How to Please God

This sermon was first preached on August 20th in the year 1885 by Charles Haddon Spurgeon. The text for this morning comes from the book of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6. Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Without faith, the text says, it is impossible to please God. Yet not all men have faith. Even among those who have heard the gospel, many have not obeyed it. Isaiah is not the only one who has had to cry out, Who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? If it is true that without faith it is impossible to please God, then what becomes of the multitude who have heard but have not believed? To whom the word of this salvation has come, but who have rejected it?

It is to be feared that God may again swear in His wrath They will not enter into my rest. The Israelites could not enter into Canaan because of unbelief. And today men and women cannot enter into the privileges of the gospel because of unbelief. Let us pity and pray for those who do not have faith. Oh, that God would hear the cries of his children and bring about faith in men and women. For this also is the gift of God.

Not only the blessing which he promises, but even the hand whereby we receive it must come from him. There are some who have a kind of faith, and these are, perhaps, in a more dangerous condition than those who have no faith at all, because they are apt to deceive themselves and believe that they are in a state of grace, whereas they are still in a state of nature. The faith which pleases God is no mock faith, no dead faith, no false faith, no faith in a lie. It is faith in the truth. It is true faith. It is spiritual faith. The faith that saves the soul and makes it pleasing before God is real faith.

Many say they believe a certain thing, but they do not truly believe it. It is not real to them. They say, yes, such and such a doctrine is true, and they write it down in their creed and put the creed away on the top shelf of their bookcase. And there it lies, covered with dust. A man only believes that which affects his life. If it is an important truth, if he has really believed it, it will touch every nerve of his being. It will often hold him back from one course and with equal force impel him to another.

True faith is the most active driving power in the whole world. Faith which works by love works all sorts of wonders. And where there is this true faith, It will prove its reality by its practicalness. The faith of God's elect is not a dead faith. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Neither is He the God of dead faith, but He is the God of living faith. God grant that each one of us may possess this real God-given blessing.

But if we have merely a theoretical, nominal, historical faith, which does not affect our lives at all, then we are in the same condition as those who have no faith. And we come under the description of the text, without faith. And without faith, it is impossible to please God.

Before I enter upon the exposition of the text, I would like to make a quick search throughout this place to find out any who are without faith. Without faith, you are without God, for God is only apprehended by faith. Without faith, you are without hope, for a true hope can only spring out of a true faith. And you are without Christ, consequently without a Savior, without the means of the removal of your sin. without the help with which to fight daily the battle of life against sin.

Without Christ, oh, it would be infinitely better to be without your eyes, without your hearing, without wealth, without food, without clothing, without a home, rather than to be without the faith which brings everything that the soul requires.

Without faith, we are indeed spiritually naked and poor and miserable, lost and condemned and without a hope of escape. Without faith, could that be written as a correct label and hung upon your back? You might not perhaps be ashamed to wear it.

But if an angel can see it on your forehead as the description of your character, I am sure that he is greatly concerned about you. But your fellow man, who would happily speak to you so that you will not leave this place without faith, feels troubled that there should be anyone in this land of Bibles, this land of Sunday worship, this land of revivals, this land of the gospel, who would have developed discretion and yet should be so sadly indiscreet as to live without faith.

"The text says, Without faith, it is impossible to please God. And I am going to keep to the text. So first of all, note, dear friends, the necessity of faith declared. After we have declared it, we will pass on to the necessity of faith proven, that you may see, each one with his own mental eye, that it must be so, that without faith, it is impossible to please God. And then we will close with the necessity of faith used for profit. We will try to gather some lessons from it for our own practical guidance.

First, here is the necessity of faith declared. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. The necessity of faith declared. You notice that there is no limit put on this declaration. Without faith it is impossible to please God. This law applies universally to every person under the gospel dispensation.

There are a great many people who are very anxious to know about the future of the heathen, but we may well leave them to the great judge of all, earnestly desiring to bring them to the faith which is in Christ Jesus. It is much more practical for us to think of those to whom faith is possible because the gospel has come to them and they have heard it.

