I. A sense of rest Faith always brings rest of soul
I. A sense of rest Faith always brings rest of soul
They who believe, do enter in to rest.
Faith and rest are Siamese twins; they are inseparable. When faith is wanting. rest is wanting; and when rest is wanting, faith is wanting.
President Finney used to frequently say: Whenever you get out of rest, you are out of faith. The witness of faith brings a rest to the soul from all fear as to its saving interest in Christ. Having consciously received the Lord Jesus as its Savior, it no longer fears. Faith is a complete antidote to fear. Faith is the stronger one which casts out the strong man, fear, from the soul. All fear of law, of judgment, of penalty, and of every other evil thing, departs, when faith possesses the heart. Faith emancipates from fear.
There comes also with the witness of faith a rest from the seeking or struggle for salvation. The pursuit is over; the faith that saves is realized; salvation is received; expectation is at an end; anticipation has become attainment. The impulse to weep and struggle and pray for salvation subsides. When President Finney alone, praying in great agony of soul, experienced justification by faith, there was such a cessation of mental anxiety and of the impulse to pray, that walking home, he was tempted to think that, instead of being converted, he had only fallen into indifference.
But it was the true rest of faith that always marks the end of seeking and the beginning of receiving salvation. It is such a rest that all concern for salvation vanishes. The soul that believes on the Son of God has no concern about salvation.
Moreover, this rest of faith frees the seeking soul from anxiety about the witness of the Holy Spirit; for faith commits both the saving work and the witness of the same to Christ so implicitly that it can have no restless longing for either. I read, not long since, this sentence, which is a golden spiritual axiom: In proportion as a seeking soul is anxiously concerned for the witness of the Holy Spirit, in that degree it is doubting. Sometimes, indeed most generally, the last bulwark of unbelief that surrenders to faith is to accept salvation on the Word of the Lord without the witness of the Holy Spirit, and to rejoice that the Holy Spirit in his own time and in his own way will attest the saving work that shall be wrought in us. A young man came to me in great trouble. I was just starting to my pulpit on Sabbath morning. He was weeping, and was a very picture of distress. I could only talk with him a few minutes. He told me his trouble. I said to him: I will fix matters so that your trouble will be at an end. I did not say when or how I would do it. He wiped away his tears; a restful expression took the place of the worried features he wore when he entered my door. I had done nothing; I had only promised to do something. He believed me, and rest came to his troubled heart. He left me within five minutes bright and happy. I attended to his case as soon as I could, and saved him from the trouble which threatened him, and did not see him again until two days afterward. I met him on the street. I supposed his first inquiry would be, Have you attended to my case? that he would want a witness that I had done what I had promised; but he conversed with me several minutes, and asked nothing about what I had promised, and was about to leave, when I said to him:
Your matter is all adjusted.
O, said he: I knew that was all right I had no anxiety about it, since you said you would attend to it. He had all this while been unconcerned about any assurance that I had done it; he had not worried himself about such an assurance, nor had he worried me about it. So the soul, when it accepts Gods promise of salvation by faith, rests from all concern about the witness of the Holy Spirit; it doesnt worry itself, nor does it worry the Lord about it. As long as the soul is fretting about the witness, and pestering the Lord about it, it has not yet the rest of faith; for faith brings rest from all such unnecessary anxiety, I said to a lady who had accepted Christ by faith for full salvation: Have you the witness of the Spirit? She instantly said: No, and I don't care; for I know it will come. She had the witness of faith, and that earnest of the promised witness of the Holy Spirit was sufficient for her.