How can I overcome a crisis of faith?

"O faithless generation," says the Lord, "how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you?" His service upon earth was finished. But see the patience and goodness of the Lord; He cannot deny Himself. All the time He is down here upon earth He works according to His power and grace, and that notwithstanding the unbelief of His own. He finishes the sentence in which He reproves their unbelief in this manner - "Bring him to me." Faith, however small it be, is never left without an answer from the Lord. What a consolation! whatever be the unbelief, not only of the world, but of Christians - if only one solitary person were left in the world who had faith in the goodness and power of the Lord Jesus, he could not come to Him with a real need and simple belief without finding His heart ready and His power sufficient.

The church may be in ruins, as was Israel, but the Head is sufficient for everything, knows the state of His own, and will not fail to supply their needs. The child's state was very dangerous, and the devil had possessed him from his infancy. The father's faith was feeble, but sincere; he says to the Lord, "If thou canst do anything, have pity upon us, and help us." The Lord's reply is remarkable: "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." Power connects itself with faith; the difficulty is not in Christ's power, but in man's believing; all things were possible if he could believe. This is an important principle; Christ's power never fails to accomplish all that is good for man; faith, alas! may be wanting in us to profit by it. However the Lord is full of goodness; the poor father says with tears, "I believe, help thou mine unbelief": sincere words from a moved heart in which the Lord had already awakened faith. It was the anxiety for his son that weakened this faith.

How appropriate then was the response of the father, made with tears, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief," for it shows reality of faith, yet an acknowledgement of the weakness of his faith. The Lord, seeing the people running together, drawn by this pitiful case, then commanded the dumb and deaf spirit to come out of the boy and remain out. In doing so, the spirit made one last cruel thrust in convulsing him greatly, leaving him so exhausted that he appeared to be dead. Tenderly, however, the Lord took him by the hand and lifted him up. But the case does show the cruel tenacity of Satanic power, over which the blessed Lord of glory has supreme power.

"Bring him unto Me" says the Saviour. Even so, He lets all see the depth of the child's need, the malicious power of the enemy. He manifests His interest in all that dismays the heart of man. He enquires, not as if He did not know the reins and the heart, but that the tried soul may learn the reality of His compassion. He teaches the feeble suppliant that the question of power turns on faith; for faith God will have, whatever may be His own grace. What possible good morally could power insure without believing? On the other hand, all things are possible to him that believes. So even the disciples had to learn; and the father, through his necessities believing the lesson at once, tends to the right way under the Lord's guidance. "I believe: help mine unbelief." How wholesome for the believer to feel and own his unbelief!

21, 22. The father's distrust seems partly to have arisen from extreme anxiety increased, no doubt, by the failure of the disciples. But, note, the cause for it is an abiding one, whether painful or joyous; he felt more about himself than the Lord. Here was the germ of unbelief. "Have pity on us"; he was full of the object, not calm reliance on the Lord's power in respect of it. This fills with the sense of the apparent difficulties; we do not see where the "if thou canst" lies. This accordingly is the point our Lord brings the man's mind to; he says, "If thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us." It is not merely uncertainty as to the Lord's seeing right to interfere, for that is consistent, quod nota, with perfect faith. "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst. And the Lord said, I will, be thou," etc. Here is no reference to Him as "Lord," but "If thou canst." The Lord therefore answers, 'The point of its possibility lies in your belief.' The "If thou canst," which was applied to Him, properly rested in others' faith. There is the whole "if," for "All things are possible to him that believeth." The question of ability, etc., is (are you able) to believe? Note, when we are anxious for some immediate object, we may apply for aid to what has the credit of being able to help, without any just faith in that which we apply to. Just faith recognises, so as to have moral power over the soul, the real character of its object, for it dwells upon it, not merely on what one would gain from it; see Hosea 7:14, and Psalms 78 and 107. And therefore it never reaches anything of willing obedience. "Who is the Lord that I should obey him?" See, when there was some measure of faith really in the case of Jairus, how our Lord anticipated, as observed, the effect of the news of her death, by holding him to the apprehension of the power, not of the difficulty - "all things are possible," etc.; and, God being indeed manifested, the being able is in the believing. The observations here are intimately connected with our seeking spiritual comfort, in our getting ease for ourselves. A burthened soul cannot but seek it, but a truly humbled and distressed soul is led much more to contemplate God, and wait upon Him, as one unworthy, than to seek ease selfishly for itself, faithlessly as regards Him. Such a soul rather wants deeper convictions of sin generally. There may be dealings of God with souls beyond these observations perhaps; see Jonah, the Israelites lusting for meat, and the answer of the three children to Nebuchadnezzar.

