The Possibilities Of Faith

(Sermon preached in The Moody Church, July 3, 1914. Not corrected by the author).

We have been dealing with the possibilities of faith. We have seen how faith enables us to enter into fellowship with our Lord so that the soul of man becomes conjoined to Christ in the effort to win men for God. We never shall get to the end of that subject, of what it means for a man to stand up and speak to his fellow men knowing he is absolutely incompetent, but realizing all the time he is speaking that his Confederate, his Colleague, his great Fellow-worker is helping him, cooperating with him and securing results which no word of his could account for. Oh that is such a subject! I think I shall preach on it as long as ever I live with more and more wonder, because I know in my own life how absolutely absurd it would be for me to stand up before an audience if Jesus Christ were not at work in the heart of the congregation.

We have seen how, by faith, we are kept in perpetual victory, so that by the reception by faith of the opposite to our temptation, we are made more than conquerors because the temptation causes us to take from Jesus Christ the correlative, the opposite, of which we have been found deficient.

Today we are going to talk about faith as entering upon its possibilities, and later of the possibilities of living absolutely free from anxiety and care, in perfect peace.

I do not know if you have ever noticed a very, very wonderful verse which I am going to harp upon all through this time, in the 9th chapter of Hebrews: “They which are called shall receive the eternal inheritance which has been promised.”

I suppose I may take it for granted that every person here has not only been called, but has responded to the call of Christ. “They which are called.” “They which are called” to the feast, “they which are called” into the life of God, “they which are called” into fellowship, partnership with Jesus. If I were to ask everybody to stand up who was called and who had accepted the call, would you stand up? You must answer that. There is no use going on unless you “face the music.” I am not here to talk just for the sake of talking. I am here to do business, and you must face the music, you must toe the line. You know perfectly well that Jesus Christ has called you. Now have you said, “yes”? Have you accepted the invitation?

The Line Of Separation

How well I remember Mr. Moody in that great sermon of his about excuses, how he used to finish by saying, “You have an invitation to sit down to the marriage supper of the Lamb,” and how he proposed that in the name of the congregation, he send a letter back to God to say, “We will all be there.” Do you intend to be there? If you do not, I do not think you are going to get much good from this sermon. You must admit that you are either in it or out of it, and you can step in before another minute. Though you are the worst man or woman in the world, you may step over the line and say, “I do now accept God’s invitation to be His child and His guest. I step over.” Now they that are called shall receive (that is faith),—shall take, the inheritance, the eternal inheritance which is promised.

When the word “eternal” comes everybody thinks it means the future, but it does not. The word “eternal” means “timeless,” it means that which is not measured by chronology, which has no dial, no clock, which is eternal in the future, which lasts forever certainly, but it is really now. Time is the parenthesis of eternity. Time is embosomed in eternity. The timeless life is beyond, it does not age, it does not show decay, it has no gray hairs—“the timeless inheritance.” Now do you know what your inheritance is? It is all included in the will that Christ left—His will.

There is a story that I do not altogether like, but it is a good story of the time when Claverhouse with his soldiers were sweeping across Scotland hunting the Covenanters and haling them to prison and to death. One Sunday morning a young girl was going across the moors to the secret meeting place of the Covenanters. A soldier stopped her and wanted to know where she was going and what her errand was. The girl said, “My elder brother has died and has left some property and I want to receive my share of it, and the father says we all got to be there,” and so they let her pass. The Elder Brother who had died was Christ. He had left a will and an inheritance, and she was going to chapel to receive her share of it. I have often questioned the absolute truth of this story, but it serves my purpose.

I want to think tonight that all of you people have come here that you may open Christ’s will, and that you may see your share in the inheritance. Of course, it is called in the Bible the “covenant” or the “testament,” but it is all the same, it is a will as the writer says. I know certainly that if your rich relative were to die tomorrow you would take good care to know your share in the will, but the wonder is that many of us have never looked into the will of Jesus Christ and seen our share. My Bible is rather black at the place of the Lord’s will because I have thumbed it so often. By faith I have claimed that He should do those things for me, but many of you people remind me of how our rich people in London do. They are so afraid of having their silver and their property stolen, that they send it to the bank and it is there year after year. If it were stolen from them they would be no worse, for they never use it.

There is a story of an old Welsh preacher, that his congregation gave him a beautiful silver set, teapot and coffee pot and all the rest. He and his old wife were very proud of these silver things, but had no possible use for them because they were not living in that status of society. They got a great big box and put the whole lot in and put them under the bed. After some years the story of this property got about, and while they were in church one Sunday night the whole thing was stolen. The man took it very philosophically, but the woman was terribly perturbed, and he said, “My dear, if I were you, I would have a wooden set made and put under the bed, and they will do all the good the other lot did.”

