The Sin of Unbelief¹

3. Conclusions

W S Plumer

1. What a dreadful thing is sin! It is so daring, so stubborn, so mischievous, so ruinous to man, so dishonouring to God.

2. What mercy is found in God providing a Saviour, offering Him to our acceptance, waiting on ungrateful and rebellious men so long, and actually leading many to the Saviour!

3. What a dreadful doom awaits those who will not be reclaimed! “It shall be more tolerable for . . . Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgement than for” them. “Unbelief brings greater guilt” and sorer punishment “than the sins of the worst of heathens, who never heard of these glorious things, nor have had this Saviour offered to them.” “The moth shall eat them up like a garment,” says God; “and the worm shall eat them like wool, but My righteousness shall be for ever, and My salvation from generation to generation” (Is 51:8).

4. Let us guard carefully against that great parent of unbelief, a self-righteous temper, which says, I am holy, I am clean, I am pure. “If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain” (Gal 2:21). To expect heaven on the ground of your own merit is, says Jonathan Edwards, to “arrogate to yourself the honour of the greatest thing that ever God Himself did. . . To take on yourself to work out redemption is a greater thing than if you had taken it upon you to create a world.” A self-righteous spirit is fatal to the soul.

5. “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God” (Heb 3:12). It dishonours and provokes God. It grieves the Saviour (Mk 3:5). It grieves the Holy Spirit of promise. An attack of fever is not so bad as an assault of unbelief.

6. The great business assigned us on earth by God Himself is believing – believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. When the multitude said to Jesus, “What shall we do that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said

¹Taken, with editing, from The Rock of Our Salvation. Previous articles have given scriptural reasons why unbelief is so serious. This is the final article in the series.

unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent” (John 6:28,29). So when the jailor cried, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Paul and Silas said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 16:30,31).

This is the tenor of all Scripture. It is only by faith that we enter into rest. Be sure you truly believe, for “without faith it is impossible to please” God. “Till you have this faith,” writes Richard Baxter, “you have no special interest in Christ. It is only believers that are united to Him, and are His living members. And it is by faith that He dwells in our hearts, and that we live in Him (Eph 3:17, Gal 2:20). In vain do you boast of Christ if you are not true believers. You have no part or portion in Him. None of His special benefits are yours till you have this living, working faith.” The law presses until we believe. Forgiveness and acceptance do not come till we close in with Christ: “He that believeth on Him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already”. Why, O why, do not all perishing sinners flee to Christ? Why will men involve their souls in deeper sin and more alarming danger by persisting even for an hour in the rejection of Christ?