighter than vanity. Nations upon nations, what are they but
as grasshoppers? The lands in which they live, what are they before
God? "He takes up the isles as a very little thing." To please God,
even a little, is infinitely greater than to have the acclamations of
all our race throughout the centuries.
The true Believer feels that God is, and that there is none beside
Him–none that need to be thought of in comparison with Him. The
theology of the present aims at the deification of man but the truth of
all time magnifies God. We shall stand by the old paths, wherein we
hear a voice which bids us worship Jehovah, our God, and serve Him,
alone. He shall be All in All. Only as we see men loved of Him can we
live for men. We seek their good in God, and for His glory– and regard
them as capable of being made mirrors to reflect the glory of the Lord.
Note, next, the Apostle teaches us here, that they that have faith in
God are always coming to God. For he speaks of the Believer as, "He
that comes to God." If you once learn to believe God and to please Him,
you are coming to Him every day. You not only come to Him and go away
from Him, as in acts of prayer and praise, but you are always coming.
Your life is a march towards Him. The way of the Believer is toward
God–by his faith he comes ever nearer and yet nearer to the eternal
Throne. What is his reward? Why, He that sits on the Throne will say,
"Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world."
Come! Come on! You have been coming, keep on coming forever. There is a
gentle, constant, perpetual progress of the Believer's heart and mind
nearer and closer to God. I could not wonder at Enoch being translated
after walking with God hundreds of years. For it is such a small step
from close communion with God on earth to perfect communion with God in
Heaven. A thin partition divides us which a sigh will remove. The
breaking of a blood-vessel, the snapping of a cord, the staying of the
breath, and he that had God with him shall be with God.
Sometimes the Believer could not tell whether he was in the body or out
of the body but had to leave that question with God. He will soon be
able to answer the question for himself–and know that he is absent
from the body and present with the Lord. O Beloved, please God, please
God! And as you please Him by your simple confidence and child-like
trust, you are coming nearer to Him.
The next lesson is one I have already spoken of–God will see that
those who practice faith in Him shall have a reward. I say, God will
see to it, for the text says, "He is a Rewarder of them that diligently
seek Him." The Lord will not leave the reward of faith to the choicest
angel–He Himself will adjudge the recompense. Here we may get but
scant reward from those whom we benefit–indeed, they usually return us
base ingratitude. Joseph was a faithful servant to Po-tiphar. But
Potiphar put him in prison on a groundless charge. Joseph helped the
butler and interpreted his dream, yet he remembered not Joseph, but
forgot him.
You may not reckon upon due returns from your fellow men, or you will
be disappointed. Like David, you may guard Nabal's sheep and when the
sheep-shearing comes you may hope to be remembered and he will insult
you with a churlish answer. Expect little from men, but much from
God–for by nature and by office, He is a Rewarder. No work done for
Him will go unrewarded. In His service the wages are sure. Rise into
the Abrahamic life which stays itself upon the Lord's word, "Fear not,
Abraham: I am your shield and your exceedingly great reward."
It is reward enough to have such a God to be our God. What if He gives
us neither vineyards nor olive gardens, neither sheep nor oxen? He
Himself is ours, and this is a greater reward than if He gave us all
the world! God Himself is enough for the Believer. If his faith is
true, and deep, and intelligent, he cries, "Whom have I in Heaven but
You? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside You."
The last lesson we gather from it is this–those who have no faith are
in a fearful case. I speak not of the heathen but of Unbelievers who
reject the Gospel. "Without faith it is impossible to please God." Some
of you are always fashioning fresh nets of doubt for your own
entanglement. You invent snares for your own feet and are greedy to lay
more and more of them. You are mariners who seek the rocks, soldiers
who court the point of the bayonet. It is an unprofitable business.
Practically, morally, mentally, spiritually–doubting is an evil trade.
You are like a smith, wearing out his arm in making chains with which
to bind himself. Doubt is sterile, a desert without water. Doubt
discovers difficulties which it never solves. It creates hesitancy,
despondency, despair. Its progress is the decay of comfort, the death
of peace. "Believe!" is the word which speaks life into a man–doubt
nails down his coffin. If you can believe, O guilty One, that Jesus
Christ bore the guilt of sin upon the Cross and by His death has made
atonement to the insulted government of God. If you can so believe in
Him as to cast yourself, just as you are, at His dear feet, you shall
be pleasing to God.
I entreat you to look up and see the pierced hands and feet and side of
the dear Redeemer and read eternal mercy there! Read full forgiveness
there, and then go your way in peace, for you are well-pleasing to God.
The sinner who believes God's testimony concerning His Son has begun to
please Him and is himself well-pleasing to the Lord. Oh that you would
now trust Him who justifies the ungodly and passes by the iniquities of
sinful men! He will receive you graciously and love you freely.
Oh, come to Him, for He is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.
God help you to do so at once. But without faith you cannot please Him.
Do what you may, feel what you like–you will labor as in the very fire
and nothing will come of it but eternal despair. The Lord help you to
believe and live. Amen.