Life by Faith

Life by Faith

A Sermon
(No. 814)

Delivered on Sunday Morning, June 7, 1868, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
at the [24]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

"The just shall live by faith." Galatians 3:11.

THE Apostle quotes from the Old Testament, from the second chapter of
Habakkuk, at the fourth verse, and thus confirms one Inspired statement
by another. Even the just are not justified by their own righteousness,
but live by faith. It follows, then, most conclusively, that no man is
justified by the Law in the sight of God. If the best of men find no
justification coming to them through their personal virtues but stand
accepted only by faith, how much more such imperfect beings, such
frequent sinners as ourselves? Men who are saved by faith become just.
The operation of faith upon the human heart is to produce love, and
through love, obedience, and obedience to the Divine Law is but another
name for morality, or, what is the diviner form of it, holiness!

And wherever this holiness exists we may make sure that the holiness is
not the cause of spiritual life and safety, but faith is still the
wellspring of all. You saw, a few weeks ago, the hawthorn covered with
a delicious luxuriance of snow-white flowers, loading the air with
fragrance. Now no one among the admiring gazers supposed that those
sweet May blossoms caused the hawthorn to live. After awhile you
noticed the horse chestnut adorned with its enchanting pyramids of
flowers, but none among you foolishly supposed that the horse chestnut
was sustained and created by its bloom–you rightly conceived these
forms of beauty to be the products of life and not the cause of it.

You have here, in nature's emblems, the true doctrine of the inner
life. Holiness is the flower of the new nature. It is inexpressibly
lovely and infinitely desirable–no, it must be produced in its season
or we may justly doubt the genuineness of a man's profession–but the
fair Graces of holiness do not save, or give spiritual life, or
maintain it– these are rills from the fount, and not the fountain
itself. The most athletic man in the world does not live by being
athletic, but is athletic because he lives and has been trained to a
perfection of animal vigor. The most enterprising merchant holds his
personal property not on account of his character or merit, but because
of his civil rights as a citizen.

A man may cultivate his land up to the highest point of production, but
his right to his land does not depend upon the mode of culture, but
rather upon his title deeds. So the Christian man should aim after the
highest degree of spiritual culture and of heavenly perfection, and yet
his salvation, as to its justness and security, depends not on his
attainments, but rests upon his faith in a crucified Redeemer, as it is
written in the text, "The just shall live by faith." Faith is the
fruitful root, the inward channel of sap, the great life-Grace in every
branch of the vine.

In considering the text, this morning, we shall use it, perhaps
somewhat apart from the connection in which it stands, and yet not
apart from the mind of the Spirit, nor apart from the intention of the
Apostle, if not here, yet in other places.

I. In the first place, IN THE PUREST SPIRITUAL SENSE IT IS TRUE THAT
THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH. It is through faith that a man becomes
just, for otherwise, before the Law of God he is convicted of being
unjust–being justified by faith he is enrolled among the just ones. It
is through faith that he is at first quickened and breathes the air of
Heaven, for naturally he was dead in trespasses and sins. Faith is the
first sure sign of the spiritual life within the human breast. He
repents of sin and looks to Jesus because he believes the testimony of
God's Son–and he believes that testimony because he has received a new
life.

He depends upon the atoning blood of Jesus because his heart has
received the power to do so by the Holy Spirit's gift of spiritual
life. Ever afterwards you shall judge of the vigor of the man's inner
life by the state of his faith–if his faith grows exceedingly, then
his life, also, is increasing in power. If his faith diminishes, then
depend upon it, the vital spark burns low. Let faith ebb out and the
life-floods are ebbing too. Let faith roll in with a mighty sweep, in a
floodtide of full assurance, then the secret life-floods within the man
are rising and filling the man with sacred energy. Were it possible for
faith to die, the spirit-life must die, too. And it is very much
because faith is imperishable that the new life is incorruptible.

You shall find men only live before God as they believe in God and rest
in the merit of His dear Son. And in proportion as they do this you
shall find they live in closer fellowship with Heaven. Great saints
must be great Believers–Little-Faith never can be a matured saint.
Observe that this truth proves itself in all the characteristics of
spiritual life. The nobility of the inner life–who has not noticed it?
A man whose life is hid with Christ in God is one of the aristocrats of
this world. He who knows nothing of the inner life is but little above
a mere animal, and is by no means comparable to the sons of God–to
whom is given the royal priesthood, the saintly inheritance. In
proportion as the spiritual life is developed the man grows in dignity,
becoming more like the Prince of Glory, yet the very root and source of
the dignity of the holy life lies in faith.

