Spurgeon Answers: What is Faith?

Charles Spurgeon, the prince of preachers, answers:

"Faith is not a blind thing; for faith begins with knowledge. It is not a speculative thing; for faith believes facts of which it is sure. It is not an unpractical, dreamy thing; for faith trusts, and stakes its destiny upon the truth of revelation. That is one way of describing what faith is.

Let me try again. Faith is believing that Christ is what He is said to be, and that He will do what He has promised to do, and then to expect this of Him."

"All of Grace", The C.H. Spurgeon Collection, (AGES Digital Software, version 1.02), 33

Points for Married Men from Proverbs 5 for Sexual Purity

1. Listen to God's words and do them. Read your Bible and live what it says. (5:1, 7)

2. Know God is watching you. They eyes of the Lord watch your every action and your every thought. Knowing God's "eyes" are on you keeps your eyes from wandering. (5:21)

3. Be satisfied with your wife's breasts . Eyeing other women's breasts kills satisfaction in your spouse. Taking pleasure in your spouse kills the desire for lust and adultery. (5:19)

4. Stay away from the temptress. Don't "go near" her or where she lives. Flee emotional affiars with other women. Don't click-to pornographic web-sites. Be faithful in the small things. (5:8)

5. Recognize that the allure of a women that is not your wife is like a mousetrap. The cheese looks good: those luscious lips drip honey, but the mouth tastes of wormwood and poison. Adultery and lust is attractive, it appears to be sweet and satisfying, and offers the fulfillment of fantasy, yet in reality is death. (5:3-4).

6. Know that physical adultery and lustful addiction is suicide and murder. It will kill you, and it will kill your family, your friends, your time, your relationships, your mind, your ministry, and your emotions. (5:4-5)

7. Pursue Jesus more than purity. Pursuing purity often turns into another law that you make for yourself. Instead cultivate affection for Jesus, and a longing to see God. As Jesus makes clear, it is the "pure in heart that see God" (Mt. 5:8). (Yes, I cheated that's not from Proverbs 5, but from Jesus who embodies the wisdom that Proverbs speaks). A passion for God squelches impurity more than a passion for purity produces purity. You don't need to make another vow, make a new law, or go to another conference. You need to repent, and pursue Jesus.

Acknowlege Your Nakedness

John Stott:

"But we cannot escape the embarrassment of standing stark naked before God. It is no use our trying to cover up like Adam and Eve in the garden. Our attempts at self-justification are as ineffectual as their fig-leaves. We have to acknowledge our nakedness, see the divine substitute wearing our filthy rags instead of us, and allow him to clothe us with his own righteousness." The Cross of Christ, 162-163

We are all naked under our clothes; literally, as well as, the metaphorical self-righteousness we put on everyday. The only way to have your spiritual shame covered is not to make-up your own clothes, but take the clothes of another. God in Jesus Christ has taken away the naked shame of sinners who trust Him, and clothed them with the perfect righteousness of Christ. Admit your naked and helpless before God and by faith throw yourself on Jesus Christ, and not only will you will never be ashamed but you can stand unashamed before God as His friend, because the clothes you now wear are the clothes of God's Son.

Love & Joy in God & the Gospel the Test of Excelling Spiritually

Lest one think I was implying raw self-effort in my last blog, excelling spiritually is not moralistic or ascetic or pragmatic. The test of true spiritual growth--excelling spiritually--is Gospel-motivation that springs from love.

In reading AW Pink today, I came across this excellent, and pertinent quote:

"If love be healthy then my greatest joy will be in making [God] my chief Object and supreme End, but if I seek to do so only from a sense of obligation and duty, then my love has cooled." Spiritual Growth, 185.

One could appear to be excelling spiritually, and yet really be spiritually dead. The Thessalonians, of course, were not spiritually dead because their growth sprang from love. Spiritual growth is impossible if one's love is cold and heart is hard.

Many times I measure my spiritual growth by duties fulfilled and the spiritual obligations I've met. It looks good on paper. Its nice for the spiritual resume. Yet, it may be driven by self-love and not love for God, His Gospel, and neighbors.

The measure of your spiritual growth may not be by fulfilling your Bible-reading plan this year, but by your sense of affection for God and for others and the joy experienced in it.

Spiritual excellence may not be what you think it is. Excelling spiritually is a divine miracle evidenced by love and joy.

Test yourselves, most likely guilt sets in, and then saturate yourself with the Gospel that covers your sinful failures--your not measuring up--and fall in love with Jesus.

The Sunday School song isn't wrong, but it is radically deficient: "Read your Bible pray every day and you'll grow, grow, grow..."

Instead: "Read your Bible, pray every day, and when you do and if you don't, preach the Gospel to yourself and love Jesus the Substitute for your sin and the Source of your growth."

Excel More

Read some provoking Scripture this morning in the book of 1 Thessalonians...

Paul says that the Thessalonians were walking and pleasing God (4:1), and were loving one another (4:9-10). He is recognizing the evidences of grace in the believer's lives of the Thessalonian community. However, he calls them in both areas to "excel still more" (4:1, 10).

