A Sermon
Delivered
on Sunday Morning, January 12, 1851
BY THE REV. C. G. FINNEY,
(Of the Oberlin Collegiate
Institute, America,)
AT THE TABERNACLE,
MOORFIELDS
Modernized by Cliff Collins
“He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God.” (Romans 4:20)
These
words were spoken about Abraham, as you will see by reading the context that
this passage is found in. Faith is the
heart’s confidence in God. This is
faith in its generic form; its specific form relates to particular things:
belief in the promises, in Christ, in the doctrines of the Bible, and in all
the various declarations that God makes in His word. This specific form of faith differs from faith in its generic or
simple form, which implies a general confidence in the existence, attributes,
and character of God. Our mind’s
resting in these things is faith. That
is faith in its simple form. Notice,
faith in God is not simply agreeing to these things, nor a mere intellectual
conviction that they are true; but faith is the heart, the mind, and the will,
resting in this truth: that God is, that He possesses certain attributes, and a
certain character. Faith in its
specific form is the belief of the heart in what God has declared, a belief in
His wisdom and goodness; in His declarations concerning Christ, and in all
those things that He has said and promised.
Faith develops in many ways; but the root of faith is a heart confidence
in God Himself.
In speaking from
the passage I have chosen for my text this morning, I plan to examine:
I. SOME THINGS IN
THE WORD OF GOD THAT ARE DESIGNED TO TRY THE FAITH OF FINITE MINDS.
II. SHOW HOW FAITH
DEALS WITH THESE THINGS; AND THAT TRUE FAITH IS NOT SUBDUED AND OVERCOME BY
CONSIDERATING THESE THINGS.
III. I SHALL SHOW
THE GREAT OBJECT OF THESE TRIALS OF FAITH
IV. PROFESSING
CHRISTIANS THAT STUMBLE OR STAGGER OVER THESE THINGS LOSE THE BLESSING THAT
NATURALLY FOLLOWS FROM THEM.
I.
I shall examine SOME OF THE THINGS THAT ARE DESIGNED TO TRY THE FAITH OF GOD'S
CREATURES.
One that is very
common and most striking is the existence of so much evil and misery in this
world. God declares that He knows all
about it. He affirms that He is
omnipotent and omniscient; He is everywhere present, knows all things, and is
all-powerful. He declares that He is,
and disposed to do good. Now, that
under the government of such a being as this, the fact that there is so much
evil, so much that is sinful, and so much misery tries the faith of men. That these things should exist, and can be
observed everywhere in this world to such a great extent is, to many minds, a
great mystery. It seems so difficult to
reconcile this with the existence and declared attributes of God, that they stumble,
and even call into question the fact that there is a God at all. Another thing that God mentions, and our
reason agrees, is the existence of a providence that guides and controls all
events. That God has a plan in
everything that He does; that at the very beginning God had a plan, and that,
in what He does, He is pursuing this plan to its accomplishment; and that this
plan proceeds from a Being who is infinitely good and infinitely wise.
Now the existence
of the evil that there is in this world does not seem to harmonize with the
things that God says about Himself. It
doesn’t seem to agree with His wisdom and goodness. Many minds, therefore, find great difficulty in getting over
these facts, and it is more than unbelief ever can accomplish. Please understand that I am not here today
to explain this, but simply to mention the facts that supports unbelief, and
which are designed to try the faith of God’s creatures. The introduction of sin into this world, and
its existence in the world can test the faith of the holiest beings in the
universe. There is no doubt that they
were unable to comprehend for a time why God allowed such a state of things to
exist. The reason for all this may have
gradually developed itself, but at first the difficulty that was presented to
their minds could have only been overcome by faith. How this is done, I will explain in a little while.
The way that the
Bible reveals God is also a great stumbling block to many. Let’s take the doctrine of the Trinity, for
example. Many stumble over it because
they can’t understand it any better than they can understand a great many other
things. Because they can’t understand
it they reject it, and say that it can’t be, and so they refuse to accept it
simply because they can’t explain it.
