Do you have faith in God? Maybe your reaction is Of course I do , or maybe is, Not very much Let s spend a few minutes in self examination of our faith You do believe in God s existence You believe that the Bible is God s word You believe that you understand the mes sage of the Bible And you believe that God will send Jesus Christ back to the earth to set up his kingdom You believe that God has offered to all of us an opportunity to be in that kingdom
However belief alone is not faith Faith is that absolute sureness of belief which will cause us to place our life completely in God s hands An excellent demonstration of what faith means was given a few years ago at a CYC conference The young people, one at a time, were asked to stand with their back to the speaker and fall backwards and he said he would catch them as they fell Of course they didn’t think he was lying to them They didn’t think he would let them fall and crack their heads on the ground So they did believe him, but I m sure you can see that it would be hard to have enough faith in that belief to just let yourself fall, trusting only in someone else to catch you To repeat then, faith is that absolute sureness of belief which will cause us to place our life completely in God s hands
So, with that definition of faith in your mind, ask yourself again do you have faith in God? Recently we heard an exhortation about the faith of Abraham as shown by his willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac The exhorting brother asked us if we had faith like the faith of Abraham My wife said that her reaction to the question was, Of course not I m sure all of us would agree that what ever faith we have, it is not like the faith of Abraham But that doesn t mean we are totally faithless Remember the words of the father who brought his son to Christ to be healed Jesus said If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth And the father replied, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief We may have just the beginnings of faith which we can build on Lord, we have faith, help thou our lack of faith
If you have faith in God It should show If you trust in God to catch you when you fall, you should see some evidence of it in your actions and attitudes, for James tells us that faith without works is dead, and that works are the evidence of faith So take a minute to think about the way you live your life What do you do with your time? Is your spare time devoted to God s service, or is it devoted to yourself ? How do you respond to problems ? with prayer trusting in God to help you solve your problems, or with worry and an attitude of trying to solve it yourself To what or to whom do you look for your future security Do you trust in Social Security, in a life insurance policy, and in your ability to make a living, or do you trust in God to provide for you? If you are like me you trust in God s provisions but a little insurance doesn’t hurt any You pray for help with the problems you can t solve, but you try to handle the little things your own way And after you have prayed you are still worried You are willing to spend some of your spare time in God s service, especially if someone specifically asks you to do something, but you spend the bulk of your time on yourself If I spend a few minutes in this kind of self examination, I may end up pretty discouraged, but no point is served by getting ourselves discouraged or by being ashamed of ourselves We want to do something to improve ourselves The question to ask is What can you do about it? How can you build up your faith ? You have the beginnings of faith Now we want to build on those beginnings Yes, Lord, we have faith Help thou our lack of faith
We do believe in God—so why is our faith weak ? Try, some more self examination and see just what factors keep you from relying completely on God, for usually the first step in correcting a fault is to recognize the cause of the fault So ask yourself if some of the following problems may be weakening your faith
First You do believe that the Bible is the word of God But, to be really honest with yourself, is there some small doubt (which you try to put out of your mind) about the truth of the Bible Maybe there are some apparent contradictions in the Bible that you have never seen resolved to your complete satisfaction Maybe you grew up being taught by your parents that the Bible is the word of God, and you are afraid that you believe in the Bible mainly for that reason For whatever reason, maybe you have some secret doubts that you don t even want to admit to yourself about the truth of the Bible
Seconds Putting away any doubts about the truth of the Bible itself, maybe you have some of those hidden inner doubts about your interpretation of the Bible If you are like me you wouldn’t like to have to defend our beliefs in a debate I don t feel that confident of my knowledge of our beliefs and how to support them So if I can t prove my beliefs to someone else maybe I really can t even prove them to myself
Third Do you doubt that you are worthy of salvation ? Do you look at all your faults and say Could God really want me? What do I do that makes me worthy of salvation Maybe you are actually afraid that Christ will return soon that you will not be in his kingdom If so, maybe that gives you a subconscious attitude of trying to enjoy life while you can But this problem leads us directly to faith weakener number four
Fourth Do you have a lack of confidence in God’s complete readiness to forgive you? Do you say to yourself—”Sure, God will forgive an occasional outright sin, but how can he forgive me for doing nothing so much of the time Will he really forgive me when I ask him to, if I go right on committing the same sins, over and over again
Fifth Perhaps your lack of faith is due to more ordinary problems Maybe you are just preoccupied with day to day living Maybe, by the time you finish your regular daily duties, you just haven t much time left to do anything Are you involved in so many things that there just isn’t enough time left for God, so that you tend to think more about your job than about the kingdom? If so, it s hard to put all your trust in something you don t have time to think about
Sixth Despite recent economic problems we still live in a land of plenty Does the prosperity around us allow us to forget that we depend on God ? In this country, we continually hear that the free enterprise system allows anyone to prosper through hard work and self-reliance Do we start to believe this and to forget that any prosperity we have is a gift from God ? Perhaps we are caught up in working for the things of this world in the belief that it is only through our own hard work that we can supply our daily needs, and so, forget to depend on God for these things
