Beloved friends, who are seeking the Lord, but have not yet found Him, it is for you that this little book has been written. When I recently spoke with you, in the course of my pastoral visitation, my soul was filled with deep sorrow over your condition. I still met with many who with manifest earnestness and spiritual desire were seeking salvation, some indeed for many years past, and who, notwithstanding, had not yet arrived at faith.

This ought not to remain so. It tends to the dishonor of our Lord. True religion is thereby brought into contempt, for the world is then right in concluding: the service of Jesus gives neither joy nor salvation. On young converts your influence is by no means helpful, for your example gives them absolutely no encouragement. In this way also, the congregation suffers loss, for instead of helping as joyfully active members to build it up, you are on the contrary serving to divide its energies, and you hinder its spiritual prosperity. To your minister you are often the cause of care and anxiety; you make him dispirited with the thought that the Word of God has so little influence with you. You spend your life in sorrow and gloom, and you place your souls in peril for eternity.

Beloved, your condition goes to my heart, and many a time I ask myself, What is really the cause of this unbelief? I know that there are some who cannot believe, because their heart is not right before God. The man who loves the world, and does not, with confession of his guilt, betake himself to Jesus with the prayer that he may be delivered from the love of the world, cannot, may not, believe. The man who still cleaves to this and that bosom sin, and, for instance, will not have done with deception, love of strife, pride, avarice, and such like iniquities, ought not to be surprised that he cannot believe. Jesus would ask him, “How can ye believe?” (John 5: 44). It is an impossibility. But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you. I write to you as those of whom I hope that it is in truth their earnest desire to find the Savior, and of whom I really trust that they have truly declared before the Lord: “LORD, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee.” And with my eye fixed on your condition, I ask myself, What can be the cause of it, and is there no means of delivering you out of it? “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?”

The cause cannot be that God has closed His dealings with you, and that it is no longer possible for you to believe. No: God commands you to believe. He desires this, and in His word has laid down before your faith promises for it to take up. And yet I fear that there are some among you who imagine that there is an appointment of God, against which you can do nothing, until God makes some alteration. With all earnestness, I entreat you to put these thoughts far from you. It is your own guilt that you do not believe, and indeed a heavy guilt, which you ought to confess with humility, and of which you should be ashamed. If you do not fully acknowledge this, I see no remedy for bringing you to faith, for this secret thought will make all your endeavors of no avail.

The cause of this unbelief of yours can just as little be that God has not given you power for faith. I know that this misunderstanding is prevailing with some of you. Because there are some Christians that have been brought to faith very suddenly and effectually, it is imagined that such a mode of conversion, if not the only one, is certainly at least the best. Secretly, therefore, some are waiting for a powerful impulse whereby they shall be as if driven to faith and brought to it at once. This thought also is a very dangerous hindrance in the way of faith. There are always two ways, along which one can attain to the enjoyment of abundance. To make the first plain by an example: one may become rich at once by an inheritance that one receives, or by this or that successful undertaking; but one can also attain to wealth by the more gradual and quiet method of faithful industry and economy, or by making a wise use of every opportunity of increasing one’s resources. So, to use another illustration, one can have a large space filled with water by a plentiful shower of rain as well as by a watercourse from a clear fountain; by which latter method the thing is done more slowly. The first is the easier way, but it is also that which stands exposed to the most dangers. The second is the longer and more troublesome way, but in some respects also the safer. The souls that find the heavenly treasure of the assurance of faith at once are to be accounted happy that the way for them has been so short; if others have to tread a more difficult path, they can nevertheless at least reach the goal. If they only move along the pathway of means with real desire, and with the positive conviction that they also can believe, they shall be brought to this point.

In connection with the two erroneous ideas just mentioned, stands what I have also just referred to, namely, the means of healing for your complaint, and therefore on this point, too, I shall say a few words.

