John 4:48; John 5:2,3,5
Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.
Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water…And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): This is the thought of many of those who feel their sins and who desire salvation. They accept that unscriptural dangerous advice given to them by a certain class of ministers—they wait at the pool of Bethesda—they persevere in the formal use of means and ordinances, and continue in unbelief, expecting some great thing. They abide in a continued refusal to obey the Gospel and yet expect that all of a sudden they will experience some strange emotions, feelings, or remarkable impressions! They hope to see a vision, or hear a supernatural voice, or be alarmed with deliriums of horror.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): This is a subject rarely touched upon today, yet in certain quarters especially there is a real need that it should be dealt with. By inward impressions we have reference to some passage of Scripture or some verse of a hymn being laid upon the mind with such force that it rivets the attention, absorbs the entire inner man and is accompanied by such an influence, that the partaker thereof is deeply affected.
JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): Expectations of this sort have a tendency to great inconveniences, and often open a door to the delusions of mysticism and dangerous impositions; for Satan, when permitted, knows how to transform himself into an angel of light.
A. W. PINK: When a looking and waiting for inward impressions becomes the rule of duty, the ground of faith, and the foundation of comfort, the Word of God is grievously slighted, if not altogether set aside.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Like Thomas, they will yield to no method of conviction but what they shall prescribe themselves.
C. H. SPURGEON: The Gospel does not come to you and say, “Whoever waits for impressions shall be saved.” No, it says, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ!”―“Look unto Me and be you saved, all the ends of the earth,” is God’s Gospel. “Wait at the pool,” is man’s Gospel, and has destroyed its thousands. This ungospel-like gospel of waiting is immensely popular. I should not wonder if well near half of you are satisfied with it. Oh, you do not refuse to fill the seats in our places of worship! And there you sit in confirmed unbelief—waiting for windows to be made in Heaven—and neglecting the Gospel of your salvation! The great command of God, “Believe and live,” has no response from you but a deaf ear and a stony heart while you quiet your consciences with outward religious observances!
EDITOR’S NOTE: Their usual excuse is that God must save them, so they can do nothing; therefore they will not deceive themselves with a presumptuous false faith. But it’s a strange logic that twists God’s truth into poison, to justify sitting in self-righteous unbelief, self condemned by an obstinate disobedience to God’s commandment to believe His Gospel (Acts 17:30; Mark 1:15).
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): Nothing is so fallacious as to substitute feelings and sensibilities for definite obedience.
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW (1808-1878): Vague and fanciful impressions, visions and voices, received and rested upon as evidences of salvation are fearful delusions.
A. W. PINK: A faith which will not rest on God’s bare promise, which dare not meddle with it as it stands in the written Word until it has additional warrant from inward impressions, is a fanciful and worthless faith. A Divinely-given faith answers or responds to God’s faithfulness in the promise, just as it stands in the written Word, without expecting or looking for any further confirmation of the warrant of faith. But a faith which answers to something other than the bare Word of God—to some impressions of it on the mind with light and power—is a fanciful faith, for it makes these impressions and feelings the ground and warrant of believing. How justly may God deliver up to delusion those who make an idol of their feelings and refuse to rest directly on that Word of Truth in which alone the Divine faithfulness is pledged.
C. H. SPURGEON: Now, we shall not deny that a few persons have been saved by very singular interpositions of God’s hand in a manner altogether out of the ordinary modes of Divine procedure.
A. W. PINK: For example: a person may have lived a most godless life, utterly unconcerned about spiritual things and eternal interests, when suddenly there sounded in his conscience the words, “Be sure your sin will find you out.” So forcibly is he impressed, it seems as though someone must have audibly uttered those words, and he turns to discover the speaker, only to find he is alone. So deep is the impression, he cannot shake it off, and he is convicted of his lost condition and made to seek the Saviour. Quite possibly a number of our readers are distressed in that there has been nothing in their own experience which corresponds thereto, and because there is not, they greatly fear they have never been truly converted. But such an inference is quite unwarranted. God does not act uniformly in the work of regeneration, any more than He does in creation or in providence; and we have met many who never had any such experience as we have described above, yet whose salvation we could not doubt for a moment.
C. H. SPURGEON: When the Lord bids you believe in Jesus, what right have you to demand signs and wonders instead? For you to wait for remarkable experiences is as futile as was the waiting of the multitude who lingered at Bethesda waiting for the long-expected angel, when He who could heal them stood already in their midst, neglected and despised by them!
JAMES DURHAM (1622-1658): To such as may fall to doubt and dispute what warrant they have to believe, we say you have as good warrant as Abraham, David, Paul, or any of the godly that lived before you had. You have the same gospel, covenant and promises; it was always God’s Word which was the ground of faith.
C. H. SPURGEON: Where is the sinner told to wait upon God in the use of ordinances so that he may be saved? The Gospel of our salvation is this—“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”
JOHN NEWTON: You say, “I hope it is my desire to cast myself upon the free promise in Jesus Christ; but this alone does not give assurance of my personal interest in His blood.” I ask, Why not? It appears to me, that if I cast myself upon His promise, and if His promise is true, I must undoubtedly be interested in His full redemption; for He has said, “Him that cometh I will in no wise cast out,” John 6:37. If you can find a case or circumstance which the words “in no wise” will not include, then you may despond.
C. H. SPURGEON: Ah, I tremble for some of you—you Chapel-goers and Church-goers, who have for years been waiting—how few of you get saved! Thousands of you die in your sins, waiting in wicked unbelief. A few are snatched like brands from the burning, but the most of those who are hardened waiters, wait, and wait, till they die in their sins. I solemnly warn you that, pleasing to the flesh as waiting in unbelief may be, it is not one which any reasonable man would long persevere in!
