FAITH, THE MARK OF SONSHIP.

Faith is the mark of sonship in all who have it, whoever they may be, for "ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus."gal.3v26. If you are believing in Jesus, whether you are male or female, Jew or gentile, bond or free, you are the child of God. If you have only believed in Christ of late, and have but for the past few weeks been able to rest in His great salvation, yet beloved, now you are the child of God. It is not an after priviledge, granted to assurance or growth in grace, it is an early blessing and belongs to him who has the smallest degree of faith and is no more than a babe in grace. If a person be a believer in Jesus Christ their name is in the register-book of the great family above, for, "ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." But if you have no faith, no matter what zeal, no matter what works, no matter what knowledge, no matter what pretensions to holiness you may possess, you are nothing, and your religion is vain. Without faith in Christ you are a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal for without faith it is impossible to please God. Faith then wherever it is found, is the infallible token of a child of God, and it's absence is fatal to the claim.
This according to the apostle is further illustrated by our baptism, for in baptism, if there is faith in the soul, there is an open putting on of The Lord Jesus. " For as many of you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ."gal3v27. In baptism you professed to be dead to the world and you were therefore buried into the name of Jesus, and the meaning of that burial, if it had any right meaning for you, was that you professed your self henceforth to be dead to everything but Christ, and henceforth your life was to be in Him, and you were to be as one raised from the dead to newness of life. Of course the outward form avails nothing to the unbeliever, but to the one who is in Christ it is a most instructive ordinance. The spirit and essence of the ordinance lie in the soul's entering into the symbol, in the person's knowing not alone the baptism into water, but the baptism into The Holy Ghost and into fire, and as many of you as know that inward mystic baptism into Christ know also that hencforth you have put on Christ and are covered by Him as a man is by his garment. Henceforth you are one with Him, you wear His name, you live in Him, you are saved by Him, you are altogether His. Now, if you are one with Christ, since He is a son, you are a son also. God seeth you not in yourself but in Christ, and that which belongeth unto Christ belongeth also unto you, for if you be Christ's then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. As the Roman youth when he came of age put on the toga, and was admitted to the rights of citizenship, so the putting on of Christ is the token of our admission into the position of sons of God. Thus we are actually admitted to the enjoyment of our glorious heritage. Every blessing of the covenant of grace belongs to those who are Christ's, and every believer is in that list.

FAITH AND FEELING.

We are saved by faith and not by feeling, yet there is a relation between holy faith and hallowed feeling like that between the root and the flower. Faith is as permanent as the root which is ever embedded in the soil, feeling is casual and has it's seasons. The bulb does not always shoot up the green stem, far less is it always crowned with it's many flowers. Faith is the tree, the essential tree, our feelings are like the appearance of that tree during the different seasons of the year. Sometimes our soul is full of bloom and blossom, and the bees hum pleasantly and gather honey within our hearts. It is then that our feelings bear witness to the life of our faith, just as the buds of spring bear witness to the life of the tree. Anon, our feelings gather still greater vigour, and after we come to the summer of our delights, again perhaps, we begin to wither into the sear and yellow leaf of autumn, nay sometimes into the winter of our despondancy and despair will strip away every leaf from the tree, and our poor faith stands like a blasted stem without a sign of verdure. And yet, so long as the tree of faith is there, we are saved. Whether faith blossom or not, whether it bring forth joyous fruit in our experience or not, so long as it be there in all it's permanence, we are saved, Yet should we have the gravest reason to distrust the life of our faith if it did not sometimes blossom with joy and often bring forth fruit unto holiness.

GOD'S PROMISES

Holy scripture is wonderfully full and abiding in it's inner sense. It is a springing well, whereat you may draw and draw again, for as you draw it springs up forever new and fresh. It is a well of water springing up everlastingly. The fulfillment of a divine promise is not the exhaustion of it. When a man gives you a promise, and he keeps it, there is the end of the matter, but it is not so with God. When He keeps His word to the full He has but begun, He is prepared to keep it, and keep it, and keep it for ever and ever. What would you say of a man who had wheat upon his barn floor, and threshed it until he had beaten out the last golden grain, but the next day he went and threshed again and brought back as much as the day before, and the day after, again taking his flail, he went to the same threshing, and again brought back his measure as full as at the first, and so on for all the days of the year? Would it not seem to you as a fairy tale? It would certainly be a surprising miracle. But what should we say if throughout a long life, this miracle could be prolonged? Yet we have continued to thresh God's promises ever since faith was first given us, and we have carried away our full portion every day. What shall we say of the glorious fact that the saints of all the ages, from the first day until now have done the very same, or of that equal truth, that as long as there is a needy soul upon earth, there will be upon the threshing floor of the promises of God the same abundance of the finest of the wheat as when the first man filled his measure and returned rejoicing?
The children of God have used His promises under all sorts of circumstances, and have derived the utmost comfort from them. As God rests in His love, so may we rest in it, and as He joys over us with singing, so may we break forth into joyous psalms to the God of our salvation.

