The Fear of Faith
“By faith, Noah moved with godly fear, prepared an ark.” — Huz., xi. 7,
5 ong are many who suppose that, when the word of God says, “Blessed is the man that feareth always,” it is commending a disposition that is at variance with the rest and assurance that are given by faith, And they thus regard this unbelief as a sort of virtue: they fear this great and holy God, and they fear their own weakness and unfaithfulness, and they dare not believe. This view is altogether out of harmony with the word of God; for the word teaches us that fear and confidence must go hand in hand with each other. “Many shall see it and fear, and shall trust in the Lord” (Ps. xl. 3), “Ye that fear the Lord, trust in the Lord” (Ps, exv. 11), “Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear Him, upon them, that hope in His mercy” (Ps. xxxiii, 18), Fear 5
C6 WHY DO YOU NOT BELIEVE?
and confidence go in union: the one increases the other.
Very clearly is this truth set before us in the history of Noah. “By faith Noah, being warned of God concerning things not seen as yet, moved with godly fear, prepared an ar ge The fear was partly the fruit of his faith, and partly a motive to make his faith active in the building of the ark. He believed the announcement of the avenging flood, and feared; feared in view of the destruction that was to overtake his fellow-men, and in view of the holy God from whom the judgment was to proceed. He feared, and therefore he cleaved in strong faith to the promise of the ark, and worked at it as the only means of preservation. Fear and trust were with him inseparable, the one indispensable to the other.
Anxious soul, you fear the Lord, you fear His holiness and His judgments, and you say that it is out of veneration for Him that you do not dare to believe. You say that you are too unworthy in the presence of such a holy and dreadful God to appropriate the right of being called His child, and of speaking to Him with confidence. O that you knew how grievously you are mistaken. There is nothing that so much tends to arouse in the Lord the sense of dishonour and anger as unbelief — not believing His word, that He has compassion on all the unworthy. There is nothing on which God so much sets His honour as His free grace and His pity for the ungodly. You wound Him in the most tender point when you doubt if His grace is indeed for you, and so drag its greatness and trustworthiness into doubt. O souls, when you fear the Lord, pray, fear to dishonour Him by unbelief.
But, no: you say that it is not the Lord, but yourselves that you doubt. You fear on account of your unfaithfulness, your insincerity. And do you not then understand that it is just this fear of yourselves that is the strongest argument for your casting yourselves upon the Lord and entrusting yourselves to Him. O soul, pray, seek no longer something in yourselves; for, if you wait until you no longer fear for yourselves, you will never come to Christ at all. God never asks you for an engagement to be faithful on which He can rely. No: He gives you a promise of faithfulness on which you can rely. And just because you fear your own unfaithfulness, you must place your confidence on God’s faithfulness. Herein just lies the glory of free grace, that the sinner, who cannot trust himself, who feels that in everything — in faith, in humility, in earnestness, in sincerity he comes far short, may yet surrender himself to the Lord as one who is utterly wretched, with confidence in the word that He certainly receives, and will keep such an one. Yea: ib is he who fears on his own account that must trustinthe Lord. This is the only remedy. He has nothing on which he can hope but the promise of God’s compassion. Every thought of fear must be a new motive to confidence. So shall he learn to fear no more, according to the word of the psalmist: ‘Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord: his heart is established, he shall not be afraid” (Ps. exii. 1, 8). He shall also learn to experience that the fear of the Lord then becomes through confidence the source, not of anxiety but of peace and growing power, according to that other word: ‘The Church, walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, was multiplied” (Acts ix. 31).
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The Certainty of Faith
‘*Tiooking unto the promise of God, he wavered not through unbelief, being fully assured that what He had promised He was able also to perform.” — Rom. iv. 20, 21,
BRAHAM did not doubt. Glorious testimony to provoke us to jealousy, and thus
to the imitation of his example. Therefore the word also gives us to know what the power was in virtue of which he obtained faith and brought all doubt to silence. The secret lay simply in the conviction: What God has promised, He is able also to perform. On this account he was assured, and whenever reflections and doubtings would arise, he always held before his eyes the incontrovertible argument: That which has been promised, God is able to perform. Hence it is that there stands written: ‘Without being weakened in faith, he considered his own body now as good as dead before Him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead and calleth the things that are not as though they were” (Rom. iv. 19, 17, RV.) To every question, “How can these things be? y there was his simple answer: “What God has promised He is able also to perform. For the Lord there is nothing too wonderful. It is not my business to be anxious, and to say how God’s word can be fulfilled. The Lord will see to it.”
My reader, you mourn over the power of your doubts, and say that you cannot overcome them: come, learn of Abraham how you can do this. The first thing that is necessary is that you understand and reflect what promise the Lord has given you. If the Lord has given no promises for you, then it cannot be your duty to believe. But, as surely as the word says “Believe,” is there also a promise which you must believe. To take only one out of the thousands which are in the Scriptures, ‘The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” God gives you the gracious promise, and commands you to believe it with all your heart. It is His will that you should receive it as the truth that His Son has come for all that are lost, hence also for you. He desires that you should believe that His Son seeks you and longs for you, and that His Son will save you.
God wills that you should ponder this thought and cherish it in your heart, until your whole soul takes its stand on this truth: Jesus seeks me, lost as I am; there is grace for me. As soon as you believe that, the Saviour begins to come in to you.
If now you have reached this first point, if you know that there is a promise also for you, then the second duty is not to look into yourselves to know if there is hope that what you expect will take place. As Abraham did not regard his own body, which was already dead, so must you not regard your own dead soul. Although you feel yourself to be dead, powerless, insincere, very sinful, although you are lacking in penitence, earnestness, and in all else that you know you ought to have, still act like Abraham: believe on God, who maketh the dead alive, and calleth the things that are not as though they were. Act like Abraham, and cast down every doubt with the thought: “What God has promised He is able also to perform.” Keep your mind occupied with this certain truth: He is come to save that which was lost, and there is no lost one so far lost that Jesus cannot find him and cannot save him.
Once again, it comes simply to these two points: know if there is a promise for you, lost sinner; if so, then cleave simply to this fact:
What has been promised He is able also to perform. ‘Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. I will no longer dishonour Thee by doubtings: Thy power, Thy love, Thy faithfulness, I will adore and trust. I will venture to surrender my soul to Thee. Although I feel it not, I will believe it. Thou seekest and savest that which is lost. Lord, help: I do believe.”