The Believer Catechized

A Sermon Delivered on Sunday Morning, November 21st, 1880, by Charles Spurgeon

"And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?" (John 11:26, KJV)

"And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:26, BSB)

When believers are sorrowful, then they may be assured that a consolation is provided exactly adapted to their cases. For every lock that God has made, he has provided a key. As every blade of grass has its own drop, so every grief has its comfort. Perhaps that for every pain which racks this mortal frame, there is an remedy among the herbs of the field; and for every disease, there is a remedy in God's wondrous laboratory if we could but find it.

As for us who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, we may rest assured that if we are borne down by excessive sorrow, then it is almost always our own fault, and arises from a defect in our faith; for if our faith were as strong as it ought to be, then we would "take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, and in distresses, for Christ's sake;" we would find that as our tribulations abounded, then so would our consolations also abound by Christ Jesus. It will be well, therefore, when we are greatly distressed, not so much to look to the apparent cause of the present trouble, as at the condition of our own hearts; it will be wise to inquire wherein our faith is lacking, and what it may be which prevents our laying hold upon the comfort provided for the present distress.

It frequently happens that our faith is defective because of slender knowledge. A man cannot believe what he does not know. My dear, tried friend, there is a promise in the Scriptures which would exactly meet your case, and if grasped by faith, then it would immediately cheer you, but you know nothing of its efficacy because you may never yet have read it, or, having read it, you may never have paused over it and considered its meaning, and so you are needlessly distressed; for your relief lies close at hand, and is easy of application.

It may be that as yet you have not learned the whole circle of gospel doctrines, and this also deprives you of comfort. You have laid hold upon the vital and saving parts of revelation, but the strengthening and exhilarating parts of it you know not. You have fed on the necessary bread of Christ's house, but not upon the luscious fruits of his garden. You have been in the field, but you have not walked in the garden to eat his pleasant fruits. Faith cannot believe what it does not know, and, therefore, you have missed fat things full of marrow, and wines on the lees well refined, which might have been your strength and your joy. We would all of us grow in comfort, if we grew in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and had a more intelligent appreciation of the preciousness of the truths which he has revealed.

Faith may also be defective through a lack of appreciation of the person of Christ. It was so in Martha's case; she did not know enough about her Lord to perceive his power to meet her sorrow. The apostle Paul says, in the passage which I just now quoted, "Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ," as if the knowledge of Jesus were indeed the most important and gracious knowledge which a believer can obtain, and so it is. If we are but half instructed as to our Lord, then we shall be but half comforted. O mourners, you have not rated the Savior highly enough; you have not yet a large enough idea of his love for you and of his design of infinite wisdom in permitting you to be afflicted.

If the Lord Jesus were better known, then our afflictions would be lightened, and our hearts would even rejoice in them. If we did but know you, O blessed Christ, then if the same trials remained with us they would lose their gloom beneath your smile, and we would even come to rejoice in them as ministering to our fellowship with you in your sufferings. Jesus known, sorrow loses its sting: surely even the bitterness of death is past.

It is not to be supposed that every true believer in Christ is assuredly a perfect believer. Martha truly believed in Jesus, but she did not perfectly believe in him. I do not know how many here have, or think they have, perfect faith. Such good people will get very little from the discourse of this morning; but then, happily, they do not need it. Those of us who have an imperfect faith--and I suspect that this would describe most of us--may gather instruction from the Savior's question to Martha: "Do you believe this?" May the Holy Spirit cause it to be so. Let us think we hear his loving lips inquiring of us at this time concerning this truth and the other, "Do you believe this?" We desire to believe everything that is true, and we wish to receive into our minds every doctrine which the Holy Spirit has revealed, for we would perfect our discipleship, and is not this one of its privileges, "When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all truth"? We long to believe everything that is within the range of our spiritual knowledge, so that our faith taking the entire range of divine truth may be complete for every emergency, and mighty in every conflict. Submit, then, to a heart-searching inquiry as to your faith, and hear Jesus say by his Spirit, "Do you believe this?"

