Oh, good morning. If you would
open your Bibles with me to Mark chapter 6 is where our lesson
will be found this morning. Mark chapter 6. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord. Our Father, we bow before your
throne of grace this morning. We come before your throne of
grace because that's what you've told us to do that in any time
of trouble, any time of heartache, any time of need, we're to come
and bow before your throne of grace. And Father, how thankful
we are that because of our Lord Jesus Christ, that your children
can come before your throne accepted and have our prayers heard by
the almighty God. Father, we're so thankful. Father,
I thank you for this opportunity to, one more time, meet together
with your people to open your word, to read it and study it,
to sing your praises and have a time of worship. And Father,
I beg of you that you would enable us to do that this morning, to
worship you in spirit and in truth. Father, I pray you bless
your word as it goes forward. You promised that your word would
not return unto you void, but it will accomplish the purpose
for until you send it. And Father, I pray that you would
purpose it to go forth in mercy and grace and power this morning
for your glory and for the good of the hearts of your people.
Father, bless us, we pray. Show us your glory. And what
we pray for ourselves, we pray for our children's classes, we
pray for your other people wherever they meet in different areas
of the world. Father, bless for your great namesake and this
great time of such darkness and uncertainty in the world. Father,
bless your people for your great namesake. Father, we ask all
these blessings in the name and the person of our Lord Jesus
Christ. It's for his sake and his glory we pray. Amen. I titled the lesson this morning,
The Marvel of Unbelief. I took my title from verse six
of Mark six, which says that he marveled because of their
unbelief. Now in our text this morning,
we're gonna see such a clear display of man's unbelief that
the Lord marveled at it. It caused the Lord himself to
marvel at their unbelief. The people of the Lord's hometown
simply refused to believe Christ. And he marveled at it. And do
you know he never came back again? He never came back again. Now,
I understand why this unbelief is in man. Man by nature is dead. So he cannot believe on Christ.
Man cannot spiritually do anything any more than a physically dead
man can get up and walk. Man by nature is dead and he
cannot believe Christ. He doesn't have the ability.
That's what happened to us When Adam fell, we lost the ability
to believe God. We lost the ability to love God,
to trust Him. But this is equally true. Unbelief
is a choice that people make. When you believe something, you
believe it, not because you choose to, you believe it because it's
true, it's undeniably true, that's why you believe it. But unbelief
is a choice that people make. Now, I understand the only decision
a fallen mind can make is to not believe Christ, right? I
understand that. But it is still an active choice
to not believe Christ. Our Lord said that, John 5, verse
40, when he's speaking to the Pharisees, he said, you will
not come unto me that you might have life. I know you cannot,
but you also will not. You refuse to believe Christ. Thomas, one of the Lord's 12,
this man who'd been with the Lord for the three years of his
public ministry, Thomas the believer showed us that unbelief is still
alive and well in every one of us believers. He said, except
I see in his hand the print of the nails, and put my finger
into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side,
where that hole's supposed to be, because where that spear
went through, he said, I will not believe. I won't believe. Unbelief is a choice. Now I want
to give you five characteristics of unbelief that we see here
in our text this morning, and see what can be done about them.
Number one is this, unbelief refuses to believe the obvious,
refuses to. Verse two says, and when the
Sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue, and
many hearing him were astonished, saying, from whence hath this
man these things? And what wisdom is this which
is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought
by his hands? Now these people heard the Lord
speak in great power. They had to admit like those
sent from the Pharisees, never man spake like this man." They
were astonished. They were astonished at his wisdom.
They were astonished at his ability to work miracles, that he would
lay his hands on a dead person and they'd be raised to life.
He'd lay his hands on a sick person and they'd be healed.
They were astonished. And it should have been obvious
to them that the Lord Jesus is the Messiah. There are too many
evidences that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ because he matched,
he fulfilled every Old Testament prophecy of the Messiah. It's
obvious, they should have believed it. It's too obvious to ignore,
but they chose to ignore it. They chose to not believe it.
Now that was true of the Savior and that's true of the gospel
of Christ. The gospel of Christ is obvious. It's so plain and
clear. The word of God cannot make this
more plain to us. that you have to understand it. You have to understand what the
Bible says. Understanding what the scriptures say and understanding
what the gospel says, that's not the problem. It's simply
not the problem. I mean, unless a man just does
not have any ability to speak clearly, you understand what
he's saying when he preaches the gospel. When these men read
the word, you understand what that's saying. The scriptures
can't make this more plain. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation
is not a man's doing. Salvation has nothing to do with
man's character, man's flesh, man's background, man's relations. Salvation is of the Lord. The
scriptures make it so plain. It's on every page. Salvation
is by grace. It's through grace. It's by grace,
it's received through faith and it's by grace not of works lest
any man should boast. That's so obvious in scripture.
