From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: We are engaged at the moment, as most of you will remember, in studying verses nine and 10 in the tenth chapter of Paul's epistle to the Romans: "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."

We've spent a number of Friday evenings on this statement because it is such a crucially important one which, as we've already seen, affects evangelism, affects our understanding of salvation, affects probably the whole course of our Christian life. That's why we've had to spend this time. We've divided it into three sections. First of all, what is the content of saving faith? What we've got here is a definition of saving faith, the faith by which a man is saved.

What is the content? We've considered that. You must believe that Jesus is the Lord and that God hath raised him from the dead, and all that is included in those two statements. But then, having considered that, we've gone on to consider in the second place what we may call the character or the nature of saving faith. And here we have seen that the emphasis is upon the heart.

The apostle repeats it: "shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead. With the heart man believeth unto righteousness." And it's obvious, as we've shown, that the great apostle not only uses the term heart but repeats it in order to underline it because it is of very vital and crucial importance that we should realize that the heart enters very vitally into this whole matter of believing unto salvation. Or in other words, the heart plays a vital part in saving faith.

We've approached it like this: that the trouble with man is never really in his mind, but in his heart. Unbelief, we were able to show, is really not a matter of the mind, but of the heart. And in the same way, we began to show last Friday night how belief, also, is essentially a matter of the heart, and that we must reject teaching such as that of the Roman Catholic Church, which makes it purely intellectual, and certain others who teach at the present time who say the same thing.

We saw indeed that we all have got to be very careful, that the church has been led astray many times in her history by failing to understand this and by making belief something purely intellectual. It's a danger that confronts many of us who are interested in Bible study and in theology and doctrine. Very well, so we ended last Friday night by adducing a large number of statements from the scripture in which we see so clearly that the heart is really central in this whole matter.

We are now in a position to ask a question. What then does true belief or a saving belief really include? We've been pointing out negatively so far that it isn't merely a matter of the intellect, that the apostle takes up this word heart in order to bring out that point and in order to emphasize it. What then does a true saving belief really include? You see what we are doing. We're showing the difference between a mere intellectual assent to a number of propositions and what the Bible really means by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.

This has been a great snare always, that we substitute merely accepting or agreeing with our minds an intellectual assent for what the Bible means by faith and by a true belief in the Lord Jesus Christ. So we're now able to ask this question: what does a saving faith, a true belief, really include? We've got to start by saying that it obviously and clearly starts with the mind.

It starts with the mind because, after all, what we're dealing with is truth, and truth is something that comes to the mind and to the understanding and should be addressed to that. There's a statement that we have already considered in the sixth chapter of this epistle to the Romans and in the 17th verse, which puts the whole thing very perfectly in one verse. "God be thanked," says the apostle, "that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you."

The apostle says your position, you Roman Christians, once upon a time was this: you were the servants of sin. You are no longer the servants of sin. Well, what are you? Well, you've become quite different, he says, and for this reason: the truth was delivered you. You heard the preaching of the gospel. The facts concerning our Lord and their meaning were put before them. The gospel was preached to them, and obviously that is something to which one listens with one's mind.

We are told constantly in the book of the Acts of the Apostles that the apostle would go into a synagogue on the Sabbath and there he would reason out of the scriptures with them. Reasoning, proving and alleging, demonstrating, arguing it out. He would take Old Testament scriptures and their prophecy and then he would show their meaning and how all this had been fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, all that is a process that is addressed to a man's mind.

So the first thing that is involved is the mind, the intellect, the understanding. That, I take it now then, is quite clear to all of us. It isn't clear to everybody, of course. There are people who go to meetings just to get a feeling. They don't bother to listen really. They want a feeling, and they're always looking for feelings and sensations. That's not the Christian way.

The first thing always is the mind, the intellect, the understanding. It is God's greatest gift to man, and therefore it is the first thing which is addressed by the truth, by the preaching, by the presentation of the gospel. But having been clear about that, and I trust we all are perfectly clear about that, we should be because we've been spending all these nights in working out the connotation and full significance of the terms "Jesus is Lord" and "that God raised him from the dead," we go on to say that it doesn't stop at the mind.

It doesn't end with the intellect. It isn't only a matter of the understanding. What else? Well, our very term heart really tells us all we need to know. It means that the whole person is included, the entire person. When a man becomes a Christian, every part of him is involved. The truth, we've listened to the truth and we've heard it, we've been able to receive it with our minds. But that doesn't go far enough.