 

I. Our first head will be: Do you believe THIS PARTICULAR DOCTRINE? I will not just now suggest any one doctrine above another, but merely advise your putting the question about every revealed truth. You, who are believers, have faith in the Scriptures in general; you can boldly declare that from the first word of Genesis to the last word of Revelation, you believe all that is written in the inspired volume. Now the point is to take out of this general mass of things believed, or supposed to be believed, each one separate item, and look it over in detail, and then say with your heart and conscience, "I believe this." It is easy to talk in the gross; and it is very easy to think that we have a vast amount of faith, and yet we may have little or none worth having. We may have put the treasure of truth into a bag that is full of holes, and so may have lost it as fast as we have found it. We may imagine that we embrace within our arms the whole of revealed truth, and yet when we come to a quiet examination of our soul, then we may find that much is slipping away from us by a process of questioning and doubt which we hardly dare to acknowledge. Things believed and never used, are like a sluggard's farm which lies fallow, and is never tilled; we hardly call such ground a farm, and can we call such belief real faith? Why, some truths taught in the Word are not even known by numbers of professors, and we cannot believe what we do not know: it is the same case as that supposed in the apostle's question, "How shall they believe in him whom they have not heard?" If we do not see the surface meaning, which is within our reach, then we cannot be said to believe in any real sense.

Martha when our Savior questioned her had already expressed her faith in certain great truths. She said, "Lord, if you had been here, then my brother had not died": she believed in the Savior's power to heal the sick. She believed that so long as her brother yet breathed, the power of Christ could have kept him alive; for she was convinced that Jesus was master of disease, and could restore the suffering to health. This was something worthy of her faith, but it was not enough. Our Lord set a further fact before her, and asked, "Do you believe this?" It is for us to grow in knowledge, and to exercise faith in proportion as we do so.

Next, Martha believed that though her brother was dead, such was the efficacy of Christ's prayer, that he could do something, she does not quite say what, to comfort the bereaved, "I know, that even now, whatever you will ask of God, God will give it to you." She had faith in Jesus' prevalence with God in prayer, and that to an unlimited degree. She believed in Jesus as a mighty intercessor, one who had but to speak with the Most High, and his request would surely be answered: this is a very commendable measure of faith; I wish that we all had as much. So much faith was something admirable, but it was not enough for her present comfort, and therefore Jesus puts before her a fact even more honorable to himself, and then adds, "Do you believe this?"

Martha also expressed her firm conviction as to the certainty of the general resurrection: "I know that my brother shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day." She had gathered this, doubtless, from the Old Testament Scriptures, and from the general belief among orthodox Hebrews. She may also have learned this master truth from the teaching of the Savior himself. She was doctrine a thoroughly sound believer in this great fundamental, but she had not yet seen the resurrection in the Christian light, and perceived our Lord's connection with it. She had not yet learned enough to afford her comfort under her heavy loss; for it is clear that she derived very little consolation from the fact of a distant and general resurrection: she needed resurrection and life to come nearer home, and to become more a present fact to her. Our Savior points her to a truth concerning himself which would answer that purpose, and says to her, "I am the resurrection and the life: he who believes in me, though he were dead--yet shall he live: and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" Here was a well of comfort from which she had never drank, because, like Hagar in the wilderness, she had never seen the divine supply. Christ points her to it and asks her if she will drink.

May God grant that, dear friends, that all of us who call ourselves Christians would every now and then go over the Bible, and rehearse the great doctrines in order before our minds; stopping over each one of them, and saying to your heart and mind, "Do you believe this?"

Take, for instance, that great and earliest of doctrines, the election of grace. "Whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son." "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence. In love He predestined us for adoption as His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the Beloved One." Pause over these texts, and consider their evident meaning, and then say to your own hearts, "Do you believe this?" Some believers in Christ do not attempt to accept this doctrine, but even call it horrible, and others speak of it as so mysterious and unpractical that it is not to be preached in public. I would invite such to honestly to look the doctrine in the face, and see whether they do believe it or no; for if they do not, they may as well take a pen and cross out of the Word of God all passages which plainly teach it. They would not like to do this, and yet they do that which amounts to the same thing. When a man is afraid of a doctrine, or ashamed of it, then he has grave cause to suspect that he does not believe it.

