1784. Unbelief Condemned And Faith Commended

No. 1784-30:313. A Sermon Delivered On Lord’s Day Morning, June 8, 1884, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington. 9/22/2013*9/22/2013

They are a very perverse generation, children in whom there is no faith. {De 32:20}

Blessed is that man who makes the Lord his trust. {Ps 40:4}

1. These two texts will serve to show the different estimate which God has of unbelief and of faith. He says of unbelievers, in my text taken from Deuteronomy, “They are a very perverse generation, children in whom there is no faith”; as much as to say, that the absence of faith proves them to be perverse, presumptuous, wilful, disobedient; a people at cross-purposes with God. He says not only that they are perverse and wicked, but he adds an emphatic word — “they are a very perverse generation, children in whom there is no faith.” The second text most clearly shows us that God has a high approbation for faith; for he himself by the Holy Spirit says, “Blessed is that man who makes the Lord his trust.” Here, then, we have set before us a great evil to which we are sadly inclined, and a great grace which we greatly need. May God the Holy Spirit work faith in us by his own gracious power! Alas, it is still true that “all men do not have faith.” Even when an apostle preached, we read of the congregation that some believed the things which were spoken, and some did not believe. There is that division among you at this time. Oh, that unbelievers may become believers before this service ends!

2. I will tell you what I shall be driving at this morning: I have a special character in view, and I long to be made useful to people of that kind. Most of you abhor outspoken and naked unbelief. Should unbelief display itself in its real hideousness, you who have been brought up religiously would be startled at its approach, would close the door immediately, and bolt it firmly lest such a demon of the deep should gain an entry into your souls. Consequently, unbelief when it attacks the regular hearer of the gospel takes care to disguise itself. It pretends to be something other than it is. It does not walk abroad in all its natural deformity, but it approaches us as the Gibeonites came near to Israel when “they worked wilily, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors.” There are those here who do not doubt for a moment the existence or goodness of God, neither do they have any question about the inspiration and infallible truth of Holy Scripture; and yet they are entertaining within their hearts an unbelief which eats like a canker. A deadening unbelief is upon them, that they remain in darkness, and take no pains to come into the light. Yet they do not condemn themselves, but rather look for pity as though it were their infirmity and not their fault. To them unbelief acts like Jezebel when she arranged her hair and painted her face. Oh, that my words could strip off the disguise of this evil thing! Of this most deceitful form of unbelief I would say, as Jehu said of Jezebel, “Throw her down,” and then I would cry, — “Go see now to this cursed thing and bury it, for it is a horrible evil.” What prevents men from finding salvation by putting their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ is an enemy so hateful and malicious that no quarter must be given to it; no excuse must be made for it, it must be utterly destroyed from under heaven.

3. Dear friend, you tell me that you are by no means an infidel or a sceptic, and yet you do not believe in order to find peace with God. You tell me that you cannot believe, which is a confession that you are so false at heart that you cannot believe the truth. It is good that you should admit this gross depravity; but I have reason to fear that you are hardly conscious of the horrible nature of the crime which you acknowledge. I ask you to lay to heart this fact, that unless you have faith in Jesus you will perish just as surely as if you were a public denier of the word of God and a reviler of his Son. There are, doubtless, degrees in the terribleness of the punishment, but there are no degrees in the certainty of the fact that every unbeliever will be shut out from the blessing of the gospel of Christ. “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life: and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God remains on him.” I want you to remove every flattering unction from your souls, and to know for certain that “he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God” {Joh 3:18} Do not dream that because you do not happen to be an affirmed atheist, or deist, or agnostic, that therefore your own form of unbelief is harmless. We read of Israel in the wilderness that “they could not enter in because of unbelief”; yet they were not atheists. A passive unbelief will ruin a man as surely as an active infidelity. Suppose that an enemy is on this side of a river destroying everyone. To find safety the river has to be crossed, and there is only one bridge. Over there a man declares that he will never go over such a bridge; he does not believe in it; he asserts that it is a rotten old thing, which would break down under his weight. He hates the structure; he will not call it a bridge at all; he ridicules all who venture on it. It is clear that he will stay on this side the river, and die by the pursuer’s sword. He is the type of the affirmed sceptic. But where are you? You say with genuine distress, “I am horrified to hear that man talk like that about that excellent bridge; I believe that it is well constructed, and that it has carried hundreds of thousands over it. I cannot bear to hear a word said against it, for my dear father and mother found refuge by crossing it, and they are now in the land of peace.” Yet you do not escape by that bridge yourself, though well aware of your danger! Do you answer, “Well, I do not feel worthy to go over it.” Why, that is nonsense; it is as if you should say, I cannot swim, and therefore will not cross over the river by means of the bridge. Your unworthiness cannot be a reason for refusing to accept a free salvation; on the contrary, it is a reason why you should accept it at once. However, it matters little what your excuse may be; you will perish for ever if you do not believe in Jesus.