Our children understand the gospel. I mean, our children understand
these things that their teachers teach them. They recognize error
when they hear it. The truth of this gospel, the
truth that it matches the scriptures and the power of it The power
to save sinners. The power to give life. The power
to feed and instruct and edify and comfort God's people. It's
undeniable. Yet men do not believe because
they choose to ignore the obvious. They just choose to ignore it. My dear wife and another one
of the ladies from the church one day were having a discussion
with a man that he taught an exercise class. And he made religious
comments throughout the thing. He made it, you know, like one
of the things he said was pray over your food and God will take
the calories out of it and you won't gain weight. Well, I mean,
it just got to the point that they had to talk to the guy about
this, you know. And the subject of election came up and they
had told him, now go home and read the scriptures. And they
came back and they talked next week and he made this statement. He said, it's obvious God chose
the people to save, I just can't believe it. That's man's nature. We read it and it's obvious.
If we don't believe it, I'm telling you, we choose not to believe
it. Now that's just so. Now what can be done about man
ignoring the obvious? We're blind. You and I are so
blind by nature, we can't see the obvious. Well what can be
done about that? Well, the Lord has to show us.
The Lord has to show us the obvious and give us eyes to see the obvious
and a heart to believe it. And I'll tell you this, when
the Holy Spirit gives us eyes to see Christ, every point of
the gospel is obvious. But we can't see it till we see
him. We can't believe it till we believe him. And the way that
the Lord makes that plain to us is through the preaching of
his word. Then I'll tell you this. I am
absolutely determined. I'm going to keep preaching.
God is my helper. As long as God gives me breath,
I'm going to keep preaching it and let's keep praying that the
Lord will let us hear it and he'll give us eyes to see it
and a heart to believe. I know we can't see, but we sure
can't ask God to give us eyes, can we? We sure can. And if you
want things in the scriptures, you want things in the gospel
to be obvious and plain to you. Tell you what to do. Look for
Christ in the message. Look for Christ. Don't look for
all these other points of doctrine and these things people are fussing
and fighting about. Look for Christ. Because if we
see Him in the message, it'll all be obvious to us. All right,
number two. Unbelief. refuses to believe
the gospel. These people of the Lord's hometown,
his friends, his neighbors, the people that watched him grow
up, the people that came into his foster father's woodworking
shop and things, they heard him preach the gospel and they hated
it. They hated it. They refused to
believe it because they hated it. Now, They didn't go home
refusing to believe Christ because the preacher didn't do a good
job. That might happen here sometimes, because the preacher didn't do
a good job. The Lord did a good job. It wasn't because the preacher
had a bad outline. The Lord's outline was himself.
He had a good outline. These people, you think about
this, they heard the incarnate word teach them what the written
word means. They heard the gospel preached
by the prince of preachers. Wouldn't you love to have the
opportunity to hear the Lord Jesus preach the gospel? They
heard the gospel preached by the subject and object of the
gospel himself, and they hated it. I can show you that. Look
at Luke chapter four. This is Luke's account of this
very same day. I know what the Lord's outline
was, His comments came from Isaiah chapter 61. He came to the synagogue
and they delivered to him the scroll and he found the place
and he read Isaiah 61 and verse 21, Luke chapter four, he began
to say unto them, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your
ears. This scripture is all about me. It all points to me. And
all bearing witness and they wondered at the gracious words
which were seeded out of his mouth I mean, the gospel was
preaching in such power and grace, they marveled at it. And they
said, is not this Joseph's son? And he said unto them, you are
surely saying to me this proverb, physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever
we have heard done in Capernaum, do also hear in thy country.
And he said, verily I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in
his own country. But I tell you of a truth. Many
widows were in Israel in the days of Elias. when the heaven
was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was
throughout all the land. But under none of them was Elias
sin, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, under a woman that
was a widow, a Gentile widow. And many lepers were in Israel
in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed,
saving Nahum and the Syrian. Now the gospel was preached.