Take another grand truth: "A man is justified by faith, and not by the works of the law." "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." "He who believes in him is not condemned." The perfect pardon of the believer, the complete justifying power of the righteousness of Christ to those who believe, is plainly taught in the Bible, "Do you believe this?" If you do, then why do you go every day and perpetually call yourself a "miserable sinner," when you are no longer so, but a blood-washed saint, and a happy child of God? Why do you talk about your sin as if it were not forgiven, and speak of yourself as if you were still "an heir of wrath, even as others," whereas you are justified in Christ Jesus, and accepted in the beloved? Look at the Scriptural truth and at your conduct, and then say to yourself, "Do you believe this?"

Suppose you turn to the Scriptures, and read of the union of Christ to his people, "I in them, and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one." "I am the vine, and you are the branches." When you thus read, inquire of your heart "Do you believe this?" Do you believe that all who live unto God are one with Christ? Do you believe this? If so, why are you troubled as to your acceptance with God, since you are one with Christ? Why do you think that you shall ultimately perish, if you are one with him? Will Christ lose the members of his body? Shall it be that one after another of the limbs of his mystical frame shall rot away and die? Has he not said, "Because I live, then you shall live also"? "Do you believe this?"

It may be that brethren will say of a certain truth that this is a high doctrine, or a mysterious doctrine, which seems almost too good to be true; but all this is wide of the mark. The one question is: Is it revealed in Scripture?

"King Agrippa," said Paul, "Do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe." So would I say to each one of you--if you believe the prophets and the apostles, then why do you not believe one by one those great truths which God has spoken by them? And if you believe them to be revealed, then how dare you cast a slur upon them, as being this, that, and the other? I will not ask you to believe my statement, nor the statements of theologians and divines, but turn to the infallible Book itself, and see what is written there, and then ask yourself, "Do you believe this?" As you meet with such and such a statement of holy writ do not cut it down nor cavil at it, nor twist it, nor try to see if some eminent commentator has not evaporated the very soul out of it, but believe it just as you find it, and if you cannot do so, stop until you can, and cry out to God for further light until you can, without hesitation, answer the Savior's question, and say, with Martha, "Yes, Lord!"

How this inquiry, well managed and pressed home, will enlarge the range of faith! How will it strengthen its grasp and hand-hold! How rich would our souls become! Upon what food would our inward confidence be fed, if we would only treasure up each crumb of revealed truth. Search the Scriptures and take the teaching of the Word of God in detail, line by line, and word by word, and say to your soul "Do you believe this?"

Ask for an anointing from the Holy One that you may know all things and understand with all saints what are the heights and depths, and know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. There will be profit connected with this our first point if each one will conscientiously catechize his mind and say, "Do you believe this particular doctrine of the Word?"

 

II. Our next division shall be briefly handled. Do you believe THIS DISTINCT DOCTRINE? I find, and especially among members of certain churches, great cloudiness as to their faith. I would not judge severely, but I notice that those converted people who come to us from certain quarters, which I will not now name, believe the gospel, but it is too much after the manner of the collier in the old story. When he was asked, "What do you believe?" He answered, "I believe as the Church believes." He was then questioned, "But what does the Church believe?" He replied, "The Church believes what I believe." Being further asked, "And what do you and the Church believe?" He answered "We both believe the same thing." There was no getting further with him.

Is not this kind of faith common enough at this day? Many who are called Christians, have this blind faith and little more. This doting faith in you know not what, is fitter for idiots than rational beings. Let those delight in it who are of slavish mind, or too idle to think for themselves; as for us, so long as we have eyes, then we shall not yield to walk blindfolded. We like a man to do his own thinking. Put your garments out to wash, if you please; but your thinking you should do at home. There is no reaching the land of truth, unless you will work your passage by thinking over the teaching of the Lord. What I tell you, you may believe or not at your pleasure; but I beseech you do not accept it for any other reason than that in your own judgment it is in accordance with the mind of God as unveiled in holy Writ. God has given to each man a judgment and a conscience, and an understanding; and these the owner of them is bound to use. Light is not given to all alike, and hence the use of guides to such as have not great knowledge; but the light can only be seen by a man's own eyes, and he cannot look at objects by proxy. By experience, some men have learned far more than others, and hence they are useful helpers; but still, no man's experience of grace can stand instead of my own: each one must feel and know the divine life in his own soul.

