Monday, October 18, 2021

Faith's Triplets

 "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