Here lies the great practical secret. The Word of God mixed with faith. Precious mixture! The only thing that can really profit any one. We may hear a great deal, we may talk a great deal, we may profess a great deal, but we may rest assured that the measure of real spiritual power—power to surmount difficulties—power to overcome the world—power to get on—power to possess ourselves of all that God has bestowed upon us,—the measure of this power is simply the measure in which God’s Word is mixed with faith. That Word is settled forever in heaven; and if it is fixed in our hearts, by faith, there is a divine link connecting us with heaven and all that belongs to it; and in proportion as our hearts are thus livingly linked with heaven and the Christ who is there, shall we be practically separated from this present world, and lifted above its influence. Faith takes possession of all that God has given. It enters into that within the vail; it endures as seeing Him who is invisible; it occupies itself with the unseen and eternal, not with the seen and the temporal. Men think possession sure; faith knows nothing sure but God and His Word. Faith takes God’s Word and locks it up in the very innermost chamber of the heart, and there it remains as hid treasure—the only thing that deserves to be called treasure. The happy possessor of this treasure is rendered thoroughly independent of the world. He may be poor as regards the riches of this perishing scene; but if only he is rich in faith, he is the possessor of untold wealth—“durable riches and righteousness”—“the unsearchable riches of Christ.” Reader, these are not the pencilings of fancy—the mere visions of the imagination. No; they are substantial verities—divine realities, which you may now enjoy in all their preciousness. If you will only take God at His word—only believe what He says because He says it—for this is faith—then verily you have this treasure, which renders its possessor entirely independent of this scene where men live only by the sight of their eyes. The men of this world speak of “_the positive_” and “_the real_,” meaning thereby what they can see and experience; in other words, the things of time and sense—the tangible—the palpable. Faith knows nothing positive, nothing real, but the word of the living God. Now, it was the lack of this blessed faith that kept Israel out of Canaan, and caused six hundred thousand carcasses to fall in the wilderness; and it is the lack of this faith that keeps thousands of God’s people in bondage and darkness, when they ought to be walking in liberty and light—that keeps them in depression and gloom, when they ought to be walking in the joy and strength of God’s full salvation—that keeps them in fear of judgment, when they ought to be walking in the hope of glory—that keeps them in doubt as to whether they shall escape the sword of the destroyer in Egypt, when they ought to be feasting on the old corn of the land of Canaan.