As food must be chewed and digested by each man for the sustenance of his own body, so must truth be read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested by each man for the sustenance of his own soul. The church of Rome says, "Yield an implicit faith to the church," this is a fine platform for priestcraft, and you see through the scheme in a moment: but we say the very reverse, and charge you not to believe a single word that any one of us, or all of us put together shall say to you, if it is contrary to the Word of God. Read that Word for yourselves and search the Scriptures to see whether these things are so or not, for so did the Bereans of old: and they were noble because of it, and you shall be noble if you rise to the dignity of your manhood, and by the help of God use your own sense and understanding, and pray for the teaching of his Spirit that you may know what the truth is.

Our Savior puts a certain truth before good Martha in distinct terms: he left the general haze of the resurrection in which she believed, and said, "I who stand before you am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this?" Do you believe the doctrine put in this clear form and shape? He gave her crisp, sharp, definite teaching, and said, "Do you believe this?" He brought before her mental vision, not an impalpable, shadowy image and specter of truth, but a solid, substantial statement that he himself was the resurrection and the life, raising those who believe in him from the dead, and keeping in life those who, being alive, believe in him; and then he demanded: "Do you believe this?"

A great many people see doctrines in a kind of dim, hazy light, and in that "visible darkness" they exercise a sort of faith, but they will never get comfort out of truth in that fashion. We must believe revealed truth as we see it, in its own clear, well defined, and accurate form as Scripture shows it. For instance, the doctrine of the atonement is robbed of half its delight, if indistinctly stated. Thousands of Christians believe in a kind of atonement, a means of reconciliation, a sort of atoning sacrifice made by Christ, which in some way or other brings us to God; but, beloved, I would have you believe that "He his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree." "The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." Do you believe this? "He has made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." Do you believe this? Read the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, in which you have penal substitution set forth most clearly. Yes, read the chapter through and pause over such a verse as the eleventh, "He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities." And then put it to yourself: Do you believe this? The very life and soul and sweetness of atonement, will be found in the penal substitution of the innocent Savior for the guilty sinner in the actual bearing of the penalty of sin, the real payment of the debt; for then I know that I am clear, because he, in my stead, has vindicated justice, honored the law, and glorified God. Do you believe this?

Dear friend, ask God to give you grace that you may believe in what Christ has taught, and what the prophets and the apostles have spoken, exactly as it was meant that you should believe it, not in a haphazard, unreal way, but with your whole heart, and soul, and mind, accepting God's Word as it stands, in all its clearly cut lines and features. Have a quick and true answer to the question, "Do you believe this distinct and clear truth?" Answer, "Yes, Lord!"

 

III. We will now go a little further, in the third place, to ask, "DO YOU BELIEVE THIS DIFFICULT TRUTH?" Certain truths are hard to grasp. There are points about them which almost stagger faith until faith rises to her true character, and is no longer dwarfed into carnal reasoning; but these difficult things are to be believed. It was not easy for Martha to understand how the Lord Jesus could himself be the resurrection and the life, and yet her brother was dead. It was not an easy truth for her to believe, for it is not easy for us. How can he who died, become alive? How can he whose members are still in the grave, be resurrected? How can Jesus have such a astonishing power, that resurrection and life should be entirely dependent upon him? How can these things be? We know the fact, but we do not understand it. It is well for us if we do not want to understand it, but regard it as sufficient for us to believe what is revealed, even though to our reason it may seem a fathomless deep.

Indeed, it was hard for Martha to believe her Lord to be the life, because it seemed contrary to her experience. "Though he were dead--yet shall he live;" she might hope that this was possible in the case of Lazarus; but then the Lord had said, "He who lives and believes in me, shall never die." How could that be true? for Lazarus lived and believed in Jesus, and yet he had died. Her experience seemed to be contrary to Christ's statement, and this might have rendered it difficult to believe, and therefore the Lord said, "Do you believe this?"

But, my brethren, when we become Christians, then we cease to consider difficulties of belief, for we take the Scriptures upon divine authority and submit ourselves implicitly to their teaching. At any rate, I have done so. What the Church is to the Romanists--that the Bible and the Holy Spirit are to me. This done, no difficulty remains one-half so great as those which I have surmounted.

