Help Thou Mine Unbelief | Bill Moseley | 5.10.26

Mark 9:24

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Thankful to be here and thankful to have this great opportunity to uh assemble. We desire that the Lord will continue to be with us. I appreciate that sweet prayer. Desire that you continue to pray. That the Lord would anoint, that he would help, and give us something beneficial for us and glorifying to him to set him in our hearts first priority this morning. Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and his rightness. This morning, uh I want to delve into a subject of um it's a little uh it's it's a negative, but I hope that we can see the positive. I want to try to look at a subject of unbelief. Unbelief. That is a problem that we all have, whether we know it at the moment or not, we do have unbelief. In um in the Roman letter, well, let me let me just say, first of all, unbelief is the enemy of belief. It opposes belief. And believing is a trusting in what God has said. Trusting that God is true, trusting that he will do all his good pleasure, and none can stay his hand or say, What doest thou? Believing is understanding that we love him because he first loved us. Now I know that's a theological saying that we say all the time, but believing that is of the most utmost importance, is that God loved us first, not us loving him. Believing is trusting that, that God will never leave us nor forsake us. He'll be with us in six troubles, and in the seventh he'll not forsake us. Believing is trusting that what he said is true, holds fast, and cannot be shaken. It won't fail. That God will not fail. In all of his doings, in all of his purpose, God will prevail and complete his purpose, which is to have his family with him when time is no more, that he'll not lose a one. Believing is trusting that he will not lose a one. Believing is him telling us what our behavior should be like. Believing and trusting that when he taught us how to interact with others, that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Believing is trusting that that's true, that we live a better life if we trust his saying that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Why? Because you love yourself. There is no doubt about it. I'm telling you, whether you think it at the moment, uh you love yourself. You may you may hate yourself in your mind, but I'm telling you, you you love yourself. And the body is built that way. The body will fight for survival. I've seen it. At the day of one's death, I've seen one who I I felt like was one of the most faithful men that that body wanted to live, and that body fought to live, grasped for every breath he could get. That body wants to live. So we love ourselves. The Lord told us we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Do we trust that? Do we believe that? Do we live that as our very core of our objectives in life is to trust what the Lord Jesus Christ has taught us through the through the scriptures given, all scripture given by inspiration of God? Do we believe that to be the truth? That all scripture is given by the inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished? Do we believe it is a thorough furniture? I think there are times, well, Jimmy, I do I do feel that belief. I feel the confidence in what the Lord has given us. But there are the times when I find myself in unbelief. Now let's establish by two scriptures, two witnesses, unbelief. I want to center now around, I've been talking about belief, but I want to talk about the enemy of belief. And that enemy is unbelief. That unbelief that's in our members, in our body, in our mind, in our heart, it is a resistance against what God has said. Let's take good inventory of ourselves and see what the truth that is really there, that there are times when I doubt. Both from an internal problem, and that is the weakness of the flesh. The Lord said, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. You see, the paradox between the spirit that's within you is perfect. That spirit, that inward man, Brother Elton, does not sin. It does not have unbelief. But that spirit is made subject to vanity. It's made subject to that old unbelieving mind of mine, that warfare going on in my mind when I begin to doubt and to fear and to be persuaded of the wrong forces. But let's just look and see and make sure we understand. I'm not talking about any part of this having a bearing on your eternal home in heaven. Just to be blunt. It has nothing to do with being delivered home to God in heaven. Unbelief does not shake God's faith. For what if some did not believe? What if some did not? Did that make the faith of God without effect? Paul says it with an exclamation point. God forbid. God forbid. God forbids our unbelief to make his faith without effect. God's faith delivers us home to heaven. Paul would say this over in one of the Timothy letters. If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself. So our unbelief, and he even says that as if we believe not. Believe not equals unbelief. By the way, the word unbelief is not in the Old Testament. Nowhere. I got a search engine and it does not find the English word unbelief in the Old Testament. So did that mean that they did not have unbelief in the Old Testament? No. You just find it in words like believe not or did not believe. Or they they resisted, or they they had other words that it means the same. But they had unbelief, but yet their unbelief did not make the faith of God without effect, and their unbelief did not cause him to deny himself. He will not deny himself. Unbelief does not touch your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. However, unbelief does touch our life in our confidence, our joy, the things that we understand and brings deliverances from