4. Take another illustration. A fatal disease is abroad, and a remedy has been discovered of the most effective kind. One man denounces the medicine, the physician who invented it, and the pharmacists who distribute it: he can hardly find words enough in the dictionary with which to express his contempt for what he calls a monstrous quackery. He will obviously receive no benefit from the medicine. That is not your case: you are of quite another mind. You esteem the medicine, reverence the physician, and even feel an affection for the pharmacists who distribute it. No question about the matter has ever crossed your mind, on the contrary, you are an advocate for the great remedy, and believe firmly that it has healed multitudes of people. Why do you not take the wholesome draught yourself? You tell me that you are trying to get better, and that you do not quite see how the medicine can heal you. This shows that you doubt the power of the medicine to heal you, just as you are. You will derive no more benefit from it than the other man who rails at it. It is quite impossible that any man should receive the blessing which comes through the atoning blood of Christ unless he has faith; and whether he goes to the length of an utter contempt of the great Sacrifice, or stays away from it because he does not feel as he could desire, he will surely die without forgiveness. Outside of Christ the doom of eternal wrath will fall on you, whether near to the kingdom or far off from it.

5. I want to talk with those unbelieving people who are not affirmed sceptics. I have seen some of these, and I know that they are a numerous class. They are very sincere, and are really seeking after salvation; but the one thing which they refuse to do is to believe in the Lord Jesus. They will not trust their God, they will not believe in the promise which he has made to us in Christ Jesus. They would suffer any penance, they would give anything they possess, they would cut off their right arm, they would consent to lose their eyes, if they might only be saved; but this one matter of trust in God and accepting his way of salvation is the point in which they quarrel with the Most High. Upon this matter, in which the Lord will assuredly never yield to them, they stand out very obstinately, and so prove that they are “a very perverse generation, children in whom there is no faith.” If they would obtain the Lord’s blessing, the only way to it is faith. Oh, that they would hold out no longer, for “Blessed is that man who makes the Lord his trust.”

6. I. To begin, then: our first statement is, UNBELIEF IS PERVERSENESS — “they are a very perverse generation, children in whom there is no faith.”

7. One very frequent disguise of unbelief is that of humility. “I feel myself such a great sinner. I feel so much evil to be in my heart; I dare not believe in Jesus!” If you judged by appearances you might think this unbelief very modest; but, indeed, it is not so. It imitates the tone of humility, but it cannot catch the accent. This deceptive vice dares to hint that the sinner’s unworthiness is a reason why Jesus should not be trusted. What, would any man tell me that his own wickedness is a reason why he should doubt me? That would be too absurd. Because you are such a sinner, is God therefore a deceiver, and not to be trusted? This is not humility, but audacity. Our fearing to trust the promise of God because we are evil is a most perverse piece of wickedness. Surely, God is true, even if we are liars; and our falsehood does not make him false, or deprive him of his right to be believed. Do we dare to tell him that he cannot save when he assuredly promises to save us if we trust him? Do we deny his willingness to save when he sends us gracious invitations, and entreats us to turn to him? This is insolence, and not penitence. However great a sinner you may be, there is forgiveness with God that he may be feared, for “all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to men.” Do not deny this. Do not be so profanely bold as to call Jesus a liar.

8. Unbelief claims to be so timid. It cries, “I am afraid to come to Christ, afraid to trust him with my soul.” This is not true fear, but an evil pride. The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau. The sound is that of an amiable timorousness, but the spirit is that of perverseness. Friends, if you truly feared God you would tremble at the idea of doubting him. It is a very daring act of impiety to question any promise of the Most High; it is the height of rebellion to deny the power of the death of his dear Son. That kind of timidity and humility is to be shunned and to be abhorred which dares to make God’s love a dream, and his mercy a fiction. Since the Lord’s mercy endures for ever, since Jesus has never yet cast out a soul that has come to him, it is folly to talk about being afraid to come to him. Dread doubting; but do not fear to trust your God.