I believed, first of all, that God was in Christ, that he who made the heavens and the earth came down below and took upon himself human nature, was born at Bethlehem, was cradled in a manger, and took his nourishment from a woman's bosom: after having believed that I can believe anything. An incarnate God once accepted, no difficulty need stagger my faith. Martha's speech, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who would come into the world" proved her readiness to believe all else that Jesus might teach. The incarnation, to begin with, without believing which a man can be no Christian at all, is so profound a mystery that other teachings are simple in its presence. "Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh." Once rejoice in the light of this which is the very daystar of hope to us, that God has taken into union with himself our human nature, and you are ready for all light. Only let me know that whatever God says is true, and that is enough for me. I do not quite join with the poor old woman in her words, but I agree with her spirit, who put her implicit faith in Scripture in the most unguarded way. When someone ridiculed her for believing that the whale swallowed Jonah; she answered, "if the Word of God had said that Jonah swallowed the whale I would have believed it." Brethren, prostrate yourselves before the utterance of God. Not before man's dictum or dogma, not before the utterance of priest, presbyter, pastor, or philosopher--but before God, who cannot err, we prostrate our souls. In him you must place implicit faith. Let him say what he wills, we must believe it; and that not in one case or twenty, but in all that he says. "Do you believe this?" This? this? whatever it is. Yes, if it is indeed taught in infallible Scripture by the Holy Spirit of God, then we believe it. If your faith does not rise to this mark, then evil will happen to it.

Our Lord one day said to a company of those who were his followers, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood, dwells in me, and I in him." What followed? Read on. "Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is a hard saying; who can hear it? From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." They said, "Can this man give us his flesh to eat?" and they came to the conclusion that it could not be, and deserted their teacher. Do we wish to do this? The Lord Jesus Christ at the very outset of his ministry, prepares us to believe hard things. He bids us to count the cost about this as well as everything else. Although we already believe certain mysteries, there are many more, that we do not know of as yet, which will in due course demand our faith.

Did not Jesus say to Nicodemus when Nicodemus had been told of being born again, and that had staggered him, "If I have told you earthly things, and you believe not, then how shall you believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?" As if even regeneration, which is really full of heavenliness, were but a commonplace truth compared with what Nicodemus had yet to believe. If Nicodemus had said, "Good Master, I can go as far as this, but I reserve my judgment, and shall venture no further," then the ruler of the Jews and the Son of God would have parted, for he cannot be Christ's disciple who will not receive all Christ's words, let those words be what they may.

Do you believe this, then? This difficult truth? I put this very earnestly to some of you, because it may be that at this moment you are in trouble from lack of faith in a promise or a doctrine which seems hard to you. You have a promise, "When you pass through the fire, then you shall not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon you." Do you believe this, though all things appear to be consumed in the heat of your affliction? It may be that you are under a peculiar cloud and dense gloom, and yet Jesus declares, "I am the light of the world, he who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life;" and, again, "Whoever believes me, shall not abide in darkness." Do you believe this? Can you laugh at impossibility, and say it shall be done, for God has said it? Don't you know that things impossible with men are possible with God? Can your faith leap over the head of carnal reason? Can present circumstances and the deductions of your own judgment, all be waved aside by the left hand as you say, "Let God be true, and every man a liar!" If so you have the faith which will comfort and bless you, but if not, like Martha, you will be bowed down with sorrow, since you have not yet believed the truth which can cheer you.

 

IV. Fourthly, to pass on: "Do you believe this?" that is, DO YOU BELIEVE THIS TRUTH AS IT STANDS CONNECTED WITH JESUS? I called your attention just now to the fact that Martha believed that there would be a resurrection. "Yes," says Christ, "but I am the resurrection. Do you believe this?" Now it is one thing to believe doctrine, but it is another thing to believe that doctrine as it is embodied in the person of Jesus Christ. "Do you believe this?" There the comfort lies: in believing the truth as you find it in him who is the truth. Martha was called upon to believe first in Christ's personal power. "The dead will rise." "True, Martha; but do you believe that I shall make them rise, that it is through me that the dead shall live? Yes, that I am the life and resurrection. Do you believe that?"

She was to believe, moreover, in his present power. Mark that. "Even now," says Jesus, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who lives and believes in me, though he were dead--yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me, shall never die." It is one thing to believe that Jesus will have power at the last day, to raise the dead; but do we believe that he is even now the resurrection and the life? Oh the bliss of believing in the personal power of Christ and in the present power of Christ! Jesus, the I AM, says, "I am the resurrection and the life."

