AN EVIL AND UNBELIEVING HEART: kardia ponera kardia ponera apistias:

 He 3:10; Genesis 8:21; Jeremiah 2:13; 3:17; 7:24; 11:8; 16:12; 17:9; 18:12; Mark
7:21, 22, 23
 See these topical studies - Heart, Character of the Unrenewed)
(Heedfulness; Rebellion Against God; Self-will and Stubbornness; Unbelief)
 Hebrews 3 Resources - Multiple Sermons and Commentaries

Jeremiah 2:13 "For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, The
fountain of living waters, To hew for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns, That can hold no
water.
Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can
understand it?
Mark 7:21 "For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications,
thefts, murders, adulteries,22 deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit,
sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness.23 "All these evil things proceed from within
and defile the man."
Evil (4190) (poneros from pónos = labor, sorrow, pain) (see related word poneria) refers
to evil and means active evil in opposition to good. When Satan is referred to as the "Evil
One", the NT writers chose poneros rather than kakos, this latter word basically denoting a
lack of something (it is not as it ought to be and thus is bad) but also used to refer evil in a
moral sense.
Poneros - 78x in NT - (Note repetition by Jesus in His Sermon on Mount)
Matt.
5:11, 37, 39, 45; 6:13, 23; 7:11, 17f; 9:4; 12:34f, 39, 45; 13:19, 38, 49; 15:19; 16:4; 18:32; 2
0:15; 22:10; 25:26; Mk. 7:22f; Lk. 3:19; 6:22, 35, 45; 7:21; 8:2; 11:13, 26, 29, 34; 19:22; Jn.
3:19; 7:7; 17:15; Acts 17:5; 18:14; 19:12f, 15f; 25:18; 28:21; Rom. 12:9; 1 Co. 5:13; Gal.
1:4; Eph. 5:16; 6:13, 16; Col. 1:21; 1 Thess. 5:22; 2 Thess. 3:2f; 1 Tim. 6:4; 2 Tim.
3:13; 4:18; Heb. 3:12; 10:22; Jas. 2:4; 4:16; 1 Jn. 2:13f; 3:12; 5:18f; 2 Jn. 1:11; 3 Jn.
1:10; Rev. 16:2
Evil in the abstract is kakos, but poneros is used in this passage to indicate an evil which
actively harmful and hurtful and actively opposed to good.
Hiebert adds that poneros "is a strong term and is properly distinguished from kakos. The
latter term points to the base nature of a thing; its lack of those qualities and conditions that
would makes it worthy of the claim that it makes. The former term is active and denotes that
which is destructive, injurious, and evil in its effect." It is malignant evil, blasting and
destroying what it touches. It includes the doctrinal as well as the moral.
Stated another way the kakos man may be content to perish in his own corruption, but
the poneros man is not content unless he is corrupting others as well, and dragging them
down into the same destruction with himself. The English word which best translates this
Greek word is “pernicious.”
Paul uses poneros in Galatians writing of the Lord Jesus Christ "Who gave Himself for (~
His substitutionary atonement) our sins, that He might deliver (rescue out of) us out of this
present evil (poneros) age ("world order"), according to the will of our God and Father."
(Galatians 1:4-note)
Unbelieving (570)(apistia from a = without + pistos = believing, faithful) is literally "not
believing" and thus describes a lack of faith (unfaithfulness). It describes an unwillingness to
commit oneself to another or respond positively to the other’s words or actions.
Apistia - 11x in NT - Matt. 13:58; Mk. 6:6; 9:24; 16:14; Rom. 3:3; 4:20; 11:20, 23; 1 Tim.
1:13; Heb. 3:12, 19
The idea in context is not simply the danger of disbelief, but of a refusal to believe. The
genitive case describes the evil… heart as marked by unbelief. Stated another way, the
Greek grammar indicates the content of an evil heart.
Wuest - This evil heart of unbelief of which the writer speaks, and which he suspects is
found in some of his readers, is a heart in which the evil of unbelief is present, not in a
passive or latent state, but in an active, pernicious condition. The attitude of these Hebrews
toward the New Testament was not one now of a passive neglect, but one of an active
opposition, which attitude the writer was afraid would result in a deliberate and final
rejection of the New Testament. We must be careful to discriminate here between a heart in
which unbelief is present, and an unbelieving heart. The first may be true of a Christian, but
not the second. The latter expression refers to a heart solely and entirely controlled by
unbelief, in which there is no faith whatever. These Jews to whom this warning was issued,
were not saved as our historical background and analysis have shown. They had merely
given an intellectual assent to the Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth and to the New
Testament.
To reiterate, there is a difference between a heart in which unbelief is present, and
an unbelieving heart. True believers can have some elements of unbelief in their heart but
do not have an unbelieving heart which describes a person who is not born again. The
person who has an unbelieving heart is solely and entirely controlled by unbelief and there
is no faith whatever. If some of the Hebrews had this kind of heart they were not saved.
They may have given intellectual assent acknowledging that Jesus was the Messiah but
they had not without submitted to and fully trusted in that liberating truth. As Spurgeon said
"Even in God’s people there is a measure of unbelief and deafness of ear. Even God’s
children do not hear their Father’s voice so readily as they should. We are sometimes so
taken up with other things that God speaks again and again, and we do not regard Him. The
still small voice of His love is too apt to be altogether unheeded while the thunders of this
world’s traffic fill our ears."
Wuest comments that the writer of Hebrews "fears lest some should come short of rest in
Christ and die in their sins as the generation that came out of Egypt came short of rest in
Canaan and died a physical death in the wilderness because they did not appropriate the
land by faith (Heb 4:1, 2). Therefore he appeals to them to go on to faith in Messiah. He
appeals to them to be followers of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises
(Heb6:12). When one exhorts someone to do something, it is clear evidence that the latter
is not doing that which is exhorted. These Jews, while making a profession, had no faith,
and under the pressure of persecution, were in danger of renouncing the intellectual assent
which they gave to the New Testament and returning to the First Testament (Heb
10:23, 32, 33, 34). The writer urges them to place their faith in the New Testament High
Priest (Heb 10:19, 20), using First Testament typology. Under the First Testament system,
the Israelite would enter the Tabernacle in the person of the priest who would procure
salvation for him through a blood sacrifice. The writer exhorts the first century Jew to enter,
not the Holy of Holies of the temple on earth, but the Holy of Holies of heaven, and in the
same way, in the Person of the new High Priest, by a freshly slain (new) and living way, and
to do so in the faith which brings full assurance of salvation, a faith they did not have. He
warns them against drawing back from their profession of faith in Christ to perdition, and
urges them on to faith in this same Christ, with the result that their souls will be saved (Heb
10:38, 39). Finally, he devotes chapter eleven to an argument based upon Old Testament
scripture, that faith is the way of salvation, urging them to look off and away to Jesus in
faith, a thing they were not doing (Heb 12:1, 2). Thus, the purpose of the writer was to reach
the professing Jews of that date who outwardly had left the temple sacrifices, and had
identified themselves with those groups of people who were gathering around an unseen
Messiah, the High Priest of the New Testament system who had at the Cross fulfilled the
First Testament system of typical sacrifices. These unsaved Jews were under the stress of
persecution, and in danger of renouncing their profession and returning to the abrogated
sacrifices of the Levitical system (Heb 10:32, 33, 34). (Untranslatable Riches from the
Greek New Testament: p.47-48)
Spurgeon addresses genuine believers (dearly beloved, this note is long but is worth
reading) who can experience varying degrees of unbelief writing …
dear friend, even you may fall into unbelief. Are you not aware of that fact? Have you not
been already tormented with it? I daresay, like myself, you did at one time indulge the idea
that old Incredulity would soon die. You took him by the heels, and you put him in the
stocks, and you said to yourself,
“He will never trouble me again; I shall never doubt the promise of God any more as long as
I live. I have had such a wonderful experience of God’s faithfulness, he has been so
exceedingly gracious to me, that I cannot doubt him any more.”
You remember how Mr. Bunyan says, in Holy War, that, after the enemies of King Shaddai
had been sentenced to death,
“One of the prisoners, Incredulity by name, in the interim betwixt the sentence and time of
execution, brake prison, and made his escape, and gets him away quite out of the town of
Mansoul, and lay lurking in such places and holds as he might, until he should again have
opportunity to do the town of Mansoul a mischief for their thus handling of him as they did.”
Incredulity will work his wicked will upon you if he can, and you must ever remember that it
is possible even for you to fall into unbelief, — you who are rejoicing, you who have hung
out all your flags, and are keeping high festival, — oh, tell it not in Gath! — even you may
yet be found doubting your God. May the Lord grant that you may be delivered from this
evil! But it is only almighty grace which can keep you with faith pure and simple, and free
from any tincture of doubt and unbelief.
Pressure of circumstances may drive you into an unbelieving state of mind. Depression of
soul, due to physical causes, may do it; the spirit often truly is willing and believing, but the
flesh is weak, and it may pull you down. Association with doubters may have a similar
effect. Conflict for the truth may make you familiar with the poisoned arrows of skeptics, and
in attempting to do them good you may imbibe mischief from them.
The Lord will preserve you from the positive, stark, black Egyptian darkness of unbelief; but
there are other grades and degrees of it which you may have to endure. It is bad for a