The same is true concerning the incarnation of the Son of God. Many men, because they can’t understand how
humanity and Deity can be united, reject the doctrine and will not believe
it. They openly admit this. There is no reason to deny that these
doctrines are very mysterious because that would be absurd and unnecessary; but
these declarations are announced as facts: that God was in Christ, that Christ
was both God and man. Of course, it is
readily admitted that this declaration is a great trial to the faith of finite
creatures; but then the announcement is made by God Himself and should be
believed. The doctrine of the atonement
is another stumbling block to men. That
God should give His own Son to die for the sins of mankind, and that He should
actually suffer, is a difficulty that can only be overcome by faith. But unbelief will raise many objections and
reject them.
The resurrection,
the doctrine of justification by faith, the doctrine of sanctification by
faith, and all the other doctrines of the Bible, are stumbling blocks to the
minds of men. In fact, individuals who
find no difficulties in them have no faith, and show that they really haven’t
thought about them; but no matter how difficult they may be, it is ten thousand
times more absurd to disbelieve than to exercise faith in them, since they are
based on the testimony of God Himself.
Nevertheless, unbelief finds many reasons to reject them. The mind that has no confidence in God
refuses to believe, because it cannot explain how these things could be
true. Of course, such a mind will
stumble and stagger every step of the way.
The way that sin
was introduced into this world is also a great stumbling block to those who
have no confidence in God, and can’t rest on that revealed fact unless they can
explain it. Of course, if they can’t receive
what God says unless He tells them why He does everything, they will find it
very difficult to accept these truths.
Suppose a child has no confidence in her Father, and therefore she wants
to know why her father does everything that he does, and she wants him to
satisfactorily explain how and why everything was done before she can believe
it. Can you see that a family of such
unbelievers, stumbling and staggering at every step, would have no confidence
in their father at all? For if he was
conducting a very extensive and complex business venture, they could not
understand as children, what, perhaps, many adults would not comprehend even if
it were explained to them. It is absurd
for the children not to put confidence in their father because they can’t
understand the reasons for everything he does.
The very greatness
of God’s promises is often a severe test of faith. God promises things so great to people so undeserving, indeed so
ill-deserving, that unbelief finds it difficult to believe God, because He says
and promises so much.
The
providence of God is often a great test of faith. How remarkable was the conduct of God towards Abraham, and how it
was so perfectly designed to test his faith.
He called Abraham out of his father’s house, and Abraham obeyed, not
knowing where he was being called to.
God had reasons in His own mind for calling Abraham. God intended to make of Abraham a great
nation, and through Abraham communicate His will to men, and that from his
family the Savior of men would be born.
But God didn’t say one word to Abraham about His plans. He called Abraham from his country of Ur,
and told him to go to a certain place that He would show him. After Abraham had obeyed the command, God
promised to give him a certain land for him and his seed after him; and although
he had no family, God called him and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count
the stars if you are able to number them.”
Then God promised that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars
in the sky, (Gen 15:5) and that He would give him the land of Canaan for a
possession, and make him the father of many nations.
This
promise was delayed for a very long time.
Abraham patiently lived in the land that was promised to him for a
possession only on sufferance, yet we see no signs of any stumbling in his
faith. After a long period of time had
elapsed, God promised Abraham that he would have a son by his wife Sarah. Now both Abraham and Sarah were very old,
she was long past the age when it was common for women to have children;
nevertheless, Abraham believed that God would do what He had promised. Those who will read and seriously think
about all the circumstances connected with the trial of Abraham’s faith will
see that he must have been very severely tried indeed. Now, listen! After a long time, this promised son was born. The lad grew, when suddenly God takes
Abraham by surprise, as He seems to do quite often, and says, “Take now your
son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and
offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall
tell you”. (Gen 22:2) He not only says to Abraham, “take your
son”, but he reminds him that it is his only son, whom he loves; and it is this
son, this son of promise, this beloved son, whom he is to offer on the altar.