Moreover, she was called on to believe in the union of Christ with his people; that they are so one with him, that they are partakers of his life, that if they should come under the power of death, they should be delivered out of it; and that being out of the power of death, they shall never come under it: in Christ the dead shall live, the living shall not die. "Oh," says one, "but I myself do not comprehend this, for I see godly people die." Yes, you see what you think is death, but they do not truly die, they rise into a higher life. That which is the essence of death, never touches believers--they "depart out of the world unto the Father;" they go "to be with Christ, which is far better," but they do not die. Death as a penal sentence, in its innermost meaning, never comes near to those for whom Jesus has borne death upon the cross; his death, in their stead, is the death of death to them. Do you believe this?

Come now, let us each one say, do I really believe that Jesus has all power in Heaven and in earth? Do I worship him as God over all, blessed forever? Able to do exceedingly abundant above all that I ask or even think? And when I come in prayer before God do I so believe in Christ, that I remember his promise, "Whatever you shall ask the Father in my name, I will give it to you;" not the Father, but I. Even Christ himself will give you all things. Have you such a notion and idea of your Lord that you know that he can do all things for you now, and that in answer to your prayer, he can grant you any blessing and save you out of any trouble and every trouble. Do you believe this? If you do not you have no right idea of Christ, for he is Lord of all. "You are the King of glory, O Christ," and as such we do believe in you, and trust you, and find comfort in your present, personal power!

 

V. We must now pass on to a fifth head. Do you believe this? That is to say, DO YOU BELIEVE THIS TRUTH IS APPLICABLE TO YOURSELF NOW? That was the point with Martha, and this was the place wherein she fell short. She believed that all would rise. But Jesus virtually says, "Do you believe that I am the resurrection and the life, because if it is so, I am able to raise your brother at once. Do you believe this?"

Now, observe, that we sometimes receive great truths and yet we are staggered by lesser truths, because, it may be, the great truth has no practical bearing upon us just now, while the present truth, though it be somewhat less in other respects, has a greater practical bearing upon ourselves and our condition. We may doubt the promise most necessary to our comfort. For look, she believes that all will rise; well, then, it was a much smaller thing to believe that one would rise. She doubts whether Lazarus can rise because he is in the grave--yet she believes that millions upon millions will rise from the ground. Doubtless that was because of the distance of the time and the scene. Some such feeling must have operated on her mind, for the general resurrection is the greater difficulty. Is it hard to believe that Lazarus who has been dead four days, can rise? Well, then, it is a great deal harder to believe that bodies can be quickened which have been dead several hundreds of years. Yet she did believe that the dead would rise at the resurrection at the last great day--those whose bodies had been dissolved by corruption and scattered by the four winds of Heaven to the utmost ends of the earth. She believed the miracle on the grand scale; so she said; but when it came home to one person who had only been dead for four days, then she could not believe it. She believed that there should be a general resurrection of all sorts of people; and yet, if that can be believed, then it is much easier to expect that a favorite of Christ like Lazarus, should rise. Jesus loved Lazarus; surely he will call him from the tomb. I say, she professed to believe the larger truth, and then she staggered at the less, because it was applicable to herself.

I beg you to see whether you are not often walking in the same path. Yonder is a poor soul who believes that Jesus Christ can wash away all sin. Now, my dear friend, do you believe that he can wash your sin away? That is the point, because all the sins of millions are much greater than yours can be, and if Jesus can take away the sin of so many, surely he can take away yours. Do you believe this? Will you come and trust him for yourself?

And you, Christian, you believe in general that all things work together for good to those who love God; do you believe that all your ills, little and great, are working good for you? Will that toothache of yours, will work for your good? Do you believe that yesterday's bad debt, will work for good? Do you believe that the death of your child, will work for good? You know it must be easier to believe that the events of one day will work for good; than to believe that all things in the world throughout life will do so; and yet it may be that you are staggered at your present trials, and you confess your misgivings. Have you faith in everything, but that which would comfort you? Have you everything but the special requirement of the hour? How odd! How sad!

If you can believe everything except the truth which would cheer you at this present moment, you are depriving yourself of comfort and strength. Do you believe this present promise, given for this very day?

