Faith in its relation to the future and the unseen.
I. FAITH IN ITS RELATION TO THE FUTURE.
1. Nothing is more to be desired than a hopeful outlook towards the future. The future may be regarded doubtfully, fearfully, or even despairingly; on the other hand the question rises if it be not possible to regard the future with a hope which shall become a duty. Doubtless there are many who do look hopefully forward, but they are hopeful simply because of a disposition constitutionally sanguine. They may even make a brightness where there is nothing in the circumstances to warrant it. They think it is quite as likely chance may bring to them success as failure. But this sort of hope never can become a duty, a feeling which a man ought to have, potent and governing in his breast. We do not want a future dependent on chance, or natural endowments, or favorable circumstances. We want a future which shall become bright to every human being because of his humanity, because of his character, because one of the elements in bringing it about is his own choice.
2. This bright outlook towards the future is secured by Christian faith. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for." More correctly, faith is a substance of things hoped for. Bengel alleges that the metaphor is taken from a pillar standing under a heavy weight. We accept the explanation, only adding to it that this heavy weight rests on more pillars than one, and all of them are necessary. The things hoped for will never come into existence for us unless they be related to us by a present, practical faith. Suppose to each of two men a quantity of seed is given. One of them sows his portion, and then to him a harvest is among the things hoped for, his hope being reasonable and based upon an act of faith when he put his seed into the ground. The other, not sowing, if he hopes for a harvest, is clearly under a delusion. The thing he hopes for has no substance; he has done nothing to show real faith. The thing indicated by the word "faith" is something practical; not a man merely saying he believes, but showing his faith by his works. Such a faith becomes a matter of conscience. God gives to the man who wishes for the gift a peculiar insight, a deep conviction in the heart, which is worth more than any argument. The course taken may not satisfy others, may provoke their laughter, their wonder, their pity; but after all the one thing needful is not that our course should be clear to others, but clear to ourselves. If we go wrong in our course through neglect of the Divine voice speaking within us, it is we who suffer the most. We must look to God altogether, and he will give us the right impulse, and concentrate our faculties so that we shall not drift through life, but rather speed onward with a definite aim, concerning which, in our own best moments, we shall have a full assurance that we cannot miss it. These heavenly certainties are not to be revealed by flesh and blood. So much turns on faith that it is no wonder it is so much dwelt on in the New Testament. Of what a glorious life, of what beatific imaginations, does unbelief deprive us?
II. FAITH IN ITS RELATION TO THE UNSEEN. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for;" it is not called the substance of things unseen. For it is in no sense the substance of things unseen. They exist, whether we believe them to exist or not. But faith may become to our hearts the evidence of these unseen things. Certainly there can be no other evidence. To all our natural faculties there is presented nothing but a bundle of phenomena, and whatever we may think of beyond them comes into our minds simply because we are unable to believe that there is nothing beyond them. There is an outward man, perceptible to the senses, feeling through the senses a like pleasure and pain; but there is also an inward man, a deep, invisible existence, to which God and Christ appeal, as having the proper sphere of its life in the great invisible outside c f it. It is by faith that the invisible in us is to profit by the invisible outside of us. Prayer is a recognition of the invisible. We are to endure as seeing him who is invisible. The only source of inspiration for a real and full Christian life is to be found in the invisible. And when the invisible rules, when faith lays hold of its riches, then even the visible becomes a more glorious and profitable thing than it ever can do while sense rules alone.—Y.