Christian to have any admixture of darkness with his light, and to have any measure of
doubt mingled with his faith; yet it may be so, and therefore the Spirit of God says to the
people of God, “Take heed, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing
from the living God.”
Note, next, that in proportion as unbelief does get into your heart, you will be in to depart
from the living God. I am not speaking now of open glaring sin; you have not fallen into that,
and I pray God that you never may. But, beloved, we may have all the decencies of
morality, and all the proprieties of Christian conduct, and yet we may be all the while
“departing from the living God.” The moment we begin to trust in man, and to make flesh
our arm, we have to that extent forgotten Jehovah, and departed from the living God. The
moment our heart’s deepest affections twine about the dearest creature, — be it husband,
or wife, or child, — we are to that degree “departing from the living God.” To the true
believer, in his best estate, the sweetest line that he can ever sing, is that which we sang
just now, —
“Yea, mine own God is He.”
That is the circle which surrounds all his joy; it is the center of his soul’s highest delight. He
has God for his very own. On his God he relies, and towards him he sends out the full
streams of his earnest affection.
Remember what the Lord wrote by the pen of the prophet Jeremiah:
“Cursed be the man that trusteth in man: and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart
departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when
good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not
inhabited. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he
shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and
shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the
year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit:”
Brothers, it is easy to depart from the living God spiritually, — gradually to lose that
serene and heavenly frame which is our highest privilege, to forget Him Who ought
ever to be before our eyes as the chief factor in our entire life, the great All-in-all,
compared with Whom everything else is but as a dream, a fleeting shadow.
I bear my witness that, to walk with the living God, is life; but to get away from Him, is death;
and that, in proportion as we begin to depart and put a distance between ourselves and the
great Invisible, in that proportion our life ebbs away, and we get to be sickly, and scarcely
alive. Then doubts arise as to whether we are the people of God at all; and it is sad that
such a question as that should ever be possible.
We ought to live like the angel whom Milton pictures as living in the sun, — in the very
center of the orb of light, — so near to God that we do not merely sometimes enjoy His
presence, but that in Him we live altogether, and never depart from Him. I remember a
minister calling upon a poor old saint, and before coming away he said he hoped that the
Divine Father would constantly visit the sick man; but he replied,
“O sir, I do not want you to ask that the Father should merely visit me, for by these many
months together He has been abiding with me, and I have been abiding in Him.”
So may it be with each one of you, my brethren; and that it may be so, give attention to the
message of the text: “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of
unbelief, in departing “ — in any measure or degree — “from the living God.”
“But,” say you, “wherefore should we take such heed about that matter? We are believers,
and, therefore, we are saved.” Are you believers? They who can trifle with heavenly things
are not true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ; and if ever it becomes a thing of small
importance to you whether you dwell with the living God, or not, the question may well arise
in your heart,
“Am I truly a believer in Jesus Christ with the faith of God’s elect, — the faith that really
saves the soul?”
But, my brethren, if you do not continue steadfast and firm in your faith in its simplicity, if
your evil heart of unbelief begins to prevail, and you are turned aside from your confidence
in Christ, and so begin to get away from God, you will be great losers thereby even if you do
manage to get to heaven, “saved, yet so as by fire.”
 YOU WILL LOSE YOUR JOY
For, first, you will lose your joy. That is no small thing. “The joy of the Lord is your
strength.” The joy of the Lord is one of the means by which you are to be made useful. The
joy of the Lord sweetens trial, lightens care, and turns service into delight but if you lose that
joy, you are as one who travels alone in the dark, and who stumbles and falls. I pray you, do
not depart from the living God in any degree, for if you do so, your joy will begin to get
clouded, the brightness and the warmth of it will be taken from you, and you will become
faint-hearted, trembling, timorous, and sad. If the evil heart of unbelief shall prevail against
you, depend upon it you will lose your joy.
YOU WILL LOSE YOUR ASSURANCE
Then you may be certain, also, that you will lose your assurance. Full assurance
cannot exist with unholiness. One has well said,
“If thine assurance doth not make thee leave off sinning, thy sinning will make thee leave off
enjoying assurance;”
and I am sure that it is so. If we begin to look to second causes, and do not trust in God, we
shall then put forth our hand to some one sin or another; and when we do that, we cannot
be certain that we are children of God at all.
That man who feels sure of his safety, and yet can play with sin, and find pleasure in
it, may be assured of his own damnation.
I remember, in my boyhood, one, who never talked so religiously as when he was the worse
for drink; and in public, before ungodly men, he used to boast of his full assurance of
salvation, when he was much too far gone to be assured that he would get home in safety
that night. That kind of conduct is atrocious, and no one would excuse it for a moment; we
know that men who talk so only proclaim their own shame to their own eternal disgrace. But
do not let any of us indulge even in a measure of that kind of sin. That, evil heart of unbelief
will not only lead us away from a holy walk with God, but it will also take from us our
assurance if it is an assurance that is worth, the having.
YOU WILL LOSE YOUR FRUITFULNESS
Then, next, it will take from us our fruitfulness. Dear child of God, I am sure that you do
not wish to live here without doing good to others; but how can you do good if you are not
yourself good?
You cannot bring forth fruit unto holiness unless you are watered with the dew of heaven,
and the sunlight of God shines upon you; and you will not have either of those blessings if
you live carelessy, and if you fall into an unbelieving state of mind, and get away from
contact with the everliving God.
If any of you have tried this kind of life, you must have become painfully aware what it is to
have all the sap and. juice, out of which the clusters ought to come, dried up within the tree,
and everything turned to barrenness because you have yourself departed from God.
YOU WILL LOSE PURITY
These are all serious losses to a child of God; it is no light matter for you to lose joy, and
assurance, and fruitfulness; but the evil heart of unbelief will cause you also to lose purity.
There is a delicate bloom upon the fruit that grows in Christ’s garden, where He, as the
Gardener, cultivates it with tender care; but sin comes, and rubs away that bloom, and
spoils the fruit. If you and I fall into sin, we shall have to weep bitterly over it; we shall not be
able to enjoy the high privilege which belongs to those who keep their garments unspotted
from the world. Of these the Savior says, “They shall walk with me in white: for they are
worthy.”
I believe that, of all fortes of spiritual loss, one of the worst is to lose tenderness of
conscience, quickness of apprehension when sin is near, — to lose a sense of cleanness of
heard.; and of sanctification by the Spirit of God.
When those are gone, we are something like Adam when he lost Paradise, and we turn our
faces back again toward that purity, and cry to the Lord to restore it, as we moan rather than
sing, —
“Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?”
Take care that you do not lose it, for it will hardly be likely to be restored to you in the same
degree as you had it at the first.
The child of God who wanders away also loses peace, and many other attainments of
the spiritual life. He is like a boy who is sent down from the top of the class; it may take him
a long time to get up again. Or he is like the man who has risen from the ranks, but who has
misbehaved himself, and is therefore made a private again. He who once could lead the
people of God has to be very thankful that he is permitted to go into the rear rank, and to
follow where others lead, he who could talk for God boldly now has to sing very small, and
let others speak. He who used to encourage others now needs to be encouraged himself.
He was once strong in faith, and a mighty man of valor, but now he has to use Mr. Ready-
to-halt’s crutches, and to go along with the feeble ones among the pilgrims, because an evil
heart of unbelief has made him depart from the living God.
YOU WILL LOSE INFLUENCE
This brings, of course, a loss of influence with the people of God, and with
worldlings, too; for when a man has injured his reputation, it is not soon repaired again. If
he has slipped and fallen, brethren weep over him, and love him, and seek to restore him,
but they do not trust him as they used to do. They are some little while before they dare to
follow where he leads the way. I have seen a man, whose judgment was like that of
Solomon, whose position in the midst of his brethren was that of a hero inciting them to
daring deeds; but he has fallen, and all Israel has wept over him. Perhaps there has been
no shameful sin, but yet there has been an evident decline in spirituality, and in force and
power. The Lord has left him, and great Samson, though he shakes himself as aforetime, is
fast bound in chains, and his eyes have been put out. Happy will he be if, at; some future
day, when the locks of his hair have grown again, he shall be able, to pull down the temple