Take an instance. The life of Abraham is remarkable for its placid
nobility. The man appears at no time to be disturbed. Surrounded by
robber bands he dwells in his tent as quietly as in a walled city.
Abraham walked with God and does not seem to have quickened or
slackened his pace. He maintained a serene, obedient walk, never
hastening through fear, nor loitering through sloth. He kept sweet
company with his God–and what a noble life was his! The father of the
faithful was second to no character in history! He was a kingly man,
yes, a conqueror of kings and greater than they. How calm is his usual
life! Lot, following his carnal prudence, is robbed in Sodom and at
last loses all–Abraham following his faith abides as a pilgrim, and is
safe. Lot is carried away captive out of a city, but Abraham remains
securely in a tent, because he cast himself on God.

When does Abraham fail? When does that mighty eagle suddenly drop as
with wounded wing? It is when the arrow of unbelief has pierced him–he
begins to tremble for Sarah, his wife. She is fair–perhaps the
Philistine king will take her from him. Then, in an unbelieving moment,
he says, "She is my sister." Ah, Abraham, where is your nobility now?
The man who so calmly and confidently walked with God while he
believed, degrades himself to utter the thing that is not, and so falls
to the common level of falsehood.

Even so will you. So shall each of us–strong or weak, noble or
fallen–according to our faith. Walking confidently with God and
leaning upon the everlasting arm you shall be as a celestial prince
surrounded by ministering spirits. Your life shall be happy and holy,
and glorious before the Lord! But the moment you distrust your God you
will be tempted to follow degrading methods of evil policy and you will
pierce yourself through with many sorrows. As the dignity, so the
energy of the spiritual life depends upon faith. Spiritual life, when
sound, is exceedingly energetic. It can do all things. Take the
Apostles, as an instance, and see how over sea and land, under
persecutions and sufferings they nevertheless pressed forward in the
Holy War and declared Christ throughout all nations.

Wherever the spiritual life fairly pervades man, it is a force which
cannot be bound, fettered, or kept under–it is a holy fury, a sacred
fire in the bones. Rules, and customs, and proprieties it snaps as fire
snaps bonds of tinder. But its energy depends upon God the Holy
Spirit–entirely upon the existence and power offaith. Let a man be
troubled with doubts as to the religion which he has espoused, or
concerning his own interest in the privileges which that religion
bestows and you will soon find that all the energy of his spiritual
life is gone–he will have little more than a name to live–practically
he will be powerless.

Take Abraham again. Abraham finds that certain kings from the east have
pounced upon the cities of the plain. He cares very little for Sodom or
Gomorrah, but among the prisoners his nephew, Lot, has been carried
away. Now he has a great affection for his kinsman and resolves to do
his duty and rescue him. Without stopping to enquire whether his little
band was sufficient, he relies entirely upon the Lord his God–and with
his servants and neighbors hastens after the spoilers, nothing
doubting, but expecting aid from the Most High God. That day did
Jehovah, who raised up the righteous man from the east, give his
enemies to his sword and as driven stubble to his bow–and the
Patriarch returned from the slaughter of the kings laden with the
spoil.

He could not but fight while he believed. It was impossible for him to
sit still and yet believe in God! But if he had not believed, then had
he said, "The matter must go by default. It is a sorrowful misfortune,
but my nephew, Lot, must hear it–perhaps God's Providence will
interpose for him." Faith believes in Providence, but she is full of
activity and her activity, excited by reliance upon Providence leads
like wheel within a wheel to the fulfillment of the Providential
decree.

My Brethren, it is necessary for us to believe much in God or we shall
do but little for Him. Believe that God is with you and you will have
an insatiable ambition to extend the Savior's kingdom! Believe in the
power of the Truth of God, and in the power of the Holy Spirit who goes
with the Truth, and you will not be content with the paltry schemes of
modern Christendom–you will glow and burn with a seraph's ardor,
longing and desiring even to do more than you can do–and practically
carrying out with your utmost ability what your heart desires for the
glory of the Lord!

