Luke 17:5-6 And the apostles said to the Lord, Increase our faith.… Men are just like the disciples. They hear religion preached; they believe the things that are said; and at times the truth glances through the exterior coating and strikes their moral sense. The ideal of truth presented to them seems beautiful and sweet. In a white light it is to them. Thousands and thousands of men there are who hear the gospel preached every Sunday, and think there is nothing more beautiful than meekness, nothing more beautiful than humility, as they are presented to them. These are excellent qualities in their estimation. They believe in love. They believe in everything that is required in a true Christian character. It meets their approval. Their reason approves it. Their judgment approves it. Their taste approves it. Their moral sentiments approve it. And yet, when they ask themselves, "How shall I practise it?" they fall off instantly, and say, "It is not possible for me. I never can do it in the world." Take gentleness. Here is a great rude-footed, coarse-handed man, gruff and impetuous, and careless of everybody, who sits and hears a discourse on the duty of being gentle; and as the various figures and illustrations are presented, he says, "Oh, how beautiful it is to be gentle!" But the moment he gets out of the church, he thinks, "The idea of my being gentle! I gentle? I gentle? Somebody else must do that part of religion. I never can. It is not my nature to be gentle." Men have an ideal of what is right; and they believe in the possibility of its realization somewhere; but they do not think they are called to that thing. They do not believe it is possible for them. There are avaricious men, I suppose, to whom, on hearing a discourse on benevolence in a church, it really shines, and who say, "Oh, this benevolence, though it is well-nigh impossible — how beautiful it is!" But when it begins to come home to them, and the question is, "Will you, from this time forth, order your life according to the law of benevolence?" they fall off from that and say, "I cannot; it is impossible." And if Christ were present and such men were under the influence of His teaching, they would turn to Him and say, "Lord, if this is true, it is true, and I must conform to it; but you must increase my faith. I must have some higher power. I cannot do it without." And Christ would encourage them, and say (not rebukingly, as it seems in the letter, but very comfortingly), "Do not think it is so hard. It is difficult, but not so difficult as you suppose. Do not think it to be so impossible that I must work a miracle for you before you can accomplish it." If you have faith, if you rouse up those spiritual elements that are in you, if you bring them under the illumination of God's own soul, and they are inspired by the Divine influence, there is that power in you by which you can subdue all your lower nature, and can gain victories over every single appetite and passion, and every single evil inclination and bad habit. Let the better nature in man once more come into communion with God, and it is mightier than the worse nature in man, and can subdue it. Yen will fail of the secret and real spirit of this passage, if you do not consider its meaning as not only an interpretation, but as an interpretation which is designed to give courage and hope and cheer to those who desire to break away from bad tendencies and traits, and to rise, by a true growth, into the higher forms of Christian experience. Let us consider, then, the practical aspect of this matter. When a strong nature is snatched from worldliness, and begins to live a Christian life, what are the elements of his experience, reduced to some sort of philosophical expression? First, the soul is brought into the conscious presence, and under the recognized power, of the Divine nature. This is with more or less distinctness in different individuals. Consider how men are brought to a religious life. One man has been a very worldly and careless man, until, in the universal whirl of affairs, a slap of bankruptcy, like the stroke of waves against the side of a ship, smashes into his concerns, and he founders. He saves himself, but all his property goes to the bottom. And there he is, humbled, crushed, mortified. And it is a very solemn thing to him. But he never had any preaching before that gave him such a sense of the unsatisfactoriness of this life. Others come into a religious life by the power of sympathy. They are drawn toward it by personal influence. They go into it because their companions are going in. In a hundred such ways as these God's providence brings people into the beginnings of a Christian life. But when a man has once come into it, his very first experience, usually, whether he be exactly conscious of it or not, is the thought that he is brought into the presence of a higher Being — a higher Spirit — than he has been wont to think was near him. God begins to mean something to him. This sense of God's presence is that which is the beginning of faith in him. It opens the door for the Divine power to inflame his soul; that is, for the Divine mind to give strength and inspiration to the nobler and higher part of his mind — to his reason; to his whole moral nature; to that which is the best and highest in him. By the enlarging, by the education, by the inspiration of a man's nature, in this direction, the beginnings of victory are planted. And now, all the forces of a man's nature, and all the foregoing habits of his life, beginning here, will soon be so changed as to come into agreement with his higher feelings which will be excited by the inshining of God's soul. Men think it is mysterious; but it is not mysterious. Take a person of some degree of sensibility — a young woman, for instance — who has been living in a vicious circle of people. Her father and mother — emigrants — died on landing. She was of good stock, and had strong moral instincts; but she was a vagrant child, and was soon swept into the swirl of poverty and vice. Although too young to become herself vicious, yet she learned to lie, and steal, and swear — with a certain inward compunction — until by and by some kind nature brought her out of the street, and out of the den, and into the asylum. And then, speedily, some childless Christian woman, wanting to adopt a child, sees her, and likes her face and make, and brings her home to her house. This is almost the first time she has had any direct commerce with real truth and real refinement; and at first she has an impulse of gratitude, and admiration, and wonder; and in the main she is inspired by a sense of gladness and of thankfulness to her benefactress. But as she lives from day to day, she does not get over all her bad tendencies. Because she has come to live with and to be the daughter of this woman, she does not get over the love of lying, and tricks, and dirtiness, and meanness, and littleness. The evil does not die in an instant from her nature. Yet there is the beginning of that in her which will by and by overcome it. There is in her a vague, uninterpreted sense of something higher and better than she has known before. And it is all embodied in her benefactress. She hears her sing, and hears her talk, and sees what kindnesses she does to others, and how she denies herself. And if she be, as I have supposed her to be, a child of strong, original moral nature, she will, in the course of a year, be almost free from the taint of corruption; almost free from deceits; almost free from vices. And it will be the expulsive power of new love in her soul that will have driven out all this vermin brood of passions. As long as she is in the presence of this benefactress, she will feel streaming in upon her nature those influences which wake up her higher faculties, and give them power over her lower faculties. When men are brought into the Christian life, and they begin to dome into communion with God, the higher part of their nature receives such a stimulus that it has power to nominate the lower part — to control pride; to hold in restraint deceits; to make men gentle, and mild, and sweet, and forgiving, and noble, and ennobling. The direct influence which the spirit of God has upon the human soul, is to develop the good and expel the evil tendencies that are in it. There will be a change in our outward conformities to society; to institutions; to new duties. There will be the acceptance of standards of morality which before we have not accepted. But important as these things are, they are but auxiliaries. There is this one work which the new life begins to accomplish — namely, the readjustment of the forces of the soul. It changes the emphasis. When, therefore, a man enters into a Christian life, not only does he come into communion with God, but his nature is newly directed. He begins to make the upper, the truly spiritual, the love-bearing elements in him dominate over the others. No man can change his faculties, any more than he can change his bodily organization; and yet, his disposition may be changed! The Lord says, "If you have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, you can say to this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the roots, and cast into the sea." Hard as it is to transplant the tree of your soul, difficult as it is to sever the roots that hold it down, the Master says, "There is power to do it." However many faults you may have, that branch their roots out in every direction, and difficult as it is to transplant them by the ordinary instrumentalities; nevertheless, faith in the soul will give you power to pluck them up by the roots, and east them from you, or transplant them to better soil, where they will grow to a better purpose. I preach, not simply a free gospel, but a victorious gospel. I preach a gospel that has been full of Victories and noble achievements, but that has not yet begun to show what its full power and what all its fruits of victory are to be. No one, then, who has been trying to overcome his faults, need despair. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. |
    |