of the Philistine lords upon them; but so far as his brethren are concerned, he will have to
be the object of loving pity rather than of joyful confidence.
YOU WILL LOSE POWER IN PRAYER
Do not tell me, then, that you do not lose anything by getting into a state of unbelief, and
departing from God, for, in addition to all this, such a child of God loses power in prayer. It
is
“the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man” that “availeth much.”
Our Lord Jesus told his disciples,
“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done
unto you.”
But disobedient children will find that the Father will turn a deaf ear to their supplication.
“No,” he will say, “you would not hearken to me, neither will I hearken to you,” for God has a
way of walking contrary to them that walk contrary to Him. Then there very often follow, at
the back of that, chastisements heavy and multiplied.
Take heed, my brethren, as ye remember the history of David. What a blessed life, what a
glorious life, is that of David until the unhappy day when kings went forth to battle, but the
king of Israel went not! He tarried in inglorious ease at home, and as he walked upon the
top of his palace, he saw that which tempted him to ill desire, to that ill desire he fell a prey,
and the man after God’s own heart became an adulterer and a murderer. Alas! alas! All the
rest of his life he travels on toward heaven with broken bones and sorrowful spirit. At every
step, he limps; his prayers are sighs; his psalms lack the jubilant notes that once made
them ascend joyously unto the Lord. He is a true man of God still, and in his deep
repentance he becomes a pattern to us all in repenting of sin; but the brave joyous David is
not there, and at the last, though he pleads the covenant, he has to say,
“Although my house be not so with God.”
There was a great mass of heart-break packed away in those few words, more than we
need to explain just now. What a dreadful family David had! None of us have had a family
like his; that was his chastisement in his own children. What a mercy it was for him that
sovereign grace did not cast him away after he had uttered that deep bass note,
“Although my house be not so with God,”
then came the sweet assurance of faith, “Yet He hath made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things, and sure, although He make it not to grow.” There came in
again the note of deep sorrow mingled with his holy faith in God. O brothers, I have heard
men say that a broken leg, when it is mended, is sometimes stronger than it was before. It
may be so; but I am not going to break my leg to try the experiment. I know one who says
that his arm was broken when he was a boy, and that he believes it is stronger than the
other one. So it may be; but I will not break my arm if I can help it. May the Lord rather keep
me in His hands lest I dash my foot against a stone There is a great deal of experience
which I hope you will never have, and that is the kind of experience which comes of an evil
heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. Take heed that you never come to know
that sorrow. (Take Heed, Brethren - Pdf)
PROFESSING
CHRISTIANS
Spurgeon goes on to describe those had full blown unbelieving hearts and were thus
professors but not possessors of the new life in Christ…
Now, in the second place, and very briefly, I want to apply my text to All In The Visible
Church, whether they are indeed God’s people or not. If you profess to belong to Christ, it is
enough for my present purpose. “Take heed,” I pray you, professing Christians, “lest there
be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.”
For, first, many professors have had an evil heart. It is not every church-member who
has a new heart and a right spirit. Judas was in the church, but he had an evil heart, and
was a devil. It may be so with me, my brother, or with you. There are some in the church
who have no real faith in Christ. Their very heart is crammed full of unbelief, though they
pretend that they have believed in Christ. I know that it is so; we cannot help observing that
there are unbelievers who bear the name of Christians.
Many of these have turned aside. To our sorrow, we have lived to see it in far too many
cases; they were members of churches, but they grew weary of the good way. Nothing
pleased them; the preacher who used to charm them has lost all his power over them.
Prayer-meetings are dull, and they would rather not have anything at all to do with religion.
We have known some go back to the world for no reason that they dared even to tell
themselves; it was because of the fickleness of their unregenerate spirits.
We have seen this happen to others when they have been strongly tempted. Satan knew
their particular weakness, and he assailed them there. How many professors have given
way to strong drink! They would have a little, and who could condemn them? But when they
began by taking a little, they soon took what was not little to others, and it turned out by-
and-by not to be little to themselves; and he who should have been a pattern of self-denial
to the people of God, has become a victim of intoxication.
Others have fallen through the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. A
man has been tempted to get gain by dishonesty; at first, the bribe did not affect him; but it
was doubled, or trebled, and then he fell.
Many more have we seen very gradually turning aside; it was almost impossible to tell
exactly when they left the line of strict integrity; it was only by a heir’s breadth that they
turned aside at first, but afterwards their apostasy was visible to all.
Some have been frost-bitten; they’ have grown lukewarm, and then at last icy cold, and we
have lost them.
Some professors have been turned aside by pride. They were too rich to join with any but a
“respectable” worldly church; or they were so learned — so conceited, is the right word —
that the plain gospel was too inferior an article for their profound minds!
Some, alas! — and I fear, very many, — have turned aside through poverty. We meet with
cases where the visitor in the lowest haunts of degradation says that he has come across a
woman in the depths of penury, and with scarcely rags enough to cover her, yet she has
produced a communion ticket, for in better days she was a member of the church, but she
could not get clothes quite good enough, as she thought. She fancied that she would be
looked down upon if she came when poor, and so she ceased to attend the means of grace,
and by-and-by gave up everything like a profession of religion. Oh, if there are any
members of the church of that sort here, I pray you, if you ever do become very poor, do not
go away from us because of that; and if your clothes should be all rags, I am sure that none
of us will despise you, or if there should be any who do so, I will bear the responsibility of
despising them; but do not you ever stay away from the house of God, or the company of
your Christian brethren and sisters, because of poverty. Why, it seems to me that, the less
you have of earthly good things to comfort you, the more you want of divine treasure and
the companionship of Christ; and you should rather seek the society of your friends in Christ
than for a moment to shun it.
Yet it has been so, and therefore I put it to all here who profess to be followers of Christ:
“Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from
the living God.”
"CAMP
FOLLOWERS"
Now I have only a very few minutes left in which to apply my text To Those Who Are Simply
In The Congregation.
There is a large number of you, who come to worship with us, who are only camp-followers.
You are not in the regular regiments of the Lord’s army, yet you cling to us, and we cannot
help regarding you with much affection as “brethren” so far as you allow that brotherhood to
be true. We wish that you would make it truer still, but we do not want any of you to perish
because of your unbelief.
Remember, dear friends, that your unbelief is an affair of your heart. It is not an evil
head of unbelief, but “an evil heart of unbelief” of which the apostle speaks; and that
is what is wrong with you.
You know that you believe everything that is in the Bible; you look with horror upon any
heretical doctrine; you love to hear the gospel, and yet you have not received it for
yourselves. I want you to do my Lord the credit to think Him no liar; but a true Savior; and if
He be such, then come and trust Him. You are fit to come to Him, for your fitness lies in
your need of Him, and I am sure you need Him. Come and do Him this act of justice, —
trust Him. He is so strong, so true, so tender, that if you will but commit your staff to Him, He
will take care of it. If you will bring your sins to Him, he will wash them away. If you will bring
your weakness to Him, He will strengthen you. If you will really come to Him, He will take
you as you are at this moment, for He never did cast out one who came to Him; it is not like
Him, He could not do it. It is no more possible for Christ to reject a sinner who trusts him
than it is for God to lie. It is contrary to the nature of God, and he cannot do what is contrary
to himself. Come, then, and do not depart from the living God by an evil heart of unbelief.
Nothing will bring you near to God but believing; and nothing can shut you out from God,
and from the life and light and liberty that there is in God in Christ Jesus, but your unbelief.
Only trust him; that is the whole of the mariner. I pray God, of his infinite mercy, to make
you “take heed, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief,” which shall get such
mastery over you, that you shall depart, not only from the living God, but even from the
ways of morality, till God shall say to you, at the last, “Depart, ye cursed. You always were
departing, keep on departing.” And this shall be the punishment of your sin; you shall reap it
fully developed, for hell is sin full-grown. God save us from the babe, which is sin, that we
may not know the man, which is hell; — save us from the seed, which is sin, that we may
not know the harvest, which is hell; — save us from the spark, which is sin, that we may not
know the conflagration, which is eternal damnation! God save and bless you, dear friends,
for Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen. (Take Heed, Brethren - Pdf)
 GREEK WORDS FOR UNBELIEF