Further, it is quite certain that all the joy of the spiritual life
depends upon faith. You all know that the moment your faith ceases to
hang simply upon Jesus, or even if it suffers a little check, your joy
evaporates. Joy is a welcome angel but it will not tarry where faith
does not entertain it. Spiritual joy is a bird of paradise which will
build its nest only among the boughs of faith. Faith must pipe, or joy
will not dance. Unbelieving Jacob finds his days few and evil but
believing Abraham dies an old man and full of years.

If you would anoint your head and wash your face–and put away the
ashes and the sackcloth–you must trust more firmly in the faithfulness
of the Lord your God. Doubts and fears never could strike so much as a
spark with which to light the smallest candle to cheer a Christian. But
simple trust in Jesus makes the sun to rise in his strength with
healing beneath his wings–even upon those that sit in the valley of
the shadow of death. In proportion as you lean on Christ– in that
proportion shall life's burden grow light, Heaven's joys grow real, and
your whole being more elevated!

I might thus continue to mention each point in the secret life, but I
rather choose to proceed in order to observe only that all our growth
in the spiritual life depends upon our faith. True life must grow in
its season. You can tell the difference between two stakes which are
driven into the ground–the one may happen to have life in it, and if
so, before long it sprouts–while the dead one is unchanged. So with
the Christian. If he is living he will grow. He must make advances. It
is not possible for the Christian to sit still and remain in the same
state month after month. If he is to increase in spiritual riches he
must of necessity exert a constant and increasing faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ.

Peter cannot walk the waters except he believes–doubting does not help
him–it sinks him. I fear that some of my Brothers and Sisters try to
grow in spiritual life by adopting methods which are not of faith. Some
think that they will set themselves rules of self-denial or extra
devotion–these plans are lawful but they are not in themselves
effective–for vows may be observed mechanically, and rules obeyed
formally and yet the heart may be drifting away yet further from the
Lord. Yes, these vows and rules may be a means of deluding us into the
vain belief that all is well, whereas we are nearing spiritual
shipwreck.

I have found in my own spiritual life that the more rules I lay down
for myself, the more sins I commit. The habit of regular morning and
evening prayer is one which is indispensable to a Believer's life, but
the prescribing of the length of prayer and the constrained remembrance
of so many persons and subjects may gender unto bondage and strangle
prayer rather than assist it. To say I will humble myself at such a
time, and rejoice at such another season is nearly as much an
affectation as when the preacher wrote in the margin of his sermon,
"cry here," "smile here." Why, if the man preached his sermon rightly
he would be sure to cry in the right place, and to smile at a suitable
moment! And when the spiritual life is sound, it produces prayer at the
right time–and humiliation of soul and sacred joy spring forth
spontaneously–apart from rules and vows.

The kind of religion which makes itself to order by the almanac and
turns out its emotions like bricks from a machine–weeping on Good
Friday and rejoicing two days afterwards, measuring its motions by the
moon– is too artificial to be worthy of your imitation! The liberty of
the spiritual life is a grand thing and where that liberty is
maintained constantly, and the energy is kept up, you will need much
faith for the fading of faith will be the withering of devotion,
liberty will degenerate into license and the energy of your life will
drivel into confidence in yourself. Let who will, bind himself with
rules and regulations in order to (as he may think) advance himself in
Divine Grace–be it ours, like Abraham, to believe God and it shall be
counted us for righteousness–and like Paul to run the race which is
set before us, looking unto Jesus.

Faith enriches the soil of the heart. Faith fills our treasuries with
the choicest gold and loads our tables with the daintiest food for our
souls. By faith we shall do valiantly, stopping lions' mouths and
quenching violent flames. Faith in Jesus, the Savior, faith in the
heavenly Father, faith in the Holy Spirit–this we must have or we
perish like foam upon the waters. As the other side of all this, let me
notice that some Christians appear to try to live by experience. If
they feel happy today they say they are saved. But if they feel unhappy
tomorrow they conclude that they are lost. If they feel at one moment a
deep and profound calm overspreading their spirits, then are they
greatly elevated. But if the winds blow and the waves beat high, then
they suppose that they are none of the Lord's people.

Ah, miserable state of suspense! To live by feeling is a dying life!
You know not where you are, nor what you are if your feelings are to be
the barometer of your spiritual condition. Beloved, a simple faith in
Christ will enable you to remain calm even when your feelings are the
reverse of happy–to remain confident when your emotions are far from
ecstatic. If, indeed, we are saved by Jesus Christ, then the foundation
of our salvation does not lie within us but in that crucified Man who
now reigns in Glory!