Possess Your Possessions

There is a text in Obadiah 17 that says, my people “shall possess their possessions.” It is a great verse, but you are just as absurd as the old Welsh minister and his wife. You do not use your inheritance. I expect half of you do not know what I am talking about, and yet every time you take the Lord’s Supper you hear the minister say, “This is the cup of the New Testament.” When you drink the cup you say to God, “I pledge Thee to keep to the covenant. I pledge Thee to fulfill the provisions of the Lord’s will.” Let me say to you that the difference between this will and the old will which was torn up on the cross, is this, that under the old will man had to earn the inheritance, but under this will the alteration is that the arrangement has been made between the Father and the Son, our Saviour, and that Jesus stands surety for all the obedience cited in it. We have nothing to do with that. He found we could never be obedient, and He stood in our place and became obedient unto death, and now the covenant., the arrangement is between the Father and the Son, and all for whom the Son stands, and His obedience stands for us. We have nothing therefore to do with it. Mind you, He will see that we are obedient by the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. He will see that we are obedient through blood and tears and suffering and sorrowing, and He will see that we become obedient, but we do not earn the inheritance by our obedience. He earns it and then sees that we live up to it. That is true for theologians; it is true for everybody.

The provisions of this will are seven-fold. You will find them all set down in the 8th chapter of this epistle [Hebrews]. First, “I will and bequeath that on every mind of my called ones my law shall be written, and on every heart that it shall be engraved.” These are the first two provisions. “I will write it in your mind.” That stands for the Greek “intellect,” and “engrave it on the heart,”—that stands for the Hebrew religious life;—the head and the heart, the intellect and the subconscious or subliminal consciousness. He will undertake the mind, the intellect and the heart. Third, He will give God to us. Fourth, He will take us to be His own, gathering us out of the world. Fifth, we shall all know Him from the least. The least shall know Him up to His limit. Sixth, he will be merciful to their unrighteousness, i.e., the unconscious sin that is not exactly straight with the demands of God’s righteousness and law. Even when you live up to your standard, there is always much above your standard which you have not reached. He will be merciful to these sins which you and I commit daily, but the full purport of which we do not yet realize, though we shall realize them. Jesus Christ does not hold us responsible for all the things we are not conscious of but that keep us from being perfect. We are not perfect, but we are blameless up to the measure of our light. “I will be merciful to their unrighteousness.”

Asking And Claiming

The last point is the one I am going to deal with now. “Their sins and iniquities—their sins I will remember no more.” Now I cannot tell you, I will never be able to tell anybody, but God knows what those words have been to me—that God has clean forgotten my sins, that they are blotted out never to come again. Do you know what it is to claim those things—not to pray for them? It is sacrilege to ask God to keep His word. Of course, there are things in your life you have to pray for because you do not know whether they are His will or not, and after you have prayed for about a month, you will know whether He is going to do it or not. I remember once wanting a thing badly in my life, and I prayed for three months. At the end of three months, God said to me, “Do not ask Me anymore. I cannot do it for you.” I knew He was going to say it, but I did not want Him to, and kept on praying. I knew He would not do it. You always know (if you are living a true life) after you have prayed about a month for a thing which is not included in God’s promises, whether He is going to do it or not. Your prayer will either get stronger and more definite and have a greater grip in it, or die away like the waves when the tide has retreated. Mind you that happened about thirty years ago in my life, and on my bended knee I thanked God that He never did answer that prayer. It would have been the greatest sorrow and cross of my life. When you and I go to God at last, amongst all the other things, we shall have to thank Him for His the refusal, out of love to us, to answer certain prayers we prayed in the agony of our soul. When God does not answer your prayer thank Him and believe He has something better.

What about other things, things God has promised, like those seven I indicated, and which are included in the covenant or will? I should feel it mean to ask God to do them for me. I should feel very mean if I were to make you a promise that if you came to my country, I would welcome you and ask you to my home and do this or that. I would not expect you when you came to my country to entreat me to keep my word. I should feel if you came to me often, suspicious that I would not, you were hurting me, and when God says, “I will do a thing,” you haven’t got to pray that He will, but to expect that He will. Men and women I hope you know that. It has made the greatest difference in my life. When I have God’s promise, all I have to do is to pass the check in to the bank.