The declaration of our text, without faith it is impossible to please God, applies to every person, whoever that person may be. See how men are buried nowadays. A man has been a king. So of course his funeral must be one of the most religious majesty. And though his soul, loaded with a thousand crimes, has sunk deep into the pit of hell, yet there are many who suppose that he went to heaven because he was a king.

And if a man is a poet and can write fine verses, though they are steeped in lust, yet there are some who suppose that such a cultured person cannot be lost. Surely, said a blasphemous man, God will think twice before he damns such a gentleman as that. And what the skeptic spoke sarcastically is no doubt a common notion of many people, that if men happen to be in what are called the higher ranks of society, or happen to be largely gifted with a certain faculty, or happen to have been eminently successful in life, or to have been great inventors and so forth, it must be well with their soul.

But let it be known to one and all that without faith it is impossible to please God. But, says someone, men have been very sincere in the pursuit of external religion and they have been moral and kind and benevolent, haven't they pleased God? It is not for me to use flattering speeches, for my text is very sweeping. Without faith it is impossible, impossible to please God. He who has missed this faith has missed the vital point. Had he begun with that, His kindness, his morality, his benevolence would have been acceptable, because in them there would have been the flower of life, the faith that makes them live.

But without this, they are cold, soulless, dead, mere carcasses of virtue, devoid of life. Without faith, in any case, and in every case, it is impossible to please God. Just as the text is universal to persons, so it is universal as to every form of work and worship. No matter what is done, without faith it is impossible to please God.

It was a fine row of homes for the poor that sprang out of that man's magnificent bequest, but those homes for the poor never pleased God. for they were not built with any faith in him. Likewise, it was a generous gift that was bestowed upon the church. Yes, and those who received it were grateful for such help. But God never accepted it, for he who gave it hoped to somehow buy forgiveness, or purchase a place in heaven, or make some atonement for his oppressions of the poor. Without faith, though millions were poured into the treasury of the church, without faith it is impossible to please God.

I may say of faith what Paul said of love. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. The most self-sacrificing and most heroic deeds, whenever they have been performed from any other motive than that of pleasing God and without confidence in God, have remained outside His acceptance. Without faith, it is impossible to please God.

This is not a popular teaching, but we never wish to teach a popular theology. It is not one that will commend itself to the natural mind of men. We never thought it would. We would have been shocked if our preaching had been admired by such persons. And we would have gone home and felt that we were not called by God to preach at all. But nevertheless, this is true. Without faith, it is impossible to please God.

Observe that the text mentions two things. It says, anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. That is to say, in coming to God and in seeking God, there must be faith. In coming to God, if there is prayer, what is that prayer worth which is offered without any faith in God? If a man prays to a God whom he does not know as really existing, is he not, even from his own point of view, engaged in a very senseless exercise? And to God himself it must be a piece of dreadful mockery.

O friends, there must be faith or else prayer certainly becomes the most meaningless waste of time. And as to praise, How can we praise an unknown God? If we have no faith that there is a God, how can we praise him? How can our lives extol a being about whose very existence we raise a question? No, more than that, I cannot praise God unless I know that he is mine. How can I bless another man's God? How can I offer to another man's God thanksgivings for mercies that I have never tasted and for favors in which I have never had a share? There must be a sense of a personal relationship to God and personal obligation and personal confidence in laying hold of Him or else the psalm is sung in vain even to the noblest music. And I do believe, dear friends, that if I come to God in the matter of preaching and bearing testimony, yet if I do it without faith, my work cannot be acceptable to God. And I do not think that it would be acceptable to you for very long. To me, it would be slavery to have to preach what I did not believe. If I had a shadow of a doubt about it, I would hide myself until I had something to say about which I felt sure.

How can we expect the blessing of God on the testimony of His Son, even though it would be in the very words of scripture and be doctrinally correct to a hair's breadth, unless faith is mixed with it by Him who preaches it and by Him who hears it? without faith in any act whatsoever, however religious, devout, and self-denying, it is impossible to please God."