On the other hand, you may have the feeblest faith in the right object, and all will be well. And the way for your faith to grow, and God wants it to grow, is not by examining the extent of your faith, but by occupation with the trustworthiness of the Saviour.

Nor even does the working of unbelief hinder. For, when those who are believers cannot use the power that has been brought in against evil, what is to be done? We read, that when they brought one possessed of a demon to the disciples, and they could not cast him out, the Lord says: "How long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?" If you cannot use the power I have brought in, what is the use of staying with you? But He adds, "Bring him hither to me." Even if the faith of the church fail, and one were alone in the trial, individual faith will always find grace in the Lord Jesus Christ for its want. Just as the father of the child cried out with tears: "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." Christ cannot fail; and we on our side must not be like Elijah, saying, "Lord, they have thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life to take it away" (and mark at the moment he had thrown down their altars and slain their prophets), and then run away. What we want to say is: Well, Christ never fails, and there cannot be a want in Christ's church without there being an answer to it in Christ's heart.

What is the remedy for doubting? Knowing the truth(s) contained in the Bible. Reading and studying the Bible, and so filling our thoughts with the Word of God, will deliver us from doubting. “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you” (Phil. 4:8-9).

But it is beautiful to see how Abraham flings it all out — doubt and all, casts it down before God. "Pour out your hearts before Him," says the Psalmist; "Be careful for nothing," adds the apostle; "but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." In these very requests, what a multitude of things unworthy of Him! but He who has known them in the heart before would have us pour them out in His presence, and oh the relief that the heart gets so! How many of these workings of unbelief do the psalms thus give us! but they are poured out before God, and the soul stills itself in that blessed presence as no where else can it be stilled. What! we have been asking God if He is God! "O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted," peace! He is indeed the "God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."

I do not think it altogether just, that "prayer is the soul's sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed." I surely admit that there may be a sigh or a groan where the Holy Ghost's intercession is, and that the lifting up of the heart to God will never find repulse or coldness there. All that I admit; but there is an actual carrying a known want or trouble to God, the expression of the need we are in. The heart expresses itself in a distinct application. Thus it brings itself before God, and this is very important in our relationship with God. There is truth in the inward parts, and true confiding dependence. Up to this there was gnawing trouble, the working of the heart on the trouble, the soul refusing to be comforted. The will was at work, and could not get what it wanted. The soul thinks of God, but no comfort was there. There was but its own thoughts of Him; there was complaint, not prayer, and the spirit overwhelmed. So, when awake, he cannot be occupied naturally with ordinary matters, he is silent through trouble. It is a strong picture of a thoroughly distressed soul; only fully realised when a soul, through the chastening hand of God, has lost the sense of divine favour, or does not yet know peace, but which in a certain degree of not looking to Him may be the case with any one. But the soul turns to God. It has enjoyed mercy and songs in the night. Would the Lord cast off for ever? For the Christian this question has no place; but when the shield of faith is down, and the fiery darts of the wicked have reached the heart, a terrible and sore chastisement. The only thing like it is when a soul has lightly received the gospel in its mercy (without, however, being insincere), and the work of conscience goes on afterwards. When, instead of communing with self and reasoning with its own misery, it looks to God, the heart sees all this in itself, not in God. This is the turning-point.

Have I not at times feared to make my difficulties known to another? Has not my soul trembled — tempted to think I had placed my confidence in some statement of the Word in vain? Yet I have waited on my God, and not in vain; ‘and, it may have been in years after, the truth was made clear in the Word, and my soul was filled with praise! The great thing is never to lose confidence in it: God will sometime make it plain to the exercised heart.