THREE GREEK WORDS

FOR UNBELIEF/DISBELIEVE/UNBELIEVING
(1) Unbelief (570)(apistia from a = without + pistós = believing, faithful) means literally not
believing = faithlessness, distrust, lack of belief. It describes an unwillingness to commit
oneself to another or respond positively to the other’s words or actions , in this case the
words of the One Who was Himself the Living
Word! Apistia - Mt 13:58; Mk 6:6; Mk 9:24; Mk 16:14; Ro 3:3; Ro 4:20; Ro 11:20; Ro 11:23;
1 Ti 1:13; Heb 3:12+; Heb 3:19+ = "So we see that they were not able to enter because
of unbelief (apistia)." Now read Hebrews 3:18+ and notice what parallels with unbelief. Did
you see it? Unbelief equates with disobedient (apeitheo). True belief is obedient!
See Obedience of faith
NT Uses of apistia:
Matthew 13:58 And He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief.
Mark 6:6 And He wondered at their unbelief. And He was going around the villages
teaching.
Mark 9:24 Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.”
Mark 16:14 Afterward He appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at the
table; and He reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had
not believed those who had seen Him after He had risen.
Romans 3:3 What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the
faithfulness of God, will it?
Romans 4:20 yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew
strong in faith, giving glory to God,
Romans 11:20 Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your
faith. Do not be conceited, but fear;
Romans 11:23 And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for
God is able to graft them in again.
1 Timothy 1:13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent
aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief;
Hebrews 3:12 Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving
heart that falls away from the living God.
Hebrews 3:19 So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief.
(2) Disbelieve (refuse to believe) (569)(apisteo from a = without + pistós = believing,
faithful) means literally without believing. They refuse to believe and thus are unfaithful. To
disbelieve, to doubt or not to acknowledge. To betray a trust. Unbelief is a failure to respond
to God with trust (pistis) and at heart shows, not doubt, but rejection Vine feels that
“disbelieve” is the best rendering, implying that the unbeliever has had a full opportunity of
believing and has rejected it.
NT uses of apisteo:
Mark 16:11 When they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, they refused to
believe it.
Mark 16:16 “He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who
has disbelieved shall be condemned.
Luke 24:11 But these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would
not believe them.
Luke 24:41 While they still could not believe it because of their joy and amazement, He
said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?”
Acts 28:24 Some were being persuaded by the things spoken, but others would not
believe. (would not be persuaded)
Romans 3:3 What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the
faithfulness of God, will it?
(3) Unbelieving (571)(apistos from a = without + pistos = believing, faithful) means
lacking in faith, without faith, disbelieving, unbelieving - in this context apistos is one who
does not believe the Good News about Jesus Christ (1Ti 5:8, Titus 1:15, Rev 21:8). It is
used once to describe that which is incredible (Acts 26:8), but most NT uses describe those
without faith, not trusting, unfaithful. In secular Greek use apistos described reports, etc
as incredible. BDAG gives a example of an ancient secular use of apistos in the
description of "a patient (who) sneers in disbelief at healings recorded in a shrine of
Asclepius and subsequently receives the sobriquet (a descriptive name)" "Apistos"
NT uses of apistos: Twice in the Septuagint - Pr 17:6, Isa 17:109
Matthew 17:17 And Jesus answered and said, “You unbelieving and perverted generation,
how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him here to Me.”
Mark 9:19 And He *answered them and *said, “O unbelieving generation, how long shall I
be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him to Me!”
Luke 9:41 And Jesus answered and said, “You unbelieving and perverted generation, how
long shall I be with you and put up with you? Bring your son here.”
Luke 12:46 the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and
at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces, and assign him a place with
the unbelievers.
John 20:27 Then He *said to Thomas, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands;
and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but
believing.”
Acts 26:8 “Why is it considered incredible among you people if God does raise the dead?
1 Corinthians 6:6 but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers?
1 Corinthians 7:12 But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is
an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her.
1 Corinthians 7:13 And a woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live
with her, she must not send her husband away.
1 Corinthians 7:14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the
unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are
unclean, but now they are holy.
1 Corinthians 7:15 Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or the sister
is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace.
1 Corinthians 10:27 If one of the unbelievers invites you and you want to go, eat anything
that is set before you without asking questions for conscience’ sake.
1 Corinthians 14:22 So then tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but
to unbelievers; but prophecy is for a sign, not to unbelievers but to those who believe.
1 Corinthians 14:23 Therefore if the whole church assembles together and all speak in
tongues, and ungifted men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad?
1 Corinthians 14:24 But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an ungifted man enters, he is
convicted by all, he is called to account by all;
2 Corinthians 4:4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of
the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who
is the image of God.
2 Corinthians 6:14 Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have
righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?
2 Corinthians 6:15 Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in
common with an unbeliever?
1 Timothy 5:8 But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his
household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
Titus 1:15 To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving,
nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.
Revelation 21:8 “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and
immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that
burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