This is the gospel of God's electing love. This is the gospel of God's
saving grace. the power of his grace, the power,
oh, how he, and they hated it. Look at verse 28. And all they
in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with
wrath and rose up and thrust him out of the city and led him
under the brow of the hill whereon their city was built that they
might cast him down headlong. But he passing through the midst
of them went his way. Now you'll notice the Lord's
neighbors, they didn't deny the power or the wisdom of the Lord's
preaching, did they? They hated it. They chose not
to believe the gospel. They saw his power and they just
wondered, where'd he get it from? They didn't know where he got
his power from, but they recognized he had power. They didn't know
where he got all this wisdom from. He didn't go to our schools
and none of our teachers taught him, They didn't know where he
got this wisdom from, but they knew he had it. Their problem
was not understanding what the Lord said. Their problem was
not, oh, well there's no wisdom in this preaching, there's no
power in this preaching. Their problem was they refused to believe
it. And they refused to believe the
gospel because they hated it. They didn't deny the truth of
it, they just hated the truth of it. They could not accept
that righteousness is a person. Not they're following the laws
and the ceremonies of the mosaic. They couldn't do it. They couldn't
accept that salvation is in mercy for sinners. Sinners of any race,
of every country, creed, color, and nation on earth. No, they
couldn't believe it. They just had to believe grace and mercy
were only for people who were born Jews because of the flesh. They couldn't believe in sovereign
mercy. God showing mercy on whom he would. They're fine with God
showing mercy on whom he would, as long as they're a Jew. But
now, let's not get too carried away and show mercy to these
Gentiles too. They just hated it. They would
not believe it. They wouldn't give up their tradition.
They wouldn't give up their self-importance. These people were steeped. I'm a Jew. I'm one of the Lord's
people. Now, I'm important because who
my mama and daddy are, because I'm related to Abraham, you know. They seem to forget Ishmael was
related to Abraham too. They were so self-important. And they wouldn't lower themselves.
They wouldn't lower themselves to believe the gospel, to beg
Christ for mercy. They would rather justify themselves
before men. rather than humble themselves
before God. See, the problem with unbelief is this. Unbelief
refuses to believe Him. They were offended at Him. That's what verse six says at
the end of verse three, and they were offended at Him, at Him. Brethren, Christ is the issue. Period, Christ is the issue. And the moment we make something
else, an issue, even if we make it an issue to, this is also
an issue, the moment we do that, we've lost the gospel. The issue
is Christ. These people stumbled over Christ,
that stumbling stone. And people that God saves are
saved by being founded on that rock. Christ is the issue. Now I know, you understand, I'm
not saying we're any better than those Jews were in that day.
Not one bit. By nature, you and I love a lie
and hate the truth. That's why we came into this
world. That's why we stumble over the truth. Well, what can be done about
it? Now what can be done about that?
Well, the Lord has to show us the truth. The Lord has to reveal
himself to us. He's the truth of God. And I'll
tell you how that happened. How does the Lord reveal himself
to his people? It's by the preaching of the gospel. Faith cometh by
hearing. Faith in Christ cometh by hearing.
And hearing by the word of God. Now, we cannot give ourselves
faith. But I tell you what we can do.
I can make sure my behind isn't one of these chairs every single
time the door's open. So I hear. I can come ready to hear the
gospel and praying. I can't give myself faith But
I sure can pray, Lord, give me faith. I sure can pray, Lord,
I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. And
if he's gonna do it, he's gonna do it through the preaching of
the word. All right, number three. Isn't this just like reading
today's newspaper? Unbelief is hung up on the irrelevant. Verse
three says, this is them talking, they said, is not this the carpenter?
the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joses, and of Judah
and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended
at him." Isn't it something? People can't see the obvious,
but boy, they sure do see the irrelevant. Isn't that something? They don't see the thing that's
as obvious as the noonday sun, but boy, they see this little
fleck over here. It's irrelevant. The power of the Lord's miracles?
Undeniable. But rather than be amazed at
it and thankful for it, they got hung up on, where'd he get
all this power? The wisdom of the Lord's message?
Undeniable. But rather than listen to it
and believe it, they got hung up on who taught him these things.
Where'd he get this wisdom? You don't learn these things
in a carpenter shop. You know, they kind of felt like
they had something over him, right? He's just a lowly carpenter. Which I thought, you know, is
kind of funny. People might think a carpenter
is kind of lowly work. Wait till you need one. Pretty
handy guys, you know. But they said, you know, he didn't
learn this in the carpenter shop. We want to keep him in his slot.
