THE WAY OF FAITH: HOW TO BELIEVE All things are possible to him that believeth.

The faith which saves the soul is believing what God says, and believing it because he says it. Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. When God told him he was going to give him a son, Abraham, without any outward proof and against hope, chose to believe God because he had said it, and according to his faith it was done unto him.

Gods word is his testimony concerning the divine purpose to save the soul that believeth in Jesus. If we receive the witness of men (which we do), the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself; he that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. You say: I know what is to be believed; that the infallible word of God is the sole ground of faith.

But you ask: Can I trust the word of the Lord?

Does not the inquiry sound sacrilegious? and does not the echo of it almost startle you? Why cant a human heart trust the word of the Lord, if it will?

God certainly does not enjoin as a sole condition of salvation a thing which it is impossible for us to perform. There is only one state of heart in which it is impossible for it to believe the word of God, and that is when it is unwilling to submit to God. The soul that gives itself up to God can believe his word, if it chooses to do so. But you say: I have thought that saving faith is the gift of God. Then, you have thought wrong; for such is not the teaching of the Bible. It does say that Ye are saved by grace through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. But this teaches that the whole scheme of redemption that of salvation by faith is by the gracious favor of God, and not that the faith by which salvation is secured is the gift of God. Saving faith is not the gift of God in any proper sense.

The ability to believe, the power to trust God, belongs to every man, through the involuntary help of the Holy Spirit, vouchsafed by the atonement. But the exercise of this gracious capability devolves upon us.

We have the power to believe, and have presented us the word of God, which is to be believed; and when we choose to believe that word, that is faith.

Saving faith is not a gracious state of the heart wrought by some sovereign power of the Holy Spirit; nor is saving faith a kind of an entity, a tangible something God bestows upon the heart, and then, in view of its presence in the soul, sends salvation. To expect God to give us faith in this sense is a forlorn hope, though we may pray for it; for faith is our own act. No one, not even God, can perform it for us. It is not a thing that can be given us; it is a thing to be done by us.

A few years since, during the progress of a revival in one of my churches, there was a man who had for twenty years been a regular attendant upon the services of a certain Christian Church; he was exemplary in his morality, had a warm feeling for Gods people, and was a great Bible student. All during these years he had wanted to be saved, but having gotten the wrong notion that the faith which saves is the gift of God, he had been waiting for God to give him faith so that he could be saved. He was sitting one evening in my church while an interesting service was going on. I had occasion to remark, during its progress: Jesus says, Trust me, I will save you; and you say, I can trust thee, precious Savior; thou hast died for me. That single remark led him to see that he had been waiting for faith to be given him, while Jesus had been waiting all these years for him to put faith in Him. I knew nothing of what was then transpiring in his mind until the service was through. After which he came up to me, his face bright, and taking my hand, he said: Jesus has saved me! I said: When? O, just a few minutes ago. I have been wanting to be saved for twenty years, but have been waiting for God to give me faith; and when you said, Jesus says, Trust me, and I will save you, I saw that for twenty years I had been waiting for God to put faith into me, when he had been waiting all these years for me to put faith in his word. He was very happy. It was the day of salvation to him.

It is a cheat of Satan to keep souls seeking salvation, either in conversion or entire sanctification, from the blessing they desire, by persuading them that they cant believe, and that God must give them faith before they can believe.

The soul can believe God. He has not fixed an unreasonable and impossible condition of salvation when he says: Believe, and thou shalt be saved. He only requires what we can perform.

Faith being the exercise of the power we possess to believe Gods word, it is a voluntary act. The soul must recognize that it can believe; must choose to believe must say, I will believe; and persistently reckon pardon or purity its own on Gods word, in the face of every temptation to doubt, arising from any source whatever. In every struggle for salvation the soul will believe something, it will either believe the word of the Lord as whispered to it by the Holy Spirit, or it will believe the word of Satan whispered by his tempting voice. At every stage in seeking the Lord there is either defeat in believing Satan, or victory in believing Jesus. Faith is believing God.

Doubt is believing Satan. We can resist a temptation to doubt, just as we can a temptation to envy, revenge, or uncharitableness. When the tempter says to the child of God who has been unjustly treated, Seek revenge, Be unforgiving, Demand redress, let him say: Get behind me, Satan, thou art an offense unto me; I will not indulge in envy or ill-will; I will not cherish bitterness. Thus resisting the devil, through the Holy Spirit helping him, Satan will flee from him, and he is kept from falling into sin and marring his communion with God. So when Satan comes to the heart seeking salvation, and tempts it to doubt, saying, You cant be saved; you are too bad, or have waited too long, or you cant keep salvation if you find it; the soul thus buffeted by Satan must resist these insinuations of the adversary by clinging to the word of the Lord, which is able to save all them that believe it; and Satan will depart, leaving the soul in a sweet repose of trust and the consciousness of a precious salvation.

