out with tears, the scripture
says, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. This is my cry to the Lord every
day that I live. Lord, I believe, help thou mine
unbelief. In this brief statement, there
are three things. A profession. Lord, I believe. Then a petition. Help thou. And then a problem. My unbelief. And our subject this morning
is unbelieving believers. Unbelieving believers. Lord,
I believe, help thou mine unbelief. It is religious pride in any
of us which would deny that along with our faith, our believing,
there remains in us a great deal of unbelief. Our adversary, the devil, says
to us, if your faith was genuine, you wouldn't be plagued with
so much unbelief. So you must not be a true believer. Well, this man was a true believer.
How do I know that? How do I know this man was a
true believer? I'm going to tell you. Because
only genuine God-given faith working in a person's heart will
bring that person to confess, I have a problem with unbelief. It is divine work which brings the new man to speak
negatively about the old man. It's folks with no problem that
scares me. No unbelief, no doubts, no hang-ups
about anything. They're just skipping along on
the mountaintops to heaven and valleys don't exist. I'm afraid
of that. In accordance with this text
and this man's statement and testimony here, Genuine faith
does not deny unbelief. It confesses it. It confesses
it. I fear there are a great many
people who have been in church for a great many years, just
as many of us have here this morning, and outwardly and openly
profess to be believers, and at the same time question in
their hearts whether they really are. and would cry out with this
man, Lord I believe help thou mine unbelief. May I say as long
as we're in these sin-cursed bodies that's going to be the
case. The spirit which believes God
and the flesh which cannot believe God are never reconciled. There is this warfare Constantly. Galatians 5.17, For the flesh
lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.
And these are contrary the one to the other, so that you cannot
do the things that you would. Our adversary, the devil, tells
you, if you were really a true believer, If you really were
a child of God, everything about you, including this rotten flesh,
would love God. Love God. Love God. But no. We've just read to you that the
flesh lusteth against the Spirit, does not agree. They are contrary
one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you
would. Paul confessed it in Romans And he wasn't fussing at other
people, he was talking about himself. Romans 7, 18 and 19,
For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good
thing. For to will is present with me. Oh yes, I'd like to be right,
I'd like to obey God, I'd like to think just like Christ thinks,
and act just like Christ acts, and respond just like Christ
responds, and speak just like Christ speaks about everything
all the time. He said, To will is present with
me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would do
I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. I find myself not doing, not
thinking, not responding the way I know in my heart I should. And this is not disconcerting
outward deeds that I want to do good and wind up doing bad.
No, it's not that. But it applies to the condition
of heart. I would believe in my heart without
any doubt But yet I find a measure of unbelief, doubting even in
my believing. And this man confessed it so
clearly and petitioned the Lord so earnestly, Lord I believe,
help thou mine unbelief. I want to read a couple of verses
over in the book of 2 Corinthians chapter 11. 2 Corinthians chapter
11, where Paul said, verse 2, 2 Corinthians 11, 2
and 3, he says to the believers at Corinth, For I am jealous
over you with godly jealousy. For I have espoused you to one
husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. He's speaking to God's children
now. And he says in verse 3, But I fear, lest by any means,
as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should
be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. Now he's talking
to the Lord's people. He's talking to God's children.
But he said, I fear, just like the serpent beguiled Eve, that
he would also mess up your thinking concerning the simplicity that
is in Christ. And that word simplicity means
single-mindedness. Paul is simply saying, I fear
that Satan will corrupt your mind. And this is not talking
about him beating your door down, coming into your bedroom or living
room. Through our intermingling with
society, through our mindset of religion in general, Paul
says, I fear that Satan will corrupt your minds to the point
that you'll be looking somewhere else or at somebody else or to
someone else other than Christ. He said, I fear that. You say,
oh, but I get discouraged so easily. Things look so bad sometimes. We tend to forget that no matter
what comes or goes in our lives, our Redeemer does not change
His mind about us. They say, oh, we know that. We
know God don't change. But yet we act like, on the basis
of our conduct, on the basis of our faithfulness, on the basis
of our success or failure, that God thinks differently of us.