9. Unbelief is a very perverse thing; we repeat the statement, and go on to prove it, because, in the first place, it calls God a liar. Can anything be worse than this? God says, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved,” and the unbeliever replies, “I cannot believe that Jesus will save me.” That is to say, translating it into plain English: — You do not think that God speaks the truth; you do not believe that God is able to make his promises good to you. You do, in effect, imagine that he has said a great deal more than he means, or promised more than he is able to perform. At any rate, you think it is unsafe to trust him with your soul. I do beseech you, if you must transgress, do not select a sin so presumptuous and so provoking as the sin of denying the truth of the Most High. “He who does not believe God has made him a liar; because he does not believe the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that God has given eternal life to us, and this life is in his son.” Oh, you poor, timorous soul, as some would call you, I may not flatter you, or excuse you, for I am afraid you must be very proud or you would not look the great Father in the face, and say, “You will not receive me if I come back to you like the prodigal child”; when again and again he invites you to return, and promises to receive you. Oh soul, can you dare to look up to the cross of Jesus and say, “There is no life in a look at the Crucified One for me?” Can you even think of the Holy Spirit, and then say that he has no power to change a heart so black and hard as yours? Oh that this miserable slander of God and of his Christ might be stopped!

10. Again, unbelief is great perverseness because it refuses God’s way of salvation. No man can read the Scriptures without seeing God’s way of salvation is not by works nor by feelings, but by trusting in the Son of God, who has offered a full atonement for sin. Now the sinner says, “Lord, I would do or suffer anything if I might be saved by it.” God’s answer is, “Trust in my Son”; and this is put into a great many forms to make it plain. Jesus says, “This is the work of God,” — the highest and noblest work — “that you believe in him whom he has sent,” but the soul wriggles away from this believing in Jesus. It cries, “Surely I must feel this, that, and the other.” Oh foolish heart, stop all these vain observations, and listen to this one thing — Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. If you will make the Lord your trust you shall be blessed; but if you will not you are assuredly accursed, since you have rejected the blood of the Eternal Sacrifice, refused the way of mercy which infinite love has appointed, and done despite to the Spirit of God. To what a pitch of madness you have reached! You will sooner destroy your own soul than treat your God as you would treat an honest man! You can trust your wife, your husband, your father, or your friend; but you will not trust your Maker. You will sooner go to hell than trust yourself with Christ. Ah me! Ah me!

11. Unbelief is a very perverse thing, again, because it very often makes unreasonable demands of God. When Thomas said, “Unless I put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe,” he was speaking very perversely. I have heard the sinner say, “Oh, sir, if I could have a dream, if I could be broken down with anguish, or if I could enjoy some remarkable revelation, then I would believe God,” this also is perverseness. And so you dare look the Eternal in the face and say, “You shall be a liar to me unless you will gratify my whims and wishes, and do this or that to prove what I admit to be true.” Will you say to your fellow man, “Sir, you have offered to help me in this time of need; I am quite willing to depend on you for that help, provided you will do it in my way; but I utterly reject the way which you propose for my assistance?” You will probably turn your friend against you if you talk like that. Beggars must not be choosers — certainly not with God. If I doubt a friend who has been good to me all my life, it is an unjust thing; and if I tell him that I cannot believe him unless he will do what I choose to demand of him, I am insulting him. This towards man is evil; but what is it towards God? What! must God do according to our mind, and play the lackey to us, or else he shall be under this penalty, that we will not believe his word nor accept his gracious forgiveness? Shame on unbelief, that it should be so insulting to the God of heaven, before whom angels bow with veiled countenances! Surely, the devil himself cannot go further than unbelief; nor so far, for he believes, and trembles.

12. Unbelief is very perverse, next, because it indulges harsh thoughts of God. Why do you not trust your God to save you by the blood of Jesus? Do you say that “Salvation by faith is too good to be true?” Is anything too good to come from God, who is infinitely good? Is he not love? Do you say, “If I were to come to him he would not receive me?” How dare you say that when it is written, “He who comes to me I will in no wise cast out?” Oh, I have so offended that if I were to cry, “Father, I have sinned,” I could not expect him to forgive my offence. This is a base slandering of the heavenly Father! What penitent has he ever repelled? You do not know how good he is — He is inconceivably gracious, he delights in mercy. It is his joy to pass by transgression, iniquity, and sin. Have you never heard that “just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his ways higher than your ways, and his thoughts than your thoughts?” Has he not declared that he will abundantly pardon? Has he not said, “ ‘Come now, and let us reason together,’ says the Lord: ‘though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool?’ ” Why will you so cruelly defame the ever-merciful One? Turn from this wickedness, or you will destroy your own soul.