Now,
this couldn’t have made any sense at all; yet, Abraham did not waiver. He believed that God was able to raise his
son from the dead. His faith was so
strong that there is no indication that he was upset or distressed over it; he
doesn’t appear that he said anything to Sarah about what God had just told
him. He was so calm that Sarah was not
aware that anything was happening. The
next morning he got up early and took off with his servants to offer Isaac
where God was going to show him. When
they came in sight of the place, he told his servants to wait, lest they should
interfere with him when carrying out the command of God, saying, “Stay here
with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come
back to you”. (v.5) Abraham and his son went up the mountain where the
sacrifice was to be offered. Isaac had
no clue what was going to take place.
He did know that Abraham was going to offer a burnt offering, for they
had the fire and the wood, but he did not know that he was to be the
sacrifice. It didn’t occur to Isaac at
all, for he asked where the lamb was that Abraham intended to offer. So calm was Abraham, that Isaac did not
notice anything different in his manner; and to the question of his son,
Abraham replied, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt
offering.” (v.8) When Abraham had prepared
the altar, he bound Isaac and laid him on the wood, just as he would have done
a lamb, and then took the knife and as he was about to slay him, God called,
and said, “Abraham, Abraham”, repeating his name rapidly, to quickly get his
attention. “Do not lay your hand on the
lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have
not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” (v.12) Then Abraham lifted his
eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its
horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering
instead of his son.
God
did this to test the implicitness of Abraham’s faith; and this was as plainly
manifested as if he had sacrificed his son; for he sacrificed his son as far as
his mind was concerned. He believed
that God would raise him from the dead if sacrificed, for he had no doubt at
all that God would fulfill His promise.
(See Hebrews 11:17-19) Now this
is a beautiful exhibition and illustration of faith.
All this was designed to test Abraham, as I believe you realize. And the way that God very often fulfills His promises to men is often a great stumbling block to them. They expect God to fulfill His promises in one way, and God moves in the opposite direction, which is designed to completely undermine all their ideas of things. Now things like these are designed to test our faith in God. But strong faith will not allow itself to stumble over such things. Why should it? Faith immediately embraces all the attributes of God; and, therefore, it has confidence in Him, and does not try to understand everything before yielding the heart to Him. There are, and must be, millions of things that we can’t understand, nor would be useful for us to understand them right now.
II.
HOW FAITH DEALS WITH THESE DIFFICULTIES.
If
God's attributes are what He declares them to be, many things can’t be
explained to finite beings. Take the
doctrine of the Trinity for example. To
be sure, human reason can’t explain it, nor is any explanation called for. God simply announces the fact in the Bible,
that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are God. Now that God could manifest Himself in three
hundred thousand beings at the same time is not contrary to reason. For example, we find that at one time, before
the destruction of Sodom, three individuals appeared to Abraham, and one of them,
who is called Jehovah, informed Abraham what they were going to do, and Abraham
prayed to have Sodom saved. Do you
remember this section of Scripture? We
learn that there were three men, or apparently three; two of them probably were
angels in human form, and the third was no less a being than Jehovah
Himself. Now listen! Who can doubt but that God could have
assumed the same form in millions of situations at the same time in different
parts of the world, for there would be nothing contrary to reason in that. Therefore, there is nothing unreasonable in
believing that God could exist in three people or three hundred thousand
people! We say there is nothing
unreasonable in it. Who does not know
that there isn’t? What then, do men
mean when they say that they can’t believe in the Trinity? Why can’t they believe? What do such men think they know about
infinity? Can they declare the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, that these three, can’t exercise and manifest the
attributes of God? But since the fact
is announced, there doesn’t have to be a detailed explanation of it to the man
who has faith. Faith makes no effort to
understand it. If you object to this,
let me ask, how do you know that you exist?