He does not change His mind about His children ever. Romans 8.35,
who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Now that statement
of Scripture is not asking who or what shall cause you to feel
like you don't really love Him as you thought you did. Well,
we have those things happen all the time. When you feel like
you don't love Him like you thought you did or once did. He's not
asking that. Romans 8.35 says, Who shall separate
us from the love of Christ? It's asking who or what shall
cause Him not to love you as He always did. Let me just read
you some of that. Romans 8.35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ. Shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness,
or peril, or sword, are we acquainted with any of those things? In
a sense, every moment we live. As it is written, for thy sake
we are killed all the day long, we are counted as sheep for the
slaughter. Nay, And that nay is the answer to the question.
Shall any of these things separate us? Nay. In all these things
we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present nor things to come. Nothing in
the world, nothing that has happened, nothing future, nor height, nor
depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. What about that? That's encouraging. Did you know that discouragement
is sin. Now that's a hard pill to swallow.
We all think we have a right to be discouraged sometimes.
No, we don't. We're disappointed, yes. We have things don't go the way we want,
yes. But discouragement is sin in that it charges God
with thinking less of us than we once thought he did. But that passage in Romans we
just read said that nothing will change God's mind about his children. Paul wrote to the Corinthians
in 2 Corinthians 4 about his trouble. And here's what he said. He's not telling them why he's
had to quit. He's telling them why he can't
quit. 2 Corinthians 4, verses 8 to 10. We are troubled on every
side. He's writing a letter now. And he says, every direction
I look, there's trouble. We're troubled on every side.
yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in
despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Cast down, but not destroyed. Always bearing about in the body
the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might
be made manifest in our body. He's saying it's Christ in me
that don't quit. Paul is not saying I'm above
temptation, I'm above discouragement, I'm above defeat, I'm above quitting. He's not saying any of that.
He's saying Christ in me won't quit. This flesh of ours is nothing
but a quitter. All you've got to do is your
one or two little negatives and you're ready to go to the house.
But there is one living on the inside that wants to keep seeking
God. It's Christ in you, the hope
of glory, that will not quit. We might be guilty of looking
for Him in the wrong places, But Christ in you will not stop
looking, will not quit seeking the Father's feathership and
the Father's good pleasure in our lives. Oh yes. Well, there's three specific
things I want to talk about. Our adversary, the devil, would
pervert our thinking concerning these three things I'm going
to talk about. Three things. Number one, the universal guilt. The universal guilt of Adam's
race. Now as Adam's children, none
are exempt from guilt before our God. Our guiltiness before God is
not just about what we do or don't do, it's about what we
are. We're sinners by nature. Sinners
by birth. That's why then we're sinners
by choice. We don't become sinners because
we sin, but we sin because we're sinners.
Born sinners. It's a universal dilemma. Universal
guilt. The glove of guilt is one size
fits all. Romans 3.23, for all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. Now on a personal level,
it is the nature of fallen nature to compare measures of guilt. But what's the point in you saying,
well, I may be a sinner, but I'm not as bad a sinner as so
and so. I'm not as bad a sinner as he is. I'm not as bad a sinner
as she is. That comparing is not worth anything.
Because no one else is the standard but God Himself. Our Lord said, if you offend
in one point, you're guilty of the whole law. In other words, almost perfection
is totally rejected by God. Doesn't matter how religious
we are, doesn't matter what all you're not guilty of, Just go ahead and confess it.
