FAITH
[p. 475] FAITH
Romans 10: 16, 17; Matthew 9: 27 - 31; Mark 9: 16 - 29; Matthew 14: 26 - 31
I wish to speak about faith. It is an extensive subject and in selecting the scriptures read I had in mind to confine my remarks to certain features. It is a subject of great importance always. Although it is scarcely mentioned in the Old Testament, it existed from the time sin entered into the world. I have no doubt that Adam had it, but as to this the Spirit of God begins with Abel; but that is in the New Testament. Hebrews 11 refers to Abel as acting by faith. The New Testament in Hebrews 11 gives us a list of persons who had faith, but they are not the only ones; it is only a selected list, to illustrate the great principle. There were many more. We shall see them in heaven presently when the Lord Jesus comes and raises them. “The dead in Christ shall rise first”.
So that whilst the word ‘faith’ is scarcely used in the Old Testament, the thing was there, and the word is used in Habakkuk. It is employed much in the New Testament. It characterises our dispensation. It is significant that the Lord says, “when the Son of man comes, shall he indeed find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18: 8). It enters into the present time. The saints have been obtaining light and ministry, enjoying fellowship together; they like to come together more than ever, but the question is how far faith enters into all this: whether, for instance, I have come to this meeting on that principle, whether our lives are based on that principle. Another scripture is very searching, namely, “whatever is not of faith is sin” (Romans 14: 23). And again, “he that draws near to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them who seek him out” (Hebrews 11: 6).
These scriptures apply to this moment and raise the question with everyone of us as to why he is here [p. 476] tonight. What is the basis of his position in God’s creation? Is it that he is merely born into it on natural lines, or is he in it on the principle of faith? It is one or the other. If it is not on the principle of faith, it is on a sinful basis and will not stand in the day of judgment, nor does it afford any fruit for God now. The divine thought is that the believer is pleasing to God. A reconciled person is pleasing to God at ALL times. Of Enoch it is said that before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God. One would not like to contemplate being translated to heaven unless he pleased God. Hence Enoch had that testimony before he was translated. And that immediately follows the statement that he had faith. By faith Enoch walked with God three hundred years. He afforded companionship for God. How can two walk together unless they be agreed? It is clear that God and Enoch had much communion (I speak reverently) during all those years. Enoch’s life was based on faith and afforded pleasure for God.
Now, how does faith come about in a person’s soul? Romans 10: 17 says that faith comes by hearing. The word ‘hearing’ more properly here is ‘report’, i.e. faith comes by report, but it is the report of something. The word is from Isaiah 53: 1, “Who hath believed our report?” It refers to Christ. It was something to be believed, or some person to believe on. Faith is an act on principle, but not alone, for “faith without works is dead”. But in coming into a man’s soul it is a living principle. It comes in by report, and the report is by God’s word.
Now all this is most important for us, dear brethren, for we must begin at the bottom, and this verse directs us to past history, as to when each of us began to act on the principle of faith. Can you recall when you started? It is by report, the apostle says, but not simply any gospel testimony that you might have heard. It is by God’s word. God’s word is living and operative, Hebrews 4: 12. The great testimony to all in God’s word is Christ. He is the Object set before your soul, so as to set it in movement. Let each one look back over his history and see when this began with him. Pardon the allusion to myself, but I remember very well when the light came to me. The word was, “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”. I remember well when I began to think and to move in that way, calling on the name of the Lord. Faith calls on God. It never makes myself an object. It makes God in Christ an Object. It also makes Christ an Object for the believer.
Now this is a matter for young people here to look into. When did your mind begin to work in answer to the light, when you saw a Person who became your Object, who became an Object for your heart? It was through the gospel preached unto you by the Holy Spirit sent forth from heaven. It is by this report that the truth is received in the soul. Faith becomes active as the report is received. You are active inwardly having found the Saviour, One whom you can love and serve. I wish now to illustrate how this works. In Matthew 9 there are two men who are blind, and they know that others received their sight through Christ. Blindness is one of the greatest afflictions, it is worse than deafness. These men knew that Christ could heal them, they had heard of His miracles. Why did not the Lord open their eyes at once? Well, He did not. I want to call your attention to verse 26: “And the fame of it went out into all that land”. What was that fame? There was a little girl, twelve years of age, who had died and was raised up by the Lord Jesus. His fame went abroad.
We all would have talked about that event if we had lived in the neighbourhood in that day. If you were not converted you might have said to a friend: ‘Did you [p. 478] hear about that girl? She died and Jesus of Nazareth raised her up’. But you might talk about the miracle and never accept the light. Or you might say, ‘I would like to get the Lord Jesus to do something for me’. Well, that is just what is in mind. These two men were thus affected. “As Jesus passed on thence, two blind men followed him, crying and saying, have mercy on us, Son of David”. Why did they call Him Son of David? Somebody else must have called Him that in their hearing. Normal conversations in christian households, bring out the titles of Jesus, and young people take them up; but is faith underlying all this? Is the movement of your mind towards Him? Is it that you have heard about someone who obtained blessing from the Lord, and you want to get something done? That is why the Lord is probing these two men.