this old untoward generation. Our unbelief touches us greatly in our race that we run. I'll take you over to Paul's writings where he said, looking, let us let me, let me. I believe it's 12. Let us, he said, wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin. And the sin. One single sin. You mean there's only one sin to be concerned about? At the root, yes, one sin. One sin gets in my way. It is a weight that I cannot win with it on my back. He said, Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us. Let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Stop right there on that. This one sin, and I'm going to say that that one sin is unbelief. That is the root cause effect of every sin that takes place. John would align sin in a summary of three things: the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. You won't find any sin that's manifested in the flesh that's not in the categories that John aligned them with. That is sin in a nutshell. Now I know that that's three different categories of sin. But I would challenge you to look at anything that is in those categories, and we could even expand them out, then to say over here in the Galatian letter, and it talks about the works of the flesh are manifest in these. Now the work in the fifth chapter of the book of Galatians, Paul would list out things. Now the work, the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these adultery, fornication, uncleanliness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, sedition, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like. Even this may I'm not going to get to everything, but they're such like. They're like those things that are manifested in the flesh. And those things are the things which are against God. You will not do those things believing. I'm talking about in an active, tactic, day-to-day walk-life time, you will not do those if you are in the condition of believing. If you, and I remember we used to do problem solving and stuff, and what we would do is get these high-level things, and we wanted to do analysis on those things. Well, we would draw out a fishbone thing, and you know, it's kind of easy to remember, fishbone. And what you do is you take that thing like murder, and then you would you would then break that out and say, well, why did this happen? And you might have several things that would be the cause of them thinking that that needed to be done or wanted to be done. And you then would find out, well, why did they think that? Or what brought them to this, and you just keep bringing it down through what causes what, and you just keep asking why, and you get the next level answer, and by the time you get down here, finally you go down, and I'll say that every single one of those sins, every sin of the flesh, both outwardly manifest and inwardly manifest, and sins can be inwardly manifest, and sins can be committed and some omitted. It's not always what I do, sometimes it's what I don't do. Well, my friend, every sin, if you take it to its final conclusion, the final root cause of all sin, and you'll get down to one sin that does so easily beset us, and that is unbelief. Unbelief is the root cause, enemy against believing. Unbelieving. And unbelieving is one of those things that is very personal to you. What causes that unbelief is still it's not of God. It doesn't come of the Spirit. God has said, I can do all things. And unbelief says, well, there's maybe, maybe something God can't do. You see, what happened is I let room for unbelief to creep in. Some says God created all things. Well, did he make that? There's a point right there, is that you have opened the door to unbelief. If you give credibility, you give authority to untruth, it leads you through the door of unbelief, which is the enemy of belief. Now it could be that I, as we heard a good sermon here many years back, if I underestimate God, or I overestimate man. That's two different categories, two different extremes that causes me trouble whenever I find myself in unbelief. And unbelief, again, it won't keep me from heaven, but my friends, it'll keep me from seeing heaven. It'll keep me from entering into rest. I want to go over to, before we quit, I want to come over and see that uh in the third chapter of the book of Hebrews, because then we begin to find what is the results of unbelief. The results of, because it doesn't keep me from heaven, but it will keep me from something. And we'll try to get there in a moment. As we continue to go through this, unbelief, it's a very destructive thing that we can get ours, we can find ourselves in. And the pro, you know, the real unsettling thing is I have a lot of unbelief. I had to pray right before I got up here, Lord help my unbelief. We sang that song, Lord, I believe, and it ends in a very good point. Lord, help thou my unbelief. Because every day I get up, I begin to walk around and I find myself close to that unbelief. Way more. And I'd rather be in the belief category. Believing, by the way, also, let's go back to that, because this is kind of a comparison, unbelief and belief. Believing won't get you to heaven either. Believing is not a cause for your eternal life, has nothing to do with causing about that eternal life. Believing, my friends, is a work. Unbelieving is a work too. But believing is a work, and we know that we're not saved by works. We're saved by grace through faith, and know yourself, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And we find works is our believing is a work because there were some disciples that asked Jesus, what shall we do that we might do the work of God, the works of God? And Jesus said, Believe on me. That's a work. That's a work. Work will not get you to heaven. Belief will not get you into his good favor. You have to already have faith to get to belief. We believe by faith. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. Faith is the evidence that we believe on. We walk by faith and not by sight. So therefore, by that by that evidence of faith, we believe. That's what evidence we're basing that belief on. And the fathers they walked by faith, and they obtained a good report. They obtained that good report from God. That belief, that working, walking as God has said. In the third chapter of Romans, it talks about Abraham. It says he staggered not through unbelief. But you know what? He went as God had told him. He staggered not. Whenever God said, Take thy son, thine only son, upon the mountain, Abraham staggered not through unbelief. So I kind of got a definition there that unbelief means staggering. Staggering? Let's draw it down and find out where that staggering come from. That staggering would come through, if he had staggered, it would be, God said he won't die. He hadn't had a son yet. But I don't know about that. I don't know if I want to take a chance on that. I don't know if I want to follow that advice to take that son. That would be staggering. That would be drawing back. That would be resisting what God has said, but he staggered not through unbelief. Unbelief is a staggering at what God said. It's a pullback. You know how you want to lead a child along and you're taking them, and then in his mind, he don't want to go there, so he draws back. He pulls back from you, not wanting to go where you're leading. That's staggering. That's an unbelief category. So this unbelieving, my friends, is a drawback. It is a opposition. It is an enemy to believing. I want to come over here to Mark chapter 9. Let's look at a we'll just we'll call this a case study, if you will. Gee, the 19th verse, 9 and 19, let me come over up and get where the in the 14th verse, that's the beginning of the paragraph. And when he came to his disciples, he saw a great multitude about them and scribes questioning with him. And straightway all the people, when they beheld him, were greatly amazed, and running to him saluted him. And he asked the scribes, What question ye of them with them? And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit, and whosoever he taketh and wheresoever he taketh him he teareth him, and he foameth and gnasheth with teeth, and pineth away, and I spake to the disciples that they should cast him out, and they could not. And he answered and said, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him unto me. And they brought him unto him, and when he saw him straightway the spirit tear him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed foaming. And he asked his father, how long is it ago since this came upon unto him? And he says of a child were twenty two. And oft times he hath and oft times it hath cast him in the fire and into the water to destroy him, but if thou canst do anything, have compassion on us and help us. This is a desperate situation. This is serious. This is a father watching his son go through this torment. It's real and it's destructive. And more especially, it's destructive to his son. He's concerned. He's looking for. And I might say he is sincerely looking. This man needs help. Nothing's helped before. It looks pretty hopeless. Now remember, he said, you faithless generation. He's doing this in front of the front of a bunch of faithless, I might just interject the word there, unbelieving generation. He's doing it in front of a bunch of faithless, that's what unbelieving means. Faithless, that is not acting by faith. Faithless generation. He needs help. Jesus said unto him, if thou canst believe, if thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. Believing is a good place to be. Believing is a good condition to be in. Believing in and of itself. If thou canst believe, be positive. If thou canst believe that all things are possible, why is it possible here and it hasn't been before? Because now Jesus is on the scene. Jesus is the one, it's not just believing out there in any old thing, it's believing in something very particular. It's believing in the source of the deliverance. All things are believing, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cries out and says with tears, Lord, Lord, addressing him with that reverential voice of believing. Lord, it's the same voice that Paul would speak, Lord, what would you have me to do? A much, a big change had come over Saul of Tarsus to either address him, Lord, what would you have me to do? He is addressing with reverence and with believing, Lord, I believe halt thou my unbelief. I believe what? I believe all things are possible for you to do. I believe that you are the very physician that we can look to in the time of need. Do not underestimate your power. I believe the power that you hold. I believe you are the source of help. I believe that you are the one that all things are possible unto you. What a wonderful place to be, to have that belief, to know that confidence. Lord, I am confident in you. I am confident in what you can do. But then he realizes that enemy of belief. He realizes, wait a minute, I can't do anything. I myself, I am helpless in this condition. He has a realization of himself right here. But I'm going to tell you, in this condition, he is in the best place that he can be to know I'm a creature of unbelief, but I believe in the one that is able. You see, here how he can he can find that confidence in the Lord, and he says, Help thou mine unbelief. No, I believe he's saying, Lord, take away that unbelief that's in me. He realizes, friends, he can't get rid of unbelief even without the Lord. He needs the Lord to help him, not just his son only, but Lord, take away my belief. Take away that doubt. Take away that fear. Take away that