CAUSES/ASSOCIATIONS OF UNBELIEF

UNBELIEF PROCEEDS FROM

R A TORREY

 An evil heart Hebrews 3:12

 Slowness of heart Luke 24:25
 Hardness of heart Mark 16:14 ; Acts 19:9
 Disinclination to the truth John 8:45,46
 Judicial blindness John 12:39,40
 Not being Christ's sheep John 10:26
 The devil blinding the mind 2 Corinthians 4:4
 The devil taking away the word out of the heart Luke 8:12
 Seeking honour from men John 5:44
 Impugns the veracity of God 1 John 5:10

Adrian Rogers - Hebrews 3:12. The Bible says, "Beware, lest there be in any of you an evil
heart of unbelief." Now notice this, unbelief is not intellectual, it is moral. It doesn't come out
of the head; it comes out of the heart.....Do you know what unbelief is? Unbelief is
wickedness, consummate wickedness. Unbelief is the refusal of Almighty God. Unbelief is
saying, "God, You go Your way; I'll go mine. It is my life. I will not trust You with it. I will not
give it to You. I am my own person." You see, unbelief is the parent sin. It is the sin of
which all other sins come, from which all other sins come. Why did Adam and Eve sin in the
Garden of Eden? Basically, it was unbelief. Why does a man tell a lie today? Unbelief. He
can't trust God to get him out of the mess that he's in. Only the Holy Spirit of God can
convict you that there is no greater sin than unbelief. Unbelief says, "God, you're not worthy
of my faith, you're not worthy of my trust, you're not worthy of my love. I don't want you in
my life." "Well, Adrian, ha, ha, I can't help it. I'm just not superstitious. I'm not religious. I
can't help it if I can't belief." Friend, that's where you're wrong, that's where you're wrong.
The Holy Spirit of God will enable you to believe. That's the reason the Bible says in the
Book of Hebrews, the third chapter, "Beware lest there be in any of you an evil heart of
unbelief." Unbelief does not come out of the head; it comes out of the heart. It is a
predisposition against Almighty God. It is not trusting the God who loves you.
Charles Buck says unbelief is "The refusing assent to testimony. It is often taken for
distrust of God's faithfulness, but more particularly for the discrediting the testimony of
God's word concerning his Son, John 3:18-19 . John 16:9 . "It includes, " says Dr. Guise,
"disaffection to God, disregard to his word, prejudices against the Redeemer, readiness to
give credit to any other than him, inordinate love to the world, and preferring to the applause
of men to the approbation of God." "Unbelief, " says the great Charnock, "is the greatest sin,
as it is the fountain of all sin: it was Adam's first sin; it is a sin against the Gospel, against
the highest testimony; a refusal to accept of Christ upon the terms of the Gospel. It strikes
peculiarly at God; is the greatest reproach of him, robs him of his glory, a contradiction to
his will, and a contempt of his authority." The causes of unbelief are Satan, ignorance,
pride, and sensuality. The danger of it is great; it hardens the heart, fills with presumption,
creates impatience, deceives with error, and finally exposes to condemnation, John 3:11 .
Charnock's Works, vol. 2: p. 601; Case's Sermons, ser. 2; Bishop Porteus's Sermons, vol.
1: ser. 2; Dr. Owen's Reasons of Faith; Hannam's Compendium, vol. 2: p. 26; Churchill's
Essay on Unbelief." (Ref)
John Butler says Unbelief is stubborn. You can have the cleverest argument of all, but if
unbelief wants to reject your message it will regardless of the logic of your argument.
Unbelief paid no attention to John's righteousness. Unbelief loves its sin and does not
accept that which would condemn their sin. In my early ministry, I thought the people of the
church would be appreciate the holiness of my conduct. Also I thought the soundness of my
message would be appreciated by those working in a large denominational office. I was
wrong on both counts. Being righteous and having the right message gains the approval of
God, but not necessarily the approval of man.

Stephen Charnock (commenting on the Spirit's work in John 16:8-9) - The world did not
understand the sin of unbelief. As the light of nature could not discover a Christ to them,
so it could not discover the sin of unbelief to them ; how could it convince of their unbelief,
when it did not discover the object to be believed in. But the Spirit shall convince of a state
of sin, of the depths of it in the heart, the streams of it in the life, and especially of unbelief,
which renders the disease incurable, since there is no other medicine but the blood of
Christ, and no other way of partaking of that medicine but by faith; it will evidence they are
born in sin, can do nothing but sin, and cannot but by faith be delivered from those bonds of
sin, but must die in them ; that if they believe not in Christ, that came to redeem fallen
mankind, their sins will lie on them, they will perish in them, and lie under the curse of God.
Now that sin in general is here meant — the Spirit shall convince of sin. (John 16:8-9
Conviction of Sin)
The sin of unbelief, which is called in Scripture, by way of eminency, sin, and the sin; it is
the chief sin the Spirit convinceth of; it is the sin that ‘easily besets us:’ Heb. 12:1, ‘Let us
lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us,’ i.e. especially unbelief.

Wendell Johnson on Unbelief

PEOPLE WHO DENY OR REFUSE TO BELIEVE what God has revealed about Himself
and eternal life are in a state of unbelief. In describing unbelief the New Testament writers
looked back to Old Testament events. Though no specific word for unbelief is used in the
Old Testament, there are many illustrations of it. The people in Noah's day were in unbelief
and rebellion (Gen. 6:5-7), and so God destroyed them by the Flood. Peter said these
people in unbelief were “ungodly” (2 Pet. 2:5). Unbelief was attributed to the Israelites,
whom God had delivered out of Egypt, when they hardened their hearts and rebelled
against God (Heb. 3:19). They had failed to respond to what they had seen God do on their
behalf (Heb 3:9; Ps. 95:9). Jude stated that God took the lives of those Israelites who did
not believe (Jude 5). At the root of their problem was an unbelieving heart (Heb. 3:12).
Unbelief is the condition of all those who are without Christ, those who have not believed in
the salvation provided by Christ through His death on the cross (John 3:36). As unbelievers
they are blinded to the light of the gospel (2 Cor. 4:4). This unbelief need not be permanent,
as illustrated in the life of Paul. This was not something he overcame by his own efforts.
Instead, through God's grace and mercy his heart was opened to receive the message
about Christ (1 Tim. 1:13-16). Later Paul reminded believers that the unbelief of Israel is not
permanent (Rom. 11:20-23).
Unbelief was also the reason people rejected Christ's miracles during His earthly ministry
(Matt. 13:58; Mark 6:6). The word unbelief was used by a father whose son was possessed
by a demon. The man asked the Lord to help him overcome his unbelief (9:24). His request
did not come because of a rebellious spirit, for he was humbled in the presence of the Lord.
But he did sense his need for divine assistance to believe, possibly because of the power of
Satan that had been so evident in his son's life for such a long time. Christians may face
difficult challenges in life, but God promises victory because of our faith in Christ (1 John
5:4-5) (Wendell Johnson - Theological Wordbook)

