Failing Faith

Ah! there it is which shows what we are. “Thou art mad.” I specially seek, in bringing this before you, that we may learn what we are naturally. They had begun well, and had gone on well, yet failed completely in the end. They had faith at the first, and exercised faith, but had no faith in the end. Let us be warned, beloved friends; that is just what we must seek to avoid. It is comparatively easy for us to begin well and to go on well, day after day, week after week, month after month; but it is difficult to remain faithful to the end. Even thus it was regarding those of whom we are ready to say, “we are not worthy to unloose their shoes”; and if they failed, what of us? What say they? “Thou art mad.” They are praying for the thing, and it comes; yet this is what they say. Those men had begun in faith, had gone on in faith, and yet it is gone. They had continued outwardly to wait upon God, but at last without expectation. If they had continued in faith, they would have said, when they heard the tidings, “Blessed be God; let His holy name be praised!” I am as certain of this as though an audible voice had told me from heaven. It would have been impossible for them to say to Rhoda “Thou art mad,” when she brought the news of Peter’s freedom, unless faith had been gone.