These are just some of the possible reasons for weak faith Search your own mind carefully to see just what it is that stops you from trusting in God completely Only by bringing your reasons out in the open and examining them can you hope to resolve them The six possibilities I have listed are the ones that bother me the most Your problem may be the same or they may be different I suggest that right now you take a few minutes with a pencil and paper and make your own list Bring out all those things that you hate to admit and put them all out in the open where you can deal with them Don’t let your secret doubts sit in the back of your mind where they continue to weaken your faith because you don’t know how to deal with them
But enough about problems What you really want are solutions How can you resolve all those inner doubts ? How can you forget the world around you and remember only God’s love? I must admit that if I knew, I would be a far different person than I am I find this subject quite difficult I see the problem clearly in my own mind, because it is such a problem for me This is the lesson which I want someone else to teach me I want an older brother to write something here in a few pages which will resolve all my doubts and worries, so that I need never give them another thought Of course, that won t happen There is no easy answer But we all know where to start We must start with Prayer The kind of real faith that we desire is not the product of any man by himself It is, like everything else worthwhile in this world, a gift of God God strengthens faith He starts with the seed, the little grain of truth, the beginnings of faith that are in all of us, and from that he creates the true faith So we must begin by asking for God s help in prayer, and we must continue to pray for his help at all times Whenever one of these little doubts comes up, we must pray for God s help in resolving it, not just to put it into the back of our minds, but to explore it completely and resolve it, one way or the other Whenever we are faced with a problem, no matter how small or great, we must take it to God in prayer to be sure that our solution is God’s solution Prayer is the beginning of faith, the middle of faith, and the end of faith But we should not start out expecting God to answer our prayer with thunder and lightning and a voice from the sky, nor should we expect all of our problems to just disappear God does not work that way None of the faithful of old had an easy time All were tried continually But through prayer we approach our trials with God at our side
After prayer, we all know where to turn next We know where all the answers are They are right there in the Bible If we don’t have the answers it is only because we haven t taken the time to search them out If we have doubts about the truth of the Bible, then we had better check them out thoroughly If we are not sure of our interpretation of the Bible, then the only way to be sure is through more study (Not just reading Not just attending a class The class is no good unless we do our homework ) And while we are there, the Bible will reassure us of God s readiness to forgive anything, of His eagerness for us to be in His kingdom And we will get our mind away from the things of the world and back where it belongs concentrating on the kingdom
If we find that we can t break away from our daily routine to find the time for the prayer, the reading, and the study that we need, perhaps what we should do is stop and think about just where we are going Consider the road we are on and if we like where it is leading What can we find in this life that we can put our faith in ? Is there anything of lasting value ? The end of all things is death But even short of that, what a satisfaction or happiness can we hope for in this life? At best we can get ourselves into a routine which we can follow and which we can devote ourselves to so that we never have to stop and wonder if it has any point or meaning Eventually, illness or old age will break that routine and reveal our empty life for what it is Now I don t want to suggest the position that because there is no other hope God must exist We must be very cautious about the idea of believing in God because there is no one else to turn to The lack of any other solution does not prove that God exists If we allow ourselves that kind of logic we end up trying to depend on God, but thinking secretly “I hope there really is a God God and His word must, and can, stand on their own What I do want to get across is that we must realize the hopelessness and pointlessness of this life before we can wholeheartedly turn away from it and seek the life that God has to offer Then, through prayer, reading and study, we can truly learn to depend on God
We in this age can look in yet another place, to find the reassurance we need We need look no farther than our daily news Right now the United States and much of the industrialized world are in an economic slump The U S has twin crises The economic crisis and the energy crisis These two are tied together and the rope that holds them together is held in the grasp of the Arab oil producing nations. The key to future Arab policy is none other than the nation of Israel. What an insignificant little strip of land Israel is. Surely there is no earthly reason why it should cause so much trouble. The last time the Arabs and the Israelis fought, the U.S. was firmly on the Israeli side. But with lack of oil threatening U.S. industry, and the high price of oil threatening the entire economy, will the U.S. be eager to face the anger of the Arabs next time? The future of this nation and the future of the world is clearly tied up with the future of Israel. Anyone, Bible student or not, can see that. Can we doubt that the hand of God is bringing his prophecies closer to fulfillment? What doubts about these prophecies can we hold in the face of the clear evidence of God’s unfolding plan.
The only way any of the things I have said can be of any use, is if it in some way affects your life. Faith without works is dead, for works are the result of faith, works are the evidence of faith, and works are an integral part of faith. As faith causes you to work for God, the work builds up your faith. Likewise, stagnating works cause faith to die also. If your faith is to grow it must be alive and working. The January issue of the Christadelphian Magazine and the Tidings Magazine carry announcements of plans to make 1976 a special year of proclamation of the Truth. What better way to put our faith to work, than in a united effort, together with the brethren all over the world. And what better preparation and dedication could we make than to renew our faith in God and his promises. Let us all dedicate 1975 to that purpose.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One