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 In the kingdom of Christ, insubmission to the plain letter of Scripture, a wish to look into the secret purposes of God, and 'to be wise above what is written,' has, at all times in some measure, and at this time in particular, distracted the church, and tainted the simplicity of divine truth. So much of corrupted nature is there  in us, men will even here be thinking for themselves, and call their views deep, enlarged. These biblical freethinkers take the word of God for their rule, but then it is in a different sense - in any sense, they do not much care what, so it be but different from that in which any simple mind would understand it…..Such critics have made intellect seem the enemy of truth, which God could never mean it should be. He foresaw, indeed, that it would become so. He knew how powerful an instrument in Satan's hand would be the reasoning, questioning pride of man, when induced to array itself against the reception of the word.  When He determined to reveal to babes what was hidden from the wise and prudent, it was not that He held in abhorrence gifts He had bestowed; or that superior endowments made the creature an object of dislike to his Creator, that He should exclude him from His mercy. Impossible! But it pleased Him to clothe His Gospel in such a form, that non but the simple-minded could receive it; and while He gave His revelation in terms so plain, the way-faring man, though a fool, could not err therein, unless willfully choosing darkness rather than light…….

It pleased Him there should be but one way to divine knowledge; the ignorant, the poor, the simple, were ready to enter it, and his Spirit had only to unclose the gate- but for the wise, the learned, the disputatious, a previous process was required: 'If any man will be wise, let him become a fool.' They must go back and enter by the same gate of child-like ignorance, receiving the dictation of the Spirit without question and without dispute.  This the All-wise foresaw they would not do.  They would take His word as if it were the word of man, and examine it by the light of their own wisdom; and doing so, would either reject it wholly, receive only so much of it as they could fully explain; or, admitting its divine authority as a whole, would subject each separate part to whatever construction seemed most agreeable to their natural reason. Well might God foretell that not many such would be saved, although He named a way by which they might be.  That which seemed impossible with men, was possible with God. Some such are saved; not by conforming His plan of salvation to their character, and unclosing His mysteries to satisfy their wisdom, but by quite a different process. Touched by His Spirit, they consent to become fools, to read, believe and obey. But, alas! How often is this the end, when it should be the beginning; even of a religious course. What years of holy contentment are lost; what seasons of doubt and despondency endured, because men will reason when they should believe, or will have other guides for their belief, than the plain letter of the Scriptures! …………A Christian who…knows no right, no wrong, but according to God's revealed word. If he is questioned, there is his reason - if he is reproached, there is his defense - if he is in doubt, this, and this only, can resolve him. 

- Caroline Fry Wilson

From her book: Christ Our Example

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 FAITH , like a simple, unsuspecting child,

Serenely resting on its mother's arm
Reposing every care upon her arm,
Sleeps on his bosom, and expects no harm:

Receives with joy the promises he makes,
Nor questions of his purpose or his power;
She does not doubting ask, "Can this be so?"
The Lord has said it, and there needs no more.

However deep be the mysterious word,
However dark, she disbelieves it not;
Where Reason would examine, Faith obeys,
And "It is written," answers every doubt.

Faith, with a keen and realizing glance,
Revels in things yet distant and unseen,
And tastes a joy as exquisite, as true,
As if no veil of darkness hung between.

It is no cold, reversionary bliss,--
No distant hope the trusting bosom proves;
Faith has already wing'd the soul to heaven,
In search of Him whom seeing not she loves.

If clouds and darkness rest upon the soul,
Darkness is welcome, since it is His will;
In nature's saddest moments Faith can say,
"Though he should slay me, I will trust him still!"

In vain, with rude and overwhelming force,
Conscience repeats her tale of misery;
And powers infernal, wakeful to destroy,
Urge the worn spirit to despair and die.

As evening's pale and solitary star
But brightens while the darkness gathers round,
So Faith, unmov'd amid surrounding storms,
Is fairest seen in darkness most profound!

- Caroline Fry Wilson

From her book: Serious Poetry

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…Spurgeon observed many, 'who, by hearing continually the most precious doctrine that belief in Jesus Christ is saving, have forgotten other truths, and have concluded that they were saved when they were not, have fancied they believed when as yet they were total strangers to the experience which was not grounded upon the divine word rightly understood, 'nor proved by any facts in their own souls.'  They resented any suggestion of self examination by gospel tests as 'an assault upon their assurance' and 'defended their false peace by the notion that to raise a question about their certain salvation would be unbelief.' Their ill-placed certainty has put them in a hopeless condition and they ignore biblical warnings and admonitions by 'their fatal persuasion that it is needless to attend to them.'  Their historical knowledge of the work of Christ has settled them in a conviction 'that godly fear and careful walking are superfluities, if not actually an offense against the gospel.' 


