Dealing With The Impossible                                               12/7/41

 

Scripture:  Matthew 17: 14-21

 

Text:  Matthew 17: 20.  “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say to this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”

 

The confidence with which the human spirit can meet difficulties is magnificent.  All of us live daily with problems we can not solve, wants we can not satisfy, sicknesses we can not cure, with sins that we can not master; with death which we can not escape.  But we do not mean to be beaten by impossibilities.  We all want to take life in courageous stride.

 

It is the function of our religion to equip us for the mastery of our difficulties.  Religion lives and moves and has its being in the realm of hardship, of mystery, and of danger.  I think I have observed that those who meet these difficulties most successfully are those whose religion runs deepest and most genuine.  (most futile - no religion)

 

When effort has gone as far as it can; when knowledge finds its limit, and when goodness is not enough, then and through faith and prayer, religions begins.

 

Think again upon our text for this morning:  “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say to this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you.”  Charles Heimsath, whose thought I am borrowing heavily this morning, suggests that this text represents faith as man’s answer to the impossible!  The problem of difficulty becomes the practical problem of living by faith.

 

When we live by faith, we discover the seed of possibility in almost every “impossible” situation.  Faith is not a gullible belief in the impossible; it is seeing the possible in what appears impossible.

 

It is primarily faith that keeps scientists and doctors busy at the impossible, until malaria is practically conquered.  It is faith that keeps them at research, year after year, for the understanding and cure of cancer.  It was faith that bought our freedom, and it will be faith that shall preserve it.

 

Dean Charles R. Brown said that he believed faith can remove mountains because he had so often seen faith remove mountains.  The insight of faith changes what seems an impossibility in the physical world to beneficial possibility.  A bolt of lightning seems an impossibly dangerous thing to fool with.  And it is.  But Benjamin Franklin, with his kite, finds the electric current in it (it is a wonder he didn’t get knocked out) and Edison turns that current to myriad uses for the benefit of mankind.  A flooding river offers only seeming terror and destruction, but engineers are able to capture even the floods behind dams and in reservoirs; to turn the raging terror to power and production.

 

In human relations, too, faith has the power to remove the mountains of misunderstanding and unhappiness which loom like impossibilities before us.  We live daily with questions like these;  “How can I meet that note?”  “Do I still have her love?”  “Can my son make good?”  “What will the doctor say?”  “Shall I be found out?”  “How can I get that job?”  “How shall I settle that problem at the office so that it will be done right?”  These, or other, questions haunt us as impossibilities until seen again with the eyes of faith.  Look at the old mountain again with eyes of faith; perhaps you will find the seed of possibility in it!

[President Brownell of Northland College - walls - receding horizons.   Dr. McCune, while President of Huron College - endowment campaign - deadline - couldn’t make it - prayed - “sassed” God - answer]

 

We must use our faith in dealing with the impossible, because “faith is not an abstract way of thinking, but a creative way of living.”  The worst possible thing that can happen is to be thoroughly whipped by a difficulty; to acknowledge oneself completely stopped by a difficulty.  That means doing nothing - which is the worst possible thing to do in the face of a needed accomplishment.

 

One word of caution is needed here.  There is a vast difference between complete mental quitting on the one hand, and on the other, waiting, meditating, turning over in the mind suggestions, watching alert for the God-given guiding answer to our prayers  of faith.  “They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.”  But that is not quitting.  That is getting on the right track in order to mount as eagles.

 

(Fishermen who fished all night on one side of the boat - In morning Jesus said try the other side of the boat.)

 

Try something else.  When old ways leave the mountain unmoved, try something else!

 

Faith is not, as a little boy explained, “Believing what you know ain’t so.”  That is hallucination.  Faith is a creative way of living, living with hope and courage and satisfaction.  Its opposite is not unbelief, but impotence.

 

A mountain is a dead, inert thing.  A living seed, even so small as a mustard seed, has the possibility of beginning the process of moving that mountain.  The bulk of the mountain is only a time factor.  The living thing can move it.

 

When we live by faith, we get on the Universe’s right track.  We make alliance with universal resources.  In the seed of faith is promise, and energy.  In it also is a living response.  No matter how humble its home, its home is in the universe and its action counts.

 

Again, the opposite of faith is not doubt, but disharmony.  Christian faith is much more than knowledge; it is obedience to truth; willingness to act on truth.  It is conscience added to insight.  A man remarked, “It is not what I do not know about God that bothers me, but what I know all too well!”  It may be that the power to do the impossible will come only when we are completely willing to lay hold of that power by our honesty, truth, goodness and love.

 

We sometimes take it for granted that the grace of Christ is freely available to all.  Better think that over again.  Jesus was strangely reserved toward some.  In the gospel of John is that remarkable observation that “Many believed in his name, --- but Jesus did not commit himself unto them.”  [John 2: 23,24].  Why should he not trust himself unto them?  Because they did not trust themselves to him!  They had knowledge, but they were unwilling to undertake the risks of unreserved friendship and love for him.

 

Someone [Dean Swift] said that the first man who ate the first oyster took a tremendous risk of faith.  So did the first man to follow Christ take a tremendous risk.  There are two sides to an effort of faith.  Only when we trust our brother is there an answering trust in the human heart.  Only when we trust God, can there be an answering trust from the divine.  But are not those answering trusts worth the risks?

 

Jesus said, on this subject of faith, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”  The man who lives by faith in God has a holding in the unseen which he can draw on in time of need.  Christians are not called on to confront the grim impossibilities of life alone.  Always standing beside the man of faith is the One who has never known defeat.

 

(Alpine guide - “Here man, take this hand.  It has never lost a man.”     God likewise).

 

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Dates and places delivered:

 

            Wisconsin Rapids, December 7, 1941

            Union Observance of the Week of Prayer, at Methodist                          Church, Wisconsin Rapids, January 7, 1944