You're part of this mess, this awful mess of humanity. Which Paul said
in Acts 17.26, are made of one blood. Now if you want to talk
about racial stuff, Might ought to read that first, Acts 17,
26. Made of one blood. That one blood
is Adam. Adam's blood is your blood. The thief's blood is your blood. The murderer's blood is your
blood. The blasphemer's blood is your
blood. the abortionist's blood, the
child molester's blood, the alcoholic's blood, the whoremonger's blood,
the harlot's blood, it's all your blood. God hath made of
one blood all nations of men to dwell upon the face of the
earth. Romans 3.22 There is no difference. You say, well, I know I'm a sinner,
but I'm a little better class of sinner. There is no better
class of sinner. Listen to these words from a
great writer, Robert Hawker. He said, the whole world is in
a state of guilt and condemnation before God. And though some,
from the pride and vanity of their own heart, may fancy themselves
less guilty than others, yet if all of the causes which prevent
sin in one from being so great as sin in another were taken
away, if all these causes were taken away, it would be found
that all are more up on a level than is supposed by us. He's simply saying this, apart
from the providential mercies of God, there is in you and in
me, every one of us under the sound of my voice this morning,
apart from the providential mercies of God, there is in you the capability
of the most vicious and vile sins known to man. There is no way, religion or not religion, there
is no way that you or anyone else need a lesser Savior or
lesser salvation than any other person in the world. I'm talking
about the universal guilt. The subtlety of Satan, Paul referred
to, would convince you, first in a religious sense, that you're
not as bad a sinner as others. But then he'd take you to the
other extreme, that you've sinned too long. You've sinned too much. You've gone too far. There's
no hope for you. In the book of Jeremiah, I was
reading this week, the Lord spake of a condition when men would
say, there is no hope. No, for I have loved strangers
and gone after them. I have loved strange gods and
gone after them. driven by the enemy to despair to the point of saying,
there is no hope for me. What a helpless, hopeless condition. There might be some individual
here today that might feel in your soul and say in your heart, there's
no hope for me. You've listened to the devil.
You've gone too far. You've sinned too much. You've
sinned too long. You've passed the point of no
return. You say it in your heart, but
for your religion you'd say it out loud. There's no hope for
me. But I want to say to you, you're
no worse or no better. than anyone else. It's a universal
dilemma. Universal guilt. That you have been awakened by
the Spirit of God to see it and to know it is not a curse, it's
a blessing. It's a blessing. So not only
the universal guilt, but my second thought Satan would pervert our
thinking about is the unchanging gospel. Now this may be simple. This may not be something you
hadn't heard before. But it's very needful. We don't
need a new lesson every day. We need the same lesson every
day. Universal guilt. Unchanging gospel. And the question
for every heart here this morning is this. What is the gospel word? Is my ruin greater than God's
remedy? Is my disease greater than the
great physician? Do I dare attribute my weakness
as being greater than God's strength? Can he not save me? Do I dare
attribute my sin abounding as being greater than His grace
abounding? Do I dare attribute to Adam's
blood greater power to corrupt than I do to Christ's blood power
to cleanse? Do I dare listen to anyone's
word other than God's word as the authority? What did he say? What did he
say? We hear it so plainly, but we
do not heed it so easily. He said this beautiful scripture
in the Old Testament, Isaiah 118, Come now, and let us reason together. I'm
not talking to the folks sitting in the alleyway and lying in
the gutter drunk this morning or behind bars this morning.