You're doing great--keep doing it. You're growing--keep growing. You're walk is pleasing to God--seek to please Him more. You're loving other believers--seek to love them even more.

Are you feeling pretty good about the way things are going in your life? Are you encouraged by the fact that you've grown? Wonderful! However, don't get passive in your spiritual growth.

Get some holy discontent and continue on and "excel more".

The Importance of a Right Doctrine of Saving Faith

The American Puritan Revivalist, Jonathan Edwards:

"Therefore, doubtless, saving faith, whatsoever that be, is the grand condition of an interest in Christ, and his great salvation. And if it be so, of what vast importance is it, that we should have right notions of what it is! For certainly no one thing whatever, nothing in religion, is of greater importance, that that which teaches us how we may be saved. If salvation itself be of infinite importance, then it is of equal importance that we do not mistake the terms of it; and if this be of infinite importance, then that doctrine that teaches that to be the term, that is not so, but very diverse, is infinitely dangerous. What we want a revelation from God for chiefly, is to teach us the terms of his favour, and the way of salvation. And that which the revelation God has given us in the Bible teaches to be the way, is faith in Christ. Therefore, that doctrine that teaches something else to be saving faith, that is eseentially another thing, teaches entirely another way of salvation...Therefore he who teaches something else to be that faith, which is essentially diverse from what the gospel of Christ teaches, he teaches another gospel; and he does in effect teach another religion than the religion of Christ...Such doctrine as I have opposed, must be destructive and damning, i.e. directly tending to man's damnation; leading such as embrace it, to rest in something essentially different from the grand condition of salvation. And therefore I would advise you, as you would have any regard to your own soul's salvation, and to the salvation of your posterity, to beware of such doctrine as this." (emphasis added).

"Remarks on Important Theological Controversies", from The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 2, 595-596.

The Gospel is Good News not Good Advice

Late 1800's professor and pastor, James Denney:

"The proclamation of the finished work of Christ is not good advice; it is good news, good news that means immeasurable joy for those who welcome it, irreparable loss for those who reject it and infinite and urgent responsibility for all. The man who has this to preach has a gospel about which he ought to be in dead earnest. Just because there is nothing which concentrates in the same way the judgment and the mercy of God, there is nothing which has the same power to evoke seriousness and passion in the preacher." The Death of Christ, 173.

An Encouragement to Vomit More Often

The Puritan, Thomas Brooks:

"Repentance is the vomit of the soul; and of all physic, none so difficult and hard as it is to vomit." Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, 63.

I need to vomit more often. So do you.

Truth Necessitates Application

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

"...a real and true understanding of the truth always does lead to application. So that if a man does not apply the truth, his real trouble is that he has not understood it. For if a man is gripped by a truth and sees what it means and what it implies, of necessity he must apply it."

"How and Why the Christian Puts on the New Man", Darkness and Light, 201.

The Loud Cries and Tears of Jesus

"In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence." Heb. 5:7

We do not have records of Jesus laughing, but we do so of his tears. This is a comfort to me. Not because Jesus never laughed, I am confident He did, and did so with deep belly-laughs, but there is something significant about the tears of Jesus. It shows the world that God is with us in suffering.

Jesus cried. He wept hard with prayer and supplication. Life was not lived casually by Jesus. He knew the stakes. He was aware of the cross, his own death. His mission inspired an intercession accompanied by weeping.

I cannot imagine what it must of looked like to see Jesus cry.

I was talking to my sister(-in-law) yesterday talking about how good it made her feel to see her dad cry. I can relate. Not because it's enjoyable to see one hurt and be saddened, but because there is something so human, something so connected with the reality of the state-of-the-world exhibited when one close to you cries.

Jesus wept. What a sight that must have been: God's weighty tears. In Jesus, God wept for the world. God is not a deist. God is not detached from suffering humanity. He became human and entered into the curse of the world, indeed became a curse for all who would trust Him so that the curse would be removed.

Therefore no tears in heaven.

Seeing tears in this world is good because it is a human emotion that expresses that something is wrong with the world. There will be no tears in heaven because what's wrong will be under the feet of Jesus and all will be made right. On this earth tears are healthy and right. In the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness dwells tears will be wiped away forever.

God revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ. This means God revealed Himself by death and suffering.

God is good. One of the greatest proofs of that is He did not exempt Himself from the suffering of humanity. God is sovereign. One of the greatest proofs of this is that He willingly laid down his life. His sovereignty is on display by letting the Romans and Jews, yea, you and I, put Him to death. Sovereign humility usurped sovereign earthly power. He did this in order to defeat death. He destroyed the enemy by using the very weapon of the enemy and triumphing over in resurrection. The Father heard the loud cries and tears of His Son's prayers and answered in resurrection so that Jesus "became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him" (Heb. 5:9). Embedded in the tears of Jesus was this joy set before him. The horrid enemy of death, the enemy of everyman, was defeated by the God-man who died. The defeat is proven by the resurrection of Jesus.

God, revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, is not aloof. He weeps with those who weep. He is near to the brokenhearted. He died for the sins of the world. This is good news for sad and suffering people. For all who trust Jesus, His death is the pathway to eternal salvation.

The loud cries and tears of Jesus create a louder hope.