Confirmed In His Unbelief

Unbelief Sign bewareLast time we met I wrote, “The only way you cannot believe in God is to ignore the evidence. His power over all creation is obvious for all to see. We are without excuse if we choose not to believe in Almighty God. When man refuses to acknowledge God’s existence and give Him the glory He deserves, then ingratitude and ignorance enter into a person’s heart.”

If we will not believe in God, Paul tells us it will be replaced with ingratitude and ignorance that eventually ends up in spiritual darkness:

    “because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” (Romans 1:21)

God has had to deal with unbelievers since He created man. About the Israelites rebellion, Moses wrote:

    “They have corrupted themselves; they are not His children, because of their blemish: a perverse and crooked generation. Do you thus deal with the Lord, O foolish and unwise people? Is He not your Father, who bought you? Has He not made you and established you?” (Deuteronomy 32:5-6)

It is unfortunate that man trusts in his own goodness and intelligence when it comes to the issues of life. God has laid out before us not only the plan of salvation, but also a plan for living here on earth prior to being with Him in heaven. It’s called Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth, the Bible. We reject the natural evidence, and we also reject the physical evidence.

What man forgets and could be reminded of if he would read his Bible, is that we provoke God with our disbelief:

    “Nevertheless they were disobedient and rebelled against You, cast Your law behind their backs and killed Your prophets, who testified against them to turn them to Yourself; and they worked great provocations.” (Nehemiah 9:26)

Nehemiah is delivering a bad news, good news story about how God deals with man’s rebellion:

    “Therefore You delivered them into the hand of their enemies, who oppressed them; and in the time of their trouble, when they cried to You, You heard from heaven; and according to Your abundant mercies You gave them deliverers who saved them from the hand of their enemies.” (Nehemiah 9:27)

What happens to man’s mind when he becomes futile (or vain as the KJV renders Romans 1:21) in his thoughts? Commenting on this, John Phillips writes:

    “The more he learns, the more he becomes high and mighty in his rationalism and confirmed in his unbelief. He feels that human science and philosophy make belief in God unnecessary.”

I would add when Christians start trusting their own rationalism, they make obedience to God unnecessary. The Bible is wrought with stories of this danger. Our ignorance, caused by our ingratitude, leads us astray from God. We become fools in our thoughts and are lead by them into spiritual darkness. Our unbelief becomes our downfall.

More on that next time…

In Christ
Dave
Ps. 37:4

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    Copyright © 2013 David Jeffers

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