Faith in Uncertain Times
Thayer Salisbury

The news is not good. The news is not good whether we are talking about economic news, political news, moral news or news about the church.

For a time, we may have thought we had it figured out. We may have had the illusion that - if we lived right, worked hard and paid our taxes - life would be steady, predictable and positive. Forty years of working forty-hour weeks was supposed to lead to a comfortable retirement. It doesn’t. Government programmes were going to eliminate poverty. They haven’t. Bible-believing, church-going people would be respected and kindly tolerated, even by those who disagree with them. They aren’t.

Which way are we headed? Will the moral slide of the western world continue to the point where everything right is called wrong and every wrong is considered right, or will the tide turn? We cannot say. Will the current decline of the world economy be reversed, or are we destined for a major, global depression? It is hard to tell.

Times are uncertain, and it is hard to maintain faith in the midst of such uncertainty. But, on the other hand, what is it we mean by that term “faith?” When things seemed more certain, more stable, more predictable, were we exercising faith or just going with the flow? If what we had then can be called faith, what was the object of that faith? Was it faith in God that we experienced during those seemingly stable years, or was that, in reality, faith in ourselves (our governments, our programmes, our wisdom)?

Self-faith is seasonable when things are going well, when life seems stable and predictable. Faith in God is not seasonable at a time like that. When the situation seems under control, there is no need for alarm, nor any need for faith in God. But when the economy slumps, violence erupts or our spirits are in the dumps, that is the season for biblical faith.

Subjective or Objective?

The primary question is not, “How strong is your faith?” We concern ourselves too much with this question. This is the subjective view of faith, and it is of relatively little importance. The more important faith question is the objective question, “In what do you place your faith?” That is the question that matters the most.

The strongest faith in a weak object is powerless. Pitifully weak faith in a proper object is stronger than the strongest faith in an inadequate object.

In the early 1980s, I lived briefly in Oklahoma City. There was a man of tremendous faith living in Oklahoma city at that time. He had invented a new protective vest, which he firmly believed would stop a knife or a bullet. It was, he claimed, incredibly strong. He had so much faith in his vest that he demonstrated it at a luncheon by insisting that his best friend stab him with a knife.

Subjectively speaking, his faith was as strong as it could be. Objectively speaking, his faith, although subjectively strong, was worthless. He died on the spot, the victim of his strong, but misplaced, faith.

We need faith in uncertain times, but it must be faith in the proper object. It must be faith in the power and the plan of God.

Faith in God’s Power

I have stopped asking people if they believe in God. It is pointless to ask. You cannot rely on the answer received. Many people who claim to believe in God, do not. They believe in something that they call “God,” but it is not the God revealed in the Bible. It amazes me how many people believe in a powerless being they call “God.”

Paul once asked, “Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?” (Acts 26:8) It is an excellent question. Why would anyone bother to believe in a God who is powerless? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? To believe in a powerless God is as senseless as accepting O’Henry’s “medium big man of average smallness” as anything but a joke. How is it incredible that the God who created life might restore life? How is it incredible that the God who created the world (before man and without man’s help) might set it back in order, despite the harm we have done to the world?

It may not be logical, but many believers (so-called) behave as if God is dead, or at least sound asleep. They need to hear again the exhortation that Isaiah addressed to Judah:
“Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
"My way is hidden from the LORD,
and my right is disregarded by my God"?
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.”  (Isaiah 40:27-31; ESV)

Our God is neither dead nor asleep. Our situation is not hidden from his sight, nor beyond his control. The problem is not with his power, but with our attitude. Rather than trusting in God’s power, we have trusted in our own. Finding ourselves in a pit of our own making, we have responded by digging harder.
Our science cannot deliver us. Technological science provides us with tools, but is powerless to guide the use of the tools it provides. Far from delivering us, these tools have often become the means of oppression and destruction. Since Cain, humans have destroyed one another; but our scientific advances have equipped us to destroy on a previously undreamed-of scale. Oppression has been a fact of life throughout history, but, with the tools currently at their disposal, corrupt governments can watch, track, and oppress in new and more effective ways.

Our governments cannot deliver us. In many respects governments are at the heart of our problem. I mean no disrespect to our leaders, but it has often been the case that their best-intentioned efforts have created more problems than have been solved. The governing authority has a legitimate, God-given purpose (Rom 13:1-4). But, people have demanded of their governments more and more services. We are nearing (if we have not already reached) a point where the strain placed on the government is more than it can bear. Governments will not deliver us. 

Faith in God’s Plan

We cannot deliver ourselves. Surely, if we have learned anything from our history, we have learned that. William Henley was wrong when he wrote Invictus. It matters greatly that the gate is straight, and that the scroll is charged with punishment. We are not master of our fate nor captain of our soul. We are dead in sin, unable to deliver ourselves apart from the gift of God’s grace (Eph 2:1-8). Our efforts to save ourselves end in frustration and despair (Rom 7:21-25). Our efforts to save ourselves prevent us from finding the true means of deliverance. What Paul said of the Jews in his day is equally true of us:

What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written,

"Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame."

Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. (Rom 9:30-10:3; ESV).

The faith we need in these uncertain times is not faith in our own powers and plans but faith in the power and plan of God. What we need is not self-confidence but self-surrender.