13. And yet again, unbelief is a very perverse thing because it disparages the Lord Jesus. It tramples upon the blood of the Son of God. The unbelieving sinner virtually asserts that he has found out the limit of the Saviour’s power to save, and that he stands just over the boundary to which his grace extends, for he thinks that Jesus may save any one except himself. Oh soul, do you doubt the infinite virtue of the divine sacrifice? Do you question the power of the intercession of the risen Lord? Is it not true, as he has said it, that he is “able to save to the uttermost those who come to God by him, since he lives for ever to make intercession for them?” “Oh, but I am such an exceptional person.” And are you so exceptional that you have a right to limit the Holy One of Israel? Oh, if you only knew my Lord and Master you would not talk like that; for he with a word can cast out demons, heal the sick, and raise the dead. He only has to say, “Son, your sins are forgiven you,” and they are forgiven. He only has to look on you, poor sinner, and you shall live. Yes, be assured that if you will look on him you shall live. Has he not said, “Look to me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth?” Has he not also said, “He who believes in me, though he were dead, yet he shall live?” If you believe you shall see the glory of God. Trust him, trust him! He deserves your trust, for he is a great Saviour for the greatest of sinners.

14. And do you not think it is another example of great perverseness that unbelief casts reflections upon the Holy Spirit? It seems to say, “I feel greatly afraid, and therefore there is no peace for me. I am too hardened and foolish for the Holy Spirit to lead me to faith in Jesus; and therefore I will not trust.” “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” Change you, man? Why, he has turned millions from darkness to light. Look upward, see what hosts surround the throne of glory and “day without night” magnify his saving grace! Not save you? Who are you that you should resist the witness of the Spirit of truth? Will you refuse the threefold witness of the Spirit, the water, and the blood? Who are you that you should set yourself up as a kind of vanquisher of grace, conquering grace by your sin, and saying to the ocean of God’s love, “So far you shall come, but no farther?” Your unbelief is a very perverse thing; nothing can be said for it; it dishonours Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; denies the inspired Scripture, and keeps your own soul in cruel bondage.

15. This vile unbelief has in it a tendency to destroy the gospel itself. If it could only have its own way it would undermine the whole fabric of salvation. When a man says that God cannot save him he suggests that there maybe others in the same state. Where, then, is Christ’s wisdom in telling us to preach the gospel to every creature? If it would be vain for one man to believe, each one of us would be afraid that it would be vain for us also, and where, then, would be the gospel promise? If it could be proved that any one man if he believed in Jesus would not be saved, then the gospel itself would be disproved. Who among us would have any basis for believing in Christ if we knew that it was possible to believe in him and yet to be cast away? What is this except to rob us of all of hope? Why, man, you are scuttling the ship! I mean that such is the tendency of your unbelieving talk. If Jesus is not worthy to be trusted, and you seem to say so by your own refusal to trust him, then all of us who are resting on him for salvation are under a delusion. Do you mean to say this? If you, as a sinner, cannot be saved by believing in Christ, then the whole gospel is called into question; you have broken the whole staff of bread for the souls of men. Oh, wicked unbelief, God-dishonouring, soul-killing unbelief! Dear hearer, be warned against it, for it will shut you out of heaven unless you shut it out of your heart.

16. II. And now, secondly, we turn to the better side of our subject, and remark that FAITH HAS THE DIVINE APPROVAL. “Blessed,” says God, “is that man who makes the Lord his trust.” We are sure that it so. Wherever there is faith, God is pleased with it; for faith is the sure sign of God’s elect. We can only know them by their believing in the Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. God would never have made what he disapproved of to be the sign of his eternal choice; but since he makes faith in Jesus to be the sign of his covenanted ones, he must approve of it.

17. Remember that God has been pleased in his great love to make this the main requirement of the gospel. “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.” “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” The Lord puts faith into the very forefront because he delights in it. I do not find that the Lord has promised salvation to love, or to patience, or to courage, admirable as these graces are; but he has put this crown upon the head of faith — “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” The Lord must certainly approve of what he makes to be the grand necessity of salvation.

