The Call

Everything on The Consider Podcast and website has to do with the call for all men and women to repent. Such is an offer of mercy for those willing to follow Jesus by hating their life and picking up their cross. After all, even the demons believe in God, but they are terrified. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that–and shudder. James 2:19

---

The Sin of Unbelief

Audiobook

Text The Sin of Unbelief

The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent. (Exodus 33:11)

Moses spoke to God face and face and today we have a greater covenant than his. Therefore, we should be able to say, “I speak to and listen to God better than Moses.” But, alas, how little true faith we find in the church today.

Unbelief is the inspiration of Satan and the ultimate sin of man. Men’s hearts are so darkened that they can look at the stars and the planets and declare there is no God. Man cannot even hear the voice of the stars declare there is a God.1 Man either ignores the voice or worships the stars. How blackened is the heart of man who can go to church to worship the living God but doubt that He speaks to him whom His Son died for. Men in this sickened state read the Bible and conclude it declares God is silent today.

How often Jesus was moved by holy frustration to exclaim, “How long shall I put up with you?” Unbelief caused our Savior to desire to hurry to heaven, asking those who doubted, “How long must I stay with you?”

“O unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you and put up with you? Bring your son here” (Luke 9:41)

Only a perverted heart, darkened by sin’s blackness, would dare test God by asking, “Does God speak to His children today?” But, alas, many standing in pulpits preach that all we need is ink on paper, the Bible. And vastly more people know God speaks to His children but have not really heard His voice. All because we are an unbelieving and perverse generation that would rather hear our own voices than the voice of our Creator.

Let us confess with the deepest of mourning and tears that to doubt that God speaks today as the vilest of sins. Jesus flatly tells us, “My sheep listen to my voice.” In many things, Jesus spoke in parables, but not so when it came to hearing God’s voice. Jesus clearly declared that His sheep listen for His voice and follow that voice.

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. (John 10:27)

In truth, all men listen to a voice. A man either listens to the voice of God or the voice of Satan.2 There is no middle ground. Those who do not listen for the voice of God listen to the voice of Satan.

Today, the old Serpent asks, “Does God really talk to men?” just as he did in the Garden of Eden when he asked Eve, “Did God really say?” Satan caused Eve to doubt her Creator’s instructions. And now today, as sin increases3, Satan continues to ask, “Does God really say.” Many in church believe that God does not talk to His sheep. Unbelief is taught as if it were faith to believe God is silent. It is darkness called light and bitter labeled sweet.

Only a darkened heart and a bad conscience causes one to believe God does not talk to His children. What would you think of someone who went around telling children that their earthly father would no longer talk to them? What would you think of a parent who told a small child that his dad did not talk to him anymore? That all that dad wanted the son or daughter to do was read some letters about him and obey those letters? They would never hear their father’s words of comfort or rebuke, nor feel the arms of an embrace. We would become indigent with this preacher, yet we tolerate, even embrace, Bible colleges, pastors, teachers and denominations that live lives of unbelief and teach that to listen for God’s voice remains a thing of the past. That somehow, now that we have the Bible, ink on paper, God will not talk to His children. Well, let us look at what the ink on paper declares and repent of all unbelief.

You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. (2 Corinthians 3:3)

We cannot claim salvation in Jesus Christ if we do not believe that God talks to His children. To claim the salvation of Jesus without hearing the voice of God makes someone a dead Pharisee without hope of heaven. Such people resemble a bride who is more in love with the letters her groom sent rather than the embrace of his arms. Again, Jesus spoke clearly and to the point: No one becomes a true Christian without hearing the voice of God. No one remains saved unless they are individually “taught by God.”

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. (John 6:44–45)

God’s voice was not just for old prophets or just for the New Testament church, but the blessing of His fellowship is for all God’s sheep. “They too will listen to my voice,” Jesus declared. They, too, though not of the sheep pen of the Old Testament or of the first church, but of the church today, will listen for the voice of Jesus and follow the one Shepherd.

I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. (John 10:16)

Jesus told us empathetically that He did not leave us as orphans who must fend for them- selves. We are not to be orphans in this world, begging for some meager understanding of what God’s will is for us each day.

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day, you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. (John 14:18–20)

“On that day, you will realize.” Jesus said this to show the unity of the Son and the Father. They were one and their very existence, fellowship, and power were completely one. In other words, we can be just as close to God as Jesus was. We have been called to walk as Jesus walked and this fact should forever close the argument of whether God speaks to His sheep.5 We realize that Jesus is in the Father and we in Him, we too can gain a small taste of the fellowship Jesus had with the Father. When we say with John 14, because Jesus lives, we “also will live.”

People in the world, or the worldly in the church, cannot accept this fact. They have never heard His voice so they cannot verify that God speaks today to His children.6 Even if the Bible were the voice of God, do we foolishly think we could take it all in and apply it? Clearly, we need someone to teach us day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, and second by second. If we don’t see this, we might as well give a first grader all the books they need and tell them to go figure it out without a teacher. But look at what the Bible declares: they had been “taught by God to love one another.” He spoke to each person’s heart and guided them as to how to love one another. God was their teacher, not some man, not a manual called the Bible, but the living God came and spoke to each person, empowering them and directing them in how to love each other. This is why the first church could have all things in common and stand perfectly united in thought and mind.

Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you your- selves have been taught by God to love each other. (1 Thessalonians 4:9)

If unbelief causes us to not listen for the voice of God we must first begin by repenting of this sin. Otherwise, we will be lost in a sea of questions, what ifs, and speculations that only increase our fears rather than a faith that allows us to sit quietly at the feet of Jesus to listen. If we want to have ears to hear, then we must open them wide by the power of faith.

Chapter 3: The sin of unbelief

• Name some things or doctrines that cause doubts about hearing God’s voice. How do these things breed disbelief?
• What does it mean to you to be a sheep that belongs to God?
• Why is it important that we hear God personally and directly?

---

Ears to Hear: Chapter 4 | [Continue to Next Chapter →]

---

The Consider Podcast
Examining Today’s Wisdom, Folly and Madness
www.archive.consider.info

Former Salt Shaker Bookstore

---

The Salt Shaker Christian bookstore, because of persecution by Washington State Authorities, was destroyed and ran out of the town of Enumclaw. Just part of the proof that Sound Doctrine Church was walking the narrow road with Jesus.

For you, brothers became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men. 1 Thessalonians 2:14-15

It was a beautiful store. A result of the hard work of Sound Doctrine Church. In the store was a free rack because, as Jesus said, “Freely you received, freely give.” The following track is a small reproduction of the love that burned in our hearts to give freely.

---

Materials

Cultural Christianity is part of God’s powerful delusion to decieve the “Christian” element of mankind.

Whole Gospel Materials

Disclaimer & Information

Post Number

This Post's ID Number Is= 16157

1. Remember the Post ID Number.
2. Enter the post number and it will be find.

See Post ID System For List Of Posts