Stephen Olford - “He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.”—
Matthew 13:58
What an amazing, yet solemn, verse this is! Purge me, O Lord, that I may never be guilty
of such unbelief! Notice that the verse does not say, “He could not,” but rather that “He
did not.” It was not a case that His power was limited on this particular occasion, but rather
that Christ does not work in the presence of blatant or open unbelief. Unbelief is the
preeminent fruit of the flesh. It is that which emanates from man's corrupt nature. “The
carnal mind is enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7). Give me the grace to crucify the natural
man in me, Lord, until all unbelief is removed. Amen
 Unbelief—A Marvel
J. C. Ryle

"He marveled at their unbelief." Mark 6:6+

The text which heads this page is a very remarkable one. Of all the expressions in the four
Gospels which show that the Lord Jesus Christ was very Man, none perhaps is more
startling than this. That He who was born of the Virgin Mary, and had a body like our own,
should hunger and thirst, and weep and rejoice, and be weary and suffer pain—all this we
can, in some degree, understand. But that He who was truly God as well as truly Man, He
"in whom dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily," He in whom were, "hid all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge," He who "knew what was in man"—that He should
"marvel" at anything here below, may well fill us with astonishment! But what says the
Scripture? There it is written in plain words, which no ingenuity can explain away, "He
marveled at their unbelief."
In handling this subject, I do not propose for a moment to discuss those deep and
mysterious articles of the faith which lie at the foundation of Christianity. If I attempted this, I
could add nothing to what masters of theology have already said and should probably leave
the subject where I found it, if I did not "darken counsel by words without knowledge." What
I wish to do is to say something practical about the general subject of unbelief. It must be an
astonishing thing, if even our Lord Jesus Christ marveled at it. It must be an important thing,
when we hear and read so much about it in the present day. And I shall try to make a few
plain remarks upon it.
1. Let us consider the nature of unbelief. "What is it?"
2. Let us inquire why unbelief is so astonishing. "Why did the Lord Jesus marvel at
it?"
1. The nature of unbelief. What is unbelief?
The word so translated will be found twelve times in the New Testament and always, so far
as I can see, in one signification. In its fullest sense, of course, it only exists in lands where
men enjoy the light of revelation. In heathen lands, where there is little known, there can be
comparatively little unbelief. It consists in not believing something which God has said—
some warning that He gave—some promise that He held out—some advice that He offers—
some judgment that He threatens—some message that He sends. In short, to refuse to
admit the truth of God's revealed Word, and to live as if we did not think that Word was to
be depended on—is the essence of unbelief.
Unbelief is the oldest of the many spiritual diseases by which fallen human nature is
afflicted. It began in the day when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and brought sin
into the world. They did not believe what God had told them, would be the consequence of
disobedience; and they did believe the Tempter, saying, "You shall not surely die."
Unbelief ruined millions in the day of Noah's flood: they would not believe the great
"preacher of righteousness," when he warned them for a hundred and twenty years to flee
from the wrath to come.
Unbelief slew myriads in the day when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire from
heaven. When righteous Lot called on his sons-in-law to escape for their lives, "he seemed
as one who mocked." (Gen. 19.14.)
Unbelief kept Israel wandering forty years in the wilderness, until a whole generation was
dead. We are expressly told, "They could not enter in—because of unbelief" (Heb. 3.19.)
Unbelief brought, finally, destruction on the Church and State of the Jews some fifty years
after Christ left the world. They would not believe nor receive Him as the Messiah, but
crucified and killed Him. The primary cause why Jerusalem was destroyed, the temple
burned, and God's ancient people cast off and scattered over the face of the world—was
unbelief.
Unbelief, we are taught everywhere in the New Testament, is the grand reason why
multitudes of professing Christian men and women in every age are not saved, and die
unprepared to meet God. lt bars the way to heaven, and makes God's glorious promises of
mercy, useless and unavailing. "He who believes not, is condemned already." "He who
believes not, shall be damned." "He who believes not the Son, shall not see life, but the
wrath of God abides on him." "If you believe not that I am He, you shall die in your sins."
(John 3.18, 36; Mark 16.16; John 8.24.)
Remember, everyone into whose hands this paper may fall—remember and never forget it
—it is not so much heinous sin—as unbelief which ruins souls. "All manner of sins shall be
forgiven to the men." "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin." "Though your sins
be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow." (Matt. 12.31; 1 John 1.7; Isaiah 1.18.) But
if a man will not put faith in Christ, he places himself out of the reach of mercy. I am bold to
say, that even Judas Iscariot might have found absolution, if, after his denial, he had
repented and believed. The true cause of eternal ruin is contained in those solemn words
which our Master spoke before the Jewish Sanhedrin, "You will not come unto Me—that you
might have life." (John 5.40.)
Unbelief is one of the commonest spiritual diseases in these latter days. It meets us at
every turn, and in every company. Like the Egyptian plague of frogs, it makes its way into
every family and home, and there seems no keeping it out. Among high and low, and rich
and poor, in town and in country, in universities and manufacturing towns, in castles and in
cottages, you will continually find some form of unbelief. It is no longer a pestilence which
walks in darkness, but a destruction which wastes at noonday. Unbelief is even thought
clever and intellectual, and a mark of a thoughtful mind. Society seems leavened with it. He
who avows his belief of everything contained in the Bible, must make up his mind in many
companies to be smiled at contemptuously, and thought an ignorant and weak man.
(a) With some, the seat of unbelief appears to be the head. They refuse to accept anything
which they cannot understand. Inspiration, Miracles, the Trinity, the Incarnation, the
Atonement, the Holy Spirit, the Resurrection, the Future State—all these mighty verities are
viewed with cold indifference as disputable points, if not absolutely rejected. Can we entirely
explain them? Can we satisfy their reasoning faculties about them? If not, they must be
excused if they stand in doubt. What they cannot fully understand, they tell us they
cannot fully believe.
(b) With some the seat of unbelief is the heart. They love the sins and habits of life, which
the Bible condemns, and are determined not to give them up. They take refuge from an
uneasy conscience by trying to persuade themselves that the old Book is not true. The
measure of their creed—is their lusts. Whatever condemns their lusts—they refuse to
believe. The famous Lord Rochester, once a profligate and an infidel, but at last a true
penitent, is recorded to have said to Burnet, as he drew near his end, "It is not reason, but
a bad life which is the great argument against the Bible." A true and weighty saying! Many, I
am persuaded, profess that they do not believe, because they know, if they did believe—
that they must give up their favorite sins!
(c) With far the greater number of people the seat of unbelief is a lazy, indolent will. They
dislike all kind of trouble. Why should they deny themselves and take pains about Bible-
reading and praying, and diligent watchfulness over thought and word and deed, when after
all, it is not quite certain that the Bible is true? This I have little doubt, is the form of unbelief
which prevails most frequently among young people. They are not agitated by intellectual
difficulties. They are often not the slaves of any special lusts or passions, and live tolerably
decent lives. But deep down in their hearts there is a disinclination to make up their minds,
and to be decided about anything in religion. And so they drift down the stream of life like
dead fish, and float helplessly on, and are tossed to and fro, hardly knowing what they
believe. And while they would shrink from telling you they are not Christians, they are
without any backbone in their Christianity.
In days like these, we must count it no strange thing if we meet with a vast amount of
unbelief in the world. Rather, let us make up our minds to expect it, and to see it under the