18. Do you not know that God has made faith to be the one necessary thing in the matter of prayer? If you come before him in prayer he will not ask you to bring your hands laden with gifts, nor to drop from your tongue choice words of eloquence; but you “must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him,” or else you can have nothing from his hands. If, then, God has made the efficacy of prayer to turn upon faith, he must have a high estimate of it. He has made faith to be the master-key by which all the chambers of his treasury may be unlocked, and, therefore depend on it he will never cast it out as unwarranted and presumptuous. “Blessed is that man who makes the Lord his trust,” whoever that man may be.

19. Besides that, he has been pleased to make faith to be the mode and manner of the spiritual life. “The just shall live” — how? by works? No — “the just shall live by faith.” There is no living except by faith. Let any child of God try to live by sense or reason, even for a day, and see how miserable he will be. It comes to this with me — I must believe my God or else I perish. I can walk the waves by faith; but beginning to doubt, I sink. It is only as I trust that my soul can bear her daily burden and perform her daily duty. If, then, God has made faith to be the way of his people, rest assured it can never be wrong for a soul to exercise faith in him.

20. Why, brethren, see what God has done to make us believe! He cannot object to our trusting in him, since he works to that end. For this purpose the Scriptures are in our hands. John says, “These are written, so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ.” {Joh 20:31} The Lord multiplies his very great and precious promises so that we might have strong consolation, and find it easy to put our trust in him. His Holy Spirit comes on purpose to work faith in the soul, and the witness of the Holy Spirit in the word, and in the hearts of his people, is intended to create and nourish faith in God. The Lord rewards faith even in this life. Read the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, see what men gained, what they enjoyed, what they did, by faith. Unbelief does nothing, gets nothing, rejoices in nothing; but faith wins the blessing. The covenant was made with Abraham, who “did not stagger at the promise of God through unbelief.” Who are Abraham’s seed? Why, those who trust as Abraham trusted, who exhibit a whole-hearted confidence in God, feeling that what he has promised he is able also to perform. Oh souls, you cannot have too much faith in God! You need never say, “May I believe?” It is altogether another question, — How dare you doubt your God?

21. “But is it true,” one says, “that faith means trusting in God?” That is it. God tells you to trust Jesus, and you shall be saved. Will you accept his testimony and trust Jesus? That is the whole of it. In common life we exhibit faith in man, and no one blames us for a legitimate trust. A man says that he has received a thousand pounds. How is that? He has nothing in his hand except a promissory bank-note, and that is merely a bit of paper. Yet he is quite confident that he has the thousand pounds, because he has faith in the Bank of England and in its promises. That is how I think of God’s promise: it is to me the thing which it promises, even as the note for £1,000 is a thousand pounds. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” If you believe God as you believe your friend, you are saved: for faith has brought you into the state of salvation. But this is what men will not come to. They will stop and mutter and sputter, and spin all kinds of cobwebs, and invent all kinds of theories in order to evade the sweet necessity of trusting in the Lord. Simply and wholly to hang upon the bare arm of God and trust the merit of his Son, this is what they will not come to: for they are “a very perverse generation, children in whom there is no faith.”

22. Furthermore, it is not unreasonable, but it is highly reasonable, that God should take pleasure in faith. Beloved, look at yourselves. Judge concerning the Lord from yourselves in this matter; for the Lord Jesus permits you judge like this concerning the Father’s mind. You who are fathers, what would you say about your child if he did not believe your promise? If he said that he could not trust you, what would you think of him? If your boy had offended, and refused to ask for pardon because he would not believe that you would forgive him, what would be your judgment of his character? Would you be pleased with him if he would not confess that he was wrong, but took to sulking because he thinks you are unwilling to forgive? Would you take pleasure in such a child as that? No, but one of the beautiful things about your little children is just this, that they do not have a thought or a care, but just trust you implicitly. They never question where Monday’s dinner will come from — father has always found food; father will always do so. If you make them a promise of a treat on Saturday, see how they will jump for joy; though there is yet a week to come before that promise is to be fulfilled, yet they begin to live on the prospect of it, and they enjoy the pleasure a hundred times over by the expectation of it. They will ask you tomorrow whether it is not Saturday already. You are pleased that your children should trust you: it would be most unpleasant for you if they did not. When children have lost confidence in their parents, farewell to domestic peace. If you, being evil, love to be trusted, must it not be so with God? If you, a poor sinner, come and say, “Lord, I have greatly sinned, but I believe you are such a greatly loving Father that you can blot it all out for Jesus’ sake,” do you not think that he will be pleased to hear your confidence? But he cannot be pleased with you when you say, “Lord, I know all about your gospel and its blessings, but I really cannot trust you!” Oh naughty words! Vile words! How can they look for favours who throw dirt into the face of God like this? How shall he bestow his grace on men who will not even believe him?

