FAITH IN GOD
JUNE, 1881

By Mrs. Edward Mix

Believe ye that I am able to do this? – St. Matt. 9:28.

These were the words spoken by our Savior to the two blind men who followed Him crying for mercy. It would seem that Jesus gave them no answer at first, but “when He was come into the house, the blind men came to Him.” They were truly in earnest about the matter. They might have thought it their last opportunity, and felt that they could not be denied. They cried saying, “Thou Son of David, have mercy on us.” Jesus’ heart was touched with compassion, and He asked them, “Believe ye that I am able to do this?”

Here was a fact which Jesus wished to have confirmed by their own hearts, and to hear expressed by their own lips, for we read, “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” – (Rom. 10:10.) And by this we are shown plainly that we need to do more than to barely assent to the truth; we must believe in the truth.

As soon as the blind men had shown their faith by replying, “Yea, Lord,” Jesus “touched their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you. And their eyes were opened.” And thus in the case of the healing of Jairus’ daughter, or raising her to life again, all that Jesus required was simple faith in His power. We hear him saying to the afflicted father, “Be not afraid; only believe.” – (St. Mark 5:36.)

Jairus had come to Jesus to beg Him to go to his house, and lay hands on his little daughter, who was lying “at the point of death.” Notwithstanding the position in life which Jairus held as “ruler of the synagogue,” yet he humbled himself and fell at the feet of Jesus and besought Him to go and heal his child; and Jesus had compassion upon him and “went with him.” But before he had arrived at the ruler’s house, there came certain ones “which said, thy daughter is dead; why troublest thou the Master any further?”

O, what a blow to the poor father’s heart! When he had prevailed upon Jesus to go with him and heal his daughter, he must have been filled with hope and joy, but now when the news was told him that his child was dead, the thought must have rushed through his mind, “I am too late! Too late!” But Jesus knew the sorrow of his heart, and so comforted him at once with these words, “Be not afraid, only believe.”

Had the ruler asked, “What shall I believe?” the answer would doubtless have been like this, “Believe that I am able to do this. Believe that I am able to restore your daughter to you again. I am the Life-giver. Only believe, and she shall live.”

How well we can picture by faith the scene which followed, as Jesus entered the hushed room, “took the damsel by the hand” and said unto her in His voice of power, “Damsel, (I say unto thee) arise.” “And straightway the damsel arose, and walked.” “And they were astonished with a great astonishment.”

I thank God that Jesus Christ is “the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever” (Heb. 13:8), and that the same power that healed the Centurion’s servant, that rebuked the fever in Peter’s wife’s mother, that cast the devils out of many, that healed the sick of the palsy, that caused the cripple to leap for joy, that gave hearing to the deaf and sight to the blind, will produce the same results to-day in answer to “the prayer of faith.”

“Yea, Lord,” we believe that Thou art able!