Further, dear friends, notice that while the text is thus sweeping in its application, it is also very positive in its assertion. It does not say, without faith it is difficult to please God, Or without faith it must require great monastic self-denial, rigid discipline, austerity, and misery in order to please God. No, for those things do not please Him at all. But it says, without faith it is impossible to please God. It does not, as I have sometimes seen in the country, put a flimsy wooden gate across the road and paint on it the word private. No, rather it builds a brick wall across the road. Or it digs a gulf across the road and says, it is impossible. Without faith, it is impossible.

Our Savior speaks of what is nearly impossible. The difficulty of a rich man entering the kingdom of heaven. and compares it to a camel going through the eye of a needle. And then he says, with men, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. But our text deals with something which is an impossibility with God himself. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. It is a double impossibility for an unbelieving man to please God and for God to be pleased with an unbelieving man. It is not possible that he would be pleased with works done in unbelief or with men living in unbelief.

Notice also that there is another strong word in the text, an imperative word, for he that comes to God must believe. It is not he that comes to God should believe, and in proportion as he believes he will get a blessing, and if he is unbelieving he will only get a smaller blessing. No, but it is he that comes to God must. Must is the word of a king or an emperor. It is an imperial truth and an authoritative truth. that anyone who comes to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. We are sometimes said to be dogmatic. Is there any dogmatism that can be more intense than what we have in our text? It says impossible. It says must. These are words that are not to be bent and twisted. Some men have a great gift in distorting words and twisting expressions. They seem to bend them across their knee and snap their meaning in two. But this text does not bend, nor can it be snapped in two. Without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe."

Further, Observe that the text not only makes this positive assertion, but it is intended to be a message perpetually in force. Without faith it is impossible to please God, evidently refers to the past. Read the previous verse and you will see that it is true. By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death. He could not be found because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commanded as one who pleased God.

And without faith, it is impossible to please God. It was always true under that old dispensation, with those mighty patriarchs and kings and prophets, it was impossible to please God without faith. So it is now. And so it always will be till the end of time. The immutable decree still stands. He that believes and is baptized will be saved, but he that does not believe will be damned. That is the gospel equivalent of this apostolic declaration.

Without faith, it is impossible to please God. It is always so, dear friends, and it will always be so. There is no hope of any other gate ever being opened for those who refused to enter the door of faith.

Yet once more, the text speaks most instructively. It tells us that there are certain things that really are and certain things which are imperative. Anyone who comes to God must believe that He exists. Anyone who comes to God must believe that He exists. If you would come to God, you must believe that there is a God, and you must believe that God is what He says He is. Otherwise, if you make God to be other than He says He is, you make God to be an idol. Your God is an imaginary being. You must accept God as he is revealed in the scripture. What he says he is, that he is. And what he is, you must believe, believing that he is and that he is God.

Oh, but how easy it is for a man to drift away from that elementary truth and to say, oh yes, I believe in God. But do you believe in inflexible justice? Do you believe in God's mercy? Do you believe in an omniscient God that sees everything? Do you believe in the omnipresence of God that means that He is everywhere you are? Do you believe all this? Because if not, you do not believe in God. You may believe in your own idea of God, but you do not really believe in God. If you would come to God, you must believe that He is what He says He is.

In His word, He reveals Himself as one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Will you accept His statements about Himself? Then, when you pray, will you cease speaking words into the air and rather speak into God's ear, believing that He hears every word you utter and more? that he is reading the thoughts that lie at the back of your words. That is the right way to seek him, to come to him. We must come to him as the living God, having a real existence, a true personality. Otherwise, we cannot come to him at all.

