“Then cometh the devil and taketh away the word from their heart, that they may not believe and be saved.” Luke 8: 12.

By this word the Lord teaches us that whenever the devil is bent on keeping back anyone from salvation, he has merely to see to it that he keeps him back also from faith: he cannot then be prepared for salvation. And, on the other hand, in order to keep anyone back from faith, he has simply to take away the word from the heart: he does not then believe. And how dreadful is the thought that there are so many who, although they say that they desire to believe, yet work into the hand of the devil, so far as the word is concerned. To the devil it is a matter of small interest in what particular way this takes place, so long as he can take away the word out of the heart. In how many ways is this done.

In one case, by all manner of sin and unrighteousness. The love of sin cannot dwell together with the word. The heart cannot at the same time move towards God and away from God, cannot equally desire the word and sin. One or other of these must be cast out. Alas! how many thousand times does a sinner who said that he was seeking Jesus, and was desirous of believing, let slip the word which he has laid up in his heart in the morning, because he was not willing to say farewell to his sin, his anger, or lying, or deception, or envy, or impurity.

In another, the word is stifled by worldly cares and inclinations. It may be either the heavy sorrow and disquietude of one who has a difficult lot in the world, or it may be the temptation and preoccupation with the world that often springs from prosperity. How constantly it happens that the word is stifled, and thus taken away by love to the world.

Again, there are others from whom the devil takes away the word, through the soul’s being occupied with itself and its sins. Instead of the heart being kept bent on the word of promise, the eye is fixed on its own inmost parts: the soul is so much taken up with its own feeling, its own wretchedness and weakness, with the effort to be converted in its own strength, that the word is loosely held, and so easily carried away.

And when one remembers how superficially the word is read, what little pains is taken to understand the word, to take into the heart and keep there every day that which should be fitted to strengthen faith, one feels how lightly and easily the word is taken away: it costs the devil little trouble.

Reader, if you are seeking Jesus, if you would come to faith, be admonished by this earnest word: “The devil comes and takes away the word, that they may not believe.” Whatever temptation there may be, either from the world without or in your own heart, take heed that you always keep and hold fast the word. Let not the devil take it away from you. Let the precepts and promises of the word be your meditation day and night. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” (Col. 3: 16). “Thy word have I laid up in mine heart . . . It is my meditation all the day.” (Ps. 119: 11, 97). This language of David must be yours; then, when you have found life, you will later on be able also to say with him: “This I have had, because I kept Thy precepts.” (Ps 119: 56). O soul, even the devil knows this: where the word dwells in the heart, there faith comes. Do you also learn this, and be assured that the humble, silent holding fast the living word of God will certainly be blessed to awaken faith in you also. God Himself has said that is the word, “which is able to save your souls.” (Jas. 1: 21). And as the word is received and kept in this hope, He is faithful to bestow by the Spirit the blessing of the word.

Before that word, the evil one retreats, as before the “It is written” out of Jesus’ mouth: with and by that word, the Lord God and His Spirit come to the soul.

“To you it hath been granted in the behalf of Christ to believe in Him.” Phil. 1: 29.

Faith a gift of God: this truth has been to many a one the cause of fear and dread. And yet this ought not to be. It rather yields reasons for gladness and hope. It is always an entirely perverse amplification of this statement to say: “It is a gift, and thus I do not know whether I shall ever receive it; if it were to be found by personal effort, and if I had to call it into existence by my own power, I should then indeed take heed that I did not remain without faith.” Thus many a one reasons. No: the reverse is the truth. If you could believe of yourselves, by personal effort and work, you would never do it, you should certainly be lost. But since faith is given to us, since there is a Lord in heaven who will implant and cherish and care for that faith in us, then there is hope that we may obtain and preserve that faith. It is a word of joyful hope.

And what makes the encouragement of this word still greater — this faith is given by grace? There is no question of worthiness or merit, of wisdom or piety, of strength or dignity; but it is given to the unworthy and the ungodly. To those that do not seek Him, the sovereign God comes with His drawing grace; through the Spirit He works the conviction of sin and of the need of His love; by His word He sets Jesus before the soul as His gift to the sinner, desirable and suitable, freely offered and acceptable, until the soul, under the hidden and indeed effectual working of the Spirit, takes confidence to appropriate the Savior entirely to itself. Yea, from beginning to end, along the whole way, in the midst of continual sinfulness and unfaithfulness on your part, it is of grace given to you to believe in Him.