most specious and plausible aspects. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. No doubt it is
startling, when a young man leaves some quiet secluded country home, and launches on
the waves of this troublesome world in some busy town, to hear doctrines and principles
denied, or sneered at, which he never dreamed of anyone questioning when he lived at
home. But surely this is no more than his old Bible might have taught him to expect. Is it not
written there, "There shall come in the last days scoffers?" "When the Son of man comes,
shall He find faith on the earth?" (2 Peter 3. 3; Luke 18. 8;) Such a young man should say to
himself calmly and quietly, "This unbelief is precisely what my father's Bible told me to
expect. If I met with no unbelief, the old Book would not be true."
After all, it is some comfort to remember that there is probably less of real, downright,
reasoning unbelief than there appears to be, Thousands, we may be sure, do not in their
heart of hearts believe all that they say with their lips. Many a skeptical saying is nothing
more than a borrowed article, picked up and retailed by him who says it, because it sounds
clever, while in reality it is not the language of his inner man. Sorrow, and sickness, and
affliction, often bring out the strange fact that so-called sceptics are no sceptics at all, and
that many talk scepticism merely from a desire to seem clever, and to win the temporary
applause of clever men.
That there is an immense amount of unbelief in the present day I make no question; but that
much of it is mere show and pretense, is to my mind as clear as noonday. No man, I think,
can do pastoral work, and come to close quarters with souls, visit the sick, and attend the
dying, without coming to that conclusion.
2. Let us now inquire WHY unbelief is so astonishing.
What is there in unbelief, which made even the Lord Jesus, the Son of God marvel? No
doubt there was something peculiar and extraordinary in the unbelief of the Jews. That the
children of Israel, brought up from their infancy in the knowledge of the law and the
prophets, trained from their earliest years to look for the Messiah, and to expect a mighty
"prophet like unto Moses," taught to believe in the possibility of miracles, and familiar with
the story of miracle-working men—that they should reject Jesus of Nazareth, and not be
moved by the mighty works which He did among them—all this was truly astonishing and
surprising! Astonishing that they should have such privileges—and yet make such a bad
use of them! Astonishing that the door of life should be open, and heaven so near—and
they should refuse to enter in!
But, I suspect, the Holy Spirit would have us look deeper than this. He would have us know
that if we sit down and calmly consider unbelief, we cannot avoid the conclusion, that there
is something singularly astonishing about it and never so much so as in these latter days of
the world. Let me try to show what I mean.
(1) For one thing, unbelief is a spiritual disease peculiar to Adam's children. It is a
habit of soul entirely confined to man. Angels in heaven above, and fallen spirits in hell
beneath, saints waiting for the resurrection in paradise, lost sinners waiting for the last
judgment in that awful place where the worm never dies, and the fire is not quenched—all
these have one point in common—they all believe! The rich man in the parable, when he
lifted up his eyes in torment, and asked for a drop of water to cool his tongue, and pleaded
hard for his five brethren, had bid an eternal farewell to unbelief. "The very devils," says
James, "believe and tremble." (James 2.19.) Hateful, and hating, and malicious, and
murderous, and lying as Satan is called in Scripture, we read that his agents cried, "We
know You who You are—the Holy One of God!" "Have You come to torment us before the
time!" (Matthew 8. 29.)
But man, living man, is the only intelligent creature who is unbelieving! I say "living man"
advisedly. Alas! What a waking up remains for many, the moment the last breath is
drawn. There is no unbelief in hell. Voltaire now knows whether there is a sin-hating God;
and David Hume now knows whether there is an endless hell. The infant of days, by merely
dying, acquires a knowledge which the subtlest philosophers, while on earth, profess their
inability to attain. The dead Hottentot knows more than the living Socrates. Surely a habit of
soul so absolutely and entirely confined to "living man," may well be called astonishing.
(2) For another thing, unbelief is astonishing, when you consider its arrogance and
presumption. For, after all how little the wisest of men know; and none are more ready to
confess it than themselves. How enormously ignorant the greater part of mankind are, if you
come to examine the measure of their knowledge. The education of the vast majority of
people is wretchedly meager and superficial. Most of us cease learning at twenty-one, and
then plunge into some profession in which we have little time for thought and reading, and
are annually more absorbed in family cares and troubles, and add little to our stock of
knowledge. Fifty or sixty years after this, our part is played out, and we retire from the stage,
rarely leaving the world a wiser world than it was when we were born!
And does unbelief befit a creature like this? Is it seemly for him to talk in a skeptical and
sneering tone about the revelation which the Eternal God has been pleased to make of
Himself, and the unseen future, in that marvelous Book the Bible? I appeal to common
sense for a reply. "Honest doubt" is a fine thing to talk about, and men are fond of saying it
is "better than half the creeds." But when a man tells you he is troubled with skeptical and
unbelieving feeling about Christianity, while he has probably never thought deeply about
religion at all, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that one of the most foolish things in
much unbelief, is its astonishing self-conceit.
(3) For another thing, unbelief is astonishing, when you consider its unfairness and
one-sidedness. Who has not known that some of the minor facts and miracles of the Bible
are the ostensible reasons which many assign why they cannot receive the Book as true,
and make it their rule of faith and practice. They point to the ark, and the passage of the
Red Sea, and Balaam's donkey, and Jonah in the whale's belly—and ask you sarcastically
if you really believe such things to be credible and historically true. And all this time they
refuse to look at three great facts which never can be denied, and which no higher criticism
can possibly explain away.
(a) One of those facts is the historical Person Jesus Christ Himself. How He can have
been what He was on earth, lived as He lived, taught as He taught, and made the mark
He has certainly made on the world—if He was not truly God, and One miraculously
sent down from heaven—is a question which those who sneer at Balaam's donkey find
it convenient to evade.
(b) Another fact is the Bible itself. How this Book, with all its alleged difficulties, written
by a few Jews in a corner of the earth, who wrote nothing else worth reading, can be
the Book that it is, so immeasurably and incomparably superior to anything else penned
by man, and hold the position it holds after 1900 years' use—how all this can be, if the
Book was not miraculously given by inspiration of God, is a knot which cannot be
untied.
(c) The third and last fact is the effect which Christianity has had on mankind—the
amazing change which has taken place in the state of the world since Christianity—and
the difference at this day between those parts of the globe where the Bible is read, and
those where it is not known. Nothing can account for this, but the Divine origin of
Scriptural religion. No other explanation will stand.
Now these three great facts are coolly ignored by many unbelievers! They will talk by the
hour about minor difficulties in the way of faith, while they refuse to touch the weighty,
patent facts which I have just been naming. The difficulties of infidelity are a wide and
interesting subject, which deserves more attention from the defenders of Revelation than it
receives. But the unfair and unreasonable extent to which many nowadays concentrate their
minds on small disputable points of revealed religion, while they refuse to look at the great
standing evidences of God's truth, is to my mind one of the most astonishing features of
modern unbelief!
(4) Fourthly, and lastly, unbelief is astonishing when you consider how the vast
majority of those who profess it drop it, and give it up at last. Few of us perhaps have
the least idea how seldom any man leaves the world an infidel. The near approach of death
has a mighty effect on consciences, and brings into fearful relief the utter superficiality of
much that is called scepticism. The very people who go through life sneering and scoffing at
Christianity, continually break down in their own last hours, and are glad enough to send for