And further, We must believe that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. He rewards those who earnestly seek Him, for that is the meaning of the Greek word. We must believe that God will reward the person who seeks Him, that therefore God is worth seeking, that although it may be costly to follow after God and obey Him, yet it will pay you that there is a great reward in keeping his commandments, that he does hear prayer, and that he does grant great blessings to those who truly seek him. We must believe this or else there is no real seeking of him. It is imperative, if we would come to God, that we must believe that he is and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

But God cannot reward them that seek him on the ground of their merit, for they have none. It must therefore be upon the ground of grace. This introduces into our faith as a point of necessary belief that we believe in Jesus Christ by whose merit we are accepted, that diligently seeking God we find him in Christ, and this brings to us the great gospel reward. God bestows upon us His favor, His grace, and the blessings of His covenant as a gracious reward not because of our merit but because of the merit of His Son, Jesus Christ. This we must believe or we have not really come to God in the right manner. This is the doctrine asserted in our text. Without faith it is impossible to please God.

Secondly, for today, I want us to dwell for a few minutes upon the necessity of faith proven. The necessity of faith proven. What is the reason why there is such a necessity for faith in order to please God? Our answer is first, God said so. God said so. Let it be enough that these are the words of inspiration, supported by many other similar words throughout the sacred and infallible book. Here it stands. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. God says so. He knows what the truth is. He can speak about what pleases Him. and we are therefore not to doubt what he declares.

Still, as a confirmation of our faith, let it be observed that as to the nature of things it must be so. No man can be pleased with another who does not believe in him. If a person does not give you credit for decency and honesty, he may profess to do your will and wish to please you. but you feel at once that whatever he does, he misses the cardinal necessity for really pleasing you. Let a person have the conviction that you are unkind and unjust. Let him feel that he could not trust you. Well, then I do not see how he can be a pleasing person to you or how you are likely to get along with him in your household, whatever he may do.

This trust has divided men and women whose hearts seem to be one. Where trust has died out, love has always died out too. And I can hardly conceive of a more intolerable misery than for a man and woman who have no trust in one another to be united together. In the very nature of things, If we are to be united with God by His grace, one of the essential terms of the union must be, on our part, the fullest belief in God. I do not see how we can ever hope to be on speaking terms with God, how we can at all be reconciled to God unless, as a very beginning step, we are resolved that we will believe God and that we will trust Him. Without faith, it is, in the nature of things, impossible to please God.

And dear friends, the person who has no faith is unacceptable to God. All through scripture, faith is spoken of as the great method of justification. We are justified by faith through Jesus Christ. If then we have no faith, I am not accounted just before God, and all the works of an unaccepted man must be unaccepted. If that man is an enemy of God, then it doesn't matter what he does, for how can he please God? You cannot expect that God would receive anything from your hands when you begin by declaring that you will not trust him. It cannot be. However much you multiply your good works with a view of saving yourself and thereby pleasing God, you are distinctly aiming at a purpose which God has declared is not according to His mind. No one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law. If then you persist in doing good works to gain salvation, you are pursuing a plan which God has declared He will never accept. You must come to him as sinners to be justified by another righteousness better than your own, or else it will happen to you as happened to ancient Israel. They had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. And going about to establish themselves by their own righteousness, they did not submit themselves to the righteousness of God. And therefore they stumbled over that stone of stumbling and rock of offense, and were broken in pieces and perished. God save us from attempting to do what he says cannot be done.

Without faith it is impossible to please God." Observe further. that the man who is without faith in God grossly insults God and therefore cannot be pleasing to Him. The man who is without faith in God grossly insults God and therefore cannot be pleasing to Him. He does in effect deny God's truth. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, so says John. the softest speaking and most tender hearted of all the apostles. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his son.

Now if a man begins by making God a liar, how can God be pleased with him? Perhaps you say, I don't doubt the truthfulness of God. But I question his power to fulfill his promise to such a sinner as I. But my friend, don't you see that you have committed a gross insult against the Lord by such a statement? He claims to be omnipotent. He asks, is there anything too hard for me to do? He says, Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other. Yet you dare to say that He cannot save you? You have insulted His power. Therefore, how can you please Him?

Oh, but you say, I have no doubt that God can keep His promise and that God will. But still I cannot think that he could forgive such a sinner as I am." Now you have insulted his goodness. He is so good that you cannot suppose him to be any better. He is so ready to forgive that he swears with an oath that he has no pleasure in the death of him that dies, but that he turn to him and live. You must know that you dare not mistrust the truth, the power, or the goodness of God. Or if you will do so, then you cannot please him.

