With such a force at our command--a force that could shake the
mountains and break the rocks--how come we ever to fail? So the
disciples asked, and Christ's answer cuts to the very heart of the
matter. Why could you not cast him out? For one reason only, because
you had lost your hold of My strength, and therefore had lost your
confidence in your own derived power, or had forgotten that it was
derived, and essayed to wield it as if it were your own. You did not
trust Me, so you did not believe that you could cast him out; or you
believed that you could by your own might, therefore you failed. He
throws them back decisively on themselves as solely responsible.
Nowhere else, in heaven or in earth or hell, but only in us, does
the reason lie for our breakdown, if we have broken down. Not in
God, who is ever with us, ready to make all grace abound in us,
whose will is that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge
of the truth; not in the gospel which we preach, for 'it is the
power of God unto salvation'; not in the demon might which has
overcome us, for 'greater is He that is in us than he that is in the
world.' We are driven from all other explanations to the bitterest
and yet the most hopeful of all, that we only are to blame.
And what in us is to blame? Some of us will answer--Our modes of
working; they have not been free enough, or not orderly enough, or
in some way or other not wisely adapted to our ends. Some will
answer--Our forms of presenting the truth; they have not been
flexible enough, or not fixed enough; they have been too much a
reproduction of the old; they have been too licentious a departure
from the old. Some will answer--Our ecclesiastical arrangements;
they have been too democratic; they have been too priestly. Some
will answer--Our intellectual culture; it has been too great,
obscuring the simplicity that is in Christ; it has been too small,
sending poorly furnished men into the field to fight with ordered
systems of idolatry which rest upon a philosophical basis, and can
only be overturned by undermining that. It is no part of my present
duty to discuss these varying answers. No doubt there is room for
improvement in all the fields which they indicate. But does not the
spirit of our Lord's words here beckon us away from these purely
secondary subjects to fix our self-examination on the depth and
strength of our faith, as incomparably the most important element in
the conditions which determine our success or our failure? I do not
undervalue the worth of wise methods of action, but the history of
the Church tells us that pretty nearly any methods of action are
fruitful in the right hands, and that without living faith the best
of them become like the heavy armour which half-smothered a feeble
man. I do not pretend to that sublime indifference to dogma which is
the modern form of supreme devotion to truth, but experience has
taught us that wherever the name of Christ, as the Saviour of the
world, has been lovingly proclaimed, there devils have been cast
out, whatever private and sectional doctrines the exerciser has
added to it. I do not disparage organisation, but courage is more
than drill; and there is such a thing as the very perfection of
arrangement without life, like cabinets in a museum, where all the
specimens are duly classified, and dead. I believe, with the old
preacher, that if God does not need our learning, He needs our
ignorance still less, but it is of comparatively little importance
whether the draught of living water be brought to thirsty lips in an
earthen cup or a golden vase.
'The main thing is, does it hold good measure?
Heaven soon sets right all other matters.'
And therefore, while leaving full scope for all improvements in
these subordinate conditions, let me urge upon you that the main
thing which makes us strong for our Christian work is the grasp of
living faith, which holds fast the strength of God. There is no need
to plunge into the jungle of metaphysical theology here. Is it not a
fact that the might with which the power of God has wrought for
men's salvation has corresponded with the strength of the Church's
desire and the purity of its trust in His power? Is it not a truth
plainly spoken in Scripture and confirmed by experience, that we
have the awful prerogative of limiting the Holy One of Israel, and
quenching the Spirit? Was there not a time in Christ's life on earth
when He could do no mighty works because of their unbelief? We
receive all spiritual gifts in proportion to our capacity, and the
chief factor in settling the measure of our capacity is our faith.
Here on the one hand is the boundless ocean of the divine strength,
unfathomable in its depth, full after all draughts, tideless and
calm, in all its movement never troubled, in all its repose never
stagnating; and on the other side is the empty aridity of our poor
weak natures. Faith opens these to the influx of that great sea, and
'according to our faith,' in the exact measure of our receptivity,
does it enter our hearts. In itself the gift is boundless. It has no
limit except the infinite fulness of the power which worketh in us.
