Faith, Strengthening

“FAITH, STRENGTHENING”

“But there was a third difficulty, which perhaps wrought them more misery than either of the other two; these poor children of Israel had such faint hearts.  They no sooner saw the Egyptians than they began to cry out; and when they beheld the Red Sea before them, they murmured against their deliverer.

A faint heart is the worst foe a Christian can have; whilst he keeps his faith firm, whilst the anchor is fixed deep in the rock, he never need fear the storm; but when the hand of faith is palsied, or the eye of faith is dim, it will go hard with us.  As for the Egyptian he may throw his spear; while we can catch it on the shield of faith, we are not terrified by the weapon, but if we lose our faith, the spear becomes a deadly dart.  While we have faith, the Red Sea may flow before us, as deep and dark as it pleases: for like Leviathan, we trust we can snuff up Jordan at a draught.  But if we have no faith, then at the most insignificant streamlet, which faith could take up in her hands in a single moment, and drink like Gideon’s men, poor unbelief stands quivering and crying, ‘Ah!  I shall be drowned in the floods, or I shall be slain by the foe; there is no hope for me; I am driven to despair.  It would have been better for me that I had died in Egypt, than that I should come hither to be slain by the hand of the enemy.’

The child of God, when he is first born, has but very little faith, because he has had but little experience; he has not tried the promise, and therefore he does not know its faithfulness.  He has not used the arm of his faith, and therefore the sinews of it have not become strong.  Let him live a little longer, and become confirmed in the faith, and he will not care for Red Seas, nor yet for the Egyptians . . .’”

[Spurgeon, MTP, Vol. 2, p. 243]