We got him slotted over here, you know, as kind of a poor working
man. So rather than love the wisdom of his message, they got
hung up on what was his occupation growing up, where he's helping
out his father in the carpenter shop. They got hung up on irrelevant
things about the preacher. Well, who's his mother? His mother's
a nobody. Now, if his mother was somebody,
oh, we'd listen to him. We know his sisters. We know
his brother, isn't it? They're not much. Now, if they
were really something, we'd listen to him, but they got hung up
on his family. They got hung up on his fleshly
heritage, which is the most irrelevant thing in this world, but they
got hung up on the man, so they missed the message. They got
hung up on all these irrelevant, extraneous things, so they missed
salvation in Christ. They missed him. They were so
busy arguing about the irrelevant, they missed what was vital to
their souls. God help us from doing that,
God help us. And I'm telling you this, it's
unbelief. And people do this, I understand. When you become a pastor, if you don't
know this already, you'll find it out quick, but I'd say most
of us know this when we get started. that this is just part and parcel.
People will pick at you. I mean, they're gonna pick at
you. And it's unbelief that causes
that. To make people pick at the preacher
about his background, or about his personality, or about the
decisions he's made in governing the church. How many songs are
we gonna sing? When are we gonna sing them? Things that don't matter one
lick. They get so hung up on those things about the man, they
miss hearing the Savior that he's preaching. It goes on, it's
going on in our world today. God deliver us, God help us.
And you wanna know something that's very sobering about this?
It's worse for a man at home than when he's out on the road,
far from home. Look at verse four. But Jesus said unto them,
a prophet is not without honor, but in his own country and among
his own kin and in his own house. You know, there's a good reason
that the phrase familiarity breeds contempt is an old saying. That's
an old saying, because it's always been true. Familiarity breeds
contempt. It's normally very, very difficult
for a man to pastor in a place where he grew up. It's normally
very, very difficult People just like the Lord, they got him in
a slot over here in the carpenter shop and that's where they want
to leave him. They can't see past it. They
tend to remember him as a little boy. They tend to remember stupid
things he did as a teenager, you know, and they can't get
past it. I'm not going to submit myself to authority, you know,
this fellow that I watched grow up and change his diapers, you
know, and so forth. And they won't give him the respect
that he's due. But almost always, almost always, People respect
and love the preacher who's come from far away rather than the
homegrown. Universally true. Universally
true. And I'll tell you what causes
it, it's unbelief. It's looking at the man rather than the savior
he preaches. Telling you the truth. Unbelief
is what makes us not be able to see past the flesh. The important thing, The important
thing is Christ. It's His glory. I mean, if we
don't do anything else, can't we glorify the Savior? Can't
we do something to talk about His glory? To talk about His
sufficiency? To talk about His sacrifice?
To talk about His power? To talk about His unbelievable
love that He would love sinners like us? Can't we do something
to glorify Him? God's people. come dragging in here on Sunday
mornings and Wednesday nights, now what's going to help them? Is a little morality talk going
to help them? Is a little positive thinking
going to help them? I'll tell you what will help
them. It's telling them one more time about Christ the Savior.
It'll feed their souls. It'll strengthen them to go on
telling you the truth. The only thing is Christ. And that's what God's given us
to do here. But unbelief makes the issue
anything but Christ. And if you don't think it can
happen here, be warned. It's human nature. It will so
easily happen. Well, what can be done about
that? I sure would like to avoid that, wouldn't you? What can
be done about that? Well, the Lord's got to teach us something.
I mean, not just teach it in the head, but teach it in the
heart. This is what's truly important, what I was just saying a minute
ago. It's Christ. He's all that matters. I tell
you what to do when you come to hear the gospel preached.
I said it before, I'm going to say it again. You're starting
to see a pattern here. What can be done about all these
problems of unbelief? Strive to look for Christ in the message
and nothing else. And nothing else. If the Lord
show us Christ, by faith, if he'll show us Christ and focus
our attention on him, we're gonna quit noticing the irrelevant
and the unimportant things. I promise you we will if we see
Christ. We can ask God to show him to
us, can't we? All right, here's the fourth thing. Unbelief cannot
see the glory of God. Now these folks saw the power
of the miracles. They saw the wisdom in the Lord's
messages. But you know what they didn't
see? They didn't see God's glory. They didn't see God's glory.
