This is a most perplexing difficulty with many, but in reality it is only another form of self-occupation.
What good would it do if you had the right kind of faith, if there wasn’t the right kind of Person to have faith in? And who can this Person be but the One who is both able and willing to meet your need?
What man, after being made conscious of some enormous debt, and his own utter inability to meet it, would talk like this after he had heard of a friend’s generosity in paying the debt? Put yourself into such a position and see how such language would sound coming from your mouth: I do believe my friend has paid all for me, but I wonder if I have believed in the right way?
If a question arose at all, would you not rather inquire, Has the payment been made in the right way, and is my creditor satisfied with this way of settling my account?
But it may be inquired, Isn’t it possible to believe with the head, and not with the heart? Sadly there is too much of that.
What, then, is the difference?
To believe on Him in your heart is simply to believe on Him with the consciousness in your heart that He is the only One who can meet your case and that without Him you will perish forever, and so you confide in Him. It is more than a mere agreement with the historical fact that He died and rose again. It is to see yourself, without His precious sacrifice, hopelessly facing judgment, and so you believe in Him.
It is one thing for a man to say, I believe that in a certain nook on the shore a lifeboat is kept, with willing hands always near and ready to man her. It is another thing to find yourself on the shivering deck of some stranded, sinking ship, sending up rockets as signals of distress, in order that you may be saved by that lifeboat, and eagerly stepping on board when she approaches. It is one thing to believe that a certain skilled physician visits a fever-sick neighbor every day, and another thing — conscious that you have caught the same sickness — to stand anxiously watching for his approach, in order to put your own case into his hands, and, when he comes, gladly and trustfully to submit yourself to his treatment.
A feeble mother hears, at midnight, the stealthy footsteps of burglars in the house. Her two children are in bed, the eldest only a girl of nine. Which of them will she call to ward off these intruders? Neither of them. Her great fear is that they will be awakened by what is going on. She has no confidence in them to meet the difficulty; neither is she, in her weakness, equal to the task. What then is to be done? She has long known that every night a policeman patrols the street in which she lives. Though she hadn’t for years doubted that fact, yet how differently she acts now, as she opens the window, and with all the energy she possesses, shouts, Police! Police!
Doesn’t her call to the police officer prove two things: 1St, that she has a real sense of her need of him; 2nd, that she has confidence in him to meet it? Now turn to Romans 10, and you will there see that verse 10 says, “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness;” and verse 13, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,” and again, verse 14, “How shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe on Him of whom they have not heard?” The report which I hear of Him wins my confidence in Him. Then because I believe that only He can meet my need, I call on Him, and get the assurance of His word that salvation is mine; for He says, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
But don’t get occupied with faith itself; as though God wanted us to have faith in our faith. What good would it do you, we repeat, to have the right kind of faith, and plenty of it, if there wasn’t the right kind of Person to have faith in?
For example, what good would it have done the woman facing burglars to have had great faith in the man who lived next door, if, when she called and knocked, this man was either not at home or couldn’t be awakened? The strongest faith in him wouldn’t have saved her from the burglars, while the most trembling faith that causing a call to the policeman brought instant deliverance. It was for this very purpose that he was on the watch.
Do you believe, therefore, that you are totally “without strength” — perfectly helpless to meet the question of your guilt and sin; that Christ alone, by His meritorious death, can save you; that God has righteously given to Him sin’s full judgment, when in love He had given Himself to be made sin for us; and that God has declared His satisfaction in that sin-atoning sacrifice by raising Him from the dead and crowning Him with heavenly glory? Have you called upon Him in the sense that without Him, who is ready and willing to save, you are forever lost? Then take the sweet assurance which His own faithful word gives that salvation is yours. Do not hesitate to confess it, nor longer withhold the praise that is due to Him for it.