What would you think of a child who was always doubting his father, saying, father said so and so, but I don't suppose it will come true. My father promised to give me so and so, but I don't expect that he will. If a child stands up and says, I find it difficult to believe my father, oh my, may God save us from having such children as that. I do not see how they could possibly please us. They would be in a state of mind which would be radically displeasing because it would be radically unjust and wrong.

How dare you distrust your God? How dare you say that his testimony is not true? God grant that I may never doubt God in the slightest degree. I do feel that. Of all sins that I could ever commit against the majesty of heaven, one of the most monstrous would be that of doubting one single syllable that comes from those divine lips. Let God be true and every man a liar. He must keep his promise. There is no if or but about it, otherwise he would cease to be God. His very word of grace is strong, as that which built the skies, the voice that rolls the stars along, speaks all the promises. And we dare not doubt anything that he says. Brethren, in a word, Faith is so much the root, the source, the mother of every good, that he who is without faith is without anything that can please God. How will I love him whom I do not believe? How can I be patient under the rod of him whom I do not trust? How can I have zeal for him whose truth I doubt? How can I rejoice in him whose promise I mistrust? No, this would lay the axe at the root of the fruit-bearing tree and utterly destroy it. If you will not believe, neither will you be saved. There are no good works except those that spring from a living, loving, lasting faith in God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now lastly, We are to consider the necessity of faith used for profit. The necessity of faith used for profit. What are the lessons this truth should teach us? When we have spoken of them, we will be done. May God bless our testimony to your hearts.

The first lesson is for us to look carefully at our faith. For us to look carefully at our faith. Is it the faith of God's elect? Is it childlike faith? Is it really faith in God or is it faith in our own knowledge or our own judgment? Is it confidence in God's word or is it confidence in our own thinking and inventions? I don't quarrel with modern theology merely because of what it teaches. I believe that it teaches a lie from top to bottom. But I have another quarrel with it. that it teaches a false principle. It takes man away from what is written to what is thought. It does not allow the sovereign authority of revelation, and in disallowing that, their very foundations are removed. And much of the abounding vice of this day is, I believe, the direct result of this abounding unbelief of God, this philosophical mistrust of infinite wisdom. Is it philosophy? Is it philosophy falsely so called? Mere madness put in some sort of a shape? As for us, let us come to the law and to the testimony, to God and to his spirit, and test and try everything by what is spoken here, and by our personal proving of it before God in our own experience. making that to be true to ourselves, which God says is true to His chosen ones.

The next lesson I would give you is this. Let us mix faith with all that we do. Let us mix faith with all that we do. Without faith, it is impossible to please God.

So, dear friend, you are going to teach in your Sunday school class next Sunday. Well, then teach with faith. Brother Minister, you are going to preach the next Lord's Day. Then say to yourself, by God's grace, I will try to preach with faith because preaching with doubt does not come to much.

You remember the story that I've often told you of my very first student going out to preach and he came to me and said that he had preached earnestly several times and yet he had not seen any conversions. I said to him, and do you suppose that God is going to bless the people every time you choose to open your mouth? He answered, oh no sir, I don't expect that. Ah then, I replied, that is why God did not bless you, because you did not have faith in him, you have confessed it. I had caught him with my cleverness.

So dear brother, you should believe that if you preach the gospel, God must bless you. That it is not a maybe or a mere possibility that he will, but that if you deliver his message in the full conviction that somebody or other is going to get a blessing, there will be a blessing for someone.

