Faith Is Not Feeling

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 1, 1899

Faith Is Not Feeling

A correspondent of the San Francisco Call, writing from Queensland, Australia, gives an account of most shocking crimes that are being committed in that country. In concluding his report the correspondent says, "An epidemic of crime seems to prevail in Australia at the present time in the shape of murder and unmentionable offenses." As we read of the shocking murders and brutalities in all parts of the world the prophetic words of Jeremiah come forcibly to mind. He says: "For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, and the anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, that bewaileth herself, that spreadeth her hands, saying, Wo is me now! for my soul is wearied because of murders." Jer. 4:31. How long can the mercy and justice of God endure the appalling crimes of this age?

Faith isn't feeling, dear soul. More than all else, faith should be exercised when feeling is absent. There are those who imagine that they, or some one else, have great faith when they have great feeling. The feeling may be spurious. It may be an overflow of animal spirits. It may be mere excitement. It may be true joy in God, the fruit or effect of faith; but do not confound the two. We are nowhere told to feel, but to "believe," "have faith;" that is, accept God's Word. Know that that Word in you will do just what God says it will, if you will only let it, if you will receive it gladly. And then, however dark it be, however feeling may be, the Word abides unchangeable; and faith rests on the unchanging word. Read Mark 11:23, 24.