23. God will accept our faith, for it is in conformity with our position towards him. What position ought the creature to occupy to its Creator? Should it not constantly depend on him? What position should a sinner occupy towards his Saviour? Should he not rely on him most heartily? What position should a child of God occupy towards the divine Father but one of loving confidence?

24. Brethren, God loves faith because faith supplies the missing link between us and himself. If we cannot perfectly keep his law, as indeed we cannot, for we have already broken it, yet if we trust him our heart is right before him. The complete confidence of the heart is the essence of obedience, and the fountain of it. A servant who thinks evil of his master cannot be an acceptable servant to any man: he will be looking out for his own interests, and whenever they come across those of his master we know what will happen. But if, after having acted very crookedly, the man should have proof of his master’s affection for him, and should come to the belief that his master is a model of goodness, then you have laid the foundation of another kind of service, such as no wages can purchase. From a loving trust there will proceed patience, diligence, zeal, fidelity, and obedience, and everything which is suitable in a servant towards a good master. So when a soul comes to make the Lord its trust it has set out upon the right track; and though it is only at the head of the way, yet it will make advances and arrive at great rightness with God.

25. “Oh,” one says, “it seems such a small matter simply to trust.” It may seem so, but within the compass of that little thing there lies a force whose power it would be difficult to measure. Every grace in embryo lies within true faith. It is a virtue which contains within it seed enough to sow all the acreage of life with holiness. Oh my hearer, God blesses faith, therefore, I urge you to render it to him. God has put his curse on unbelief — oh may his Spirit help you to shake yourself free of it today!

26. III. My time has failed me, and therefore I must close by noticing, in the last place, this fact — that FAITH IS BLESSEDNESS. “Blessed is that man who makes the Lord his trust.”

27. To believe in God is to be blessed by God. “Oh, but,” one says, “I believe in God, and I am in great trouble.” Just so, and within that trouble there dwells a measureless blessing. Your trial is the veil which covers the face of a loving God. Faith will make you to sing with the author of this psalm, “I waited patiently for the Lord.” Faith says, “I am in deep trial, but all things work together for my good. It is therefore a great gain to me to be as I am. All these griefs and woes are only a heavenly surgery to cure me of the malady of inbred sin.” This enables the believer to receive correction with patience. He knows that all is right, and therefore the child of God does not fret, and does not kick against the pricks. Just as in the old days of surgery a brave man laid himself down and gave himself up to the knife, so does the believer resign himself to sharp affliction because he knows that it is necessary for his spiritual life, and will tend to his perfection in grace. So faith distils a potent medicine from poisonous plants, and extracts light out of darkness. Is this not enough to make a man blessed?

28. Faith, again, releases the afflicted out of trouble. Turn to the psalm again and read: “I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined to me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he has put a new song in my month, even praise to our God: many shall see it and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.” If you are shut in by affliction like a man in a deep pit, and if instead of rising out of it by your exertions you only sink all the lower, like one who struggles to rise out of miry clay, if you see no way of escape whatever, do not despair or resort to desperate means, or think harshly of God, but just pray and trust, and soon, like David, you shall bear witness to the blessedness of trusting. “Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.” The Lord knows how to deliver the righteous when they cannot guess how he will do it. Jehovah is not limited in ways and means. Is the Lord’s arm waxed short? Trust in the Lord in the dark and he will bring out your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noonday. Thousands of saints who have tried and proved the faithfulness of the Lord unite in chorus to declare that he has delivered his people and will deliver them.

29. The man who makes the Lord his trust is blessed because his faith creates a deep peace in him. It is responsibility which causes the wear and tear of life; at least, it is so in my case: now, he who trusts a matter with the Lord sees that the fulfilment of the promise lies with God and not with him. When we trust in the Lord we cease to worry, because it is the Lord’s business to answer to our faith — 

   ’Tis mine to obey,
   ’Tis his to provide.

