Is faith in God a crutch?

We commend the psalm specially to the Christian women; their steadfast faith and hope is a great help to the church of God and to His servants. The wife of George Whitefield used to stand behind him when the mob threatened him and say, “Play the man for God, George.” The psalm does not celebrate natural courage, not even faith but the greatness and absolute reliability of God—“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will we not fear.” It is what God is that drives away the fear—God greater and nearer than all circumstances, God greater than all foes, “God for us.” We may dwell too much on faith and lose sight of God we may even put our trust in prayer instead of in the God to whom we pray. If we know God our faith will be active, if we know His care, His love, His wisdom, His power, we shall pray and shall believe while we pray, but it will be God Himself and not our faith or our prayers that will be important to us

God can deliver from trouble His people who trust Him; He can cover them in the day of battle, and preserve them from the terror by night; and He will do these things for them when it is for their greatest good that He should; so that they may always commend themselves and all that are theirs to His wise and tender mercies. Yet the Christian ought not to hope to escape the sorrow and suffering through which others are passing; it would be unwarrantable selfishness and sheer weakness to expect to do so. The sword is as likely to bereave the Christian home of a beloved son as any other, and the house that is sanctified by prayer has no immunity from the bomb that falleth in the darkness, except, as we have said, God sees that their preservation from these things will be for their greatest good. Then what advantage has the Christian over the one who knows not God? His advantage lies in the fact that he knows God—God behind the sorrow, God over it, God in it, and God abiding in all His infinite wisdom and love when the sorrow is past and gone. And faith in God—who is not only the Almighty but the God of all comfort—lifts the Christian out of all depression and enables him, instead of attempting to escape sorrow, to share the sorrows of others, and to suffer instead of them if needs be. With this knowledge the Christian is the man to brighten the corner in which he is set and to convey hope and comfort to the despairing and distressed.

God can deliver from trouble His people who trust Him; He can cover them in the day of battle, and preserve them from the terror by night; and He will do these things for them when it is for their greatest good that He should; so that they may always commend themselves and all that are theirs to His wise and tender mercies. Yet the Christian ought not to hope to escape the sorrow and suffering through which others are passing; it would be unwarrantable selfishness and sheer weakness to expect to do so. The sword is as likely to bereave the Christian home of a beloved son as any other, and the house that is sanctified by prayer has no immunity from the bomb that falleth in the darkness, except, as we have said, God sees that their preservation from these things will be for their greatest good. Then what advantage has the Christian over the one who knows not God? His advantage lies in the fact that he knows God — God behind the sorrow, God over it, God in it, and God abiding in all His infinite wisdom and love when the sorrow is past and gone. And faith in God — who is not only the Almighty but the God of all comfort — lifts the Christian out of all depression and enables him, instead of attempting to escape sorrow, to share the sorrows of others, and to suffer instead of them if needs be. With this knowledge the Christian is the man to brighten the corner in which he is set and to convey hope and comfort to the despairing and distressed.

Beware, young believer, of proud thoughts. They are an abomination to God: "Be clothed with humility." You want God's help in the smallest matters, and He will not withhold it from the prayer of faith. At the bench or in the counting-house, at school or in household duties, seek aid from on high in all your difficulties, and you will find what resources there are in God for the prayerful soul. This will not encourage you in idleness for you must not suppose God will do for you what you yourself are too lazy to attempt. While you ought to pray as if everything depended on Omnipotence, you must also work as if all depended on yourself.

This confidence in God will not make a man unpractical, or indifferent to the distress and anguish of others. It will not make him think or act selfishly, like those who would store their houses with provisions against a time of famine regardless whether their poorer brethren have food or not. No, being with God and having God with him, he will be entirely free from self concern, his heart will be compassionate for those in distress and he will go “about doing good,” as did his Master and perfect Example. He will greatly strengthen his more fearful brethren by his own quiet but exultant faith as he says confidently, powerfully, effectively, “Wait on the Lord,” for in so saying he will direct them to the One in whom is infinite strength, the ALMIGHTY GOD, the LORD OF HOSTS, whom every blood-bought child of God can address as Father, the One whose power and loving-kindness he himself is proving. May God give us men of this stamp today for His people's good, and for the blessing of the distressed multitudes.