 From the book: Living By Revealed Truth: The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon by Thomas Nettles

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Faith must embrace doctrinal truth.  To the suggestion that the time would come when preaching the doctrines of grace would be passe, Spurgeon responded, "Out on ye, traitors, who tell us that we care to shape our gospel to suit this enlightened nineteenth century!  Out on ye, falsehearts, who would have us tone down the everlasting truth that shall outlive the sun, and moon, and stars, to suit your boasted culture, which is but varnished ignorance!"  No, still he would preach those truths that were mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, and he would maintain it to the death.....Without such knowledge and consent to specific truth, no faith is possible.  A strong evidence of grace is the "mind's perception of revealed truth and its obedience to it," Spurgeon argued.  Since God has lifted the veil through divine revelation, the true believer does not make or invent his own precepts, but he learns them from God.

From the book: Living By Revealed Truth: The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon by Thomas Nettles

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"There will still be mysteries in the word of God that must be accepted as revelations rather than understood as the results of reasoning." Spurgeon was not afraid to exercise faith in "receiving the statements of the Scriptures."  No independent confirmation of scriptural assertion was needed, for its authority was independent of human reason and research; its evidence was in itself and its witness to the needs of the human soul, as interpreted through the entire fabric of redemptive truth, served as sufficient ground for receiving it as a revelation.  

From the book: Living By Revealed Truth: The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon by Thomas Nettles

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...Yes, that is how it ever has been, ever must be with the people of God.  Until we are carried quite out of our depth, beyond all our own wisdom and resources, we are not more than beginners in the school of faith.  Only as everything fails us and we fail ourselves, finding out how poor and weak we really are, how ignorant and helpless, do we begin to draw upon abiding strength.  "Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee," not partly in Thee and partly in himself.  The devil often makes men strong, strong in themselves to do evil…. The Lord on the contrary makes His servant weak, puts him in circumstances that will show him his own nothingness, that he may lean upon the strength that is unfailing.  It is a long lesson for most of us, but it cannot be passed over until deeply learned.  And God Himself thinks no trouble too great, no care too costly to teach us this.

From Volume one of:Growth of a Soul - Hudson Taylor in the early years by Dr. and Mrs. HowardTaylor

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Satan has now transformed himself into an angel of light, and under this fair disguise he is working with marvelous success.  He is teaching us to build the tombs of our fathers, that we may rest content with the mere approbation of their principles without any imitation of their practice.  He leads some astray into fatal error under the pretext of candor and love of truth; others he saturates with the orthodoxy of the head, that they may become Indifferent to the state of their heart before God.  Some he persuades to deny the Bible; to others he lauds it, that he may make it a substitute for the God of the Bible.  He cries up faith, that he may set it as a substitute for the object of faith.  With some he denies the possibility of assurance, that he may keep them from peace with God; with others he maintains the necessity of it, only in order that he may lead them to make a god of it, and substitute their being sure of salvation for believing in the Savior.  He cries down the Arminianism of making works our Savior, that he may lead us into the more subtle delusion of making a Savior of our faith.  He allows us a wide range of religious feeling and sentiment, if he can only succeed in making them a substitute for God.  He hinders not our being serious, earnest, solemn, if he can thereby feed the cravings of a restless, empty soul with something which may prevent us from seeking the bread of life.  He permits us to denounce the world's vanity and hollow pleasures - to be weary of its unsatisfying round of folly, that he may delude us into the idea that this dissatisfaction with the world is a proof that we are religious, and thereby cause us to sit down contented when yet a great way off from our Father's house.  He tolerates the circulation of useful, nay, of religious knowledge, that we may rest satisfied with something short of the fullness of God himself.  He may countenance, too, the routine of religious societies or Church courts, and the false excitement of crowded assemblies, eloquent speeches, glowing reports, that he may administer thereby that opiate to the soul by which it may be kept in a delusive day-dream, which seems so like the "sober certainty of waking bliss," that we cannot think of breaking the luxury of the pleasant spell.  He inculcates the necessity of providing for our children what is called a liberal education, that he may make that a substitute for a father's blessing and a mother's prayers.  He urges the obligation of Christian liberality, the necessity of large funds, that he may bring men to rest religious enterprise upon funds, not upon faith, - upon prudence, not on prayer. 