Very often, just in proportion to our faith, Is it done to us? Oh, how many churches there are that I know of where they hope that they may have some conversions. And dear souls, if they do have two or three converts in a year, some of the old members are frightened at the quantity. They are afraid they cannot all be true conversions. So many are coming in. If they were ever to hear a brother preach so that 3,000 were converted at once, these dear old saints would rise up and say, now Peter, you are nothing but a revivalist sort of a preacher. You are as bad as D.L. Moody. Why, look at all these people brought in. We cannot possibly think of receiving so many into the church. I am afraid that their God is a little God.

but oh, to believe in a great God and to preach in faith. When everything is done in faith, it will be accepted. A woman says, oh, that my children were converted. She does not at all expect that they will be. She is sure they will all grow up bad. And she is teaching them with a view to their turning back when they get to be 50 years old. Ah, my dear friend, perhaps it will be so. But if you had faith and would believe that those dear children of yours need never to go out into the world of sin at all, but by God's grace might be brought to him while they were yet at your knee, wouldn't that be a great deal better? Without faith, you see, in bringing up your children, it will be impossible for you to please God by the way that you talk. Let us put plenty of faith in all that we do.

There is a good prescription in the Old Testament. You can find it when you get home today. It says salt without prescribing how much. That is, you may put as much of the salt of faith as you like into all your work and you will never overdo it. But it is leaving the salt out that prevents it from being pleasing to God. Oh, for more true confidence in God, who deserves to be confided in to the very uttermost.

And lastly, let us take care to trust God most when things are the worst. Let us take care to trust God most when things are the worst. There is a brother here who is in a world of trouble. All of his money is gradually melting away. He does not know how he is to make ends meet. Now, brother, whatever you lose, say, if I do not please anybody else or do not please myself, I will please my master. Walk with God as Enoch did. How are you to do this? Listen. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. In the past, you had no room for faith about making money. It came so regularly. Now there is an opportunity for you to exercise your faith. Now you can trust in God. You have elbow room now.

Young fellows who enter the Army or the Navy like getting into a skirmish or even a great battle. There is no chance of becoming a hero, they say, if there is no war. And you who enter Christ's service may justifiably say the same. If I have no troubles, where's the room for my faith? How can I trust if I have nothing to trust about? You cannot swim, you know, when the water is only up to your ankles. You may go paddling about, but there can be no swimming. But plunge into deep water and then strike out like a man. Now you will learn what faith is, when the last foot is off the ground and you are just trusting in the Eternal God. This will make a man of you. This will educate you for higher and grander doings in times to come. It will make you more fit to sing the song of angels before the Eternal Throne.

I remember before I came to London a man praying a very extraordinary prayer for me. I did not understand it at the time, and I hardly think that he ought to have prayed it in public in that manner. He prayed that I might be able to swallow a bundle of twigs crossways. It was a very strange prayer, but I have done many times just what he asked that I might. And it has wonderfully cleared my throat. And there is many a man who cannot speak now for God, who will be obliged to have some of the bundles of twigs thrust down his throat yet. And when those great troubles come and he is obliged to swallow them, then he will grow to be a man in Christ Jesus.

Thus, my dear friends, I have tried as well as I can to show you God's remedy for sin's problem, but I always feel as if this talking about faith in Christ was saying the same thing over and over again, yet we must keep to this one theme. You know that when men tell us that they have 50 cures for a disease, we shake our heads and say, isn't there one specific cure? Because if you will give me one thing that will cure me, you may keep the other 49 if you please. So it is with the gospel of the grace of God. According to what some say, there are a great many ways of being saved. But is there one sure way? Because if there are many different ways to be saved, you may, if you will, have the doubtful ones. But I will be content with the one that is not doubtful.

I liked the cry of that old monk who had somehow or other found the gospel even in his monastery cell. And when his mind could not get consolation from the Roman Catholic sacrament for the dying extreme unction, and from all the paraphernalia of the Catholic Church, he was heard to cry out, To avonara Jesus, to avonara Jesus, your wounds Jesus, your wounds Jesus. With that cry on his lips and that doctrine in his heart, he could die in peace, for he could find comfort nowhere else.

Someone has contemptuously said that this is the gospel for old women and children. Well, I am quite willing to be clasped with them in this matter, for it exactly suits me. Somebody wrote to me the other day to say that he had met with some blacks who had read and enjoyed my sermons. And he obviously thought that it was no compliment to me when he added, I should think that uneducated blacks are just the sort that you are fit to preach to. I felt so glad to have such a compliment as that. I like to preach to uneducated people. Because if the gospel can save them, it can also save the white-faced people who believe that they are so wonderfully well instructed. Is it not still true that often simple souls find their way to heaven while others are fumbling for the latch?