uncertainty. Replace that insecurity with a confidence. Give me that outlook of positive. You are able to do all things that whatsoever you desire, Lord, is in your hands, not mine. Help mine unbelief. Take away that unbelief in me. What I kind of take from that is that that is a confession of unbelief. He's confessing, I believe, but I've got that unbelief always to contend with. This is a really close companion to Romans chapter 7. When Paul would say, When I would do good, evil is present with me. That which I would believe, I do not. That which I would not unbelieve, I do. Paul would have it his expression in there, and I believe this is a very close companion to what Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief. Take away that unsureness, take away that that doubting and that fear, that trying to make logic fit, that trying to figure out things by natural wisdom, take away that dependency upon my own strength. Take away that self-righteousness. Take away that fear of always coming up short. My friends, if it's that fear, we'll always come up short. The taking away of that is to see he is our fullness. He is in our righteousness, he is in our confidence. Being confident of this very thing, he that hath begun a good work in it shall perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. Help thou my unbelievable. Help me, Lord, in that doubting. Help me get take that away. When Jesus saw the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him and enter no more into him. And the spirit cried and rent him and sore and came out of him, and he was as one dead, insomuch that many said he is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. And when he was come to his house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could we not cast him out? And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting. There, my friends, I believe, is the is the answer to this overcoming of the of the unbelief is that prayer and fasting that we do. And that's not necessarily fasting of food, necessarily, but it can be the fasting of our own indulgences of our own mind, and praying that the Lord would help me get over myself. Help me to not doubt what he calls me to speak. My friends, I have to have that grace to overcome that unbelief. Because it's in him that we live, move, and have our being. Now let's look at the result. Let's come over here to Hebrews chapter 3. And we talk a lot about this because this is going back in time. Paul goes back in time to the children of Israel as they came out of Egypt by God's mighty hand. You'd think there would never be any doubt by anybody after they see the Red Sea part, after they come out over there through dry feet, no mud, not bogged down, but delivered by the sea being divided, and the enemy being drowned in that same sea, and coming out and receiving water from a rock, and having the manna flow down to them day by day, but yet they go to Canaan, they send the spies over, and Joshua and Caleb come back with a cluster, one cluster of grape, and it's big enough that it takes them both to bear it on their shoulders on one stave. So great it takes two men to carry this one cluster of grapes. That is overwhelming evidence. The ten come back, the other ten come back, and they say, We're like grasshoppers in front of those guys. Look, those guys are so big, they're so tough, they're so much, they're so God must have had it wrong. God must have had it wrong. I'm paraphrasing of what I believe they the spirit they came back in. We cannot go over there. We'll certainly be wiped out. It's too, there's too strong, there's too many, there's too much. That is a spirit of unbelief. Why? Because God said, Go in, go take it. I'll go before you. I, the one that was the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud. I that gave you water from a rock, I that gave you manna, I that gave you this, I that did this, I am creator, I said, Go in, I'll go before you. Don't worry. And yet, they bonked. They even said this. I've always known this is kind of where all men, men and women and people kind of go to, well, if we want something really struck down, let's just talk about how bad it is for the kids. Well, we got kids with us. You know, there's a good reason to unbelieve. God said, go in. Guess what? Those kids were hid, they were gods before he gave it to them. We got all these kids, we cannot go in there. God said, You go in. They said no. They balked at it. Even at the even with the evidence mounting in front of them, and they would not go in. They brought on God's wrath, and they knew it. They knew they brought on God's wrath. God turned them and he said, You go into the wilderness. You go in there and you're gonna you're gonna go for 40 years. That's a pretty long time, 40 years. You're gonna go in there and you're gonna wander. It's not a huge place. It is a big, it's a pretty good sized desert, but that's a place you could probably get through in a day or so. But they just had them wander in that wilderness. But you know, before they they went into the wilderness, Brother Jimmy, they tried to go in. They said, no, no, we'll we'll go in. I said, no, too late. Too late. Your unbelief has stirred up the wrath of God, and he said, You'll not go in. You'll not go into that rest. That was going to be a place of resting for your feet. No more, no more journeying. You'll be in the land promised to Abraham. You'll be in that place, and I will I will make it a the home, it's a home of flowing with milk and honey, in a place that you did not plant, and it will reap to you. But they, in their unbelieving, stirred up God's wrath, and he turned them into the wilderness. Let's see. Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith, today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, unbelief. That's what that means. Harden not, or to harden your heart means unbelief. Harden not your hearts, as in the day of provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, saying, They have always erred in their hearts. They do always err in their hearts, and they have not known my ways. So I swear in my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest. Take heed, brethren, lest there be any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God, but exhort one another daily while it's called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. There's a cause of unbelief, is the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end. While it is said today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation, for some, when they had heard, did provoke, how be it not all that came out of Egypt by Moses, but with whom was he grieved forty years? Was it not with them that had sinned whose carcasses fell in the wilderness, and to whom swear he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believe not. So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. They could not go in to that promised land because of their unbelief. But let's see what the other side of that is. It is an entering into that belief. He in the fourth chapter, the let's come on down here to the third verse. For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he saith, I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest, though although the works were finished from the foundation of the world, for he spake in a certain place of the seventh day, on this wise God did rest the seventh day from his works. And in this place again, if they shall enter into my rest, seeking therefore it remaineth that some must. Enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief. Who was referred to the Jews? They entered not. This is the picture here of the church as it comes. It's not of the old Jewish lifestyle and living. It's of a new and a living way. He said, again, he limited a certain day, saying in David, today, after so long a time as it is said, today, if you will hear his voice, if we will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. For if Jesus had given them rest, then would they not afterwards have spoken of another day. There remaineth, therefore, a rest to the people. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labor, therefore, to enter in to that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. So that's all an example. Let me tell you how I see the remedy to unbelief. Believing what the scripture has said, believing the gospel, walking after the gospel message, walking after the message of God's sovereignty, of God's choice of his people, of God's giving that grace in his commandments that were to follow his teaching and his examples that he has given us, following the ordinances of the church which testify about him, and seeing our strength is in him and not ourselves, and seeing it in his work and not our works, ceasing from our works and following after his work. This was the message of the gospel was given by the Lord Himself to the apostles, and the apostles have uh have recorded them, they have explained them in Scripture, moved by the Holy Ghost, to be uh delivered and committed to us, leading them down right beside us, giving us access to God's word, to follow after his teaching, putting away our own understanding and leaning upon him and his strength and his power, and knowing, my friends, that this power comes through the gospel messenger, it comes of full assurance to our hearts. It's in love and in power and of the Holy Ghost and of full assurance to our hearts, where we today, we today can continually look to the word of God. Do you know the more I look to the word of God, the less I look to myself. The closer I get a view of Him, is the better I get a good look at me. The more I see of His strength, the more I see of my dependence. The more I see of His rest is the more I see of my rest. That I rest in Him. And by the life in the church, by living under the gospel, by singing the songs of Zion, by praying with the saints, I find there, friends, the place of that rest. That place that the Lord hath designed in this world, a simple place, not a complex thing of uh a lot of movement. There's not a lot of things that we have to do in a traditional way, even. It is simple, it is common sense, it's not difficult. Matter of fact, he said, uh present your body a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. The Lord doesn't put a lot of heavy lifting on us, he did the heavy lifting. We bear his, he said, take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I'll give rest unto your souls. Our unbelief is overcome in the belief, in the believing, actively believing, calling to mind, calling to heart that he is able. If every day I got up and I would just realize he is able. He is able. And he has given us the light. And we, my friend, my friends, do enter in to his rest when we have ceased from our own works. It's not a work. Aren't you so glad, my friends? If it was by works, my friends, I would, I would, I'd have a real good reason to unbelieve. I'd have a real good reason to hold on to that unbelief. But my friends, let go of that unbelief. Stagger not. Stagger not, but follow after him. You know that's the first thing he tells his his apostles when he sees them by the by the sea, down by their boat. The first thing he says, come follow me. Come follow me. That's a very simple call. But that's a call to you. Come follow him. Follow him in baptism, call to follow him then in a life and walking by the footsteps of the flock and holding holding to that path, my friends, the old path, wherein is the good way. That's what we want to live in here in the church. I I thank you this morning.