When He changes, ah, then what changes must occur to us! But since He
is the same yesterday, today, and forever, why need we be so soon
removed from our steadfastness? Believe in Jesus, dear Heart, when you
can not find a spark of Divine Grace within yourself! Cast yourself as
a sinner into the Savior's arms when you can not think a good thought,
nor uplift a good desire! When your soul feels like a barren wilderness
that yields not so much as one green blade of hope, or joy, or
love–still look up to the great Farmer who can turn the desert into a
garden! Have confident faith in Jesus at all times, for if you believe
in Him you are saved and cannot be condemned!

However good or bad your state, this shall not affect the question–you
believe, therefore you shall be saved! Give up living from hand to
mouth in that poor miserable way of frames and feelings, and wait only
upon the Lord from whom comes your salvation. Many professors are even
worse–they try to live by experiments. I am afraid a great many among
Dissenters are of that kind. They must have a revival meeting once a
week at least! If they do not get a grand display quite so often, they
begin to fall dreadfully back and crave an exciting meeting, as
drunkards long for spirits. It is a poor spiritual life which hangs on
eloquent sermons and such like stimulants! These may be good things and
comforting things–be thankful for them–but I pray you, do not let
your spiritual life depend upon them!

It is very much as though a man should, according to Scriptural
language, feed on the wind and snuff up the east wind–for your faith
is not to stand in the wisdom of man, nor in the excellency of human
speech, nor in the earnestness of your fellow Christians–but in your
simple faith in Him who is, and was, and is to come, who is the Savior
of sinners! A genuine faith in Christ will enable you to live happily
even if you are denied the means of Divine Grace. A genuine faith in
Christ will make you rejoice on board ship, keep Sabbath on a sick bed,
and make your dwelling a temple even if yours is but a log hut in the
far West, or a shanty in the bush of Australia. Only have faith, and
you need not look to these excitements any more than the mountains look
to the summer's sun for their stability.

Shall I need further to say, by way of caution, that I am afraid many
professors live anyway? I know not how otherwise to describe it! They
have not enough caution to look at their inward experience. They have
not enough vigor to care about excitement, but they live a kind of
listless, dreamy, comatose life. I mean some of you. You believe that
you were saved years ago. You united yourselves to a Christian Church
and were baptized, and you conclude that all is right. You have written
your conversion in your spiritual trade-books as a good asset–you
consider it as a very clear thing. I am afraid it is rather doubtful,
still you think it sure.

Since that time you have kept up the habit of prayer. You have been
honest. You have subscribed to Church funds, have done your duty
outwardly as a Christian–but there has been very little vitality in
your godliness–it has been surface work, skin-deep consistency. You
have not been grievously exercised about sin. You have not been bowed
under the weight of inward corruption–neither have you been, on the
other hand, exhilarated by a sense of Divine love and a delightful
recognition of your interest in it. You have gone on dreamily, as I
have heard of soldiers marching when they were asleep. O for a
thunderbolt to wake you, for this is dangerous living! Of all modes of
living, if you are a Christian, this is one of the most perilous!

And if you are not a Christian, it is one of the most seductive–for
while the outward sinner may be got at by the preaching of the Gospel,
you are almost beyond the reach of Gospel ministry–because you will
not admit that warnings are meant for you. You wrap yourselves up and
say, "It is well with me," while you are really naked, and poor, and
miserable in the sight of God. Oh, if you could but get back to live by
faith!

II. Secondly, "the just shall live by faith"–this means that FAITH IS
OPERATIVE IN OUR DAILY LIFE. It is operative in many ways, but three
observations will suffice. Faith is the great sustaining energy with
the just man under all his trials, difficulties, sufferings, or labors.
It is a notion with some that true religion is meant to be kept shut up
in Churches and Chapels as a proper thing for Sundays, which ought to
be attended to, since a man is not respectable if he does not take a
pew somewhere, even if he does not need sit in it, or, sitting in it,
pays no more attention to the word preached than to a ballad singer in
the street.