These outward things may be in themselves right and good, but what are they without the indwelling Spirit?  What is truth without the True One?  What is the perfection of Church order without the vital power from above?  - The body is there, but the living spirit has fled; the alter and the sacrifice are there, but the fire from heaven descends not; the temple is perfect and the worshippers are thronging its courts, but the glory is departed, Jehovah has left his shrine!

  - Horatius Bonar

From his book: Prophetical Landmarks

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When Satan cannot hide the truth, he works to hinder the practical application of it.

- William Gurnall

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 You should find great strength and encouragement in the knowledge that your commission is divine.  God Himself underwrites your battle and has appointed His own Son "the captain of [your] salvation" (Hebrews 2:10).  He will lead you on to the field with courage, and bring you off with honor.......For bravery none compares with our Lord.  He never turned  His head from danger, not even when hell's hatred and heaven's justice appeared against Him.  Knowing all that was about to happen, Jesus went forth and said, "Whom seek ye?" (John 18:4).  Satan could not overcome Him - our Savior never lost a battle, not even when he lost His life.  He won the victory, carrying His spoils to heaven in the triumphant chariot of His ascension.  There He makes an open show of them, to the unspeakable joy of saints and angels.    As part of Christ's army, you march in the ranks of gallant spirits.  Every one of your fellow soldiers is a child of a King.  Some, like you, are in the midst of battle, besieged on every side by affliction and temptation.  Others, after many assaults, repulses and rallyings of their faith, are already standing upon the wall as conquerors.  From there they look down and urge you, their comrades on earth, to march up the hill after them.  This is their cry: "Fight to the death , and the City is your own, as now it is ours! For the waging of a few days' conflict, you will be rewarded with Heaven's glory.  One moment of this celestial joy will dry up all your tears, heal all your wounds, and erase the sharpness of the fight with all the joy of your permanent victory."

- William Gurnall
from Daily Readings from The Christian In Complete Armour (William Gurnall)

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A good or bad defense of the faith may be helpful or unhelpful, but in each case that is only corroborative.  The Christian faith is not true because someone argues for it brilliantly, nor is it false because someone defends it badly.  Christian faith is true or false regardless of anyone's defense of the faith.  Faith's certainty lies elsewhere than in the rapier sharp logic or the sledgehammer power of the apologist.  At the end of the day, full certainty comes from the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

- Os Guinness
from his book:  Fool's Talk:  Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion

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Faith is not inherently virtuous.  Its value depends on the worth of its object.  The Bible understood in context and given precedent over our own instincts and preferences , is our dependable guide for faith and practice.

- Randy Alcorn

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People often demand signs (from God) on their terms, ignoring the signs God chooses to give.  God builds our faith in ways that we would not have anticipated.  To insist on proofs of our own making is not beneficial. 

- paraphrase of Don Lambert

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It has been well said, "Nothing is easier than to doubt.  A man of moderate ability or learning can doubt more than the wisest men believe."  Faith demands knowledge, for it is an intelligent grace, able and anxious to justify itself; but infidelity is not required to give a reason for the doubt that is in it; a defiant mien and a blustering tone answer its purpose.  The acme of unbelief is to know nothing.  What is this but the apotheosis of ignorance.  A man may glide into agnosticism insensibly, and remain in it languidly; but to believe is to be alive.  Those who think faith to be a childish business will have to make considerable advance toward manliness before they are able to test their own theory.

- Charles Spurgeon

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 Fortunately for us, our faith does not entitle us to heaven anymore than our stupidity shuts us out of it; when we get there it will be through Him who loved us.

Elizabeth Prentiss

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We must turn our back very resolutely upon every teaching of the Christian life which would lead us to try to obtain a direct vision of God.  We must not desire ever to hear audible voices or to have such visions as will give us a kind of mechanical, material certainty.  Now you know there were mystics who went in for that kind of thing… They did not like the idea of faith, they did not like the life which, as Paul describes it, says, 'we walk by faith not by sight'.  They wanted to see and hear, they wanted something tangible, and the result was they became victims of aberrations, of hallucinations and of all the manifestations which invariably accompany this craving for the immediate…We must not think of God in material terms.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

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We are to trust in God's faithfulness, not to test it.

Don Lambert

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Lay down this principle as law - God does nothing arbitrary.  If He takes away your health, for instance, it is because He has some reason for doing so; and this is true of everything you value; and if you have real faith in Him, you will not insist on knowing the reason....You can will to prefer a religion of principle to one of mere feeling; in other words, to obey the will of God when no comfortable glow of emotion accompanies your obedience.

