faith in Christ and the evidences of salvation - C.H. Spurgeon

“unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord” - Psalm 27:13

“Most people see to believe, but in David’s case the process was reversed, and put into gospel order: he believed to see and this is the key-note of our discourse. The prayer of my heart is, that some may be led to believe to see, and that those who have been trying to see in order to believe, may now come and trust in Jesus, and believe and see the grace of God…

I hear another objection, one which is very frequently made indeed. Someone says, “But I want to see in myself the evidences of salvation; I know that when a man is saved, there very soon appear in his character certain signs and tokens which mark the work of the Holy Spirit, and I cannot believe that I am saved on the mere word of God; I want to see the evidences of it…

Let me point you to the thirty-sixth verse of the third of John: “He that believeth on the Son, hath everlasting life;” and to the eighteenth verse of the same chapter, “He that believeth on him, is not condemned.” Are not these words quite sufficient, though as yet no other evidence can be seen? But sometimes I have heard persons saying, “Well, but we must have evidences; we cannot trust Christ without them:” and consequently they try to manufacture signs of grace, whereas, be it never forgotten, that evidences are the product of faith, and not the cause of faith...

It is as though you had a piece of ground, and you said to yourself, “Well, now, here are these trees; they produce very little fruit-if I could secure a large crop that would be evidence that the soil is good. I must put fresh fruit on the trees, and then that will prove that the ground is fertile.” Not at all so. Make the soil good, and then the fruit will come naturally. So with your faith. Faith is the soil in which the fruits of faith must grow. Do not be thinking about the evidences. Think about the faith that will grow the evidences. Seek to go to Christ, and trust in him, and you will get the signs of grace soon enough. Your main business is with Jesus, not with evidences. Rest in him-his finished work and ascension power-and, if you depend there, without evidences, you will soon have plenty of them; but, if you look to external or other signs, in order to get faith, you look, as I have already told you, in the wrong quarter, and reverse the order of grace...

The fact is, that strong faith is the great sanctifying agent through the power of the Holy Spirit, & the application of the precious blood of Jesus. Thou wilt never overcome thy sins by doubting Christ. Thou wilt never get sanctification by putting thy holiness into the place of Christ’s righteousness...There is no holiness, no true holiness apart from faith. It is not by doubting that we come to be holy. I never could overcome a sin by saying, “I am afraid I am not a child of God.”

C.H. Spurgeon, Believing to See

http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols13-15/chs766.pdf