See Chapter IV.
The need of the man in the Gospel of Mark was plain. His son was gnashing with the teeth and.wallowing on the ground. But the need of all men, if they could only discern the facts, is equally clear. The great need of the human soul which leads to faith in Christ is found, as we have seen, in the fact of sin. A man never accepts Christ as Saviour unless he knows himself to be in the grip of the demon of sin and desires to be set free. One may argue with a man on the subject of religion as long as life endures; one may bring forward arguments for the existence of a personal God; one may attempt to prove on the basis of the documentary evidence that only the Christian view of Christ and only His resurrection from the tomb can explain the origin of the Christian religion. Men will listen, if they be broad-minded (as, however, they seldom are today); but repelled by the stupendous nature of the thing that we ask them to believe, they will reject all our arguments and conviction will not be formed. But then, as we despair of bringing them ever to faith, we receive sometimes an unexpected ally. In some unexpected way the hollo wness and hopelessness of their lives comes home to them; they recognize the awful guilt of sin. And when that recognition comes, the proofs of the Christian religion suddenly obtain for them a new cogency; everything in the Christian system falls for them into its proper place; and they believe. Belief in Christ, today as always, can be attained only when there is a sense of need.
That does not mean that we despise the external proofs of the Christian religion. They are absolutely necessary; without them the sense of need would lead only to despair. It is one^of the root errors of the present day to suppose that because the philosophical and historical foundations of our religion are insufficient to produce faith, they are therefore unnecessary. The truth is that their insufficiency is due not at all to any weakness of their own but only to a weakness in our minds. Pragmatism should be avoided by the Christian with all the energy of his soul, as indeed it should be avoided by everyone who will not acquiesce in the present lamentable intellectual decline which pragmatism has brought about. The facts of the Christian religion remain facts no matter whether we cherish them or not: they are facts for God; they are facts both for angels and for demons; they are facts now, and they will remain facts beyond the end of time.
But/ as we have observed in an earlier part of our discussion, the facts are one thing, and the recognition of the facts is another. And it is the recognition of the facts that depends for us upon the sense of need. The man who has come to discern the sin of his own soul, who has stripped aside the miserable conventional excuses for sin and seen himself as God sees him, is a man who like a drowning person will snatch at a plank that may save him from the abyss. Without the sense of dire need the stupendous, miraculous events of Jesus' coming and Jesus' resurrection are unbelievable because they are out of the 'usual order; but to the man who knows the terrible need caused by sin these things are valuable just because they are out of the usual order. The man who is under the conviction of sin can accept the supernatural; for He knows that there is an adequate occasion for its entrance into the course of this world.
Bring even modern men to a real sense of sin, and despite all the prejudice against the gospel story, they will be led to cry at least: "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief/' That cry of the distressed man in Mark was not the cry of perfect faith. But through it the man was saved. So it will be today. Even very imperfect and very weak faith is sufficient for salvation; salvation does not depend upon the strength of our faith, but it depends upon Christ. When you want assurance of salvation, think not about your faith, but about the Person who is the object of your faith. Faith is not a force that does something, but it is a channel by which something is received. Once let that channel be opened, and salvation comes in never to depart. It is a great mistake to suppose that Christians win through to salvation because they maintain themselves by their own efforts in an attitude of faith. On the contrary, saving faith means putting one's trust once for all in Christ. He will never desert those who are committed to Him, but will keep them safe both in this world and in that which is to come.
In the second part of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress there is one of those unforgettable portraits which have caused the book of the tinker of Bedford — that tenderest and most theological of English books — to be one of the true masterpieces of the world's literature. It is the portrait of "Mr. Fearing." Mr. Fearing had "the root of the matter" in him; he was a true Christian, But he got little comfort out of his religion. When he came to the Interpreter's house, he was afraid to go in; he lay trembling outside till he was almost starved. But then, when at last he was brought. in, he received a warm welcome. "I will say that for my Lord," said Great-heart, "he carried it wonderful lovingly to him." And so Mr. Fearing went meaningly on his way; and when he was come to the entrance of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, "I thought," said the guide, "I should have lost my man." At last he came to the River which all must cross, and there he was in a heavy case. "Now, now, he said, he should be drowned for ever, and so never see that face with comfort that he had come so many miles to behold." But never, we are told, had the water of that River been seen so low as it was on the day that Mr. Fearing went across. "So he went over at last, not much above wet-shod. When he was going up to the Gate, Mr. Great-heart began to take his leave of him, and to wish him a good reception above. So he said, / shall, I shall."
Such is the blessed end of the man even of little faith. Weak faith will not remove mountains, but there is one thing at least that it will do; it will bring a sinner into peace with God. Our salvation does not depend upon the strength of our faith; saving faith is a channel not a force. If you are once really committed to Christ, then despite your subsequent doubts and fears you are His for ever.