the ministers of religion, and seek comfort in the old doctrine of the despised creeds. Some,
with a mighty swing of the pendulum, go from one extreme to another, and, after living
sceptics for years, are willing to be read to, and prayed with, and receive the Lord's Supper,
after neglecting every Christian ordinance and despising God's house for scores of years.
Wretched indeed must systems be, which prove so useless and comfortless in the hour
when comfort is most needed!
But the wonder of all wonders is, that these failures of unbelief are so notoriously and
constantly occurring, and yet men will not see them, and the ranks of scepticism are
perpetually filled by fresh recruits. If those who profess to deny Revelation generally died
happy deaths, and left the world in great peace and joy, holding their opinions to the last,
we might well expect them to have followers. But when, on the contrary, it is the rarest thing
to see an unbeliever dying calmly in unbelief and giving no sign of discomfort, while the vast
majority of unbelievers throw down their arms at last, and seek for the very religious
consolation which they once affected to despise—it is impossible to avoid one broad
conclusion. That conclusion is—that of all spiritual diseases by which fallen man is afflicted,
there is none so truly astonishing and unreasonable as unbelief.
And now let me wind up this subject, with a few words of kindly advice to all my readers,
and especially to the young. I am no longer young myself. It is thirty-five years since I first
began to write on pious subjects. But even now I think I know the heart of a young man. I
can remember the days when I tried hard to be an unbeliever, because true religion crossed
my path, and I did not like its holy requirements. I was delivered from that pit, I believe, by
the grace of God leading me to a book which, of late years, has undeservedly fallen out of
sight, I mean "Faber's Difficulties of Infidelity." I read that book, and felt it could not be
answered. But the remembrance of the struggle I went through in those days is still fresh in
my mind, and I always have a deep feeling of sympathy, when I hear of the mental conflicts
of young men.
Some of my readers, I dare say, are often troubled with skeptical doubts about the truth of
Christianity. You are not professed unbelievers; God forbid that I should say this. But you
see many things in the Bible which you cannot quite understand. You see not a few men of
powerful and commanding intellect, rejecting Christianity almost entirely. You hear many,
slighting things said, and depreciatory remarks made cleverly and smartly about the facts
and doctrines of the Bible, which you are unable to answer. All this puzzles you. You stand
in doubt. Is it really worth while to pray in private, and read the Bible, and keep the Sunday
holy, and attend the Lord's Table? Is it necessary? Questions such as these are the first
steps in the downward road. Unless you take heed, they may land you in infidelity. Listen to
me while I offer a few FRIENDLY COUNSELS.
(a) For one thing, let me entreat you to deal honestly with your soul about secret
sins. Are you quite sure there is not some bad habit, or lust, or passion, which, almost
insensibly to yourself, you would like to indulge—if it were not for some remaining religious
scruples? Are you quite sure that your doubts do not arise from a desire to get rid of pious
restraint? You would like, if you could, to do something the Bible forbids, and you are
looking about for reasons for disregarding the Bible. Oh! if this is the case with any of you—
awaken to a sense of your danger! Break the chains which are gradually closing round you.
Pluck out the right eye, if need be; but never be the servant of sin. I repeat—that the secret
love of some wicked indulgence, is the real beginning of a vast amount of infidelity!
(b) In the next place, let me ask you to deal honestly with your soul about the use of
means for acquiring religious knowledge. Can you lay your hand on your heart and say
that you really take pains to find out what is truth? Do not be ashamed to pray for light. Do
not be ashamed of reading some choice Christian book; and, above all, do not be ashamed
of regularly studying the text of your Bible. Thousands, I am persuaded, in this day, know
nothing of the Holy Book which they affect to despise, and are utterly ignorant of the real
nature of that Christianity which they pretend they cannot believe. Let not that be the case
with you. That famous "honest doubt" which many say is "better than half the creeds," is a
pretty thing to talk about. But I venture a strong suspicion that much of the scepticism of the
present day, if sifted and analyzed, would be found to spring from utter ignorance of the
primary evidences of Christianity. For my part, I take my stand on these words of Solomon,
"My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, listening closely to
wisdom and directing your heart to understanding; furthermore, if you call out to insight and
lift your voice to understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it like hidden
treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God.
For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding." Proverbs
2:1-6.
(c) Last, but not least, let me entreat you to deal honestly with true religion—and
those who profess it. That there is such a religion in the midst of us, and that there are
thousands who profess it, are simple facts which nobody can deny. These thousands
believe without doubting, certain great truths of Christianity, and live and die in their belief.
Let it be admitted that, in some points, these men of faith do not agree in minor points—
such as the Church, the ministry, and the sacraments. But after every deduction, there
remains an immense amount of common theology, about which their faith is one.
On such points as sin, and God, and Christ, and the atonement, and the authority of the
Bible, and the importance of holiness, and the necessity of prayer, and self-denial, and the
value of the soul, and the reality of heaven and hell, and judgment, and eternity—on such
points as these, I say, all Christians are very much of one mind. Now I ask—is it honest to
turn away from these men and the Christian religion with contempt, because they have
many weaknesses and infirmities? Is it fair to despise their religion, and wrap yourself up in
unbelief, because of their controversies and strifes? Mark the fruits of peace, and hope, and
comfort, which they enjoy. Mark the solid work which, with all their faults, they do in the
world, in lessening sorrow and sin—and increasing happiness, and improving their fellow-
men. What fruits and work can unbelief show, which will bear comparison with the fruits of
faith?
Look these facts in the face and deal honestly with them. Systems ought to be judged by
their fruits and results. When the so-called systems of modern unbelief, and scepticism, and
free thought, can point to as much good done in the world by their adherents, as simple
faith has done by the hand of its friends—we may give them some attention. But until they
do that, I boldly say, that the simple, old-fashioned Christian religion, has just claim on our
respect, esteem, and obedience, and ought not to be despised.
After all, I must conclude with the humbling and sorrowful remark, that we who profess faith,
and are never troubled with unbelief, are not altogether free from blame. Too often our faith
is little better than a mere "useless assent" to certain theological propositions, but not a
living, burning, active principle—which works by love, purifies the heart, and overcomes the
world. It is not the faith which made primitive Christians rejoice under Roman persecution,
and made Luther stand up boldly before the Diet of Worms, and made Ridley and Latimer
"love not their lives to the death," and made Wesley give up his position at Oxford to
become the Evangelist of England. We are truly guilty in this matter.
If there was more real faith on earth, I suspect there would be less unbelief. Scepticism, in
many a case, would shrink, and dwindle, and melt away—if it saw faith more awake and
alive, and active, and stirring. Let us, for Christ's sake, and the sake of souls, amend our
ways in this matter. Let us pray daily, "Lord, increase our faith!" Let us live, and move, and
have our being, and deal with men, as if we really believed every jot and tittle of our creeds;
and as if a dying, risen, interceding, and coming Christ were continually before our eyes.
This, I am firmly convinced, is the surest way to oppose and diminish unbelief. Let the time
past suffice us to have lived content with a cold tame assent to creeds. Let the time to come
find us living, active believers. It was a solemn saying, which fell from the lips of an eminent
minister of Christ on his death-bed—"We are none of us more than half awake!" If believers
were more thorough, and real, and whole-hearted in their belief—there would be far less
unbelief in the world!