But whatever men say or do not say, this is the truth of God. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Get away from all trust in yourself, you are full of sin and you will never find any remedy in the disease. Go your way to Christ and to no one but Christ, for in Him and in Him alone is salvation provided for you. Human nature's way of salvation is do and do and do, but God's way of salvation is done, done, it is all done. You have only to rely by faith on the atonement which Christ accomplished on the cross. You have only to accept God's way of salvation and then Christ will save you and you can go in peace and rejoice forevermore. The Lord will give grace to that man or woman who looks to Christ upon the cross and trusts only in him. There are hundreds of us here who can say at this moment, He is my salvation. He is all my salvation and all my desire. The great searcher of hearts knows that we do not have a shadow of a shade of confidence anywhere but in the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us and who rose again and ascended to the right hand of the majesty on high. I am sure it is so. And it may be so with you also, dear friends.

A good man was once explaining to a poor, humble Christian that in that precious text, I will never leave you nor forsake you, there are five negatives. He said, the Lord seems to say five times over, I will not, not, not leave you. I will never, never forsake you. There, said the good man, isn't that delightful to find God saying that five times over? Yes, said the humble listener, so it is. But I would have believed it if he had only said it once.

What a blessed thing it is to have faith that takes God at his first word and does not want him to say it over five times. but is perfectly satisfied that what he has promised he is able to perform, and what he is able to perform he will perform to the praise and glory of his grace wherein he has made us accepted in the Beloved.

Isn't this a sensible course which I am commending to you? Isn't this a reasonable thing to say to a rational man? One might have supposed that if men once believed the Bible to be God's Word and Jesus Christ to be God's atoning sacrifice, they would be eager to have Christ as their Savior. But it is not so.

And often as I preach, I am driven back to this conclusion at which I arrived long ago. It is not your power, Sir Preacher, that can save men and women. You may preach, and argue and reason as best you can. But until the arm of the Lord is revealed and the power of the Holy Spirit sends home the argument, that which as a mere matter of argument would be irresistible to a rational man, yet as a spiritual force fails to have any influence over the carnal mind.

It is not by might nor by power but by the Spirit of the Lord that the work of salvation is accomplished. O Spirit of the Living God, send home the truth by your own almighty power for Jesus' sake.

I have heard of a doctor who was somewhat severe in his method of treating his patients, but he healed a great many persons. A man who had a bad leg came to him. Well, said the doctor, I will adopt such and such a course with that leg, and I will restore the use of it to you so that you will go away from this place perfectly whole." He told the patient what he was going to do, but the man said, no, I could not bear to have that done. I will have to go to someone else. Have it your way, said the doctor. You are not bad enough for me to cure you yet. When you get bad enough for me, you will come back and say, do what you like with me, doctor, as long as you guarantee my restoration.

There is many a soul that is not, in this sense, bad enough for Christ yet. That is to say, he thinks himself still too good to be saved in Christ's way.

I have heard of a swimmer who went to rescue a man who was drowning. The man was sinking and the spectators wondered why he did not reach out at once and grab hold of the man. He swam near him but kept clear of him and let him go down a second time and after that he swam to him and brought him out. Someone asked him, why did you let the man sink? He answered, he was too strong for me to rescue him at first. While he was strong, he would have pulled me down with himself. So I let him begin to sink and lose all of his strength. And then I knew that I could get him ashore.

In like manner, some of you will have to go down again a second time before you get weak enough to be saved. It is not your strength. It is your weakness. It is not your righteousness. It is your sin that qualifies you for Christ.

What I mean is this, that just as poverty is the best qualification for charity, as misery is the best qualification for mercy, so the lower you are lying before Christ's cross, the more sure may you be that the grace of God will come to you as soon as you trust in Christ's atoning work.

May God bless all of you with this faith which pleases Him. For the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, Amen.