There is a decent show of religion which people, as a rule, must keep
up or they cannot be received into polite society. But the idea of
bringing religion down to the breakfast table, introducing it to the
drawing-room, taking it into the kitchen, keeping it on hand in the
shop, in the workshop, or the corn exchange, carrying it out to sea in
your vessel–this is thought by some to be sheer fanaticism! And yet if
there is anything taught by the Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, it
is just this–that religion is a matter of common, everyday life–and
no man understands the Christian religion at all unless he has fully
accepted it as not a thing for Sundays and for certain places and
certain times, but for all places and all times, and all conditions and
all forms of life.

An active, operative faith is by the Holy Spirit implanted in the
Christian and it is sent to him on purpose to sustain him under trial.
I shall put this to some of you as a test by which you may try whether
you have obtained the faith of God's elect. You have lost a large sum
of money–well, are you distracted and bewildered? Do you almost lose
your senses? Do you murmur against God? Then I ask you what are you
better than the man who has no religion at all? Are you not an
unbeliever? If you believed that all things work together for your
good, would you be so rebellious? Yet that is God's own declaration!
Now is the time when your faith in God should enable you to say, "The
Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the
Lord."

What do you more than others unless you can thus speak with submission
and resignation–yes, even with cheerfulness? Where is your new nature
if you cannot say, "It is the Lord, let Him do as seems good to Him"?
By this shall you test whether you have faith or not. Or it may be you
have lost a darling child and that loss has cut you to the very quick.
You are scarcely able to reconcile yourself at present to it. Yet I
trust you do not so repine as to accuse your God of cruelty, but I
trust your faith helps you to say, "I shall go to him, though he shall
not return to me. I would not have it other than my heavenly Father has
determined." Here will be a crucible for your faith!

Those two instances may serve as specimens. In all positions of life a
real faith is to the Believer like the hair of Samson in which his
great strength lies. It is his Moses' rod dividing seas of difficulty,
his Elijah's chariot in which he mounts above the earth! So, too, in
difficult labors, for instance, in labors for Christ's cause, a man who
feels it his duty to do good in his neighborhood yet may say, "I do not
know what I can do. I am afraid to commence so great a matter, for I
feel so unfit, and so feeble." My dear Friend, if it is your duty to do
it, your not being able to do it cannot excuse you because you have
only to go and tell your heavenly Father of your weakness and ask for
strength, and He will give it liberally.

Some of us who can now speak with ease were once very diffident in
public. Those preachers who are now most useful were poor stammer's
before their gifts were developed. And those who are our best teachers
and most successful soul-winners were not always so. But they had faith
and they pressed forward, and God helped them. Now, if your religion is
not worth an old song you will not persevere in holy work. But if it is
real and true you will press forward through all difficulties, feeling
it to be an essential of your very existence that you should promote
the Redeemer's cause. I would quite as soon not be, as live to be a
useless thing. Better, far, to fatten the fields with one's corpse than
to lie rotting above ground in idleness. To be a soldier in Immanuel's
ranks, and never fight, never carry a burden, nor uphold a banner, nor
hurl a dart–yes, better that the dogs should eat my worthless carrion
than that such should be the case!

Feeling this, then, you will press forward with the little power you
have and new power will come upon you–and so you will prove that your
faith is sincere because it comes to your support in the ordinary work
of Christian life. Under all difficulties and labors, then, the just
shall live by faith.

Furthermore, faith in ordinary life has an effect upon the
dispensations of Divine Providence. It is a riddle which we cannot
explain how everything is eternally fixed by Divine purpose, and yet
the prayer of faith moves the arm of God. Though the enigma cannot be
explained, the fact is not to be denied. My Brothers and Sisters, I may
be thought fanatical, but it is my firm belief that in ordinary
matters, such as the obtaining of your living, the education of your
children, the ruling of your household–you are to depend upon God as
much as in the grand matter of the salvation of your soul! The hairs of
your head are all numbered–go to God, then, about your trifles. Not a
sparrow falls to the ground without your Father–cast upon the Lord
your minor trials.

Never think that anything is too little for your heavenly Father's love
to think upon. He who rides upon the whirlwind walks in the garden at
evening in the cool breath of the zephyr! He who shakes the avalanche
from its Alp also makes the sere leaf to twinkle as it falls from the
aspen! He whose eternal power directs the spheres in their everlasting
marches guides each grain of dust which is blown from the summer's
threshing floor! Confide in Him for the little as well as for the great
and you shall not find Him to fail you. Is He God of the hills only,
and not the God of the valleys?

