Sermon CXI.
Want Of Confidence In God.
He hath done all things well.
—St. Mark vii. 37.
The spectators of the double miracle related in this day's Gospel were filled with admiration at our Lord's power and goodness; they could not help exclaiming, "He doth all things well." Would to God, brethren, that such a sentiment of our Lord's love and power filled our hearts! Confidence in God, however, is the very virtue many Christians lack most. True, we say and believe that God is infinitely good—that he is mercy itself. But such language is very indefinite and may express a very dim conception. It is something like saying that a stone is very hard or that water is very wet. We are apt to form pictures of God's attributes in our minds, just as a painter may make a portrait of some historical personage he never saw; many of our notions of God are fancy portraits, all imagination.
But just think of the actual grounds of our confidence in our Blessed Lord. Just realize that this wonderful being is filled with the tenderest human love for the worst of us, and has all the divine power at his command—being both man and God—to make good his love by bringing about our spiritual and temporal welfare. The Incarnation is the divine Mercy made man for the love of us. Can we suppose that such a being, having begun the good work of our salvation by giving us the true religion, will leave anything undone, that we will let him do, to bring us to the kingdom of heaven? Do you think that such a loving Father would teach us, his children, A B C except with the set purpose of going clean through to X Y Z? Just think, that it positively never happened that any wretched sinner, how ever degraded, ever implored our Lord's forgiveness and was rejected; nay, that he himself secretly inspires sinners with their grief and horror for their evil ways, and then imparts forgiveness in return for his own gift. The fact is that the question is not whether God will forgive us, but whether we will let him do it. In a word, this infinitely good and infinitely powerful being is bent and determined that we shall enjoy perfect happiness, world without end.
What a wonder, then, that we can treat our Lord in our cold-hearted way! Scrupulous persons treat him as if he were a tyrant; lukewarm Christians treat him like a stepfather; obstinate sinners treat him with open contempt. The practise of prayer, the reception of the sacraments and other aids of religion—we treat them as school-children do their lessons: we do it all because we are afraid of the consequences if we don't. Considering how much God loves us his service should come as easy to us as breathing the air; it should be the element in which we live. If our faith were a little more practical God's loveliness would be as plain to us as the open day and the sun in the heavens.
Furthermore, and this is still more practical, lack of confidence in God is why we repine at his visitations. It is easy enough to say, be resigned to the will of God, but how can we be content to suffer unless we are penetrated with confidence in the divine goodness? Brethren, you know how we sometimes take medicine. We wrap it up in a pleasant-flavored wafer or hide it in a spoonful of sugar, and down it goes and we never taste its bitterness. So a lively confidence in God, if we only had enough of it, is the sweetness to wrap around the bitter things of life. Temptations, long and wearisome poverty, ill-health, unpleasant companions in the household—these and other such trials are the bitter pills of the soul; when we fairly realize that God means them for our spiritual good we can bear them with patience, even with thankfulness.
Did you ever hear of the witch-hazel, and how people used to fancy that a crooked branch of it thrown into the air would fall on the spot where a good spring of water could be found? Well, the witch-hazel of the Christian soul is just this question: How much confidence have you in the love of our Lord Jesus Christ for you? If that does not reveal the hidden springs of your heart and bring the waters of love gushing forth, then that heart is hopelessly dry.