Unbelief with Respect to the Promises of Christ
You may not be guilty of some daring, idolatrous attachment to sin. Perhaps you already have forsaken many sins, for your own good and for the sake of respectability before others. Yet there is one subtle form of sin which you have never even considered. Maybe you do not think it is very important, and certainly not very disgraceful. Perhaps you are one who does not believe Christ’s promises.
But you say, “Unbelief? What kind of sin is that? And why would God hold me responsible for not believing something?” My friend, consider for a few minutes how unbelief can be one of the greatest obstacles to coming to Christ, and thereby keep you from entering heaven.
Can there be any question that the promises of Jesus Christ are clear, certain, and all-embracing? Read this sampling of His promises. Look them up in the Bible to see for yourself how absolutely free of conditions and qualifications they are.
Matthew 11:28 “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Romans 10:12 “The Lord is rich to all who call upon Him.”
Romans 10:13 “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
John 5:24 “He who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”
John 6:37 “The one who comes to Me I will by no means”—under no conditions what-soever, under no circumstances—“cast out.”
God likens His work of salvation to a wedding feast and says, “All things are ready. Come to the wedding” (Matt. 22:4). God has made all the preparations, and God has done all that needs to be done. We do not need to bring anything; we only need to come.
In the light of such marvelous, unqualified promises of forgiveness and acceptance, do you see how inexcusable is the sin of unbelief? The gospel feast has been spread and God has sent His servants to say, “Come, for all things are now ready” (Luke 14:17). But you linger outside the banquet hall, lost and condemned in your unbelieving refusal to embrace the promised mercy of God. You may not be ignorant of your desperate need or impenitent for your sins, but you are unwilling to believe God’s testimony concerning the sufficiency of His Son as a redeemer for sinful men—the God who spoke audibly from heaven, “This is My beloved Son; hear Him” (Mark 9:7).
There will be many surprising kinds of sinners in heaven. There will be notorious sinners like the immoral woman of Luke 7 whose reputation was known by all. There will be desperate sinners like the thief whose crimes warranted crucifixion. There will be murderers and blasphemers in heaven like Saul of Tarsus, and even some people whose hands put to death the Son of God (Acts 2:23). But there will be one type of sinner who will be conspicuously absent: there will be no unbelievers. There will be no persons in heaven who in this life were not joined by faith to Jesus Christ.
The Book of the Revelation paints many pictures of God’s final judgment of mankind. Many of these images are puzzling and mysterious, but look at one very clear picture of those standing outside the gates of heaven. Revelation 21:8 says, “But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” Those whose lives were respectable and even upright, but marked by the chronic sin of unbelief, shall take their eternal place with those whose lives were characterized by murder, lying and other grosser forms of sin.
We are tempted to view unbelief as a defect, or a sort of “vitamin deficiency” that leaves us spiritually anemic but really not so bad overall. God views unbelief in its true light. When Jesus describes the Holy Spirit’s purpose in coming to convict the world of sin, here is the principal sin which He highlights: “Because they do not believe in Me” (John 16:9).
If until now you have been unbelieving, will you turn from this sin and cling by faith to Christ? Will you believe His abundant promises of salvation, pardon and rest?