The other Sunday, Pastor Herk of that little church at Bass Lake preached on removing disbelief. He asked: “What walls need to come down?” Maybe a wall against unbelief. A wall that the angels put in place or God’s hedge of protection against the enemy’s attacks.
Mark 16:9-14 “Now after He had risen early on the first day of the week, He first appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons. She went and reported to those who had been with Him, while they were mourning and weeping. When they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, they refused to believe it. After that, He appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking along on their way to the country. They went away and reported it to the others, but they did not believe them either. 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.”
Removing disbelief is accomplished in three basic steps. These three steps (1) Come and see, (2) Go and tell, and (3) Stand in awe are being utilized worldwide to bring belief to unbelievers today. The book of Mark makes it very clear that this gospel is a book about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead, should leave no doubt in our minds that Christ is the blessed Savior of the world. Most spiritual poverty exists because people refuse to believe, even when there is overwhelming evidence. In Mark’s gospel, we read the emphasis on the Disciples’ refusal to believe in the resurrected Christ. Unbelief leads people into spiritual poverty.
Despite all of the eye-witness accounts that took place, despite all the circumstantial evidence that was present, despite the growth of Christianity that has changed lives for the better, we still have a high percentage of unbelief in the world. There is something wonderful and life-changing being offered in Christian church around America and the world. It’s called “Salvation unto eternal life in Heaven” and it is a free gift to anyone who repents of their sin and believes in the finished work of redemption in Jesus’ atoning death on the Cross in their place for those sins and His conquering resurrection. What can be more important than eternal life? Yet, people still refuse to believe, saying: “How can I believe that; it’s unnatural (supernatural)?”. We may have been one of those people at one time in our life.
John 1:45-46 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Nathanael said to him, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Philip *said to him, “Come and see.”
Jesus rebukes His Disciples for their stubbornness and unbelief. (1) Unbelief is removed by seeing – Coming and seeing Jesus. The people who saw the resurrected Christ, but the people who had not seen Him in the flesh doubted. Incontrovertible fact: Jesus was crucified and died. Also, Jesus is alive and appeared before eye-witnesses. But, it wasn’t until people actually did see Him with their own eyes, heard with their own ears, and felt with their own hands that He was alive from the dead that they actually believed. How about Jesus’ appearance to us today? Some people say that we cannot meet Jesus as these disciples back then did. That is where they are wrong. We shall see the Lord just as the disciples did. Philippians 2:9-11 tells us, “For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” As Judge to unbelief and as Savior to belief through the eyes of faith. See Him with the eyes of faith today.
When you see Jesus and unbelief is removed, it is as British Pastor C.H. Spurgeon once said: “Faith sees the invisible, hears the inaudible, touches the intangible and does the impossible”. That is when the soul comes in contact with the Divine living God, its Creator and receives the gift of sure and unshakable faith. If you have seen God this way, then you are blessed because your unbelief was removed. When people finally come to believe and receive Jesus, their life lights up and changes where everybody can look at them and see that there is something different and better about them. They have come to know Jesus on a personal level and their life is filled with the light of Christ. Unbelief is removed by seeing and we are blessed when we see by the eyes of faith. In John 20:29, Jesus said to Thomas, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”
Let's continue Pastor Herk's message on dispelling disbelief in the next post.
In Christ, Brian
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