The Lord has said "I will never leave you nor forsake you." Do you believe this?

"Underneath are the everlasting arms." Do you believe this?

"Your shoes shall be iron and brass, and as your days so shall your strength be." Do you believe this?

God's Word is as the tree of life which yields its fruit every month. What a blessing to take the fruit from the tree of life in its month, just when it is ripest and fullest of flavor. He has said, "Delight yourself also in the Lord, and he will give you the desire of your heart." Since you delight in him, then he will hear your prayer, and give you the light of his countenance. "Do you believe this?"

 

VI. The last point shall be this: DO YOU BELIEVE THIS PRACTICAL TRUTH? Martha said that she believed it; but her after acts did not prove it. She comprehended the belief in the Lord's Word in her declaration, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who would come into the world." But yet she did not believe, so as to act on the belief. Coleridge says, "Truths, of all others, the most awful and mysterious, and at the same time of universal interest, are too often considered as so true, that they lose all the power of truth, and lie bed-ridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most despised and exploded errors." How true is the remark!

Many people are worse than their creed, because their creed is asleep, and is not operating upon them: they believe as though they did not believe. This is a poor imitation of faith.

There is at this moment a house on fire in London. I will suppose that I know the fact, and tell you of it, and you believe it. But what do you care? Not one of you stirs. Yes, but if you saw the engine hurrying along the street and believed that your own house was blazing, I warrant you that you would bestir yourselves. Your belief would come a little more home to you as your own concern. In the same way, there are certain truths which do not seem to concern us to any high degree, at least for the present. They are true and important, but they operate no more upon us than if they were fictions.

Martha says she believes in Jesus as the resurrection and the life; yet what is her action? Christ commands the bystanders to take away the stone from the sepulcher, and she interposes with her cry, "Lord, by this time there is a stench!" She fears the obnoxious consequences of uncovering such a mass of corruption, though he who is the resurrection and the life stands at the grave's mouth. Ah! Martha, where is your faith in him? Dear heart, she says that she believes in Jesus as the resurrection and the life, and yet she is afraid that her brother will not rise though the Mighty One stands there to raise him.

Is she not just like you and me? We believe that God hears prayer, and therefore we pray; but if the Lord desires to surprise us, then he has only to answer our requests. I have seen God's children running with vast astonishment to tell their friends, "Here is a astonishing thing! Oh, such a marvelous event has happened to me! I offered a prayer and God has heard me." An amazing thing that God should do as he said he would? They put these things in books as marvels, and call the volume "Remarkable Answers to Prayer." Dear me, is it remarkable that it is cold when it freezes? Do we speak of the remarkable warmth of the sun's beams at midsummer? Is it remarkable that the fires in our houses should warm us when we put our hands near them? Is he a remarkable God because he says he will hear prayer and does it? An answer to prayer should be remembered with gratitude, and yet it should regarded as the most natural thing in all the world that our heavenly Father should fulfill his promises to his children. It is a great wonder that God should promise, but not a wonder that he should perform. It is marvelous that God should promise to hear prayer, but no wonder at all that when he has promised to do so, then he is as good as his word.

Brethren, we are to a great degree unpractical in other respects also, and we may take up many and many a truth that we do not act upon and say to our heart, "Do you believe this?"

Might I not step outside the door this morning, and putting my hand upon a fainting believer as he left the house say, "Do you believe your God?" You say, "I am so faint in spirit, that I shall utterly fall and perish at the last." But the Lord has said, "He gives power to the faint; and to them that have no might, he increases strength." Do you believe this?

I might go to another who is sighing and crying because of his poverty, and say to him, "God has said, 'No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly.' Do you believe this?" What would the complainer say? How could he reconcile his discomfort and his murmuring, with his belief in the comforting promise?

My brethren, let us go over these matters with our souls. We call ourselves believers, but are we believers at all? If it is so that one after another we doubt the precious things of God when they come before us in detail, where is our faith? Let us entreat our God to grant us grace that we may put our finger on this doctrine, on that promise, and on the other assurance; and say of each one, "Lord, I believe this, and I believe this, and I believe this: for I believe whatever you say in your Word, and I know that it shall be even as you have told me." May God bless you, beloved, and be ever with you, for Christ's sake. Amen.

Portion of scripture read before sermon--John 11:1–46.