Why are we saved by faith?
God selects faith as the channel of salvation because it is a sure method of linking man with God. When man confides in God, there is a point of union between them, and that union guarantees blessing. Faith saves us because it makes us cling to God and therefore connects us with him. I have often used the following illustration. Years ago a boat was upset above Niagara Falls. Two men were being carried down the current when persons on the shore managed to float a rope out to them. Both seized it. One of them held onto it and was safely drawn to the bank. But the other, seeing a great log come floating by, unwisely let go of the rope and clung to the log for it was bigger and apparently better to cling to. The log with the man on it went right over the vast abyss because nothing connected the log and the shore. The size of the log was of no benefit to him who grasped it; it needed a connection with the shore.
So when a man trust to his works or to sacraments or to anything of the sort, he will not be saved- there is no junction between him and Christ. But faith, though it may seem to be like a slender cord, is in the hands of the great God on the shore. Infinite power pulls in the connecting line between God and faith and thus draws the man from destruction. Oh, the blessedness of faith because it ties us to God!
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-182) was the remarkable British "Boy Preacher of the Fens" who became one of the truly greatest preachers of all time. During his lifetime, Spurgeon is estimated to have preached to 10,000,000 people. He remains history's most widely read preacher. There is more available material written by Spurgeon than by any other Christian author, living or dead. His sixty-three volumes of sermons stand as the largest set of books by a single author in the histroy of Christianity, comprising the equivalent to the twenty-seven volumes of the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britanica.