You must acknowledge that it is the will of God that you should believe. “If I speak the truth, why do you not believe me?” (John 8: 46). This question of the Lord Jesus to the Jews, which He also puts to us, shows that unbelief must have a cause apart from Him. He spoke the truth with the aim and desire of awakening faith. You must further take into consideration that there is nothing for which you have to wait, before you begin to believe. You have to set yourselves forthwith in the way of the means, and with them you must be diligent; then you may hope for the blessing of the Spirit. On the Spirit you have not to wait, as if He had still first to come and were to make you by one token or another know that He was now ready, and that you could thus believe. No; He is promised to you. He has already often desired to work in your souls; and instead of your having to wait for Him, before you begin to believe, you have just to make haste to believe, for the Spirit waits for you. You have already kept Him waiting too long. Begin, therefore, immediately without further delay. And if, trusting in the promises of God, that the Spirit is given to those who ask for Him, you are diligent in learning to believe, you may also certainly expect that He, the Spirit of grace, will make you capable of faith. Wait not then, and delay not under the impression that all is not yet ready, or that it is not yet your duty actually to believe. In this sense there is nothing for which you have still to wait. No: ask for the Spirit, expect His influence, be diligent, and, although you do not then as yet actually observe His workings, you may, nevertheless, reckon upon it that, even while you may suppose yourselves to have been passed by, the Spirit is already cooperating with your first feeble endeavors.

You must pay special attention to what the means for coming to faith is, and to what way it has to be used. The means is the word: but the main stress falls on the manner in which the word is employed. When one searches it merely in a general way, and reads it to get knowledge and religious instruction, it operates so strongly in the line of reflection and repentance that the anxious soul is often embarrassed by the influx of thought, and thus fails to attain his object in reading. It is my counsel, therefore, that you should read the Bible with a definite aim, namely, to find out what promises there are that you have to believe. It is my counsel that you should seek and come to know what promises there are that are available for you, in order that you may be occupied with them, and so take advantage of every expedient for receiving them in faith. Meditate upon them, learn them by heart, remain continuously absorbed with them, bow your knees before the Lord, and say to Him that you are resolved to believe them. Grudge not the time that this exercise costs you. Do not fancy that this business can be finished in ten minutes or so. The vast eternity is surely worth the striving of some hours. Take time thus to search the word with set purpose, with that one definite aim of arriving at faith. Ponder the word and pray for enlightening influences from above: such earnestness cannot remain unblessed.

There is still another remark to be made respecting the manner in which this means is to be used, namely, that the duty is to be done with faithfulness and perseverance. We all know how great the power of habit is. By continuous and intentional repetition a thing that was at the outset strange and opposed to our taste, becomes a second nature and thereby easy and acceptable. In religion the laws of human nature are not set aside; the Spirit is indeed above them, but He still makes use of them. So is it also with faith. The heart that is habituated to distrust and doubt does not arrive at the new, holy habit of faith without the continual, often repeated exercise of the act of faith. The promise that found a slight entrance today loses its influence in turn tomorrow, just because the soul does not persevere, and has taken no pains to keep and confirm the blessing received. Thus I have often observed that, after a sermon or a conversation, a soul had a little light but speedily again lost it. And why? Because he did not recognize the importance and the necessity of his still keeping the promises anew before him, to the end that the old habit of unbelief might not again obtain the upper hand. Therefore, beloved be faithful continue FROM DAY TO DAY, YES, AS MUCH AS YOU CAN, occupied with the promises of God. The question must be continually repeated, “What does God require me to believe?” and in like manner, in the face of whatever weakness, must the answer be expressed at His feet: “Lord, I believe; I will believe.”

To hold out a helpful hand to this perseverance, I have written for you this little book. It is offered to you with this urgent entreaty that for a month, day by day, you specially concentrate your attention on that faith to which God calls you. It was in the midst of prayer that these words were addressed to you: do you read them also with a praying heart. May it please the Lord to deliver you soon from the chains with which you to this day are still fettered. God grant it. Amen.

“He that believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that does not believe shall be condemned.” Mark 16: 16.

Hear this word of the Lord, all you who have decided to seek your salvation. He that believes will be saved; simple faith is enough: more God does not require. With less, however, He will not be content. Faith is the only way: there is no other way that leads to salvation. He that does not believe will be condemned. Thus, alike on the right and the left hands, on the one side by the attractions and charms of His grace, on the other by the menace of His wrath, does God seek to impel us to faith in Christ as the one indispensable condition of salvation.