I might go to a banker on two errands. I might say, “I want to build a church or school. Will you give me a donation?” I might plead with him and say, “The cause is good.” He might say yes or no. Probably he would say no. The next day, I might go on another errand. I have a check on his bank, and I pass that check in. I do not pray that banker to meet that check—I expect he will, I reckon he will. When I deal with God on a promise like any of these seven, I am not going to say to God, “I pray Thee to be merciful to my unrighteousness and to remember my sin no more.” I say, “My God, You said You would, and now I ask You and I claim of You, I reckon upon You to do as You say.” You do not fear but you reckon on Him. Do you not see the difference between your faith and God’s faithfulness? My faith gives out, but God is faithful whether I believe or not—“If ye believe not He abideth faithful.” He cannot run back on Himself, “He cannot deny Himself.” That makes this Book everything. You have only got to find a promise, then lay it before God and say, “Father, You said that, I claim that.” Then be absolutely sure. Do you know how to deal with God like that? If God says in your heart, “I have taken that off. I will see to that,” then do not worry God afterward.

Some years ago, Mrs. Meyer and I had a pet dog. He was a great favorite and allowed to do pretty nearly as he liked, except in one particular. He used to leap up at the dinner table when I was cutting and serving the meat. He would keep jumping up to get a bit himself and we could not have it, and through much pain and sorrow he was made to lie under the table. I remember so well, he used to put his little soft paw on my knee, and he sat under the table with his paw on my knee. Some of you keep leaping up at God and worrying God, but when you have a promise you just sit still with your hand on God’s hand, and you give Him a little pressure sometimes to remind Him you are there. That is all. But He is there and He presses your head back and says, “All right, do not worry; it is all right. Let patience have her perfect work. I am going to do the very thing I said I would. Bide a bit.” I do not know how this will help you unless you take the 8th chapter of Hebrews, put your hand on God and say, “Father, You promise all that, and I trust You for it. Especially about this sin.”—“Their sin I will remember no more.”

God absolutely forgives—puts the sin away when it is confessed, when you are penitent and humble and loving God. He puts your sin absolutely away as far as the East is from the West, and He drops it like a stone into the ocean of oblivion—gone forever. He not only forgives, but He puts you back in the old place where you used to be. Puts you right back where you were before your wandering.

A man told me last night in this place after I had talked with him, that for fourteen years he had gone away from God. All the time, when he saw a child going to Sunday school, or heard the bells, or came in contact with good people, he turned away and wept,—but he came back. I am coming to something else. I have found in my life that God stands between me and the consequences of the past. I know that because I have proved it, He is a real God, and He comes behind. You continue to walk in the light and God says, I will be a barrier so that the remains, the consequences, the remainders of your sin shall not be able to pursue you any more than Pharaoh pursued the Israelites.” They shall be completely neutralized by God’s love.

The Prodigal Son

Will you let me add two or three thoughts to the story of the prodigal? First, the boy comes back and says, “I have sinned.” The Greek word is “hamartano,” “I have missed the mark.” He came to himself. Plato said “everyone of us has an ideal,” and when we sin we get away from God’s ideal. Repentance is coming back and measuring ourselves against what God meant to us to be, and as we measure ourselves against what God meant us to be we say, “hamartano,” “I have missed the mark.” The man who aims and his arrow falls to the right or left, or above the target, says, “I have missed the mark.’ “I have sinned against heaven (there is an ideal you see), and in Thy sight.”

The father runs to meet him. God always covers most of the distance. You do not need to get to God. You give the first symptom of coming back and God is after you,—He ran and met him. What I like about that story is that Jesus put in the word “quickly.” There stood the son, and he never got through his confession! When you are at a distance from God you say, “Make me as one of your hired servants, and I will work it out,” but when you get into the sound of God’s love you do not talk about being a hired servant; you stop it. It was not the father that stopped him, he could not finish it, for the father said, “Fetch quickly the best robe,” QUICKLY.  Oh sinner, listen to me! God is very, very much quicker than you are. “Quickly,” the man therefore was robed in the purer dress, a ring was on his hand, and he was invited to the banquet and sat in the old, old place.

I am going to add to this, if I may without sacrilege, what happened the next morning. I think he woke up in the bed he had occupied as a child, but he awoke all dazed and could not think where he was. He thought the creditors in the far country were standing at the door, and he thought that the bad women with whom he had consorted were all waiting to accuse him for having ruined their lives, and were demanding some kind of reparation. He thought of that far country, and especially of the man whose swine he had been keeping before he left them, apparently without much care.