“Oh yes”, you say, “we know we exist; we believe it”. What makes you believe it? Can you explain it? Did you choose your body? Can you tell the connection between matter
and spirit? How can you prove that you
exist?
Several years ago,
I was walking with a gentleman in the city of New York, and we were talking
about religion and the mind, and he stopped short, right in the street and
said, “you say this and that about the mind; now what is mind?” “If you tell me”, I said, “what matter is, I
will tell you what mind is”. “Why”, he quickly responded, “matter has the
property of extension, volume, and so forth”; but he didn't name any of the
primary physical attributes. I replied,
“mind wills, thinks, feels, and so forth”.
He looked at me quite astonished.
I continued, “you’ve told me some of the attributes of matter, can you
tell what those attributes are”? “I
don’t know”, he said. “Neither can I
explain what the substance of mind is.”
If
the wisest philosopher in the universe were standing in this pulpit, a little
child might ask him a question that he could not answer or explain any more
than we can explain the doctrine of the Trinity. Not one bit more. There
is not a single thing in the universe in all the kingdom of nature when you get
to the bottom of it, which is not as difficult to explain as any doctrine of
the Bible. Then, why believe in any or
all of these things? Why believe in
your own existence? The fact is, that
men will believe in these things even though they are mysterious until they
come to the subject of religion; because the world around them is so deeply
mysterious that there is not a single thing that they can perfectly understand,
yet they are able to believe in them.
Often, people don’t realize that there are mysteries in anything outside
of religion.
Now I know that
philosophy can partially explain many things, and many things that just a few
years ago were considered mysterious and even marvelous, are now
understood. Science has already placed
mankind in a position to explain the theory of many things that were deep
mysteries and spread them out before the minds of the people. But speaking generally, regarding both the
spiritual and the natural world, men have to live by faith. They believe in the
various things around them in the natural world although they may not be able
to understand them. The same is true of
spiritual things; there is a lot we must receive on testimony that cannot be
explained to us. In many cases, God
probably wouldn’t explain them to us even if we could understand them because
it would not be in our best interest, but He leads us step by step to a correct
understanding of things that may be useful and necessary for us to know.
Now, concerning
the question of sin and its necessary attendant, misery, as it exists in our
world; there is a mystery about it. Of
course, every mind agrees that where sin is, there misery should be; but the
question of wonder is, how sin came into the world, why was it permitted!
Man
was made superior to all the rest of the inhabitants of this globe; and we see
by his power, wisdom, and knowledge that man was designed to be the head of
this earth. But listen! Men are in rebellion against God. This is a
simple matter of fact. There is nothing
more certain in the universe than the fact that men as a race have defied,
rebelled, and ignored God. Now reason
tells us that the curse of God should be written on everything in the universe
in order to testify to God’s real character, and that it should not be
mistaken. But, while we see that God
does testify against sin, there are also indications that He has a strong
disposition to be merciful as far as He wisely can; but the difficulties are
many and great in the way of His forgiving sin. But let me say, faith in God does not find it very difficult to
remove all these obstacles.
Unbelief says sin exists, and looks at God’s government as a system of
moral laws. It does not appear that sin
can ever be forgiven because, in such a government, pardon is impossible. But faith proclaims that God is kind, wise,
and good, as well as infinitely powerful; misery and sin exist, but they are
allowed to continue in the world only for a wise purpose to assist in bringing
about the end at which God aims; for although sin is such a great abomination,
God will bring good out of it. Look at
the sin of Judas; the devil put it into his heart to betray the Son of God to
His enemies and to his dismay, he saw the greatness of his crime; but God
overruled their evil intentions. His
purpose was that the blood of his dear Son should be shed as an atonement for
sin.
