A few years ago there was a man named Blondin who performed wonderful feats at the Crystal Palace. Once he walked on a tight rope stretched across the centre of the Palace at a height of 150 feet. Another time a rope was stretched at a great height over a shipbuilder's yard, and he not only walked steadily across, but he carried a man on his back. A large crowd gazed at him in wonder and awe, and great was their relief when both Blondin and his burden reached the ground in safety.
Among the eager upturned faces in the crowd there was a lad about eleven years of age. When Blondin came down he went up to the lad and said to him, "You saw me carry that big man across, do you believe I could take you?" "Of course you could," replied the boy; "why, he was a big man, and I am only a little chap." "Well, then, jump up, my lad," said Blondin, and he stooped down for the boy to climb up on his back. But although the boy said he believed Blondin was able to carry him across, he was not willing to trust himself, and so, just saying, "No, thank you," he was off like a shot and ran as fast as he could till he was lost in the crowd. Though he said he believed, when it came to the point he did not commit himself, and that is all the difference, between believing in Christ and believing on Him.
Faith in God means really committing ourselves into His hands and rolling our burdens on Him.
If we withhold our confidence it shows that we do not really believe that God is what the Bible says He is. The reason there is so much unrest and ungodliness is because we have lost sight of God. It is not because the Bible is out of date as some say, or that the Gospel has lost its power; it is still as ever, "the power of God unto salvation," but we are limiting God.
It is just the same now as in olden times when the children of Israel limited the Holy One of Israel, and we read how this lack of confidence grieved God all through those forty years in the wilderness. Yea, they spake against God, they said, "Can God furnish a table in the wilderness; can God give bread also; can He provide flesh for His people?" [Footnote: Ps. lxxviii. 19, 20.] Unbelief asks, "Can He?" Faith says, "He can." Dear friends, let me ask you to stop and ask yourself, Where do you put that little word "can"? Are you constantly thinking to yourself, Can God? or are you saying in your heart and meaning it too, "God can"! We limit God's power to save, by asking, Can God? The hindrance is the same as in olden times when Jeremiah felt that because of the unbelief of the people "the Lord was as a mighty man that cannot save." [Footnote: Jer. xiv; 9.]
You have prayed many years perhaps for the conversion of some one near and dear to you, but are you limiting God because you doubt His power to do it? A poor man who gave way to drink said sadly, "I have broken the pledge again and again"; then pointing to his pledge card he said, "But now I have written a text on it, Isaiah xli. 13: 'For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not, I will help thee.'" Then looking up he said simply, "Maybe, Him and me will do it together."
Is it victory over temptation you long for? Look up to Him and say, "I can't, but God can." Is it grace you need for some special trial? Say, "God is able to make all grace abound towards me, for He tells us in His Word that He is able to do 'exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think according to the power that is working in us.'" [Footnote: Eph. iii. 20.] The world's great sin is not trusting God. "Thus said the LORD, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm and whose heart departeth from the Lord." [Footnote: Jer. xvii. 5.] Yet in times of difficulty or danger how apt we are to lean on the arm of flesh.
During the present European war I was much impressed by the words of one of our soldiers who writes from the front: "After all that is being done there still remains one supreme necessity without which neither arms or munitions can be decisive, namely, the spiritual outlook of the whole nation. When I returned home after ten months in Flanders, I was amazed at the lack of spirituality of the people as a whole. The simple faith and dependence upon God which characterised our country in her past struggles seem lost to sight. 'They trusted in Thee and Thou didst deliver them' implied no disregard for military efficiency; it was the real and vital accompaniment to armed force. Can it be that the hellishness of battle, the wearing down of the spirit induced by trench warfare, moments of utter loneliness which every soldier has to bear, strike right at the soul and enable him to realise the nearness of the spiritual world? 'Prayer is the foundation of all grace' were the words of a dying soldier who had deliberately returned to the area of poisonous gas and had brought back the machine gun on his shoulders. Some of us have realised what individual prayer at home has done for us, but we should all like to feel that the whole nation is also testing the value of spiritual power."
We read in God's Word that "The children of Judah prevailed, because they relied upon the Lord God"; [Footnote: 2 Chron. xiii. 18.] and when King Asa was defeated the prophet said to him, "Because thou hast relied on the King of Syria, and not relied on the Lord thy God, therefore is the host of the King of Syria escaped out of thine hand." [Footnote: 2 Chron. xvi. 7.]
To have faith in God we must put God first in everything. He must be first when we awake in the morning. How blessed it is to be able to feel, "When I awake I am still with Thee." A working man said to me once, "I make myself happy in God the first thing in the morning." David says, "In the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee and will look up." [Footnote: Ps. v. 3.] "When I awake I am still with Thee." [Footnote: Ps. cxxxix. 18.]