"With the heart man believeth unto righteousness." So there's something else that is involved. What is that? Well, there is an element of conviction. Now, what is conviction? Well, conviction means that the truth has come to us with power. We've not merely been aware of it and not only been able to see what it is. We don't remain in that position; we don't remain as we were. There is this element of conviction, which means that the truth has come to us very powerfully.

Truth doesn't always come powerfully. You can listen to a man speaking, take an obvious illustration from the realm of politics in these days of by-elections. You can listen to a man speaking on behalf of a party to which you don't belong and with which you don't agree. You can apprehend intellectually what he's saying, but it doesn't touch you. It doesn't convince you. It doesn't move you. You do nothing about it. You found it quite interesting, and you were able to follow him quite intelligently and you could tell what he said.

But it's nothing more than that. You haven't been caused to change your position from one party to another. It's left you exactly where you were. It was a kind of entertainment, if you like. You've got an intellectual apprehension of what the man's been saying. Now, there are many people who listen to the gospel like that, and it never goes further than that. Indeed, it is possible for a man even to have a certain amount of enjoyment in it, but it never does anything in the matter of conviction.

But when the heart is involved, there is always an element of conviction. In other words, the truth comes to us and we're not only aware of it, but it challenges us. It disturbs us. It not only allows us to think in a passive and a detached manner. We become engaged in it. We have the feeling that it is speaking to us directly and speaking to us as persons. Now, all this is involved in what is called conviction.

We are no longer mere spectators taking our seats and looking on and being aware of what is happening. We're involved in it, and it's doing something to us. It is speaking directly to us, and it is really convicting us. By that, I mean that it is making us examine ourselves. It causes us to question everything that we've hitherto believed. We may have been actively and militantly opposed to the truth, or we may have been quite indifferent. It's never meant anything at all to us.

But when the truth comes with conviction, it affects us and involves us. If we've been militantly opposed to it, we begin to query whether we've been right. we begin to feel uncomfortable. Or if we've just been quite passive and unaffected at all and uninterested, it now begins to make us think. How can I have been guilty of neglecting this for so long? How is it that I've never realized before that this is something that's got to do with me?

That is what's involved in this process of conviction. we begin to realize that this is something that is of vital concern to us, of vital import to us, and that we've really got to pay attention because it is speaking to our whole condition as human beings and as persons. That's what's meant by conviction. The reality of the thing suddenly takes hold of us. I don't know your background, but there are probably many here who've been brought up from childhood to go to a place of worship and to listen to the gospel.

At a certain age, you didn't even listen. You spent your time amusing yourself in various ways. You got over that. You got a bit older, and then you began to listen in a very general sense. But you may have gone on like that for years. It is only when suddenly you have a feeling, "But this is tremendously important to me," you'd never realized that before. You thought, oh, well, that's for people who are interested in it. That's for the older people.

And it had never come to you as an individual and as a person, giving you the idea that it was of great concern to you, yourself. But at last, you begin to listen for yourself and you find that the truth is challenging you and making you think and making you reconsider all your ideas and your whole position. Then, of course, you come to the next step, which is involved in this engagement of the heart in this matter, and that is that you come to what is called repentance.

Conviction is not repentance; conviction leads to repentance. But you can even be convicted without repenting. While you're convicted, you may be annoyed by the truth. You may resent it because it's disturbing you, because it suggests that you're wrong, because it suggests to you that you ought to change and you don't want to. You're under conviction, but you may be intensely miserable, most unhappy, most antagonistic to the truth.

Still, you can't leave it alone, and it won't leave you alone. But then you go on, I say, to repentance. Repentance means, at any rate, two main things. And the first is that you change your mind. Repent, it means that's a Latin word which means think again. So it's obvious that a man whose heart is involved in this is a man who, as I say, under the conviction is not only made to think again and to think more seriously and to think in a more personal manner and on a deeper level, he's made to think until he sees that he's wrong, and he changes his mind.

There is a classical illustration of this in one of our Lord's own parables. So perhaps the briefest and the best thing we can do is to read our Lord's parable about the two sons. It's found in Matthew's gospel, chapter 21, beginning at verse 28. "But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work today in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him."

But this is the interesting one, the first son. He said to this first son, "Son, go work today in my vineyard." He answered and said, "I will not." He refused. He resented his father's interfering with his plans. He didn't want to do this. He'd arranged to do something else. He said, "I won't." But afterward, he repented. What happened? He thought again about it. Instead of going away with his friends to spend the day, he stopped and he began to ask himself questions. He thought again.