"Are we to we expect miracles, then?" says one. No, but we expect the
same results as are compassed by miracles. I have sometimes thought
that for God to interpose by a miracle to accomplish a purpose is a
somewhat clumsy method, if I may be allowed such a word. But for Him to
accomplish the very same thing without interfering with the wheels of
His Providence seems to me the more thoroughly God-like method. If I
were hungry today and God had promised to feed me, it would be as much
a fulfillment of His promise if my friend here brought my food
unexpectedly as if the ravens brought it! And the bringing of it by
ordinary means would all the better prove that God was there–not
interrupting the machinery of Providence–but making it to educe the
end which He designed.

God will not turn stones into bread for you, but perhaps He will give
you stones to break and you will thus earn your bread. God may not rain
manna out of Heaven and yet every shower of rain falling upon your
garden brings you bread. It will be the better for you to earn your
food than to have it brought by ravens, or better that Christian
charity should make you its care than that an inexhaustible barrel and
cruse should be placed in your cupboard. Anyhow, your bread shall be
given you and your water shall be sure.

My witness is, and I speak it for the honor of God, that God is a good
provider! I have been cast upon the Providence of God ever since I left
my father's house, and in all cases He has been my Shepherd, and I have
known no lack. My first income as a Christian minister was small enough
in all conscience, never exceeding 40 pounds, yet I was as rich then as
I am now, for I had enough! And I had no more cares, no, not half as
many, then, as I have now! And when I breathed my prayer to God then,
as I do now, for all things temporal and spiritual, I found Him ready
to answer me at every pinch– and pinches I have had full many.

Many a monetary trial since then have I had in connection with the
college work which depends for funds upon the Lord's moving His people
to liberality. My faith has been often tried, but God has always been
faithful and sent supplies in hours of need. If any should tell me that
prayer to God was a mere piece of excitement and that the idea of God's
answering human cries is absurd, I should laugh the statement to scorn,
for my experience is not that of one or two singular instances–but
that of hundreds of cases in which the Lord's interposition for the
necessities of His work has been as manifest as if He had rent the
clouds and thrust forth His own naked arm and bounteous hand to supply
the needs of His servant.

This, my testimony, is but the echo of the witness of the Lord's people
everywhere. When they look back they will tell you that God is good to
Israel and that when they have walked by faith they have never found
that God has failed them. The Red Sea of trouble has been divided! The
waters have stood upright as a heap, and the depths have been congealed
in the heart of the sea! As for their doubts and their difficulties,
like the Egyptians the depths have covered them, there has not been one
of them left. And standing on the further shore to look back upon the
past, the redeemed of the Lord have shouted aloud, "Sing unto the Lord,
for He has triumphed gloriously," for faith has conquered all their
difficulties and brought supplies for all their needs.

Do not let me be misunderstood, however. Faith is never to be regarded
as a premium for idleness. If I sit down and fold my arms, and say,
"The Lord will provide," He will most likely provide me a summons to
the County Court and a place in the parish workhouse. God has never
given any promise to idle people that He will provide for them, and
therefore they have no right to believe that He will. To trust in God
to make up for our laziness is not faith, but wicked presumption.

Neither does the power of faith afford ground for fanaticism. I have no
right to say, "I should like to have so-and-so, and I will ask for it,
and shall have it." God has never promised to give to us everything
which our whimsies may select. If we really want any good thing we may
plead the promise, "No good thing will I uphold from them that walk
uprightly," but we must never dream that God will pander to our
fooleries. The God of Wisdom will not be part and parcel with our mere
whims. Nor is faith to be a substitute for prudence and economy. I have
known some who have, to a great degree, abstained from energetic action
because they feared to interfere with the Lord! This fear never
perplexes me. My faith never leads me to believe that God will do for
me what I can do for myself.

I do not believe that the Lord works needlessly. Up to the highest
pitch that my own prudence, and strength and judgment can carry me, I
am to go depending upon Divine guidance. Then I stop, for I can go no
further–and I plead with my Father thus–"Now, Lord, the promise
reaches further than this. It is Your business to make up the
deficiency." There I pause, and God is as good as His word. But if I
stop short when I might advance–how dare I ask the Lord to pander to
my sloth? I believe, in Christian work, we ought for God to exert
ourselves to the utmost, both in the giving of our substance and in the
collecting help from our fellow Christians–and come in faith and
prayer to the Lord for help.