Now, although we
can’t understand why God permits the existence of sin in the world at all,
faith can easily dispose of the difficulties that may suggest themselves. Faith believes that everything that God does
must be infinitely good and wise. The
fact is, unbelief in such matters is the most unreasonable thing in the
world. If you say that you won’t
believe anything until you understand it, why do you believe in your own
existence? Do you know everything about
the will? You move your muscles, but do you know how? Faith, I say, reasonably disposes of all these difficulties. Take Abraham's case. God promised that Abraham would have a son.
“I will have it”, he says; “I am very old, and Sarah is very old; but no matter
how old, God is able to give us a son”.
The child is born and is growing up when God calls to Abraham and tells
him to go and offer Isaac in sacrifice, and Abraham says, “I will go, God has a
good reason for His request. I know He
must have a good reason. He can only
have a good reason because He is infinitely good and wise. He cannot have made any mistake. The path I must walk is clear before me and
I will walk in it.” “Oh”, says
unbelief, “how will the promise be fulfilled that says ‘in Isaac shall your
seed be called’?” “I don’t know,"
says Abraham, "but God is able to raise Isaac from the dead.” Thus, you see his faith very quickly answers
every difficulty no matter how great that difficulty is. Now is there anything inconsistent with
reason in all this? Why no. Just look at it right in the face.
My own reason
tells me that God is infinitely perfect in all His attributes, everywhere and
in everything, and that either permissively or actively, God is involved in
everything that takes place. I find
myself in a universe surrounded by many things that I can’t explain and that
even God Himself could not explain to me because of my limited capacity, but
these things are true nevertheless; and as the law of progression operates, I
come to understand many things which were once dark and unexplainable to my
mind. And does not reason tell us that,
in the government of an infinite God, there must be an infinite number of
things that a finite mind cannot comprehend?
But when a man is in a spiritual state of mind, faith takes the place of
knowledge. The little child, for
instance, lives by faith. Human society
exists by faith; destroy all confidence, all faith, and society could not
exist; and no business could be transacted.
And in the spiritual state of man, faith is just as necessary. I have no time to dwell on this now. We now
come to explain briefly
III.
THE PURPOSE OF THESE TRIALS.
Everyone
can see that the greatest purpose of trials is to strengthen faith. I have
often heard it said, by intelligent people too, that in heaven faith will not
exist, because there, we shall walk by sight.
Now there is some truth in that, but there’s even more error. It is true that many things which we only
can believe here we will know there; but there will be a lot that will demand
our faith; for there must be. in the government of God, so much that it will
require millions of ages to understand, and we will go on acquiring knowledge
throughout eternity. And so, there will
be need for faith in God in eternity.
It will be as true in heaven as it is on earth. Suppose that the angels didn’t have any
faith, why the fall of man must have been a shock to the inhabitants of
heaven. But they believed that God had
some wise plan when He allowed man to fall.
Now this is the way faith disposes of everything; and no matter what
comes your way, there will be no alarm or doubt but everything will be all
right.
IV.
PROFESSING CHRISTIANS THAT STUMBLE OR STAGGER OVER THESE THINGS LOSE THE
BLESSING THAT NATURALLY FOLLOWS FROM THEM.
Everyone
can see must be true.
Oh,
I see that I am out of time. I must
close with one remark.
There
is no hope for those who will not believe God.
Suppose you had a family of children and they should lose confidence in
you because you have to leave home to go to work every day, they would stagger
and stumble at every step you took just because you could not explain to them
why you must disappear so often. You
say to them, “dear children, I cannot explain these things to you, I am working
for your good, therefore be quiet, be passive, and have confidence in me that
all will be well”. But if they won’t,
what can you do with them? They must
remain in their unbelieving, unconverted state. Now, the same is true in God's government. Many things can’t be explained to men and
yet they won’t exercise faith, and if they persist in their unbelief, they will
go stumbling and fretting to the gates of hell! Some people will take nothing on trust; they must constantly
question their Maker; and if He does not explain everything to them, they have
no confidence in Him. And so, the Bible
says that they shall have their part with liars in the lake of fire. My dear listeners, the most unreasonable and
blasphemous abomination in the world is unbelief.