Repented. He said, was I right in speaking to my father like that? Was I right in saying "I will not" to my father? You see, he stops and re-examines the whole thing. He didn't just leave it. He thinks again. And you not only that; he came to the conclusion that he was wrong. Afterward, he repented and went to the vineyard. He did the thing he said he wouldn't do.

So he not only thought again; he changed his mind, didn't he? At first, he didn't agree with this; then he did agree with it and he went. So you see, the second element in this process of repentance is a change of mind. And that is the Greek word for repentance, metanoia. You don't only think again, but you think in such a way that you change your mind about the thing, come to a different conclusion.

And that is a very vital part of believing with the heart. Unless there's a change in the opinion, change in the outlook, change in the point of view, there's no repentance and there's no true belief. Being aware of what the gospel says without its having any effect upon you doesn't mean saving faith. That's of no value at all. It must affect the person. It must challenge us. It must question us. We must know this fight, this opposition. Then we come to the point when we change our minds, take another entirely different view.

So that is a vital part of this engagement of the heart in this whole matter. But even that isn't enough. You cannot change your mind and change your opinion with regard to the things of God, God's whole plan of salvation and your whole relationship to him, you can't change your mind about all that without feeling sorrow for ever having held the wrong view.

There's no question that this first son in the parable, when afterward he thought again and went over the whole thing and saw that he was wrong, that he shouldn't have spoken to his father like that, he was sorry. He was grieved. He was hurt with himself that he could possibly have spoken like that to his father, and he feels it so much that he goes to the vineyard.

Sorrow. There is always this element of sorrow in repentance. You see, the heart, as we saw in our definition, includes the mind, the seat of sensations, the feelings, what we commonly call the heart, as well as, as we shall see, the will. But the heart, the feelings, are of necessity involved. Now, let me give you again the best statement that I'm aware of in the whole of the New Testament on this particular aspect.

The Apostle Paul himself in 2 Corinthians chapter seven, he deals with this very matter. Let me start reading at verse eight. "For though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent: for I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season. Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter."

Now, this is very important. No man can come to see that his whole relationship to God has been wrong, that his attitude to God has been wrong, that he's been rebellious, that he's been defiant, that he's brushed aside God's greatest act in giving his only begotten son to the death of the cross, meant nothing to him. No man can suddenly realize that he's been guilty of all that without feeling intense sorrow. Godly sorrow. It's essential.

So you see, my dear friends, if you and I have listened to these great truths all our lives, and we've never had any sorrow in our hearts because of our failure to see these things and to be moved by them, well, I say we have no right to think of ourselves as saved people. You can't have saving faith without knowing something about godly sorrow. The sorrow that you've ever grieved God. Sorrow that you've ever treated God, who's been so kind and gracious, in the way that you've done.

You can scarce forgive yourself. What indignation, says Paul, indignation with yourself. And if you've never felt that you are unworthy, if you've never hated yourself, well, I think you'd better examine the foundations again. The Christian is a man who hates himself because he sees that he's a miserable, vile, rebellious sinner against a holy, loving God, his maker and his creator. Godly sorrow.

It's an essential part of it. The heart is engaged. the feelings and the sensibilities are involved. But then we go even beyond that. You notice the apostle uses there the word fear, and fear comes into it. You remember we've got a classical example of this again in the preaching of the Apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost at Jerusalem, the first sermon ever delivered, in a sense, under the auspices of the Christian church.

Peter's preaching to them. This is what I read in Acts 2:37. "Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Fear. They'd been convinced; they'd been convicted; they'd been convinced. They've seen how wrong they've been. He says, look here, he says, you've crucified the Messiah.

Peter puts it to them quite plainly. "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel of God and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have slain him." He brings it home to them, and they see it's right. These were the people who'd cried "Away with him, crucify him, give unto us Barabbas." Now they suddenly realize what they've done.

Peter makes the same point later on when he preaches to them in connection with a man healed at the Beautiful Gate of the temple. And you see in their agony, in their fear, in their terror, they cry out saying, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" And of course, exactly the same thing happened with the Philippian jailer.

The earthquake and all contributes to it, and then he comes and sees Paul and Silas and the other prisoners still there, and he's on the point of committing suicide. Paul cried with a loud voice saying, "Do thyself no harm, for we are all here." Then he called for a light and sprang in and came trembling and fell down before Paul and Silas and brought them out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"

That's how he said it. He was filled with terror. Now, let's be clear about this. I'm not saying that there must be the same amount of terror in all cases. That's not what I'm saying at all. But what I am saying is this: that there is no such thing as saving faith without an element of fear in it. I'm not postulating what amount of fear, but I am saying that I cannot possibly regard a man as a Christian unless he's ever had this element of fear.