He says to them in the house, “Do ye believe that I am able to do this?” Is this element with you, or is it only the fame you have heard that moves you? They called Him Son of David. It is always a good sign when a seeker of blessing says, “Lord Jesus”. These men said, “Son of David”. The Lord says, Are you governed by faith in this matter? Am I an object of faith in your souls? He says, “Do ye believe that I am able to do this?” They said, “Yea, Lord”. Now they use the word Lord, an excellent sign, instead of saying Son of David. Is He merely Son of David to you? When the Syrophenician woman called Him “Son of David” the Lord did not even answer her. Why should the Lord be silent when somebody says, My daughter has an unclean spirit? The designation in her mouth was out of range. He was not Son of David to her. She was not a Jewess. But He talked to her when she called Him Lord, at the same time accepting her gentile inferiority, Matthew 15: 21 - 28. He said, “thy faith is great”. It is the faith that one has that counts in God’s estimation. The blind men answered, “Yea, Lord”, as the Lord inquired [p. 479] if they believed, that He was able to open their eyes; but He was not satisfied with that, so the passage says, “Then he touched their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you”. If you have not faith, blessing cannot be obtained. All is on the principle of faith. Faith is the basic principle. It says, “he touched their eyes, saying, According to your faith, be it unto you. And their eyes were opened”. These two men had faith. That is what the Lord wanted to bring out. And He said, Do not tell other people about this. He would not have his works made the subject of unhallowed conversation. They are on the principle of faith. He straitly charged them saying, “See, let no man know it”. You say, Why? To prevent the mixture called christendom; the name of Christ put on millions of people who have not faith. God has no pleasure in that. If you get blessing from God it is because you have faith. “According to your faith, be it unto you”.
Now to go to Mark 9, it is a family matter. There was a discussion going on among the Lord’s disciples, and one of the multitude said to the Lord Jesus, “Teacher, I brought to thee my son, who has a dumb spirit; and wheresoever it seizes him it tears him; and he foams, and gnashes his teeth, and he is withering away”. It was a terrible description that may be applied to someone in a christian family. Matthew says he was a lunatic, one of the worst of all diseases. All of these terrible things mentioned happened, and Matthew says that the father said to the Lord, “I brought him to thy disciples, and they were not able to heal him”. That is to say, professing disciples of Jesus are powerless to help this man in his family matter. I cannot go into all the details, but Mark 9, verse 19 says, “Bring him to me. And they brought him to him. And seeing him, the spirit immediately tore him; and falling upon the earth he rolled foaming”. Satan outwitted himself there, he did his worst in Jesus’ presence. Bad enough to do it when Jesus is absent. What distress it caused the parents! Satan said, as it were, ‘I will show Him the power I have over someone in a christian household’. He did the worst he could do in the presence of Jesus. He was inviting the defeat, which happened. The Lord always has power over the devil. The Lord had said, “Bring him to me”. Satan said, ‘Yes, and I will show you what power I have;’ and so, “the spirit immediately tore him, and falling upon the earth he rolled foaming”.
The Lord took great pains to do the work well, and He took time to do it; in such cases we have to wait for the result. Why did he not cure the child at once? There might have been something wrong with the father. This boy had been affected from childhood. It was not a governmental thing, because of the child’s conduct. Childhood would mean infancy, for he is now called a young child, verse 24. The Lord said to his father: “How long a time is it that it has been like this with him? And he said, From childhood; and often it has cast him both into fire, and into waters that it might destroy him”. It is a household matter; a great sorrow day and night. The father says to the Lord, “if thou couldst do any thing ...” You see the ‘if;’ that IF was not expressing faith. The father thinks the Lord may be able to do it. The Lord did not like that, yet He is very patient with the man. The man said, “If thou couldst;” the Lord said: “The ‘if thou couldst’, is if thou couldst believe”. The Lord turns the if back on the man. It refers to the state of his soul. The IF applies to you and not to Me, the Lord says. In such sorrows the real difficulty often lies in the state of the parents of the household. “And immediately the father of the young child crying out said with tears, I believe”. No longer ‘if’. The Lord is saying, I want this man to be a man of faith. He needed help from Him, as well as his child. So verse 24 says: “the father ... crying out said with tears,
I believe”. The ‘if’ is going out of his vocabulary, and he will not again use it in regard of Christ’s power.