He who takes the Lord for his guide no longer worries about the way; he who takes him for his Watchman rests in perfect peace; he who accepts him as a Saviour looks for sure salvation from his hands. There is a wonderful calm in the heart when we can commit our way to the Lord, then we delight ourselves in the Lord, and he gives us the desires of our heart. That blessed act of casting every burden upon the Lord is faith’s masterpiece, and it gives a sweet serenity to all care. To rest in perfect peace of mind is the best blessedness beneath the stars; and we have it, for we hear the Spirit say concerning all the people of God, “And the Lord shall help them, and deliver them: he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in him.”

30. Now, suppose you and I were labouring to reach heaven by our own merits, then we might bid farewell to peace; for all the way we should be terribly afraid that we had not done enough, or suffered enough, or prayed enough, or repented enough. There is no rest upon that bed, for it is too short for a man to stretch himself out on it. But “we who have believed do enter into rest.” Jesus is our rest; in him we have peace with God. If I could make the Lord Jesus my trust and yet be lost I should be a great loser, but I should not lose as much as God would. How is that? I should lose my salvation, but the Lord would lose his glory, his truthfulness, his goodness; his gospel would be dishonoured, and his Son robbed of his reward. That cannot be. When a man trusts his money with a firmly-established bank, he does not sit up all night to protect his cash-box and iron safe. No, his money is out of his own keeping, and he feels at ease about it. Thus we commit our body, soul, and spirit into the pierced hand of Jesus, who has redeemed us, and we know and are confident that he is able to keep what we have committed to him until that day. No one can know perfect rest of heart except those whose minds are fixed on God by a sincere trust in him.

31. Faith, in addition to bringing peace, creates a holy elevation of character, and that is blessedness. The man who lives by sight and walks according to the judgment of the flesh, is cabined and confined within a range too narrow for blessedness. He is not much above the brute that perishes; his provender and stall are the main dependence of his joy; but the man who lives by faith ranges among eternal things, and drinks from celestial founts. His is a high, sublime, mysterious life. Is it not the life of God in man? I have compared the ascent of faith to climbing a succession of lofty stairways. Up from the depths we have already risen by no other means than faith in the Invisible. Not a single step before us can we see. Beneath, and around, clouds and darkness roll in enormous masses; the mist hangs thick over our nearer pathway. Like the world, which the Lord hangs upon nothing, so our life has no visible dependence. We put down our foot on what seems thin as air, and behold, it is firm as a rock beneath us! Rising, always rising, we tread from stair to stair, and are safe as the throne of the Eternal; but we never see more than one step at a time, and at times scarcely so much as that. Sight brings us no comfort, but faith fills us with delight; for above her head shines out clear as the sun the word of the immutable Jehovah.

32. “Ah,” one cries, “I could not live with nothing to depend on!” Oh, my brother, is God nothing? Elijah had nothing to depend on, for Cherith dried up, and the ravens came no more with bread and meat, and the widow woman had only flour enough for one more meal, yet the little flour in the barrel was not exhausted, and the cruse of oil never failed. He had nothing to depend on except God, you know: that is to say, he had only everything. The believer has nothing to depend on except his God, and what more does he need? What more could he have? See how the heavens stand without a pillar! See how the round world floats in space without support! What more does the universe require than the power of the Eternal? Oh believer, get out into these deep waters, where there is sea-room for faith, and no weak creatures to interfere with unmingled reliance upon God; for blessed is that man whose life is rendered sublime by an undivided confidence in the living God.

33. Lastly, blessed is the believing man when he thinks of dying, for he is sure and certain that he cannot truly die. Faith has so linked him with the one living God that he feels immortality pulsing through his entire nature. When he comes to lie on the bed of sickness, and gradually declines, he has no fear of his departure; on the contrary, he looks forward with expectation to be delivered from the bondage and sinfulness of this mortal life, and to be admitted into the liberty and perfection of the life eternal. See him as he leaves the shores of earth: he is not torn away by violence, forced unwillingly into an unknown hereafter. No, he undresses for his last rest, solemnly but expectantly. A song is on his lips, and glory is in his heart. He has finished his work, he has been washed from his sin, he has embraced the promise, and now he falls asleep upon the breast of his Redeemer, assured that he shall wake up in the likeness of his Lord. “Notice the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.”

