Pessimism builds up; you get swallowed up by it until you hate the thing that you're pessimistic about. Many, many people hate the Christian faith. If you visit them in the community and you say you're from the church, there are many people who will slam the door because their pessimism has developed into hatred. Sometimes it is stirred up by a feeling that this thing may just be right, and you are not going to have that. You know how it is? Sometimes when a person is in an argument and sides are drawn up and they're entrenched in that position, as the other case just begins to sound as though it may have something to it, then you begin to loathe it. Pessimism is a rejection of God when it comes into the spiritual sphere. It's a switching off of the thinking process. It's really a kind of shout of defiance. ‘I will not listen. I will not believe.’ Pessimism is a state of mind in which somebody just half listens to things and jumps to conclusions, writing things off too easily.
Faith, by contrast, is all sweet reasonableness, the opposite of what we think. ‘What is faith?’ some people say. ‘Faith is taking your brain out of your head and throwing it in the bin. Faith is believing the far-fetched. Faith is believing incredible, impossible things. Faith is being a pushover, being naïve. Oh no, faith is reasonable. Faith looks. Faith looks around and considers and says, ‘God is not a fiction. How did we ever come into being? How do we account for this vast universe? How do we account for ourselves and our complexities and our sensitivities and instincts?’ Faith says, I need to account for life. I need to account for what I'm doing here and how I'm here. When faith hears from the Bible, you are a needy person; you are a weak fallen sinner; you are cut off from God; you need to be changed; you need to be forgiven; it is possible to know God: faith takes account of that need. When the Bible says, there is a way out of that need which no one else can offer. Here is how you can have real contact with the personal God and find him and walk with him. Faith listens. It says, is this credible? Do I understand it? When faith hears this sublime, amazing message that God who is holy can after all receive men and women who are sinful because he sent Jesus Christ, co-equal with the Father, member of the eternal Godhead into this world and he has taken our punishment for us. He has paid our debt. Faith says that is amazing. That is the solution to my problem. God is holy but he cannot overlook my sin. But God is love and he has found a way of forgiving my sin by putting my sin upon the Saviour and punishing him. God has paid the price for me. Faith listens to that. That is so wonderful, so different from anything else you would hear from this world. Faith looks at the credibility of that message: ‘Who taught this message? The writers of the Bible, holy men of God inspired by God, those who wrote this extraordinary book, which, when looked at in detail and properly, never contradicts itself. This is the book that teaches this, not some tawdry, imitation, religious book that falls down in some way on every page. Faith looks at Jesus Christ who came vindicated in power with wonders and mighty deeds. And faith also looks around at its friends and all the people it knows who have come to Jesus Christ and whose lives have been changed. Faith looks at these things and by the power of the Spirit working in the heart, faith sees that they are true.