However much man may be opposed to this method of God, the time comes when the lost in hell no less than the saved in heaven will justify God in this ordination of His. The whole universe will acknowledge the equity of this sentence: he that does not believe will be condemned. The gracious Lord had always met the sinner with the wonderful offer of having remitted all the offences he had committed, or what the law had still to demand — of having bestowed on him all that was necessary for an everlasting salvation. He required no worthiness or merit, but simply this, that man should accept what was offered to him, and believe what was said to him. And, in order to remove every impediment to faith out of the way, and win the heart, God ordained to be sent the glad tidings of salvation through His own Jesus Christ, who manifested Himself in the most loving and attractive form, and sealed His love with His own precious blood. He, then, that still does not believe — the whole creation must approve of the sentence — he will be condemned. He has anew set the seal upon all his former sins, for he will not suffer himself to be redeemedfrom them. To his former sins, he has yet added this, the greatest of all, that he has affronted the authority of God, despised the love of God, lightly esteemed the Son of God, defied God’s vengeance, and thrust away from him God’s salvation. By unbelief he has shown his enmity against God and his rejection of God; it cannot, it may not, be otherwise: he that does not believe will be condemned.

Not less is the absolute necessity of faith confirmed by the contemplation of the other side: he that believes will be saved. Man has nothing, absolutely nothing, whereby on his part he can be in a position to contribute something to the attainment of salvation. And yet the Lord will do nothing but reign over a willing people. Man is no stone; on his own side, he must play his own part. It is faith that solves the difficult enigma that man who can do nothing should yet do something: faith which is manifested in the acknowledgment of poverty and misery, in the confession of inability and helplessness, in consent, submission, and surrender to that grace of God which is to be everything in us. More God could not require; less He may not require, for He will not inflict wrong on His own honor and the freedom of man. He requires faith: faith alone. What grace it is that thus bends to our weakness: he that believes will be saved.

Reader, behold, then, these two ways: make your choice. Pray, reason not any longer, nor ask the question if there be no other way; but, come, submit yourself to God and to the word of His grace: he that believes will be saved.

No longer yield to the secret thought, that something else may after all still be necessary. I am well aware that everlasting salvation appears to you to be too great a boon over against this meager and paltry faith. It appears to you too hazardous for your sinfulness to venture so far merely upon faith; yet, see, it is God that has spoken: only by faith. He that possesses this faith, has all; for by it he has Christ. He that does not possess faith has nothing, although he should possess all besides. Faith is indispensable.

Anxious ones, hear it yet once again: “he that believes will be saved; he that does not believe will be condemned.”

“For she said, If I but touch His garments I will be made whole.” Mark 5: 28.

What a glorious representation of the Lord Jesus does this woman in her simplicity give to us. She regarded Him as so filled with the divine power of life, as He in truth is, that it flowed out on everyone that only touched Him in faith, and streamed over him. She felt assured that even the slightest fellowship with Him would be blessed, and that she would experience the healing power of the life that was in Him. Not for a moment did she have any doubt of His power and still less of His willingness. Had He not come for the sick? Why should she still ask, as if she had no claim? No: she knew the one truth just as certainly as she knew the other — that in Him there was healing. This healing is also for her. She should doubt her right to make use of the light of the sun, sooner than her right to Jesus. She should fear whether it were indeed open to her to take a draught of water from a rushing river sooner than cherish the thought that there was no health for her to be found with Jesus.

O that you, doubting soul, would think of the Lord Jesus just as this woman thought of Him. It is always the good pleasure of the Father that in Him all fulness should dwell. All the fulness of His love and His life has the Father of set purpose made to dwell in Jesus, the Son of Man, in order that it may be truly visible and accessible to us. In Him dwells the power of a new and holy life from the dead, which he obtained by making atonement for our sins. This life is mighty to impart health to souls sick unto death, and this is for us sinful, dead, condemned sinners. Pray, do understand what the woman calls out to you; the blessing and the approval of Jesus are always the seal of the truth of her words. In Jesus is life, life even for the most wretched.