Faith is operative in the land of the unseen, not in the seen. Faith is
to come to your help where creature-power fails you. Up to the point at
which you can work, you must work, and with God's blessing upon it your
work will not hinder your faith but be an exhibition and display of it.
Thus with a simple faith in God, not fanatical, not idle, but going on
in the path of prudence–desiring to glorify God–you shall find that
all difficulties will vanish and your doubts and fears shall fly away.

Do understand that even faith itself will be no guarantee against
trials and against poverty, for it is good for God's people to be tried
and there are some of them who would not glorify God if they were not
poor. Therefore, you are not to suppose that you have no faith because
you are in need–neither are you to expect that in answer to prayer God
will necessarily keep you in easy circumstances. If it is best for you
that you should not be poor, He will keep you from it. But if it is
better that you should be, He will sustain you in it. Resignation
should walk hand-in-hand with faith, and they each will minister to the
other's beauty.

III. Lastly, THIS IS ALSO TRUE IN THE HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
AS A WHOLE. The

Christian Church lives by faith. She lives by faith in opposition to
speculation. Every now and then a fit of speculative philosophy seizes
the Church and then her vitality withers. In the days of the
school-men, just before Luther's time, good men were fighting and
squabbling from morning to night–gathered like so many carrion crows
around the dead body of Aristotle–fighting about nobody knows what. It
is said that they held sage discussions upon how many angels could
poise themselves upon the point of a needle!

While such foolish and unlearned questions as these were being raised,
the poor people in the Christian Church were starved and the Church
lost all its energy. Sinners were not converted, fundamental Truths of
God were despised. Then came Luther and the notable revival. In more
modern days, in the period after Doddridge and Watts, among Dissenters
the habit of philosophizing upon the Trinity was common. Brethren tried
to be very exact and precise, as exact and precise as the Athanasian
creed–while others combated their dogmatism and the result was that a
large proportion of the Dissenting Churches fell asleep
practically–degenerated doctrinally, and Socinianism threatened to eat
out the very life of evangelical Dissent.

Speculation is not the life of the Christian Church, but faith, a
reception of the Bible Truth in its sublimity and authority–an
obedient belief in Revelation, not because we understand all its
teachings, but because, not understanding, we nevertheless receive the
Lord's Word upon the ipse dixit of the Most High. Whenever the Church
is simple-minded enough to require no outworks to her faith, to care
very little about evidences, internal or external–but just to fight
the battle on the ground of Divine authority, saying, "This is of God,
and at your peril reject it"–she has been "fair as the sun, clear as
the moon, and terrible as an army with banners." Let her begin to split
hairs, try to move away objections and spend all her time upon her
outworks, and then her glory departs.

In the next place, faith is the life of the Church in opposition to
reliving despondency. In our own Churches it used to be the habit for
our friends to be very well content if they built a Chapel in the
lowest part of a town, down two courts, three alleys, and a turning.
And as to attendants, the members appeared to be particularly anxious
to avoid anything like the excitement of a crowd. They were a most
retiring people as a rule, but as to coming out into the forefront to
set their city on a hill and make their light shine by evangelizing the
masses, that was a forgotten business!

At the present hour, from other quarters you constantly hear
expressions defiled with the most dastardly timidity, denoting the most
shameful cowardice. For instance, lately we have heard that, "The
Church is in danger!" "The Church is in danger!" Christians with their
Bibles and all the Truths in the Bibles! Christians with their
ministers and all their earnestness! Christians with the Holy Spirit,
with God's promises, with the foundations against which the gates of
Hell shall not prevail–and yet in danger! Really, such remarks and
such fears are quite unworthy of the manhood of those who believe in
the Divinity of the Christian faith.

No Church can make progress till she believes enough in her God to be
sure that in Him she is strong! While she imagines that she is weak she
is weak. Fear paralyzes her. Dread kills her energies. But when she
believes in the Divine strength with which she is encountered as with a
golden girdle, then she marches on with certainty of triumph! May we as
a Church always believe that as long as we are resting upon the
strength of God nothing can hurt us! I defy the House of Lords, the
House of Commons, the Pope, the Turk and all the nations in all the
world and all the devils in Hell to put this Church in danger! I do not
know anything that they could take away from us, for I know of nothing
which they have given us.