Fear because he sinned against God. Fear because he realizes that he's in the hands of God, and that God is a holy and a just and a righteous God, and that he's got to stand before God in the judgment. If a man knows nothing about the fear of death and of the judgment, I cannot see how he can be a Christian at all. Fear.

Oh yes, it's a vital part of saving faith. A man begins to realize as he's never done the holiness of the Lord, the absolute character of its demands, and that he and all others are unrighteous and unworthy and unclean, in some way or another and to some extent or another, to some intensity or another, he cries out with the Apostle Paul, "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

He's afraid of the destruction that comes upon the ungodly. The Bible is a terrifying book; it's meant to be because we all of us are sinners and we need to be awakened. You remember how the Puritans of 300 years ago used to emphasize this a great deal. Joseph Alleine's book, "Alarm to the Unconverted." And we can't be a Christian unless you know something, in some degree, some measure of this very element of alarm.

"Sinners in the hands of an angry God," preaches Jonathan Edwards. Why? Well, because it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, as Hebrews 10 tells us. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God, and I have a feeling that what is the matter with so much of Christian life today is that men and women have never known anything about this element of fear.

It's made so easy, so quick, so glib. You just repeat a formula, you're in, they say. Where's the fear, my friends? Where is the godly sorrow? I've even heard men boasting about the absence of fear. They say, you know, the wonderful thing was in that campaign people went forward, there were no tears, they had smiles on their faces. Where was the fear?

Where was this godly sorrow, this element of fear? You cannot have any glimpse of an understanding of the holy character of God without feeling an element of fear. Isaiah, who was a very godly man, when he had the glimpse, you remember, he says, "I am undone, I'm a man of unclean lips." John fell down as one dead when he had his vision. The site of holiness must be alarming to sinful creatures.

And if we know nothing about fear and alarm, it is just the measure of our ignorance of the being and the character of God. Oh yes, it is with the heart that man believeth unto righteousness, and the heart knows this fear, this alarm, sometimes acute and terrible terror. John Bunyan knew it for 18 months. I'm not saying you need be 18 months in that state. All I'm asking is that the element of fear must have come in, must be there still.

Very well, we go on beyond that. The next thing obviously is this: desire for deliverance. "Who shall deliver me? Men and brethren, what shall we do? Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" Desire for deliverance. You see, the man who just sits and listens intellectually, he never feels any desire to be delivered. He's not being convicted; there's nothing to be delivered from.

He says, "What's that man getting so excited about?" People come here Sunday nights and I'm told at times they say that. Which just means they've not been convicted. Their hearts haven't been engaged. They can give an account of what I've said, but it hasn't penetrated. They haven't felt it. The spirit hasn't applied it to them. So they don't see any need of deliverance.

You see how important all this is? This is one of the factors that controls whether you call for immediate decisions or not. If you have the true view of saving faith and belief, you will know this: that when a man is convicted by the Spirit of God, he is going to seek out help. You needn't force him to; he'll have to. He'll be so miserable, he'll be so frightened, he'll be so alarmed.

Do you remember reading that account of the revival in the Congo? That book that was published a few years back by the World Evangelization Crusade. There was nothing more striking in the whole of that book to me than this: one of the men wrote, one of the missionaries wrote, and this is what he said. He said I'd been there 20 years, and I'd been preaching, he said, I'd been preaching my heart out and appealing to people to come forward, and I couldn't get anybody to come forward.

Then while he was away doing something else, the revival came and broke out. And when he got back, this is what he found. Not only did they not have to ask people to come forward, they had to restrain the crowd that was coming forward. The difficulty was to deal with all these people who in their agony of conviction were demanding help and relief.

And you'll find that frequently in the accounts of revivals. I remember as I'm speaking of that great occasion at Kirk o' Shotts in Scotland, when John Livingston preached that one sermon which led to the conversion of so many. And that was the thing that could be heard all over the countryside: people groaning in agony, asking for relief, knocking at the door of the minister, keeping him up all night because they were frantic.

Desire for deliverance. Again, don't put too much emphasis upon the degree or the amount of feeling, but unless you've ever had a feeling, "Who shall deliver me? I can't. I've tried. I've taken my resolutions and my vows. I can't keep them. I'm a failure. I can't save myself. Who can save? Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Desire for deliverance. It's an inevitable part of believing with the heart.