What a glorious representation is there here also of true faith, as the means of our participating in the fulness of Jesus. The woman knows that she has no work to do; that she has no great motion of strength to put forth; that she has not to consider, as is the case in dealing with other professors of the healing art, whether she is really in a position to pay the fees that will be demanded. No: she has merely to touch Him, that is, she has merely to appropriate what is prepared for her; the healing is there as soon as she stretches out her hand to receive it. Anxious soul, who has already been so long seeking to prepare and make yourself fit for the great work of believing, let this poor woman cure you of your error. In Jesus everything is ready; you have merely to stretch out your hand. O, do understand it. Here He stands ready for your deliverance; He is also given to you by the Father; only touch Him with the firm conviction of the faith: Jesus is for me; with the simple thought, I have a right to Him; in Him there is deliverance for me also. Touch Him, and, as truly as His name is Jesus, you will be delivered. This may not be immediately felt by you; in that case just wait, hold on, say from day to day: “If I touch Him, I will be made whole.” The healing will be consciously yours.

And what a glorious representation is there besides of the blessing which Jesus will give to faith. That the woman was healed was much to begin with; but it speaks of yet richer blessing that Jesus observed her, the poor trembling believer who would fain have hid herself for shame, even while others were seeking her in the crowd. He gives her the assurance of His good pleasure and His favor; He constrains her to confess Him openly. He praises her faith, and thus makes her an example and a blessing for thousands. O, all you who are looking out and yearning for the salvation of the soul, pray learn to understand what is awaiting you with Jesus, what you may hope for from Him. It is not only forgiveness of sins and rescue from destruction that He will make you partakers of: the friendship and love of the Savior will also be your portion, and by these He will make you become a blessing to others.

Beloved, what more have you need of to make you say humbly and with faltering lips, after this woman, “If I but touch His garments, I will be made whole.”

“The seed is the word of God.” Luke 8: 11.

Very simply as well as strikingly is the word of God set forth to us in this parable. There lies the cold, dead earth, which of itself brings forth either nothing, or thorns and thistles. It has not the power to give man nutritive corn. When the husbandman, however, desires to have that corn, he takes good seed and commits it to the ground that had hitherto brought forth nothing but weeds. The soil receives it, and keeps it in the silent and dark secrecy of its bosom. Encouraged by the sunshine and moistened by the dew of heaven, it shoots there and grows up; and the cold dead earth by and by becomes the mother of a beautiful crop. The life was not in the earth, but in the seed; and yet the earth was just as indispensable as the living seed, before that these fair fruits could be reaped. Although the seed did not receive life from the earth, yet without the earth’s having its share in the work, the seed could not yield its fruit. It must offer the seed the soil, in which the root can shoot; in its bosom must the seed still be kept until it be ready to make an appearance above ground.

A glorious and instructive picture is this of the new life of grace. Like the seed, the word has a divine power of life. Like the earth, the heart is in itself lifeless, unfruitful of itself in what is good. Like the seed in the earth, the word is strewn in the heart and committed to it, simply to be received and kept there. The living power that God has lodged in the seed is the security that the ground, although in and of itself wholly incapable of bringing forth anything but weeds, will be changed into a fruitful field. Thus, however helpless you may feel yourselves to be, will the living seed of God’s word send forth its roots in your heart, and sprouting upwards bring forth fruit. Sinner, yearning for salvation, you have only to acknowledge that a living power is presented to you in every word of God. With that confidence must you keep it in your heart, and the certainty of fruit depends not on any ability of yours, but on the faithfulness of God. Only endeavor by prayerful consideration and faithful keeping of God’s word, to prepare a place for it in your heart.

Mourn no longer, then, that your heart is so hard and so full of weeds, but rather understand what you see every day, that by the keeping of the seed the dead earth is transformed into a fruitful field. Faith is not a thing that is present in you before you receive the word, or with which you must meet the word. No! there is life in the word, and it is by the word that faith is first awakened.

Meanwhile, forget not that there are many kinds of seed, and that every kind bears fruit according to its nature. A child of God, for example, longs for comfort in adversity; he chooses one of the promises of God to His people, sows it in his heart, and keeps it; the desired fruit is the comfort of God. As those who are troubled about your sins, you have need of the promises of God’s grace in relation to the ungodly. Seek for seed according to your need. “The Lord is gracious and full of compassion”; “He will abundantly pardon”; “He that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out”; “Christ died for the ungodly.” That is the kind of seed you must use. Every one of these words is a heavenly grain of seed containing power for eternal life. One of them is sufficient to bring forth, when it shoots up, the fruits of faith and peace and life. Let one of them be faithfully kept in the heart, and it cannot but be that faith will be born of it. In the seed is life: the seed of God’s word has a divine power of life. O, take, then, the heavenly seed, lay it up in your heart, and keep it there. Although you do not actually feel that you believe, resolve at least to hold fast by the thought: “It is the living word of God. God will give the increase in His own time.” The seed needs time for development. It must be kept a long time quietly beneath the ground: one day it certainly comes up. Day by day continue absorbed in heart with the word of promise and of grace. The true God and His living word are the guarantees that your experience also will be: “Faith comes by the word of God.”