Elizabeth Prentiss
(from Stepping Heavenward)

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being persuaded of this very thing, that the One having begun a good work in you will finish it until the day of Jesus Christ;
(Php 1:6)

.....wherefore by it is undoubtedly meant the work of grace upon their hearts, sometimes called the work of faith, because that is a principal part of it: this is God's work, and not man's, as may be concluded from the nature of the work itself, which is the transforming of a man by the reviewing of him, a regeneration, a resurrection, and a creation, and therefore requires almighty power; and from the condition man is in by nature, he is dead in sin, and has no power to act spiritually, and much less what is equal to such a work as this; he has no will, desire, and inclination to it, but all the reverse; and if he had, he could no more effect it, than the dry bones in Ezekiel's vision could cause themselves to live. ....[faith] is a "good work", as it must needs be, since it is God's work; he is the efficient cause of it; his good will and pleasure, his grace and mercy are the moving cause of it, and not men's works; and his good word is the means of it. The matter of it is good; it is an illumination of the understanding, a subduing of the will, a taking away of the stony heart, and a giving of an heart of flesh, an infusion of spiritual life, a formation of Christ in the soul, and an implantation of all grace there: it is good in its effects; it makes a man a good man, and fits and qualifies him to perform good works, which without it he cannot do; it makes a man a proper habitation for God, and gives him meetness for the heavenly inheritance. And this is an internal work, a work begun "in" the saints; nothing external is this work; not an outward reformation, which, when right, is the fruit of this good work; nor external humiliation for sin; nor a cessation from the grosser acts of sin; nor a conformity and submission to Gospel ordinances; all which may be where this work is not; but it is something within a man; as appears from the names by which it goes; such as spirit, so called, because it is of a spiritual nature, wrought by the Spirit of God, and has its seat in the spirit of man; it is called the inward man, which is renewed day by day; a seed that remains in him, and a root which is out of sight, and oil in the vessel, the heart, as distinct from the lamp of an outward profession: as also from the several things, which, together, make up the subject of it; it is the understanding which is enlightened; the will which is subdued; the heart and inward parts in which the laws of God are written; the mind and conscience, which are sprinkled with the blood of Christ, and cleansed; and the affections, which are set on divine objects. This is a begun work, and but a begun one. It may be said to be begun as soon as light is let into the soul by the Spirit of God; when it sees its lost state, and need of a Saviour, for as the first thing in the old creation was light, so in the new; when the fear of God is put into the heart, which is the beginning of wisdom; when love appears in the soul to God, to Christ, to his people, word, and ordinances; and when there are the seeing, venturing, and relying acts of faith on Christ, though there is a great deal of darkness, trembling, and unbelief; and when it is got thus far, and even much further, it is but a begun work; it is not yet finished and perfect: this appears from the several parts of this work, which are imperfect, as faith, hope, love, knowledge, &c. from the indwelling of sin, and corruption in the best of saints; from their various continual wants and necessities; from their disclaiming perfection in this life, and their desires after it. But the apostle was confident, and so may every good man be confident, both for himself and others, that God who has, and wherever he has begun the good work of grace, will "perform", finish it, or bring it to an end, as the word here used signifies: and this the saints may assure themselves of, from many considerations; .........for if this work is not finished, the glory of God the Father in election, in the covenant of grace, in the contrivance of salvation, in the mission of his Son, the glory of Christ in redemption, and of the Spirit in sanctification, would be entirely lost: wherefore it may be depended on, this work will be performed wherever it is begun, and that "until the day of Jesus Christ"; meaning either the day of death, when Christ takes the souls of believers to himself, and they shall be for ever with him, when this work of grace upon the soul will be finished; for God, who is the guide of his people, will be their God and guide even unto death: or else the last day, the day of judgment, the resurrection day, when Christ shall appear and raise the dead, and free the bodies of the saints from all their bondage, corruption, vileness, and weakness, which will be putting the last and finishing hand to this good work...

John Gill

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Faith is more focus than fantasy.

 

Don Lambert

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God's bow is never drawn at random; he makes no mistakes either in telling the number of 'the stars', or in measuring out to me the griefs which shall teach me to glorify him...Ah! our eyes are so dimmed by earth's fogs and shadows that we cannot see clearly enough to distinguish good from evil and if left to ourselves might embrace a curse rather than a blessing.  Poor blind mortals that we are, it is well for us that our Master should choose our trials for us even though to our imperfect vision he seems sometimes to have appointed a hard thing.

 

Ill that God blesses turns to good.

While unblest good is ill,

And all is right that seems most wrong

If it be his sweet will.

 

Susannah Spurgeon