And then it leads to the next thing: the trust and the confidence in our blessed Lord and Savior. You see, I'm not saying believing in him only. I started with that, that's the intellectual part. I'm now dealing with the heart. It's the mind that sees the truth intellectually; I'm now dealing with this other element. Trust, confidence, reliance upon him.

Now, this is a really vital part of the definition of what is meant by belief, by faith in the New Testament. Let me give you a quotation. Some of you may use the Amplified New Testament, which is a very good translation and I commend it once more. The Amplified New Testament. I think you can get it in the book room.

Now, the Amplified New Testament, in translating this very passage we're dealing with and in the introduction to the whole of the book, says this. This is its definition. It says that the Greek meaning, the original Greek meaning of faith, is this: to believe means to adhere to, to cleave to, to trust, to have faith in, to rely on. That's it, and that's exactly what it is.

You see, in your fear, in your alarm, in your desire to be relieved, and you can't do it yourself, you can't find anybody, suddenly you see this one and you believe the truth about him, that he is the Lord, that God has raised him from the dead, and you come to this conclusion: he is able to do it for me. "Who shall deliver me? I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord."

You trust him. You cleave to him. You adhere to him. You rely upon him. You have faith in him. All that is involved. Or take the same kind of definition which is given by Professor Berkhof in his systematic theology, or reformed dogmatics, whichever they call it now. He defines it like this: faith, he says, saving faith, is a certain conviction wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit as to the truth of the gospel and a hearty reliance, in brackets trust, on the promises of God in Christ.

That's it. It is a certain conviction wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit as to the truth of the gospel and a hearty reliance, trust, on the promises of God in Christ. It's more than being aware of the truth. It is a reliance upon it. It is a committal of yourself to it. It is an abandonment of yourself to it. It is a casting yourself utterly and entirely upon him.

Now, let me give you a statement which really says all that. Take Hebrews 11:6. "He that cometh to God must believe that he is." Yes, but also "and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." That's it. It's included in that. He's got this reliance, this confidence, and therefore he trusts himself to it, he commits himself to it.

Now, this is an essential part of saving faith. You can believe with your mind that Jesus is the Son of God, you can have your head packed with theology, but unless you've ever felt your need of a savior and unless you've committed yourself utterly to him and you rely only upon him and give yourself to him that he may save you, you haven't got saving faith. With the heart! And this is an essential part of it.

And that in turn, of course, leads to this: that one is conscious of a sense of rest and a sense of peace. This is quite inevitable. You can't have had this conviction and the fear and all I'm talking about, and then see that the Lord Jesus Christ is the one appointed of God and sent of God in order to do for you everything you need. You can't believe that without immediately feeling rest and peace.

Being justified by faith, as Paul has already told us in the fifth chapter of this epistle to the Romans and in the first verse, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. There is an element of rest in faith. The seeking has come to an end. You have found him. "Oh happy day that fixed my choice on thee, my savior and my God."

"Tis done, the great transaction's done. I am my Lord's, and he is mine." The rest of faith. It's always there; it must be there. An element of rest and of peace. And added to it, of course, the element inevitable of thankfulness, of gratitude, and of praise. How can anybody believe that the Son of God has left the courts of heaven and come on earth and endured all he did, even to the extent of dying in agony upon the cross and be buried in a grave and rise again, how can one believe that he's done all that for me and not feel thankfulness to him and gratitude and praise and thanksgiving?

With the heart man believeth unto righteousness. You see, the character of this truth is such that once a man realizes what it is and his relationship to him, all that I've been saying is inevitably involved. You can't help yourself. And what the apostle is saying is this: that this is therefore the test which we apply to ourselves.

Now, once more, the epistle to the Hebrews gives us quite a good exposition at this point in the 11th chapter and the 13th verse, where he's talking about these great giants and heroes of the faith. "These all," he says, "died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and"—here's the word I want—"embraced them."

They embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. And the word embrace really means greet them, welcome them. And that's the ultimate of greeting, isn't it, and welcoming, that you embrace the person whom you're greeting and welcoming? That's what these men did with the promises, and that is what made them the men they were.

And that is what believing with the heart really amounts to. That you don't do it in cold blood. You don't do it unmoved. You don't do it undisturbed. You don't sit down in a detached manner and say, "Well, I accept that doctrine and therefore I'm a Christian." Not at all. You've been through these steps and stages: conviction, fear, alarm, desire for deliverance, recognition of him, casting yourself upon him, thankfulness and praise, glorying in him, greeting this truth, desiring to know more and more about it.