"Even Now"

We will never excercise faith concerning those for whose salvation we have no care about. I trust we are diligent in looking after individuals, especially those who are amongst our own family and friends. This is what Martha did, her whole care was for her brother. It is often easier to have faith that Christ can save sinners generally than to believe that He can come into our own homes and save some particuar one of our household. But oh what joy when He does, when we are able to pray with our own loved ones and rejoice with them at their being made alive by the power of The Holy Ghost. We cannot expect to have this privilege however unless like Martha we send our prayer to Jesus, and go to meet Him, and tell Him of our need.
In Jesu's presence it seems natural to trust Him, even at the worst extremity. It is when we are at our wits end that He delights to help us. When our hopes seem to be buried, then it is that God gives us a resurrection. When our Issac is on the altar, then the heavens are opened and the word of God comes to us.
Art thou beginning to doubt thy Saviour and to complain of His delay? Have faith that He will come at just the right time, though He must be the Judge of when the time will be best for Him to appear.
Martha had a fine faith, her faith had to do with a dreadful case, her brother was dead and had been buried, but her faith still lived hallelujah, and in spite of everything that went against her she believed in Jesus and looked to Him to help her in her extremity. Her faith went to the very edge of the gulf and she said "but I know that even now, whatso-ever Thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee." Still Martha had not so much faith as she thought she had for soon after her wonderful confession of confidence in the power of the Lord Jesus she stood at the grave of her brother and evidently doubted the wisdom of He whom she professed to trust, she objected to the stone being removed and strong in the admitted facts of the case she urged her reason "Lord by this time he stinketh." Well but Martha you said but not long ago "even now" yes, she said it and she believed it, in the same way that most of us believe, but when her faith was sharply tried by the facts of the matter, she did not have all the faith she had professed to have. I have a suspicion that this is true of most of us. We often fancy that our confidence in Christ is much stronger than it actually is. When we are not called upon to bear the trouble we feel wonderfully strong, but when the trial comes, very much of our boasted faith ebbs away and disappearss like smoke in the wind. Take heed now to examine well your faith, let it be true and real, for you will have need of it all.
Praise God, Jesus did not take Martha at her worst but at her best. When Our Lord says "according to your faith be it unto you" He does not mean your faith at it's ebb but in it's flood. He reads the thermometer at it's highest point not at it's lowest, He doesn't even take the mean reading of our trust, He gives us credit for our quickest pace not counting our slowest or seeking to discover our average speed in this matter of faith. He did for Martha all she could have dared hoped for and much, much more. Her brother did arise and was restored to her and Mary and their friends. In thy case too, oh thou trembling timorous one, The Lord will take thee at thy best and He will do for thee great and wonderful things, seeing that thou desirest to believe greatly and that thy prayer is "Lord I believe, help Thou mine unbelief."

STRONG IN FAITH

Christian, take good care of your faith for remember faith is the only way whereby thou canst obtain blessings. If we want blessings from God, nothing can fetch them down but faith.
Prayer cannot draw down answers from God's throne except it be the earnest prayer of the man who believes.
Faith is the angelic messenger between the soul and The Lord Christ in glory, if that angel be withdrawn we can neither send up prayer nor recieve the answers.
Faith is the invisible telegraph wire which links earth and heaven on which God's messages fly so fast that before we call, He answers, and while we are yet speaking He hears us. But if that telegraph wire is cut, how can we recieve the promise? Am I in trouble? I can get help for trouble by faith, Am I beaten about by the enemy? I can find refuge beneath the wings of faith, but take faith away and in vain do I call to God, for there is no path betwixt my soul and heaven.
Faith links me to the great King and clothes me with the power of God. Faith engages on my side the all-powerful Jehovah, it ensures every attribute of God most high in my defence and enables me to defy the host of hell. Faith makes me to march triumphantly over the necks of my enemies. But without faith I can recieve nothing from my Lord. Let not him that wavereth-who is like a wave of the sea-expect that he will recieve anything from The Lord.
So then beloved watch well thy faith for with it thou canst win all things, however poor you are,
but without it, though thou be the wealthiest man in England, thou canst obtain nothing.
If thou canst only believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.

THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION.

The doctrine of a risen Saviour is exceedingly sweet and precious, it is the corner-stone of the entire building that is the church, it is the key-stone of the arch of our salvation.
It would take a volume to set forth all the streams of living water that flow from this one sacred source. Jesus a-risen from the dead and alive forever more. But to know that He is risen, and to have fellowship with Him as Risen Lord, communing with Him by possessing a risen life ourselves, seeing Him leave the tomb by leaving the tomb of worldliness, this is sweeter and more precious still. The doctrine is the basis of the experience, but as the flower is lovelier than the root, so is the experience of fellowship with the risen Saviour more lovely than the doctrine itself. I would have you to believe that Christ arose from the dead and sing about it, and get all the joy and comfort that the well attested and witnessed to fact affords, but I beseech you rest not contented even there. Though you cannot see Him as the disciples did, yet I bid you aspire to see Him by the eye of faith; And though like Mary Magdalene you may not touch Him you can talk with Him and walk with Him in newness of life.
To know a crucified Saviour as having crucified with Him all my sins, this is high knowledge, but to know a risen Lord as having justified me, as having bestowed upon me new life making me a new creation through His own life, this is a grand style of experience, short of that ought none to be satisfied.
May you both "know Him" and know "the power of His resurrection."
Why should newly alive souls in Jesus wear the grave clothes of worldliness and unbelief? Arise for He is risen.