"The narrative before us seems to me to suggest three points, and those points each of them triplets.
I. To begin, then, with the first point. It seems to me that we have before us FAITH IN THREE OF ITS STAGES.
When faith begins in the soul, it is but as a grain of mustard seed.
God's people are not born giants.
They are babes at first; Faith is but as a little child, when first God gives it; or to use
another figure, it is not a fire, but a spark, a spark which seems as if
it must go out, but which is nevertheless fanned and kept alive until
it cometh to a flame, like unto the vehement heat of Nebuchadnezzar's
furnace.
--There is a nobleman living at Capernaum; he hears a rumor that a
celebrated prophet and preacher is continually going through the cities
of Galilee and Judea, and is given to understand that this mighty
preacher does not merely enthral every hearer by his 
eloquence, but wins
the hearts of men by singularly benevolent miracles which he works as a
confirmation of his mission.
--He stores these things in his heart,
little thinking that they would ever be of any practical service to him.
--It comes to pass on a certain day that his son falls sick,—perhaps his
only son, one very dear to his father's heart,—the sickness, instead of
diminishing, gradually increases. Fever breathes its hot breath upon the
child, and seems to dry up all the moisture in his body, and to blast
the bloom from his cheek. The father consults every physician within his
reach; they look upon the child and candidly pronounce him hopeless. No
cure can possibly be wrought. That child is at the point of death; the
arrow of death has almost sunk into his flesh; it has well nigh
penetrated his heart; he is not near death merely, but at death's very
point; he has been forced by disease upon the barbed arrows of that
insatiate archer. The father now bethinks himself. and calls to
recollection the stories he had heard of the cures wrought by Jesus of
Nazareth.
--His faith has got to such a stage that, as soon as he sees the master,
he begins to cry, "Lord, come down ere my child die."
--The Master,
instead of giving him an answer which might console him, rebukes him for
the littleness of his faith, and tells him, "Except ye see signs and
wonders, ye will not believe."
--The man, however, pays little regard to
the rebuke, for there is a desire which has absorbed all the powers of
his soul. His mind is so overwhelmed with one anxiety, that he is
oblivious of all beside. "Sir," said he, "come down ere my child die."
--The Master stretched out his hand and said, "Go thy way, thy son
liveth."
Q: Do you see the face of that nobleman? Those furrows that were
there seem smoothed in a moment, all gone. Those eyes are full of tears,
but they are of another sort now—they are tears of joy. The father goes his way
cheerfully, quickly, contentedly, trusting in the word which as yet no
evidence has confirmed.
--He has now come to the second stage of his
faith; he has come out of the seeking stage into the relying stage. He
no more cries and pleads for a thing he has not; he trusts and believes
that the thing is given to him, though as yet he has not perceived the
gift.
--On his road home, the servants meet him with joyful haste; they
say, "Master, thy son liveth." He enquires quickly at what hour the
fever left him. The answer is given him,—about the seventh hour the
fever abated; nay, it stayed its course.
--Then he comes to the third
stage. He goes home; he sees his child perfectly restored. The child
springs into his arms, covers him with kisses; and when he has held him
up again and again to see if he was really the little one that lay so
wan, and pale, and sick, he triumphs in a higher sense still. His faith
has gone from reliance up to full assurance; and then his whole house
believed as well as himself.
II. And now we come to the second department of our subject, the
THREE DISEASES TO WHICH FAITH IS VERY SUBJECT, and these three diseases
break out in different stages.
--First with regard to seeking faith. The power of seeking faith
lies in its driving a man to prayer And here is the disease; for we are
very likely, when we are seeking to begin, to suspend prayerfulness... never cease to pray. A man can never sink in the river of wrath so long
as ever be can cry. So long as ever you can cry to God for mercy, mercy
shall never withdraw itself from you.
--The disease which is most likely to fall upon those in the second
stage,—namely, those who are trusting implicitly on Christ,—is the
disease of wanting to see signs and wonders, or else they will not
believe.
*I do not wish to say this to hurt any tender conscience, which
conscience may perhaps have found some little comfort in such singular
wonders, but I only say this honestly, lest any of you should be
deceived: I do solemnly warn you to place no reliance whatever on
anything you think you have seen, or dreamed, or heard. This volume is
the sure word of testimony, unto which ye do well if ye take heed, as
unto a light which shineth in a dark place. Trust in the Lord; wait
patiently for him.
Having thus spoken of these two diseases, I will only just mention the
other.
--There is a third then, which lies in the way of our attaining the
highest degree of faith, namely, full assurance, and that is, want of
observation.
The nobleman in our text made careful enquiries about the
day and the hour when his son was healed. It was by that he obtained his
assurance.
But we do not observe God's hand as much as we should. Our
good puritanic forefathers, when it rained, used to say, that God had
unstopped the bottles of heaven. When it rains now-a-days, we think the
clouds have become condensed. If they had a field of hay out, they used
to plead of the Lord that he would bid the sun shine. We, perhaps, are
wiser as we think; and we consider it hardly worth while to pray about
such things, thinking they will come in the course of nature.
They
believed that God was in every storm, nay, in every cloud of dust. They
used to speak of a present God in everything; but we speak of such
things as laws of nature, as if laws were ever anything, except there
was some one to carry them out, and some secret power to set the whole
machine in motion. We do not get our assurance, because we do not
observe enough.
III. And now I come to my third and last head, upon which solemnly,
though briefly, there are THREE QUESTIONS TO BE ADDRESSED TO YOU ABOUT
YOUR FAITH.
--First, then, thou sayest, "I have faith." Be it so. There be
many a man who saith he hath gold that hath it not, there be many that
think themselves rich and increased in goods, that are naked, and poor,
and miserable.
--I say unto thee, therefore, in the first place, does thy
faith make thee pray? Not the praying of the man who prates like a
parrot the 
prayers he has learned; but dost thou cry the cry of a living
child? Dost thou tell to God thy wants and thy desires?
And dost thou
seek his face, and ask his mercy?
Man, if thou invest without prayer,
thou art a Christless soul; thy faith is a delusion, and thy confidence
which results from it, is a dream that will destroy thee.
--But thou sayest, "I have faith." I will ask thee a. second question.
Does that faith make thee obedient? Jesus said to the nobleman, "Go thy
way," and he went without a word, however much he might have wished to
stay and listen to the Master, he obeyed. Does your faith make you
obedient?
--I will ask you one more question about your faith, and I have done. Thou
sayest, "I have faith." Has thy faith led thee to bless thy household?
Good Rowland Hill once said, in his own quaint way, that when a man
became a Christian, his dog and his cat ought to be the better for it.
Do I hear one saying, "I keep my religion to myself?" Do not be very
anxious about its ever being stolen, then; you need not put it under
lock and key; there is not enough to tempt the devil himself to come and
take it from you. A man who can keep his godliness to himself has so
small a proportion of it, I am afraid it will be no credit to himself,
and no blessing to other people.
You think they cannot be saved: look at yourselves, he that saved you can
save them. Go to him in prayer, and say, "Lord, I will not let thee go
except thou bless me;" and if thy child be at the point of death, and,
as you think, at the point of damnation on account of sin, still plead
like the nobleman, "Lord, come down ere my child perish, and save me for
thy mercy's sake."
Charles Spurgeon