The glory of God shines in the face of Jesus Christ. Now, we're
not gonna see Jesus Christ physically until we're in glory, but we
can see him now by faith through the preaching of the gospel.
See, we're so blind, we can't see the glory of God that shines
brighter than noonday sun. Well, what can be done about
our blindness? What can we do about this thing of not being
able to see the glory of God? Well, the Holy Spirit's gotta
give us spiritual eyes to see, and we can't give ourselves sight,
but we sure can beg God to give it to us. We sure can beg him
to give it to us. Faith sees the glory of God. If the Holy Spirit gives us eyes
to see and a heart to believe Christ, faith. Sees the glory
of God in this. Now I see how God can save a
wretch like me. And be just in doing. That's
the most glorious thing I've ever heard. That God would love
a sinner like me and he'd save someone like me by the sacrifice
of his son. His glory is not in everything
else that he does. I mean, everything God does is
glorious. You understand what I'm saying?
But this is the glory that faith sees. God could save somebody
like me. Now I see God's glory. All right,
number five. It is unbelief that damns the
soul. Verse five. And he could there
do no mighty work save that he laid his hands upon a few sick
folk and healed them. And he marveled because of their
unbelief. And he went round about the villages
teaching. No more there in his hometown,
but to other villages. Now, it's not that the Lord could
not do any miracles. It's like the unbelief of man
overpowered the power or will of God. That's not what Mark
is saying here at all. Man's unbelief never overpowers
God's will. And aren't you glad? None of
us would be saved. None of us would know God. None
of us would be redeemed. If our unbelief could overpower
God's mercy and grace, no. But the Lord did not work any
miracles there because of unbelief. Because nobody needed Him. That's
why He didn't do any miracles. Nobody needed Him. You read through
the Gospels. The Savior never one time worked
a miracle to show off. You and me. Well, if we could
do those miracles, we'd be doing a show off Our Lord never one
time performed a miracle to show off. It was always to help somebody
in need. He didn't perform any miracles
here because nobody needed him. But you'll notice the Lord did
still perform the miracle of healing on a few sick folk, didn't
he? They needed him. So he did that
for them because they needed him. You know, scripture has
plenty to say about the power of faith, faith in Christ. Abraham
believed God. and it was imputed to him for
righteousness. Faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. Sinners are justified. Sinners
are made without any sin by faith in Christ, by trusting Christ
and not trusting their own works of the law. Scripture is full
of examples like that. And for lack of a better term,
Scripture is full of illustrations of the power of unbelief too.
You know, the Lord often leaves people alone in cases of persistent,
persistent unbelief. The best example I can think
of is Pharaoh. He refused to believe. And finally God, Pharaoh
hardened his heart, Pharaoh hardened his heart, Pharaoh hardened his
heart, and the Lord finally told Moses, now I'm gonna harden his
heart. It's the power of unbelief. In our text, the Lord left that
city and never came back, never worked any more miracles there
because of the unbelief that was there. Unbelief is the most
powerful sin. Unbelief is the one and only
sin that will damn a sinner. Let me show you that in John
chapter eight. John chapter eight. In verse 24, I said therefore
unto you, that ye shall die in your sins. For if you believe
not that I am, you shall die in your sins. Why is it that
you'll die in your sins? Why is it that you'll be condemned?
Because you believe not that I am. Now that unbelief is alive
and well in all of us, even those of us who believe. Well, what
can be done about that unbelief? We can call out and beg God for
mercy. I can't give myself faith. I can't make myself quit not
believing. But I can ask God for mercy.
I can pray, Lord, keep me from unbelief. Keep me from trusting
Christ alone. Make me believe. Don't just give
me faith. Make me believe you. Make me
believe you. Now, I can't end without going
back to verse one in our text in Mark 6. In the midst of all
this unbelief, I mean, this is kind of, it's a little bit discouraging
to spend most of our time in our lesson this morning talking
about unbelief, isn't it? But here's something that's encouraging.
In the midst of all this unbelief, somebody believed Christ. In
the midst of this world of darkness and unbelief Valiant and persistent
choice to hate God to hate the gospel to just hate it Somebody
believes God has a people he always has and he always will
somebody's gonna believe him verse 1 and he went out from
thence and came into his own country and His disciples followed
him Somebody followed him didn't they? Well, that was true in
that day, and that's true in this day. Somebody's going to
follow him. I want to be one of them. How about you? All right,
I hope the Lord will bless that too.