But in reference to our possession it is bounded by our capacity,
and though that capacity enlarges by the very fact of being filled,
and so every moment becomes greater through fruition, yet at each
moment it is the measure of our possession, and our faith is the
measure of our capacity. Our power is God's power in us, and our
faith is the power with which we grasp God's power and make it ours.
So then, in regard to God, our faith is the condition of our being
strengthened with might by His Spirit.
Consider, too, how the same faith has a natural operation on ourselves
which tends to fit us for casting out the evil spirits. Given a man
full of faith, you will have a man tenacious in purpose, absorbed in
one grand object, simple in his motives, in whom selfishness has been
driven out by the power of a mightier love, and indolence stirred into
unwearied energy. Such a man will be made wise to devise, gentle to
attract, bold to rebuke, fertile in expedients, and ready to be
anything that may help the aim of his life. Fear will be dead in him,
for faith is the true anaesthesia of the soul; and the knife may cut
into the quivering flesh, and the spirit be scarce conscious of a pang.
Love, ambition, and all the swarm of distracting desires will be
driven from the soul in which the lamp of faith burns bright. Ordinary
human motives will appeal in vain to the ears which have heard the
tones of the heavenly music, and all the pomps of life will show poor
and tawdry to the sight that has gazed on the vision of the great
white throne and the crystal sea. The most ignorant and erroneous
'religious sentiment'--to use a modern phrase--is mightier than all
other forces in the world's history. It is like some of those terrible
compounds of modern chemistry, an inert, innocuous-looking drop of
liquid. Shake it, and it flames heaven high, shattering the rocks and
ploughing up the soil. Put even an adulterated and carnalised faith
into the hearts of a mob of wild Arabs, and in a century they will
stream from their deserts, and blaze from the mountains of Spain to
the plains of Bengal. Put a living faith in Christ and a heroic
confidence in the power of His Gospel to reclaim the worst sinners
into a man's heart, and he will out of weakness be made strong, and
plough his way through obstacles with the compact force and crashing
directness of lightning. There have been men of all sorts who have
been honoured to do much in this world for Christ. Wise and foolish,
learned and ignorant, differing in tone, temper, creed, forms of
thought, and manner of working, in every conceivable degree; but one
thing, and perhaps one thing only, they have all had--a passion of
enthusiastic personal devotion to their Lord, a profound and living
faith in Him and in His salvation. All in which they differed is but
the gay gilding on the soldier's coat. That in which they were alike
is as the strong arm which grasps the sword, and has its muscles
braced by the very clutch. Faith is itself a source of strength, as
well as the condition of drawing might from heaven.
Consider, too, how faith has power over men who see it. The
exhibition of our own personal convictions has more to do in
spreading them than all the arguments which we use. There is a
magnetism and a contagious energy in the sight of a brother's faith
which few men can wholly resist. If you wish me to weep, your own
tears must flow; and if you would have me believe, let me see your
soul heaving under the emotion which you desire me to feel. The
arrow may be keen and true, the shaft rounded and straight, the bow
strong, and the arm sinewy; but unless the steel be winged it will
fall to the ground long before it strikes the butt. Your arrows must
be winged with faith, else orthodoxy, and wise arrangements, and
force and zeal, will avail nothing. No man will believe in, and no
demon will obey, spells which the would-be exorcist only half
believes himself. Even if he speak the name of Christ, unless he
speak it with unfaltering confidence, all the answer he will get
will only be the fierce and taunting question, 'Jesus I know, and
Paul I know, but who are ye?' Brethren, let us give heed to the
solemn rebuke which our Master lovingly reads to us in these words,
and while we aim at the utmost possible perfection in all
subordinate matters, let us remember that they all without faith are
weak, as an empty suit of armour with no life beneath the corselet;
and that faith without them all is strong, like the knight of old,
who rode into the bloody field in simple silken vest, and conquered.
That which determines our success or failure in the work of our Lord
is our faith.