This is good for them, but it's good for you that are doing so
well sitting on the church pew too. Come now and let us reason together
to any and every seeking sinner, Christ says, Come. Come now. Not later. Come now. Come now. He says that to any and every
seeking sinner. But to mouthing Pharisees, He
says, Go. To self-righteous religious hypocrites,
He says, Go. Get away from me. But to every seeking sinner,
He says, come. And can I say that you are one
or the other this morning. You are a seeking sinner, or
you are a religious hypocrite. When you are doing so well, not to need Him, His word to
you is, get away from me. I don't have time for the likes
of you. But to the poor, broken-hearted,
seeking, thirsty, prayer-doubting, unbelieving, yet believing sinner,
the invitation has come. Come now and let us reason together. Quit looking elsewhere. Quit
listening elsewhere. God says, listen to me. Here's
how it is. Here's how it is. Though your
sins be as scarlet. Not if your sins be as scarlet. They are. They are. But though
your sins be as scarlet. You see, your life Your heart,
your being, it's not a white garment that's slightly stained
and maybe gotten just a little bit dingy. No, no, no. He says
you're like cloth, dyed through and through. Scarlet. Sin has done that to you. There's not a speck of white
left anywhere. Not a single thread of righteousness
and purity anywhere. You're dipped and dyed with the
deepest inwrought color, though your sins be as scarlet. Quit thinking about the once
or twice you fell in the ditch. No, that's not it. Your entire
being is a sewer. What you are by nature
is a stench in the nostrils of Almighty God. Your own heart,
religious it may be, Jeremiah said, is deceitful above all
things and desperately wicked. You say, not me. Yes, you. Yes,
me. Though your sins be as scarlet, only the awakened sinner will
ever confess this. All the rest have to go to hell. What a blessed, blessed word
for seeking sinners. Come now, let's talk about it.
Let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet,
that's a fact, they shall be as white as snow. What a contrast.
Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. First
John 1.7, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin. It doesn't get any better than
that. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth from all
sin. You see, the nature and the design
of the gospel is altogether intended for the poor in spirit, those
bankrupt of any righteousness, with absolutely no bargaining
chips, nothing in ourselves to recommend us to God. If you could just quit listening
to you, if you could just Stop up the carnal ears of your mind
and listen to Christ. Believe His words. What did He say? I came not to
call the righteous. You that are making the grade
are not on my list. I came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. Your mind is racing, but I'm
not that bad a sinner. The whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. Your
mind is racing, but I'm not that sick. I'm a good person. I'm
better than most folks. Christ stood in the synagogue
at Nazareth, Luke chapter 4. and said, here's why I'm here.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me
to preach the gospel to the poor. Not the poor financially, but
the poor spiritually. The spiritual bankrupt. Those
with no righteousness. And he said he hath sent me to
heal the broken hearted. There is no healing for the heart
not broken. There is no healing for the heart
not broken. He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
not brokenhearted over what somebody else has done, but brokenhearted
over my own sin and shame and corruption before Almighty God. Christ said, He sent me to preach
deliverance to the captives. This is spiritual language. Those
held captive in the bondage of their own sins. Those who would
say, there's no hope for me. There's no help for me. The devil's
too big. God's too small. The gospel is
not sufficient. Oh, but it is. Oh, but it is. God sent me, He said, to preach
deliverance to the captives, those held in the bondage of
their sin. And He sent me for the recovering
of sight to the blind. Now you know in the full Gospels,
when our Lord walked this earth several times, He healed blind
people, physical healing, opened their eyes. But that's not what
He's talking about here. To recover sight to the blind.
There are none so blind as those who cannot see. Redemption in
Christ as sufficient for me. And then he said, he sent me
to set at liberty them that are bruised. What's he talking about? Well, we could say rightly, none
are so bruised as those who sit under the gospel year after year
after year after year while Satan beats on them with his lies and
says it's not for you. It's for everybody but you. You're
too bad. You've gone too far. You've sinned
too much. You've waited too long. Oh no, we're talking about the
unchanging gospel. It's the same for sinners young
and old. It's the same for religious sinners
and non-religious sinners. It's the same for the little
child, too young to know anything about what we call sinful things. but yet has the same wicked heart
that you have and I have. It's for the old who for many
years have violated, rebelled, gone against, taken her own way,
and ignored the precious message of God's grace through His Son
Jesus Christ. It's the same unchanging gospel. for all of us. Let me just give you some titles.
