The Nature of Unbelief
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
This is the word of the Lord,
20 Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent.
21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
22 But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.
23 And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.
24 But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.”
There is much that we can perceive from a text such as this; a text of offense to many modern day evangelicals; a call to awaken our sensitivites to the stain of our own unbelief.
The apostle John said that we are liars if we don’t acknowledge ourselves as sinners, and by that very standard, I believe that we would be in serious error if we don’t acknowledge that we still carry the stains of unbelief and doubt in many areas of our Christian life.
Here before us, is a passage that reveals the unbelieving nature of the human flesh that refuses to turn to the voice of Christ. Now, if we assume therefore that this no longer applies to us who claim to believe in the voice of Christ, we will deny ourselves the pleasure of purging the remnants of unbelief that still clings on in our flesh.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
And yet,
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,
23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Do you see the remnants of unbelief in the earthly body of death? That even as new creation our flesh still wages war against the voice of Christ?
Therefore, when we study a passage such as the one before us today, let us not be foolish in thinking that it no longer applies to us. Rather, let us be wise, in taking to heart the nature of our sinful flesh and hate it with the hatred of Christ, and turn to look at Jesus and love God with the love of Christ.
Here’s what we do with passages such as this. We examine our hearts and I assure you, we will find unbelief. Then we hear the words of Christ and we repent and ask for His help.
24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”
Exegesis
Exegesis
20 Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent.
To remind you of the context of this passage, Jesus had just sent out the twelve apostles as missionaries to the cities to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom, and was Himself preaching in the cities, when John’s disciples (the baptist) came to him.
He then turns to the crowd and talks about John’s ministry and concludes with these words,
16 “But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates,
17 “ ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’
18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’
19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”
There is no grace in the mind of the cynic. He finds fault with everything.
Then he began
At this point Jesus began to denounce the cities. The word here means to harshly criticize or mock. In fact, Jesus uses the word ‘Woe’ which is condemnation uttered in grief.
where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent.
I’ve said this before, and I say it again, there is no better preacher who walked the face of the earth than Jesus. His sermons were the very word of God. There was no lack in power or persuasion. He preached with mighty words, and performed mighty miracles with His hands, and still they did not repent. Brothers and sisters, your flesh is capable of unbelief while standing the very presence and power of God.
21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
Woe
We can suffer the curse of men, but rest assured that none of us want to hear this word of condemnation uttered against us from the mouth of Christ.
We live in a world where the predominant culture of Christianity does not believe in a Christ who can curse. They fail to reconcile the love of Christ for His elect and the hatred of Christ against all wickedness. They believe in a love that cannot hate, and they are terribly wrong in that assumption.
True love must hate, for in order to love all that is good, one must hate all that is evil.
24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
Christianity is not an all inclusive faith where anyone is welcome to be as they are, it is a faith where anyone who comes is changed to look like Jesus.
Christianity is not a faith that says all beliefs are the same and that we are all one at the end of the day, it is a faith that says that unless you walk the narrow road and enter by the narrow gate, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.
And this woe, is Jesus’ utterance of condemnation against the unrepentant.
Beloved, when we hear this word ‘woe’ many of us are rightly relieved in believing that it does not apply to us. But let me urge you that there is a more appropriate response that we can have when we hear this word.
When the remnant of unbelief still remains in our flesh and we fall short of God’s glorious standard, and we sin, this curse of God does not simply cease to fall on us because we are born again. Rather, the curse of God falls upon Jesus who takes the punishment, who carries the woe that should have fallen on us.
That does not merely produce relief, but repentance and a hatred for the evil in our fleshly nature that wars against this perfect Son of God who died for us.
21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
22 “Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you.
23 “And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day.
24 “Nevertheless I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you.”
Jesus did most of His miracles in these three cities - Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum and yet the people there largely remained unrepentant. And so He compares them to the cursed cities of the Old Testament.
Tyre and Sidon were Gentile cities condemned by OT prophets for their worship of Baal, and we all know Sodom.
But look at what Jesus is saying. If He did these miracles in those cities, they would have repented. What on earth made these Jewish cities so resistant to God?
More tolerable in the day of judgment
In the day of God’s judgment, the weight of His judgment on the wicked does not fall equally on all unbelievers. In my last sermon, I spoke about how John the baptist is the greatest prophet simply because of his proximity to Christ. So, is the case with God’s judgment, for the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum will suffer more for the unbelief in their greater proximity to Christ.
The origin of unbelief
The origin of unbelief
Let us take a step back and ponder on the origin of unbelief. Why do we in our flesh, that is in our natural human nature, resist God? Why do atheists deny the existence of God? Why do people of other faiths worship other deitites? Why do younger generations chase the culture of pleasure in this world?
Is it because we are in love with the world? No beloved, love for the world is not the root of our unbelief in God. The root of our unbelief in God is hatred towards God.
7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.
We see this clearly in the origin of unbelief. You know how the story goes.
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
It began with one who hated God. Entering into the scene of peace, harmony and glory, is one who seeks to devour and destroy. It all started with the serpent who hated God.
4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.
5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
Why is it that the woman suddenly found the tree good for food, delight to the eyes, and to be desired to make one wise?
Up until that point, her desire was for God. I believe the fruit became a pleasurable temptation the moment she believed the serpent’s words that God’s intention for her were selfish and evil.
The seed of unbelief is sown in the heart that begins to hate God.
The nature of unbelief
The nature of unbelief
That is why the nature of unbelief is compared to death.
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
Once Adam and Eve sinned, sin entered the world of mankind.
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
The unbelieving world does not reject God primarily because there’s no evidence, or because they find sin more pleasurable, but because they hate God.
And from the Genesis storyline, do you see that such hatred is birthed when the word of God is violated? Did God really say?
If you call yourself a Christian and do not have your faith anchored in the word of God (if you do not know your bible), you stand on the edge of unbelief no matter how doctrinal you think you are.
Sin rules the hearts of the unregenerate, and their desires are always set against God. They cannot please God and they are unable to turn to Him.
Dead men can’t raise themselves.
The defeat of unbelief
The defeat of unbelief
The cross of Jesus Christ is the sword that pierced our hatred and purged our sin. When He hung upon that cross, He did not just represent those who violated God’s commands, but He represented those who revile God.
18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;
This Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world were rejected by Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. The evil of our unbelief is the stone-hearted hatred towards God that even in the face of Word and Miracle, we reject.
The remnants of unbelief
The remnants of unbelief
But for those of us who have believed in Jesus, are saved from death. For He has turned our hatred to love by taking away our hearts of stone and giving us hearts of flesh.
But in this great transformation in our salvation, we do not cease to sin, but we are covered by grace.
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
When we discover the remnants of unbelief in our justified lives (justified in Christ), we need to keep in mind the origin and nature of such unbelief. And how we fight such unbelief is by loving God.
And how do we do that? By believing His word. You cannot love God and grow in your love for Him if you do not know the Bible. Period.
If these cities suffer greater condemnation for their rejection of Christ inspite of their proximity to Him, how much more will we suffer those of us who do not believe in God as we ought inspite of us being in the church?