BY GRACE ARE YE SAVED, THROUGH FAITH (EPH_2:8 ).

I think it would be a good idea to turn a little to one side that I may ask my reader to observe affectionately the fountain-head of our salvation, which is the grace of God. By grace are ye saved. Because God is gracious, therefore sinful men are forgiven, converted, purified, and saved. It is not because of anything in them, or that ever can be in them, that they are saved; but because of the boundless love, goodness, pity, compassion, mercy, and grace of God. Think for a moment, then, at the well-head. Take a look at the pure river of water of life, as it proceeds out of the throne of God and of the Lamb!

What an abyss is the grace of God! Who can measure its width? Who can understand its depth? Like all the rest of the divine attributes, it is infinite. God is full of love, for God is love. God is full of goodness; the very name God is short for good. Unbounded goodness and love enter into the very core of the Godhead. It is because his mercy endures for ever that men are not destroyed; because his compassions fail not that sinners are brought to Him and forgiven.

Remember this; or you may fall into error by fixing your minds so much on the faith which is the channel of salvation and forget the grace which is the fountain and source even of faith itself. Faith is the work of Gods grace in us. No person can say that Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy Spirit. No man cometh unto me, says Jesus, except the Father which hath sent me draw him. So that faith, which is coming to Christ, is the result of divine drawing. Grace is the first and last moving cause of salvation; and faith, essential as it is, is only an important part of the machinery which grace employs. We are saved through faith, but salvation is by grace. Sound forth those words as with the archangels trumpet: By grace are ye saved. What great news for us, the undeserving!

Faith occupies the position of a channel or conduit pipe. Grace is the fountain and the stream; faith is the aqueduct along which the flood of mercy flows down to refresh the thirsty souls of people. It is a very sad when the aqueduct is broken. It is a sad sight to see around Rome the many once great aqueducts which no longer convey water into the city, because the arches are broken and the marvelous structures are in ruins. The aqueduct must be kept intact to convey the current; and, even so, faith must be true and sound, leading right up to God and coming right down to ourselves, that it may become a serviceable channel of mercy to our souls.

Still, I again remind you that faith is only the channel or aqueduct, and not the fountainhead, and we must not look so much to it as to exalt it above the divine source of all blessing which lies in the grace of God. Never make a Christ out of your faith, nor think of as if it were the independent source of your salvation. Our life is found in looking unto Jesus, not in looking to our own faith. By faith all things become possible to us; yet the power is not in the faith, but in the God upon whom faith relies. Grace is the powerful engine, and faith is the drive shaft by which the wheels of the soul are attached to the great motive power. The righteousness of faith is not the moral excellence of faith, but the righteousness of Jesus Christ which faith grasps and appropriates. The peace within the soul is not derived from the contemplation of our own faith; but it comes to us from Him who is our peace, the hem of whose garment faith touches, and virtue comes out of Him into the soul.

See then, dear friend, that the weakness of your faith will not destroy you. A trembling hand may receive a golden gift. The Lords salvation can come to us though we have only faith as a grain of mustard seed. The power lies in the grace of God, and not in our faith. Great messages can be sent along slender wires, and the peace-giving witness of the Holy Spirit can reach the heart by means of a thread-like faith which seems almost unable to sustain its own weight. Think more of Him to whom you look than of the look itself. You must look away even from your own looking, and see nothing but Jesus, and the grace of God revealed in Him.