And that faith comes under the use of means does not make it any the less a gift. Of well-nigh every gift of God one can be partaker only by work. We get bread in the sweat of our brow, and yet we pray: “Give us this day our daily bread.” We enjoy health through the use of food and other means, and yet we always thank the Lord for preserving us from sickness and death. No: the appointment of means only shows us how loving the gift is, how the Lord will move and open the spirit of man by its own activity to appropriate entirely for himself what his God will bestow upon him. This thought of our text does not deter from means, but gives the right desire and the right spirit to use them. The soul learns to understand that the Lord who gives it the word will also give the faith to receive it; that He who has given the promise will also bestow the fulfilment, although you feel that you cannot do it. Set yourself to believe, in the joyful confidence: it is given.

Reader, it is given by grace to believe in Jesus. Ask this grace humbly from the Lord, wait for it at His hands in a childlike spirit. Let every experience of failure, of unbelieving, of insensibility convince you, how unfortunate it would be if you had to believe of yourself, and how blessed it is that you may look to God for it. Keep yourself occupied with the word of promise, look to Jesus as appointed for you by God, in order that you may believe in Him; and in every endeavor to appropriate Him, and the promises of grace, work in silent gladness, inspired by the word: “It is granted unto you to believe in Jesus.” The God who has had Jesus offered to me, who has awakened in me the first desire for Him, will also give grace to believe. In that blessed confidence I shall go forward, until secretly and gradually faith becomes living and visible. Yes, thank God, “it is granted to believe in Him.”

“And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times.” 2 Kings 5: 10.

The story of Naaman’s healing has at all times served as a striking illustration of the way of faith, with all the humbling, yea offensive, features that it has for the natural heart, of which Naaman himself is to us so clear an example.

The answer of Naaman when he received the message of the prophet — how entirely is it in accordance with the expectation of nature, which is so fain to see something, so fain to receive something in the shape of external ceremonies: “Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place, and recover the leper.” How completely emerges here the inclination of the seeker for healing, who would have a sensible, visible, impressive revelation of the Lord’s power; and who, when a servant is sent with the simple message of faith, turns away disappointed, as if this were no answer to his prayer.

And then the contents of the message — to wash in Jordan. If water could do it, were not the rivers of Damascus larger than the Jordan, were not their waters better than all the waters of Israel? He did not know that it was not the water, but the power of God through His word with the water. And in like manner the seeker for salvation cannot understand that it must just be faith by which he is to be cleansed. Are there not the waters of a deep and inward penitence, the streams of sincere humility, the loyalty of an inner love? Why is it, pray, that faith is to be named above these? How many there are that go and set their disposition before and above mere simple faith; as if God called not that which is weak and despised, and indeed nothing; as if He had not chosen faith as the way in which man, as capable of no achievement, was to receive everything out of free compassion.

But, more than all else, the washing seven times was sure to prove a stumbling-block, unless he had previously been taught to submit to the obedience of faith. If the waters were good, why was not one washing sufficient ? If the healing did not take place at the fifth or sixth time, why should it occur just at the seventh time? Reason was thoroughly entitled to inquire in this fashion. But faith cannot insist on an answer to these questions, and at the same time obeys “according to the word of the man of God.” This submission should become to us a very significant instance of the longsuffering of faith. It should remind us how faith is to hold out, although it sees not the least token of alteration or healing. It should teach us the lesson which is learned with so much difficulty that there must be a continual repetition of the act of faith, cleaving fast to the word of God, until He bestows the blessing.

O soul, seeking for salvation, learn here your way. It is with submission to that which does not appear to you the best means, which seems to you too small and trifling for such a great result, it is by the continuous repetition of what at the outset seems fruitless, that you are called on to persevere in faith. Pray, understand it, faith is God’s way. It was He that devised it, and not man. On this account it is a stumbling-block to every Naaman, until he learns, as one that is helpless, to bow beneath the word of God. Submit yourself to God and receive what He says, that “he that believeth shall be saved.” Go every day to the word and its streams of living water. Although it seems to you somewhat trifling to wash there, to plunge and bathe in it, to receive from it this or that promise, and to do the very same thing every day anew, without experiencing any healing, yet hold on. Persevere, and the blessed result shall be like that of Naaman. “His flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child,” he was as one born a second time, “and he was clean.” You also shall be born again by the living word, and be cleansed from your sin. It does not lie in you, nor even in the word regarded in itself, but in the faithfulness of God, who has said: “He that believeth shall not be ashamed.”