Now, that is what the apostle means then when he tells us that "if thou shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness." Now, let me give you a quotation which will perhaps sum up all this for us. Many people think of John Calvin, the 400th anniversary of whose death is celebrated next year, as a cold, harsh, intellectual theologian.

But listen to what he says about this. He says, "The seat of faith, it deserves to be observed, is not in the brain, but in the heart. Not that I wish to enter into any dispute concerning the part of the body which is the seat of faith, but since the word heart generally means a serious, sincere, ardent affection, I am desirous to show the confidence of faith to be a firm, efficacious, and operative principle in all the emotions and feelings of the soul, not a mere naked notion of the head."

That's very good, isn't it? And that is the simple truth. That's exactly what the Apostle Paul is trying to tell us here. Well, you see, the final conclusion we come to about it is this: that saving faith is not a natural quality which everybody possesses. I've heard people teaching the truth about faith like this. They say everybody's got faith. Everybody's born with faith.

I remember a man using this illustration. He was preaching in the provinces. He'd come down from London; I was in the meeting. He said, "I'll tell you what faith is." He said, "Now, when I finish here next Thursday night," he said, "I shall travel back on the train to London. I've already booked my sleeping berth." He said, "How do I put myself down to rest on that bed in that sleeping berth? Well," he says, "I've got faith in the engine driver."

"That's faith." So he says, "What you need to do is to take that faith which you've got and everybody else's got and you apply it, you turn it in the direction of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's nothing to stop you doing it. If you only accepted this testimony, then turn your faith to it." That's saving faith. But it isn't.

Saving faith is a matter of the heart. And as the heart of man is desperately wicked and deceitful by nature, and as we have already seen that the natural mind, which means heart, is enmity against God, is not subject to the law of God, neither can be. When you realize that it's true to say of us all that we were dead in trespasses and sins, that we must be born again, that the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he because they are spiritually discerned.

It's no use saying we've all got the faith we need. We haven't; none of us have got it. By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Saving faith is something that is wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit of God. This natural man who's supposed to have the gift of faith, how can he believe in the Son of God?

He doesn't believe that he's a sinner. He doesn't know that. He knows nothing about God. He's utterly opposed and antagonistic to the truth. He needs to be changed before he can believe it. Faith is the first active, positive demonstration that the soul gives that it is born again. Before a man can believe, his heart must be changed.

The natural heart is dead, rebellious, antagonistic, regards all this as foolishness. It is only the man who has become spiritual who can believe these things, nobody else. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." He's already said the princes of this world didn't know it and they rejected it, but God hath revealed them unto us by his spirit.

For the spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. "We have received," he says again, I'm quoting 1 Corinthians 2:12, "we have received not the spirit that is of the world, but the spirit that is of God, that," in order that, "we might know the things that are freely given to us of God."

Romans nine and 10 are inevitable in view—Romans 10 verses nine and 10 are inevitable in the light of the argument of Romans nine. It is with the heart that man believeth. And before he can, the stony heart has to be taken out and he must have a heart of flesh. It's not merely an intellectual matter. It's not taking this natural faith we all have and switching it to Christ. We haven't got this faith.

It is the gift of the Spirit of God. It is the work that he does in the soul, in the heart of man. And without that, saving faith is a sheer and an utter impossibility. With the heart man believeth unto righteousness. He's a new man and he's not only been aware of the truth, he has felt its power. It has changed him. And so he has gone through the steps and the stages which I've been trying to indicate unto you. God willing, we'll continue with this next Friday night.

Oh Lord our God, we come unto thee once more and lift up our hearts in praise and in thanksgiving and in humble acknowledgment that we are saved by grace, and that not of ourselves. It is the gift of God. We acknowledge, oh God, freely that it is all of grace. We are aware of our unworthiness.

We say with him who wrote, "And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood? Died he for me who caused his pain? For me who him to death pursued? Amazing love, and can it be that thou, my God, hast died for me? 'Tis mystery all." Oh Lord, we leave ourselves in the grip of this glorious mystery. We humbly thank thee and praise thy great and holy name that we are what we are solely by the grace of God.

Thou hast indeed taken away the stony heart and given us a heart of flesh to know thee and to love thee. Lord, it is my chief complaint that my love is weak and faint, yet I love thee and adore. Oh for grace to love thee more. Now may the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit abide and continue with us now this night throughout the remainder of this our short and certain earthly life and pilgrimage and evermore. Amen.