This confidence in God will not make a man unpractical, or indifferent to the distress and anguish of others. It will not make him think or act selfishly, like those who would store their houses with provisions against a time of famine regardless whether their poorer brethren have food or not. No, being with God and having God with him, he will be entirely free from self concern, his heart will be compassionate for those in distress and he will go "about doing good," as did his Master and perfect Example. He will greatly strengthen his more fearful brethren by his own quiet but exultant faith as he says confidently, powerfully, effectively, "Wait on the Lord," for in so saying he will direct them to the One in whom is infinite strength, the ALMIGHTY GOD, the LORD OF HOSTS, whom every blood-bought child of God can address as Father, the One whose power and loving-kindness he himself is proving. May God give us men of this stamp today for His people's good, and for the blessing of the distressed multitudes.

Faith may express itself in two ways, either in activity or in passiveness; and the latter is by far the more remarkable. To see a child of God surrounded by a thousand calls to active effort, by which alone lie can, to all appearance, extricate himself from a position of difficulty or peril, remain quiet and in the exercise of hidden dependence on a Hand which defers its help, is, indeed, a wonderful sight. It is so natural to shift for ourselves, to strain every nerve, to wrestle, throughout the long night of our perplexity, in the hope that we may overcome by struggling. And there are, no doubt, occasions when such struggles may be necessary, and when faith is called on to show herself as a veritable slave. An Abraham may have to arm his household, and sally forth to the conquest; or he may have to conduct an only son to the sacrificial hilltop.

Faith may express itself in two ways, either in activity or in passiveness; and the latter is by far the more remarkable. To see a child of God surrounded by a thousand calls to active effort, by which alone he can, to all appearance, extricate himself from a position of difficulty or peril, remain quiet and in the exercise of hidden dependence on a Hand which defers its help, is, indeed, a wonderful sight. It is so natural to shift for ourselves, to strain every nerve, to wrestle, throughout the long night of our perplexity, in the hope that we may overcome by struggling. And there are, no doubt, occasions when such struggles may be necessary, and when faith is called on to show herself as a veritable slave. An Abraham may have to arm his household, and sally forth to the conquest; or he may have to conduct an only son to the sacrificial hilltop.

What then has the child of God to do with fear? His only fear should be lest he might be unfaithful, and fear man more than God, lest he should forget that ceaseless care of love which makes him invulnerable to every weapon wherewith Satan seeks to compass his destruction, until the time appointed of God. The children of God, if they were in the power of this truth, would also be far less restless and anxious in times of sickness. God may permit us the use of means, but how often are these resorted to in a spirit of unbelief, as if our recovery were entirely dependent upon human aid and advice. Surely if a sparrow cannot fall on the ground without the permission of our Father, His children cannot. No, the very hairs of our heads are all numbered, and God is honoured by our perfect calm and confidence in the face of the greatest dangers, resting, as we may, in the assurance that diseases and enemies alike are but instruments in His hands, for the execution of His own purposes of tenderness and love.

Against this help all effort is unavailing; only we must wait for it. Human efforts shut this help out. It is another kind of resource which is not faith. God may command activity, and faith acts confidently. But this is never man's way; and when the matter is in God's hands, when there is not a duty, then our part is to be still, and we shall soon know that He is God. Human effort only spoils all. No human planning is ever right. In His own time and way, God will come in. There are duties. When there are, do them: but when the power of evil against us is there, and there is not a duty, the path is to be still. Human efforts prove want of faith and restlessness, and planning is mere flesh. Elsewhere we have seen that integrity is needed to trust God, because it is God's holy nature which is trusted. This absolute trust is called for when the power of evil is rampant, and endurance till deliverance is the path of the saint. There is another thought here. God (the Most High over all the earth) has a dwelling - place, where the rivers of His grace refresh: then the city of God, Zion and the temple; now the church. There the streams of refreshment run, and He will preserve her (not now as Zion, the city of God's solemnities, but in a better way), and there He enters into the proper character of His own relationship. And there He gives peace, having destroyed all the power of the enemy. Then will he who has waited know who is God - we in yet brighter and holier scenes.