FAITH'S ANSWER
FAITH’S ANSWER
The great blessing of faith is that it links our souls with God. It is a secret communication establishing relations of confidence and repose between the heart and God. Faith exists unknown to anyone but its possessor and God. Its vitality is seen by works, but its enjoyment does not consist in its demonstration.
The history of its action is an interesting, instructive study. Dependence on God, or faith, is the first element of our new existence, the great antagonistic principle to the old nature - “whatsoever is not of faith is sin”. My will in nature being errant, all my power, natural or acquired, acts so as to sustain what is wrong, that is, my natural will. But in the life of Christ and in the sensibilities of His nature, I am constantly finding that difficulties occur to me in my path here, all the greater because my will runs counter to God’s will. Nay, more, I find that many new desires are awakened within me, which I have no power in nature to gratify. In both these cases I learn that I must lean on God; and as I lean on Him, and know what is His mind or intention towards me, so I have faith or confidence in Him about any given result.
It is evident we know too little of this blessed sentiment, and this arises from our great self-dependence. Whether it be as regards difficulties in our path unsurmounted, or good desires ungratified, we do not lean sufficiently on the Lord, and have not the sweet and invigorating consciousness of His direct assistance in supplying our need. We are constantly helped by His mercy and providence, and though we may then recognise His hand and thank Him for it, yet this is not walking in faith. Faith, I repeat, is the great principle of life. I open my eyes, confident that I [p. 360] shall see - if I did not see it would be a marvel to me; and every demand that my natural mind makes on me assumes that my life and strength are equal to that demand, and will accord it. So likewise with living faith. My difficulties and desires are before the Lord. I know that they are, and I know that He is the true source of help; and as I make demand on Him, I know that He will answer me according to my sense of His power and grace as engaged for me. A man who estimates his own powers aright would never tax them beyond their ability, wisely ordered, but so far as he knows their ability, he can tax them to the utmost; so faith draws on God in proportion as He is known. It is a secret conviction, known only to myself, of God’s grace towards me. I rest in it; my heart is strengthened and blessed by it. There is nothing more blessed than to have an individual secret between our souls and God - that God who gave His Son for us. This is always the proof to us of what His heart is, for “He that spared not his own Son... shall he not with him also freely give us all things?”
Now then, seeing that faith is an individual secret, how comes it that so many desire that that which is so close, personal, solemn and divine should be demonstrated by evidences that will convince the crowd? Your secret exists, and you cannot and ought not to explain it, it is too sacred; and yet you wish that the public should know that this sacred confidence has produced certain results in a very distinguished manner. That there will be results there can be no question, perfect results, according to the demand you made, and according, as I have said, to your sense of God’s power and love as engaged for you; but that the results or answer should be palpable to anyone outside the range of the necessity, I cannot and must not expect. Suppose I entrust my difficulties or desires to a human friend, who I am sure will co-operate with me and relieve me; is it necessary that in doing so he [p. 361] must publish his assistance and service? By no means. If he has convinced me of it, no matter how he accorded it, he has assured the affection and confidence which reckoned on him; and this we desire from a friend far more than that others should acknowledge what he has done. God in His love wants to make known His heart to our souls, and He answers our faith so as to make us feel that it is He alone that has done it; He does not demonstrate it to others. Nay more, He will often make it of very insignificant appearance, in order that the soul may be kept in the blessing of the secret assurance of faith, which will progress, step by step, with the evidence, if the evidence is not too great to make faith no longer necessary. The moment we walk by sight we are outside of faith. God would never have us outside faith; hence, even in answering our faith, He so answers it that we want it again the next moment, even while we are enjoying the result of it. He cannot distinguish man as man, but He loves man and will make the man who is depending on Him to feel it; consequently, in order to keep the soul in full blessing, the Lord must keep it in dependence; and if He communicates to my own heart the answer to my faith, He has done all I have required of Him. The apostle Paul knew God’s love and power in the answer which he received to his faith in the salvation of the crew (Acts 27), though to human eye it was a sorry provision and a scrambling escape to save 276 souls, “some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship”.
But what matter how man judged, if the heart of the apostle had its secret confidence in God responded to? If he knew that the power of God had interposed for him, he was not careful that others should know more than the result.
In the passage before us, 1 Kings 18: 41 - 46, which is referred to in James 5 as an example of “effectual fervent prayer”, we find, first, the faith which can say to Ahab, “Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain”. Faith cometh by hearing; the intimation had reached the prophet, he had heard the sound thereof; he had the secret consciousness in his soul that he was drawing on the power and goodness of God to meet the case, and he could speak of what that power would accomplish, though as yet he had no more intimation of it than a “sound”. No one understood this “sound” but himself, neither could he communicate it to another, although he could speak of the effect of it. This conviction the soul obtains in communion with God. It is but a conviction - a “sound”; but yet it is the warrant to the soul, knowing the strength and grace it rests on, to expect an amount of relief commensurate to it. In a word, I am resting on the strength and grace of God, and my soul receives the conviction of what His power can and will do. Elijah can without hesitation propose to the king to get up, eat and drink, in the assured hope of rain. But what is his own course? He retires to the top of Carmel, casts himself upon the earth, and puts his face between his knees. This teaches us the condition of a believing soul. It has the intimation of the coming blessing, and can speak of it. But this does not lead to indifference or indolence; nay, rather, the soul, filled with the wondrous reality of trusting God, is engrossed with Him the more as the answer approaches. According to the exhortation in Colossians 4: 2, it continues in prayer, and watches in the same with thanksgiving. The prophet sends his servant to look toward the sea, but there is nothing to be seen at first. The word is, “Go again seven times”; prayer and watching must be perfected. “And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he” (the servant) “said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand”. Could there possibly be a smaller indication of coming rain? A cloud the size of a man’s hand is hardly visible on the horizon. What patience [p. 363] to send seven times! What carefulness of observation to discern anything so insignificant, and after all to learn so little! But faith wanted no more; the soul rested in God, and only prayed and watched until demonstration was granted; and at the smallest notice the heart was entirely assured, and the prophet tells Ahab, “Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not”. Thus are we instructed in the nature of the “effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man”, that is, one seeking to go rightly. No one can lean on God to be sustained in what is wrong; but to be sustained in and strengthened for what is right is not only to be expected, but it is a sin if we seek relief elsewhere, because we must, in that case, be leaning on something besides God, and whatever we lean on we magnify.
In conclusion, we need, first, faith, the secret conviction of help from God, and from Him only, to invigorate the soul with a sense of the power and love which is engaged for it.
Secondly, we need the praying, wakeful condition of soul which is conscious of the solemn blessing vouchsafed to it until the moment of fulfilment comes.
Lastly, not to seek great or pompous evidences of the fulfilment, but with the true sensibility of affection to interpret the smallest notification, because I know the One whom I count on. The more intimate any one is with another, the sooner and more easily will they understand their simplest gestures.
The Lord give us grace to walk in the life of the one blessed Man who was down here, ever leaning on God, ever sensible in Himself of the sweet consciousness that He could count on the power and love of God; who could say, “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always”; and this is the blessed One, who is our life, and who lives for us, “to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen”.