How Can I Obtain Faith

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Romans 10:17

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

If I am thirsty, how shall I quench my thirst? By a draught of water. But in what way can I obtain water? It is enough to tell me to go to the tap or the fountain. There is no need to explain that the water is supplied by a reservoir, having been first drawn from the river, which received it from the clouds. To the thirsty all you want to say is, "There's the water, drink." A man is hungry, and he asks you, "How can I get bread? .... Go to the baker's," you say. If he wants to know how bread is obtained, we can give it to him at another time. And when you are dealing with an anxious person, it will suffice to say, "Faith cometh by hearing"; further information can be supplied under happier circumstances.

I. THE WAY BY WHICH FAITH COMES TO MEN. "By hearing."

1. Negatively. It does not come —

(1) By hereditary descent. The heirs of salvation are born, "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God." That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and nothing more.

(2) By sacraments. Is not faith a concomitant of regeneration? and what is that regeneration worth which leaves a person an unbeliever? Faith. cannot be sprinkled upon us, nor can we be immersed in it. It is not to be poured into us from a chalice, nor generated in us by consecrated bread.

(3) By feeling. Till certain men have felt what they have heard described in religious biography they cannot believe. You may get the best feeling from faith, but you will be long before you will find any faith worth having from frames and feelings.

(4) By dreams and visions. The notion is still current that if you dream of seeing Jesus, or if a passage of Scripture strikes you, or if you imagine that you hear a voice speaking to you, you are then a believer. Now, though you should see all the angels in heaven, it would not prove that you would go to heaven, any more than my having seen the Pope's bodyguard would be a proof that I shall be made a Cardinal. Moreover, men saw Christ, and yet blasphemed Him.

(5) Through the eloquence, earnestness, or any other good quality of the preacher. If so, being born of the power of the flesh, it will die, and so prove itself unlike the faith which springs from the incorruptible word of God, for that liveth and abideth for ever.

2. Positively: "Faith cometh by hearing." Sometimes faith has come into men's minds by hearing —

(1) The simple statement of the gospel. All some have wanted has been merely to be informed of the way of salvation.

(2) Of the suitability of the gospel to the individual case. While some have heard it preached as a gospel for sinners, they have felt that they were certainly among that class.

(3) Of the condescending pity and the melting love of Jesus. When such texts have been preached on "This Man receiveth sinners," "Come unto Me, all ye that labour," etc., that strain has touched the heart, and led the most hardened to believe in a Saviour so kind to the undeserving.

(4) Of its authority. There are persons who, when they have heard the gospel, have not at first believed it, but if the minister has been led to show that God has set His sanction upon it, they have yielded and given over all further question.

(5) Of the veracity of the sacred writers.

(6) The explanation of the gospel. When the preacher takes up one by one the soul difficulties which keep a man from looking to Christ, and when a man shows that all his help for salvation is laid upon one that is mighty, it has often happened that faith has come through the hearing of such an explanatory word.

(7) The gospel preached with peculiar soul-revealing pointedness. Remember the Samaritan woman.

(8) The experience of those who have tasted the word of life; when the preacher tells how he trusted in Jesus, and found peace; when he is able to point to others who have felt the same, then conviction and faith are wrought in the mind. To set the whole matter clearly: Suppose you are labouring under a very serious disease, and a physician professes to heal you, how would you get faith in him? By hearing. You hear him speak, and you perceive that he understands your case, for he describes exactly all your symptoms. He next describes to you as much of the method of cure as you can comprehend. Then you inquire as to the man's character; you find that he is a skilful practitioner. Moreover, suppose that he does everything gratis, moved only by a kind desire to remove pain and save life. But if, in addition, he shows you his case-book, and bids you read case after case similar to your own in which he has effected perfect cure, and if some of these are your own acquaintances, you will not insult him by saying, "I wish I could believe you." In the same way faith in Christ comes.

II. THE OBSTRUCTIONS WHICH OFTEN BLOCK UP THIS WAY.

1. A want of intention. Many persons come to hear, but they have no wish to be led into faith. Like the butterflies which flit from flower to flower, they extract no honey because they come not for such a purpose; while the bees dive into the cups and bells of the flowers, and come up loaded with their luscious food.

2. A want of attention. Sleepy hearers are not likely to be led to faith. Wandering hearts lose the benefit of the truth, and vain minds trifle away the privilege of a gospel ministry.

3. A want of candour. If a man hears with a prejudiced heart he is not likely to be convinced.

4. The want of after meditation. The juryman who is most likely to get at the truth of a given case will be the man who, having heard attentively, takes the notes of the evidence, weighs it, and endeavours to sift out the truth. So when you hear us preach, sift the sermon afterwards, pick holes in it if you like, but do search into the truth, and be not content till you find it. Here is a bag, and I drop into it pound after pound, but I find that the bag is just as empty as before; the reason is, there are holes in it, and the money drops through. Too many hearers are as a bag full of holes, and golden sermons will not bless them because they wilfully forget all.

III. THE IMPORTANCE THAT FAITH SHOULD COME TO US BY THIS WAY. If you have been a hearer and faith has not come to you, you are, this moment, in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity. The wrath of God abideth on you.

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