I know our time's about gone and I'm hurrying. Let me give
you some titles of this in the New Testament. It's the glorious
gospel of the blessed God. But if it's not big enough to
save you, it's not glorious at all. It's called glad tidings of good
things. If it can't help you, it's not
glad tidings at all to you. It's called great joy to all
people. Great joy to all people. If it's
not for you, it's no joy at all to you. This gospel is called
the unsearchable riches of Christ. If you cannot be saved, It's no riches at all. You bankrupted
it. It's called the exceeding abundant
riches of His grace. If it's not for you, it's no
grace at all for you. This gospel is called the Word
of Life. But if it be not for you, it's
no life at all. It's the Word of Death. It's
called salvation. But if it can't save you, it's
no salvation at all. It's called plenteous redemption. If it's not for you, it's not
plenteous at all. It's no redemption at all. But how, you ask, how can it
be for such a sinner as I? Well, I'm going to tell you how. Because it is not a proposed
mercy depending on your merit, but on Christ's merit. The gospel
of Christ is not about you qualifying yourself to be among those deserving. It's about Christ, the deserving
one, dying for the undeserving. This salvation, this gospel is
the free, unmerited gift of God to us in Christ. And in this, in this, with this
understood, the very best of saints have nothing to boast
of as recommending he or she to God. And neither do the lowest
of saints need despair. Why? It is all of grace. Our
acceptance with God is not in our performance, but in the performance
of our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank God for this unchanging
gospel in a changing world with changing people that changes
every day Thank God for the unchanging gospel. And the final thought,
the unfailing grace. The unfailing grace. I hear preachers
say, God's done His part, now you do yours. Christ has done
His part, now you do yours. The truth is, this is a covenant of grace established
in eternity between the triune God, Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost. And the truth is you don't have
a part. God determined the payment for
sin. Christ suffered and endured that
payment for sin. And the blessed Holy Spirit seeks
and calls and woos and draws the hearts of those whom God
has chosen and Christ died for. When he cried on that cross,
it is finished! The debt was paid. You can add
nothing to it. You just believe that or you're
out. John 8.24, if you believe not
that I am He, He who satisfied my Father for your sin, If you
believe not, then you shall die in your sins. Religion says buckle
down and do. God says believe it is done. That's the difference. It's called an everlasting covenant
of grace. And I remind you what God has
made everlasting. No man can make temporal. Jeremiah
32, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will
not turn away from them to do them good, but I will put my
fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me. Aren't you glad you have the
fear of the Lord in your heart this morning? I know it's not
all it should be. We fail. and we falter, but oh,
to have the fear of the Lord in our hearts at all, how blessed
we are. It is in this covenant of grace,
established in the merit of Christ, that a holy God can be just and
at the same time, justifier of sinners like you and I. of all
who believe in Jesus. He who knew no sin was made sin
for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. John 6.37, All that the Father
giveth me shall come to me. Are you interested in coming
to Him? Then you're part of the all. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. John 7.37, if any man thirst,
he never said any good man, or any moral man, or any rich man. He said if any man thirst, the
secret is the thirst. Don't ever be guilty. of hearing
the gospel of God's grace and of the atoning sacrifice of Christ's
blood and then ask, can God? Can God do anything for somebody
like me? Well, the answer is He can. He can. Don't ever think your
sins are too great. I was reading this week David
in Psalm 25. He cried to the Lord, not on
the basis that his sins were minor and few. He wasn't saying,
Lord, be merciful to me because I haven't been as bad as some
people I know. No, no. He wasn't pleading on the basis
of the fewness of his sins, that his
sins were minor, but just the opposite. He cried, Lord be merciful
unto me, forgive my sin, for it is great. Great. And the problem this morning
is not how much sin you have, it's how bad you want it forgiven.
Is there a thirst to be right with Him? This, Paul
said, is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am
chief. I'm the top dog. There's never
been a bigger sinner than me, is what Paul the Apostle is saying.
Of course, if God the Holy Spirit ever comes to your heart, you'll
be willing to testify the same thing and will. Paul said, He
did it for me. He can do it for you. Lord, be merciful to me. As all of us here this morning
are surely unbelieving believers. Unbelieving believers. Lord,
I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. stand together with me. Thank you for your attention.