One evening, years since, I was called to visit a woman, well on in years, who was thought to be rapidly sinking under a very painful disease. She had been a stranger to me. On entering her room and taking her by the hand, I said: How are you? O, she said, I am suffering so; every nerve seems to be on fire, and I am not saved! O, I am so miserable! The lines of suffering and despair blended together in her face. I said Are you asking the Lord to help you? O yes, she replied, but Jesus doesn’t help me.

Sometimes it seems as though I am going to be saved, and it begins to get a little light; then something says, Jesus wont save you, and then it gets so dark. I said: Mother, do you know when you begin to feel that Jesus is going to save you that it is because you begin to believe the words of Jesus which say, If you trust me I will save you; then Satan begins to say, Jesus wont save you, and you begin to believe Satan, and it gets so dark with you? Now, mother, when Satan says this, you say, Jesus will save me, for he says so, and I will believe him; and reject the words of Satan. Doing this, the clouds will lift from your soul, and you will be saved. She was silent for a moment or two, and then calling to her daughter, who was in an adjoining room, she said: Come here, daughter. Her daughter, half frightened, thinking she might be worse, hurried to her bedside. She exclaimed: O, daughter! I am saved! All my darkness is gone, and my pains are gone; I am so happy! I just quit believing Satan, and O, Jesus has come to me! Her joy was unspeakable. Her pains returned, but not her fears.

Within five minutes she came into a sweet, abiding faith by resisting the temptations of the adversary to doubt the word of the Lord. So when Satan contradicts your seeking heart, saying, You cant believe, Jesus wont save you, resent this falsehood and say: I can, I will, I do believe That Jesus saves me now.

Are you a seeker of pardon? Take some promise of Gods Word; make up your mind to believe it; say to yourself, what God says is true, whether you feel it to be so or not. God says: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. You say, in the response of faith: Lord, I choose to believe this; I will believe this; I do believe I am saved. And when Satan says, as he is most likely to do, How do you know you are saved? do you feel it? answer boldly: No, I do not feel it at all but it is so, for God says so; and I would rather trust his Word than my own feelings, however joyous.

Resting thus unwaveringly on Gods Word, though tempted by the adversary that your faith is not real, you will not wait long before the peace of pardon and the witness of acceptance will be given you.

Are you a child of God seeking full salvation? Seize upon some declaration of Gods Word, such as The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth from all sin; apply it to your own heart; confess to yourself, to Satan, and to God, that it is true to you, even you, because the Lord hath spoken it; refuse to listen to the lying voice of Satan that it is not so. Let no inward feeling or outward sign dissuade you from your voluntary choice to count Gods Word true to yourself. And according to such a faith it shall be done unto you. What every seeking soul needs most to know is that it can believe unto salvation if it will; and that choosing to count Gods Word as true in the face of every temptation to distrust it, is faith. Have you given all to Christ?

Are you now longing to be fully saved? Are you persuaded that Tis the promise of God Full salvation to give Unto him who on Jesus, His Son, will believe?

You may at once begin to sing:

I can, I will, I do believe That Jesus saves me now.

Should we lose every other line from the volumes of sacred song now existent and this latter couplet remain, we could sing the world to pardon and the Church to purity. It contains the rationale, and expresses the progress of faith from its beginning to its consummation. About a year since there was a lady who had been seeking the Lord for many months, but not finding the light, warmth, and rest of conscious salvation, had become so much discouraged that she had no heart to come forward longer to the altar of prayer. One evening she was sitting in her pew, dark and sad in her heart. An interesting consecration service was going on, in the midst of which was sung the chorus I can, I will, I do believe That Jesus saves me now.

It had been repeated several times in connection with stanzas of that grand old salvation hymn: Alas! and did my Savior bleed.

As the melody of its simple music reiterated it in her ears and heart, it came to her in power, and she began to say to herself: Why, yes, I can; why shouldn’t I believe the Lord? I will; yes, I may, if I will. I do; yes, I do believe that Jesus saves me now. It was done. She was saved. Her soul was exulting in the Lord.

The method of faith is for the soul to recognize that it can believe Gods word, then choose to believe it, which always carries it over to the consciousness: I do believe. Believing is our part, and is antecedent; saving is Gods part, and is consequent. All the blessed effects of faith, pardon, adoption, entire sanctification, are the Lords doings, and are marvelous in our eyes; and they are all possible to him that believeth on the Son of God.

Dear reader, as you lay down this paper, say: Lord, I believe. Thou dost this moment save, With full salvation bless.