Faith is always certain. Even if we look at the heavens, it is by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. Men of science use ‘IF’ and ‘IT IS ASSUMED’, ‘WE BELIEVE’, etc., etc. Faith enables us to understand things. The father’s faith is specially noticed here. He says: “I believe, help mine unbelief”. To help him in his unbelief would be to take it away altogether, and that is what the Lord did. “But Jesus, seeing that the crowd was running up together, rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I command thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. And having cried out and torn him much, he came out; and he became as if dead, so that the most said, He is dead. But Jesus, having taken hold of him by the hand, lifted him up, and he arose”. That is, the father now has faith, and now his son is brought up from a dead condition. As I said, such sorrows enter into all our families. Satan invades a family to disfigure and dislocate the whole household. Here the father has acquired faith, and the Lord accepts it, and takes the boy by the hand and lifts him up. The Lord acting immediately, as He saw the people running together, was, it seems to me, to forestall another attack of Satan.
Finally we may look at Matthew 14. This is not a matter of blind men, or a sick child, but a great servant of Christ, Peter. This matter of faith is essential, and supremely so with those who profess to serve the Lord, and, of course, all of us should serve Him. They are in the ship without the Lord. The Lord put them there. He compelled them to go there, and He went up into a mountain to pray; and we are told that the sea was tossed by the waves, and the wind was contrary and in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them — the Lord allowed all of the watches to pass by until the [p. 482] fourth. We have to be patient and not to become sceptical; we have to wait on Him. Why did He not come before? He wanted them to go through the first, second and third watches. Such experiences must be gone through, if we are to get the gain the Lord has for us in His ways with us. So it says, “the wind was contrary. But in the fourth watch of the night He went to them, walking on the sea”. I would rather see Him walking on the sea than on the road. Wondrous sight! An impossibility to nature; a great miracle to the eyes of the disciples. He told His disciples about wars, in view of the last days: “ye will hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that ye be not disturbed; for all these things must take place, but it is not yet the end. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom” (Matthew 24: 6, 7). Do not be terrified!
In the midst of current conflict we are apt to be thinking only of the physical side, but here we see the Lord walking on the water, and it is as easy for Him to do so, as to walk on the street. We have to learn what these things mean; what Jesus is capable of, and whether we have faith in His power. So that when we see Him walking on the waters in a spiritual sense we are not surprised, we expect it. This miracle was intended to bring out the progress the disciples were making. The passage says, “And the disciples, seeing him walking on the sea, were troubled”. Why troubled? It was one of the greatest sights they could see. He said unto them: “Take courage; it is I: be not afraid”. What I am saying should challenge every one of us here. Such an action is what we should expect in troublous circumstances. It proves that the Lord is superior to everything here. I should expect it, and not be surprised. We shall see Him presently doing it. Many see Him now as infinitely above the present storm.
They cried out for fear. They are exposed as wanting in faith in Jesus, whose miracles they had seen many [p. 483] times. They did not have faith on Him as to this remarkable sign. “But Jesus immediately spoke to them, saying, Take courage; it is I”. Not “I, Jesus;” but “it is I”, the One you have been acquainted with for years, whose miracles you have seen, whose teachings you have received, and whom you have professed to love. Peter said, “if it be thou”. ‘Ifs’ again! Can there be any question? What am I using this IF for? It is not faith. It may be the Lord, or it may not be He; that is not faith at all. Peter said, “if it be thou, command me to come to thee upon the waters”. He puts the IF on Jesus. He will risk that much. The Lord said, “Come”. That is what He is saying to us now; are we ready to go without the if? God in His sovereignty, not the Lord, is governing these wars. God the Father is over these things. Presently Christ will deal with the nations with a rod of iron. He is now leading us in our spiritual wars: “Our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against principalities, against authorities” (Ephesians 6: 12). The Lord leads in that war, but not in the wars of airplanes and the like, but providentially God has to do with them. The government is one of God’s departments; Romans 13. When Jesus is on His own throne He will take on these matters. He is now moving in relation to His people. It will occasion great relief, if I can walk on the water to go to Jesus. Verse 29 says: “And Peter, having descended from of the ship, walked upon the waters to go to Jesus. But seeing the wind strong he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, Lord, save me”. That is, the strong wind was too much for him, and he began to sink. It is what he saw around that caused him to sink. His eye was off Christ. When you begin to occupy yourself with current happenings you give up hope. But still Peter said: “Lord, save me”, and the Lord caught him and said to him, “O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt?”
I want to just finish with that. I have said to the Lord many times lately, ‘Do not let that word ever be said to me — “O thou of little faith”’. The Lord will help each of us as He helped the man with the sick boy: “... help mine unbelief”. And this has in mind that He may not have to say, “O thou of little faith”. He does not like to have to say it to any of us, but He must say it if we are unbelieving. He would tell us of many instances in which He gives us credit for our faith. He said of the woman with the issue of blood, Matthew 9: 22, “thy faith has healed thee”. And to the woman in Simon’s house, “Thy faith has saved thee”. It is your faith. That is the idea. The Lord is looking for faith, and He gives us credit for whatever measure we have. The disciples said, “Give more faith to us”. The Lord said, “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye had said to this sycamine tree, Be thou rooted, and be thou planted in the sea; and it would have obeyed you” (Luke 17: 5, 6). If you tax the little you have, you will find it will grow. Faith increases as you use it.
May God bless the word.