“With You is forgiveness.” Psalm 130: 4.

Here is one of those heavenly grains of seed that have only to be received and kept in the heart to become living, and to bring forth faith, peace, and blessing. Let me have the privilege of commending it to you this morning, anxious soul.

It is such a simple word: every one can understand it. Every one knows what is meant when an earthly father forgives his child. He answers him that he will no longer remember his sins, will not impute the evil experienced, and will not punish him. He will deal with the child as if he had done no harm. In like manner the guilty and consciously-condemned soul looks to God on high, and says: “Lord, with You there is forgiveness. My guilt is heavy, I have deserved Your severest punishment; but with You is forgiveness. Of free grace You have promised to acquit the guilty of everything, and not to impute his sins to him.” This is the simple, and at the same time the only way along which one exposed to the curse, who can do or bring nothing, can be saved. Altogether freely and for nothing, without the least worthiness or merit on his part, he receives the divine acquittal from all his guilt.

Is it not also a glorious word? Should not every one desire this boon? For a soul that, with David in this psalm, has to cry “out of the depths”: “If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who will stand?” it is glorious to be able to look up to God with the assurance: All these sins will God blot out and bring to nought. Yes: very blessed it is to be able to look up to God out of the distress and anxiety with which the soul has felt its heavy guilt and deep misery, and to say: “With You is forgiveness; the Lord looks upon me in grace, His anger is turned away from me, and He comforts me.” What a blessed peace, what a heavenly joy then falls on the heart. O, it is glorious, in the face of all conviction of sin and experience of misery, in the face of every thought of death and judgment, to be able to say: “With You is forgiveness.” Who would not desire it?

It is also such a sure word. Everyone may believe it. The whole Bible announces it. Jesus came from heaven to obtain and to seal it for us. His blood is the pledge of it. Thousands of the greatest sinners can support the truth of the cry: “With God there is forgiveness.” All heaven confirms it. Eternity will re-echo: “With God is forgiveness.” It is sure. The certitude of it depends not on your faith. Whether you believe it or not, whether you despise it or not, “With God is forgiveness.” As truly as He is God, is He a God of forgiveness, a God who abundantly pardons. As certain as you are that He is God, may you be certain that there is forgiveness with Him. Before you believe it, it is truth, and you may rest your soul and safely commit yourself to God upon it. You will experience it: with God is sure forgiveness.

Further, it is such a powerful word. Every one can receive blessing from it. Although you have as yet no faith, take this word as a living seed into your heart, and it will awaken faith. Although you dare not as yet call God your Father, lay up this word in your heart, give it a place there, think over it, and say in spoken words before your God: “Lord, with You there is forgiveness.” This word is living and powerful; it will cause hope to rise in your soul. It will inspire you with new thoughts about God, it will instil into you confidence and boldness before Him. Insensibly you will get up to saying: “With You there is forgiveness also for me.” It will thus awaken the fear and love of God in your soul. It will bind you to Jesus, it will impel you to dedicate yourself wholly to Him. O soul, mourn no longer over your weakness. Receive this word; it is “living and powerful.” Go with it trustfully to your knees, and, although it should be the thousandth time, use it as the language of your heart to God: “Lord, with You there is forgiveness.” This word will work mightily, and faith and peace and love will be its fruits.

Beloved, I offer to you this word of God. God gives you freedom to use this word with Him; God commands you to think thus of Him. True, your heart says, “I do not know whether there is forgiveness with God”; but come, let these perverse thoughts of yours go and give room for God’s thoughts in your soul. Let it stand fast with you: “With God is forgiveness,” and you will speedily be able to add: also for me. And so you will soon learn to sing: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, who forgives all your iniquities.”