34. Oh, souls, if you will believe, you shall have both heaven on earth and heaven in heaven, but if you will not believe your God, your Saviour; many sorrows shall be to you, and in the end you will destroy yourselves for ever. It does not matter what excuses you make about this, or that, or the other; if you will not trust your God he will have nothing to do with you. If you cannot believe him, if you will make his Son to be false, he must say at the last, “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” It cannot be otherwise. This shall make the great division between you and the righteous, that you do not believe in him, while they have made the Lord their trust. If you believe in the Lord Jesus you shall be numbered with his chosen, and all his promises shall be fulfilled for you; for with you he has made an everlasting covenant which shall stand firm for ever and ever, when all visible things have melted away. May God lift you up from the miry clay of unbelief to the rock of confidence in him, for Christ’s sake. Amen.

[Portion Of Scripture Read Before Sermon — Ps 40]
{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “God the Father, Attributes of God — Faithful And Powerful In Performing His Promises” 192}
{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “The Christian, Privileges, Security in Christ — Accepted And Safe” 738}
{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “The Christian, Courage and Confidence — Be Of Good Courage” 685}

God the Father, Attributes of God
192 — Faithful And Powerful In Performing His Promises
1 Begin, my tongue, some heavenly theme,
   And speak some boundless thing;
   The mighty works, or mightier name
   Of our eternal King.
2 Tell of his wondrous faithfulness,
   And sound his power abroad;
   Sing the sweet promise of his grace,
   And the performing God.
3 Proclaim Salvation from the Lord,
   For wretched, dying men:
   His hand has writ the sacred word
   With an immortal pen.
4 Engraved as in eternal brass
   The mighty promise shines;
   Nor can the powers of darkness rase
   Those everlasting lines.
5 He that can dash whole worlds to death,
   And make them when he please;
   He speaks, and that almighty breath
   Fulfils his great decrees.
6 His very word of grace is strong
   As that which built the skies;
   The voice that rolls the stars along
   Speaks all the promises.
7 Oh, might I hear thine heavenly tongue
   But whisper, “Thou art mine!”
   Those gentle words should raise my song
   To notes almost divine.
8 How would my leaping heart rejoice,
   And think my heaven secure!
   I trust the all creating voice,
   And faith desires no more.
                        Isaac Watts, 1709.

The Christian, Privileges, Security in Christ
738 — Accepted And Safe <8s.>
1 A debtor to mercy alone,
   Of covenant mercy I sing;
   For fear, with thy righteousness on,
   My person and offering on bring:
   The terrors of law, and of God,
   With me can have nothing to do;
   My Saviour’s obedience and blood
   Hide all my transgressions from view.
2 The work which his goodness began,
   The arm of his strength will complete;
   His promise is yea and amen,
   And never was forfeited yet:
   Things future, nor things that are now,
   Not all things below nor above,
   Can make him his purpose forego,
   Or sever my soul from his love.
3 My name from the palms of his hands,
   Eternity will not erase;
   Impress’d on his heart it remains
   In marks of indelible grace:
   Yes, I to the end shall endure,
   As sure as the earnest is given;
   More happy, but not more secure,
   The glorified spirits in heaven.
                  Augustus M. Toplady, 1771.

The Christian, Courage and Confidence
685 — Be Of Good Courage
1 Your harps, ye trembling saints,
      Down from the willows take:
   Loud to the praise of love divine,
      Bid every string awake.
2 Though in a foreign land,
      We are not far from home;
   And nearer to our house above
      We every moment come.
3 His grace will to the end
      Stronger and brighter shine;
   Nor present things, nor things to come,
      Shall quench the spark divine.
4 The people of his choice,
      He will not cast away;
   Yet do not always here expect
      On Tabor’s mount to stay.
5 When we in darkness walk,
      Nor feel the heavenly flame;
   Then is the time to trust our God,
      And rest upon his name.
6 Soon shall our doubts and fears
      Subside at his control;
   His loving kindness shall break through
      The midnight of the soul.
7 Wait till the shadows flee;
      Wait thy appointed hour,
   Wait till the Bridegroom of thy soul
      Reveals his sovereign power.
8 Tarry his leisure then,
      Although he seem to stay,
   A moment’s intercourse with him
      Thy grief will overpay.
9 Blest is the man, oh God,
      That stays himself on thee,
   Who waits for thy salvation, Lord,
      Shall thy salvation see.
                  Augustus M. Toplady, 1772.