The father came into the bedroom, found him in a cold sweat, and said, “My boy, what is the matter?” “Oh father,” he sobbed, “aren’t they coming for payment? Aren’t those women coming to accuse me? Hasn’t that man I used to serve a writ against me?” “Oh my boy, you are in my house. I have met the creditors and paid the debts, and have put those women in the way of living a virtuous life. I will care for them. Everything that belongs to that past country is forever obliterated. Never think of it again. It has gone, gone, gone, gone, as through it were a dream in the night; it is gone and you are in my encircling, embracing arms, and all that I have is yours.”

Oh men! You and I have sinned, but the sin has melted like a cloud in the sky, or like the hoar-frost, it has gone; it never will come up again. I have met men who thought they needed to confess their sin every morning,—their old sin, and have said, “I go over all the sins I can remember every morning.” I have said, “My good man, spare your breath. You do not need to rake up the sin God has forgotten; you do not need to confess, and confess, and confess. That is where you are wrong; you keep going over the past, raking it up, pleading for forgiveness, asking God to have mercy. Do not waste your breath! The thing is done with forever.” “Their sins and iniquities I will remember no more.” Why, I have met people who thought when they got to the judgment seat, the great white throne, that God is going to show them up and enumerate all their sins. My dear friend, God is never going to rake up that past sin at your death, nor before the judgment seat of Christ, nor at the great white throne. There is a text in the Bible, “Their sins shall be sought for, but shall not be found.” Oh, why will you not take the assurance of that promise tonight?

I am talking to you because way back in my life, I was tormented by the chimera of fear. I dreaded that the sins of my past would always come back at me like a pack of hounds hunting a stag. Then this text broke on me, “God has forgiven you.” You see men and women, only good is positive; evil is a negation. As soon as you confess it, God, who hears your confession, blots out your sin and you stand before God as though you had never sinned, and you can look God in the face.

Now I will close. Faith takes absolute forgiveness, and faith puts on the white robe. Young fellow, haven’t you often felt unworthy of a white robe after some evil thoughts have filled the chambers of imagery with impurity? “These are they which have washed their robes and made them white.” Never let the stain of sin stop for a minute; do not put it off. Do not say, “Things will quiet down, and the passion will die out of my soul in a day. Twenty-four hours from now, I will ask God to forgive me. I will let things get quieter a bit before I go and ask God to forgive.” Oh, I pray you, do not talk like that. When the passion is still on you, when the sin is still upon you, go right in and say, “My God, I have sinned, sinned, sinned. I have gone down again.”

I remember so well some time ago, I was going to my church Sunday morning, and the streets were full of mud. Out of the house of a working man, a little girl stepped in her Sunday dress all so white, and pretty, and clean. She looked a little self-conscious, I do confess, and I said, “Oh you do look nice today; you do look pretty.” She hadn’t gone six steps before something happened, and she fell right down in the mud in her pretty white dress. I picked her up, exclaiming, “Oh my darling! What will you do?” “Oh,” she said, “I will go back to mother.” “Oh child,” I thought to myself, “you have taught me a lesson. What a sweet woman your mother is.” The first thought of the child was to get back to mother. Oh soul, do not try to clean yourself up. Go straight to God right on the spot, and He will wash your robe right on the spot, and you will be nicely cleaned and right back in the old place.

“Mr. Meyer, take care what you are doing; those people will go right away back to their sin!” Oh, no they won’t, because of the very horror of hurting Christ, and of tearing His wounds open and of lacerating His heart, and giving Him work to do He oughtn’t to have to do. I do not want to give Him any trouble, He has trouble enough. He has got to get this world right. I want to help Him; I do not want to give Him the need to turn and wash my feet or my soul; I do not want to give Christ extra work, or to hurt Him. The thought of sin is more and more abhorrent because He has been so sweet in forgiving, and forgiving, and forgiving me. The love of God brings a man to repentance—the patience of God saves him. Do you know that? Oh, the agony of sin. Not because of the consequences, but because it hurts Him who loves us so. He puts it away when we confess it, and says, “It has gone child; I have forgotten all about it. Come to my bosom; I love you so.”

Every time you go to the Lord’s Supper and you take that cup and put it to your lips, remember He says, “This is the cup of the New Covenant, the new will, the New Testament (of the 8th of Hebrews), in my blood that ratified the Testament. I reckon on thee to keep the provisions of the will. I reckon on thee.”

As we bow our heads, I am going to enumerate the seven provisions of the covenant again. “They that are called should receive the inheritance;” and as I mention them I want you just to say, “Father, I reckon on Thee. Do this for me.” Let us pray.

“I will write my law upon your mind.”
“And on your heart.”
“I will give God to you.”
“I will take you to be my own.”
“You shall know me.”
“I will be merciful to your unrighteousness.”
“Your sins and your iniquities I will remember no more.”