ABIDING FAITH
BY L. A. BALDWIN.
The
further we advance in the Divine life the more we realize our need of the Holy
Spirit’s power and enlightenment. And how different is often now our
interpretation of passages of Scriptur
e from what they once were, or from the
teachings we received from others. We were told that disobedience to God’s
command was the first sin of our first parents, but now we know that the
disbelief of His Word was the immediate cause of their transgression. And we
can trace nearly if not all our sins to our own unbelief in one way or another.
There is something so peculiarly rectifying in the simple constant and instant
faith that it seems evident if we exercise faith in Christ every moment, as we
ought, our life is one of unclouded peace and sunshine and victory. The moment
that doubt or fears creep in we begin to find trial and perplexities. If any
one wants abiding rest let him live by faith.
Another
text almost universally misunderstood is that faith is “the gift of God,” and
many go deploring all their lives the lack of this gift. The verse we refer to
has reference to salvation as the gift, as that which is before and that which
follows plainly indicates, as seen in Eph. ii. How many come to us, generally
in sincerity of heart, lamenting their incapacity to have faith in God’s own
precious promises to forgive or to heal, because they have not received the “gift
of faith.” This is all wrong. Christ says, “Have faith in God,” or in
other words, believe what God has said, which surely He would not have
commanded did He not know the power to believe was already and always
ours. How foolish then, and how sad, for us to deny ourselves the blessing He
has promised, just because we have thought He had to bestow what He has never
withdrawn, our capacity to accept His Word and know it is verified to us
when and only when we use the faculty He requires us to use to receive it.
Still another
text that has puzzled the brains of very many besides our learned D.D.’s and Theological
students, is about “the sin which doth so easily beset us.” Numberless have
been the discussions we have heard on this subject, but we have only heard two
persons who seemed to have gained the true meaning, and yet it is so plainly
shown by the context what the apostle deemed “The sin”; and our whole lives and
the tenor and habits of our minds can easily produce the interpretation; the lack
of faith which is in us and the evil of it as compared with the faith of “the
cloud of witnesses” who have gone before and leaving us such blessed example
and evidence that we may well wonder at our unbelief.
Those of
us who have learned the blessedness of relying wholly upon God, would wonder
more at the woful unbelief there is everywhere evinced, were it not that we
remember how long it was ere we could drop all things, even our
own reason, education, learning and natural acquirements, so that faith might
rule and we live by faith only.