If they had endowed and established us, they could take away what they
gave, but as they have not given us a thread to a shoelace, they can do
whatever they please and we shall not even call a Church meeting to
consider it. Yet here are other Churches, with Lord Bishops, and deans,
and prebends and I know not what beside, which are horribly shaken
because an arm of flesh is failing them! The pay of their preachers
will by-and-by, by a gradual process, be withdrawn and they tremble for
the ark of the Lord! Shame on your little minds, to be thus afraid!
Surely you have lost confidence in the Truth of God and in God or you
would not fear because of the talents of gold which will be justly
withheld from you!

Remember that the Truth of God allied with earthly power has often been
defeated by error–but the Truth of God alone has always defeated
error–even when that error has had physical might upon its side. Let
Truth have her fair chance and stand alone! She is most strong when
least hampered with human strength, and most sure to be victorious when
she has no might but that which dwells in herself or comes from her
God!

In the next place, the Christian Church lives by faith, that is, faith
in opposition to a squeamishness which I see springing up nowadays as
to the selection of instruments. Let me be understood. I hear it is
said, "Why allow these men to preach in the street? Is it not a pity
that illiterate persons should preach at all? Some of them are very
ungrammatical, and really, what they say at the very best is very
so-so. Is it not better that none should go out but the best trained
men?" Then, for missions, it is said the very best picked men, only,
should be sent forth. As to young men, full of zeal, not having had
experience and not having learned all the classics and being well up in
mathematics–it is of no use thinking to send them!

Many a Church, indeed, thinks that all her officers ought to be rich,
all her ministers learned, all her agents Masters of Arts, at least–if
not Doctors of Divinity. This was not so in olden times. Thus it was
not when the Church of God grew mightily, for of old the Church of God
had FAITH–in what? Why, faith in weakness! Faith in the things that
were not! Did not she believe, "Not many noble, not many wise men after
the flesh, not many mighty are called; but God has chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak
things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base
things of the world, and things which are despised"?

It is very memorable that in the catacombs of Rome among those
remarkable inscriptions which are now preserved with so much care as
the memorials of the departed saints–it is rare to find an inscription
which is all of it spelt correctly–proving that the persons who wrote
them, who were no doubt the very pick of the Christian flock, could
neither write nor spell correctly! And yet these were the men that
turned the world upside down. When Wesley began his career, our
Churches were nearly dead with the disease called, "proprieties," but
Mr. Wesley employed men, some of whom were quite unlettered, to go
about to preach–and by those men this nation was revived!

To this day, our Primitive Methodist friends are doing a great and
noble work for which God be thanked, because they use almost every man
they have, and they use the men till they become fit to be used,
trained and tutored by practice. In this Church I thank God I have
always encouraged every Brother and Sister to do all they can–and I do
still urge all so to do. I trust there is not a young man here who can
say that I ever held him back in desiring to serve his Master. If I
have, I am sure I am very sorry for it. Oh, all of you do all that you
can–for this Church, at any rate–has faith in you all, that though
you make a thousand blunders, yet it is better to have the Gospel
preached blunderingly than not at all!

And while three millions and more in London are perishing for lack of
knowledge, it is better that you spoil the Queen's English and make
ever such mistakes than that you should not preach Jesus Christ! God
will not be angry with you for all your ignorance if you are not
ignorant of the one thing necessary! So, Brethren, it comes to
this–that we must not, as a Christian Church, calculate our resources,
nor take out our note books and count up how much we have to rely upon.
The treasury of the Church is the liberality of God! The power of the
Church is the Omnipotence of Jehovah! The persuasions of the Church are
the irresistible influences of the Holy Spirit! The destiny of the
Church is an ultimate conquest over all the sons of men!

Advance then, every one of you to the fray, for you advance also to
conquest! Rely upon Him who has said, "Lo, I am with you always, even
unto the end of the world!" and you shall find that as the just you
shall live by faith! If you sit down and waste your time, or turn your
backs and retire from the battle, you shall be written among the
cowards whose memorial is in the dust. But if you stand fast and are
immovable, "always abounding in the work of the Lord," your record
shall be on high and your portion shall be at the right hand of the
Father, where Christ sits, and where you shall also sit forever and
ever. God bless these words for His name's sake. Amen.
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Daniel's Undaunted Courage

A Sermon