Dealing With Unbelief — Bill McLeod

Unbelief as an Evil Heart

My text will be Hebrews 3, 12, and 13, two verses. It's a text addressed to Christians. It says, Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief. But exalt one another daily, what is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief. You know, when people talk about the problem of unbelief, they don't think it's a sin. They think it's a problem, but it's not a sin.

They'll say things like, Well, I pray all the time for moral faith, and nothing seems to happen. I don't want to have all the unbelief I've got, but, you know, I'm doing my best, and I'm reading the Bible, and I still have this unbelief problem, but they don't think it's a sin.

The Bible calls it an evil heart of unbelief. It's evil to not believe God. And you have to look at it that way, or you'll never get out of it. You have to look at it from God's viewpoint. He's telling us it's evil, it's wicked.

Spurgeon said that unbelief was the bottom line of all sin. All of the sins he thought came from that one sin of unbelief. 1 John 5, there's a verse that says, He that believes not God has made him a liar.

It's a sin that calls God a liar. Remember that. Unbelief. It should have no part in a Christian's life, but unfortunately in our churches, there are probably thousands of people that, they sit there as if they're in an icebox or something.

They don't think anything's going to happen, and they're never disappointed. So, take heed. It sends men to hell. He that believes not shall be damned. He that believes not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.

The fearful and the unbelieving will have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, it says over in Revelation. It sends people to hell, unbelief dogs. And he's called a liar. 1 John 5 tells that reference, by the way, in 1 John.

Trusting the Promises of God

There are 7 ,487 promises in the Bible. I've got them in a book, indexed and everything else. That's right, almost 8 ,000 promises. And I said to myself, how can any Christian worry? What are you worrying about?

Don't you have these promises of ours that are in the Bible to make for you? And then on top of that, there are 413 references to the phrase, Thus saith the Lord. And there's almost, we're quite close to 4 ,000 statements, the Lord said, or God said, almost 4 ,000 times in the Bible.

It's God speaking. And there's no room for unbelief. You know, when Abraham is told he's 100 years old and his wife is not far behind, and he's told they're going to have a child of their own, how does he handle it?

Well, Romans chapter 4 tells us this. He didn't stagnate the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform.

And it says about his wife, Sarah, that she conceived Cee when she was past age because she judged him faithful to that promise. The promises don't do anything if you don't believe them. They only help when you believe them and apply them.

It says over in Hebrews as well, that the word preached did not profit some people because it was not mixed with faith and doesn't hurt it. So the promises don't do anything if you don't believe them.

It makes God a liar. It makes the promise of God empty. It prevents God from working. In Psalm 78, there's a verse that says, they turned back, they turned back, and they limited God. You know, God is not limited to the faith of His people, but God has, during this gospel age, limited not exclusively, but almost so, I think, He's limited His activity to the prayers of His people.

They limited God. You limit God by what God can do in your life, in your family, in your church, by your wicked unbelief. It's going on all the time. It's very evil, I say, because it makes God a liar.

Unbelief in Nazareth

Well, it says about Jesus in Nazareth, His hometown, that it did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief. They were saying, what is Jesus? We know all about Him. His dad was a carpenter, and He's a carpenter.

We know all about His family. Who does He think He is? So unbelief took over, and He couldn't do any mighty works there. He did in Capernaum and other places, but not in Nazareth where He had been raised.

Faith in the Deliverance of the Demon-Possessed Boy

And so the Bible makes it very clear that even the Lord Jesus Christ was limited by unbelief. Now, in Luke chapter 9, a wonderful thing happened, a strange thing in some ways. Jesus gave the twelve apostles power over all demons.

In the same chapter, and it's recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, in the same chapter, they tried to cast a demon out of a demon-possessed boy, and they couldn't do it. And the Pharisees were meeting them.

Christ wasn't around. He was up in the mountains with Peter, James, and John. So they were doing their best, and nothing was happening. It was so embarrassing. Then Jesus came on the scene, and He took care of the problem.

And afterwards, they said to Jesus, Why couldn't we? And He said, Because of your unbelief. Then He said, This kind, that is, this kind of demon, only goes out through fasting and prayer. But something else happened in the story that's very significant.

The father of the child saw Jesus and said to Him, I brought my son to the disciples, and they couldn't do it. If you can do anything, have mercy on us and help us. And He said, If you can believe. What He was saying was, It's not up to me.

I've got the power. I have the love and compassion. I want to do it. I can do it. It's not up to me. Don't throw that if stuff at me, you know. If you can believe. All things are possible to him that believes.

And the father of the child cried out with tears. Lord, I believe. Help thy man, unbelief has. Deliver my unbelief. Faith and unbelief were there. Both of them were there. But faith was in the ascendancy, and the child was healed.

It's a beautiful story. But if you can do anything, that's not the way to pray. You find a promise, and stand on the promise, and pull the promise back to God. And believe that God is listening. Let me give you an example.

A Testimony of Healing Through Faith

It was in St. Louis. And I preached on faith. And this lady met with God that night. And a few days later, she wanted to see me. But everybody went for coffee. She and her husband and me had quite a talk there.

And she gave me that problem. She said, You know, I used to get migraine headaches once every six months. I started getting them every week. And sometimes I get them three or four days in a week, she said.

These terrible migraine headaches. And then she said, My husband, he can't eat anything but soup and milk. He's got such a bad stomach. And she said, And I've got a girl, a daughter. She's about 12, and she's never spoken a word outside the house.

We've had it for counselors. And they said it's some block. And she said, We don't know what it is. She just doesn't talk outside the house. And so she said, Do you think I can believe God for this problem?

I said, Absolutely. So she went and shared it with her pastor, and he talked her out of it. He said, Lady, you know, I believe in the same thing, but you know, when I pray these prayers and it doesn't work, and then you're going to be worse off than you were before.

And he talked her out of it. Well, I left. I was back in Sissi two years later, and they invited me to coffee again. And she said, You know what happened? They decided just let's believe God, you know.

She pointed to her husband. She said, You know what? He can eat cactus and Bob Williams now. And she said, I've only had one migraine headache since the night we prayed and committed to God, and that came because I started to doubt God.

I'm not saying the migraine headaches are caused by unbelief, but that's what she said about herself. And she said, My daughter, you know what happened? The next day after we prayed the prayer of faith, she went to school, she was going to school, and she got up in the class, all in her mouth, and she repeated the Psalm 23 to the whole class.

And she's been talking about it ever since. And God doubts those things even today. What are you saying in your heart? Are you praising the Lord or just, you've got a big question out there? Watch it.

Israel's Unbelief in the Wilderness

Our text is speaking to Christians. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief. It's very important to know that. Well, it brings evil in men. There's many cases in the Bible.

We won't go into that in detail. But many people in the Bible have failed. Israel wandered for 40 years in the wilderness. A distance from Mount Hob to Kadesh Barnea was 11 miles, and it took them 40 years to make it.

Simple, straight unbelief. They were looking at the giants in the land instead of looking at the giant God. And so they were forced to wander then for 40 years and went through all that horrible, howling wilderness it's called, scorpions and all the rest of it, just because of their wicked unbelief.

It's in the Bible, dear people, to wander in need. We run into a lot of problems, too, as Christians, if we allow unbelief to take over in our hearts. So we have to watch it. Take heed, nor let there be in any of you then an evil heart.

Remember, it's evil. God hates it. It's a sin. You've got to call it that. It's not believing God. It's standing in the promises. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Faith works by love.

You know what Spurgeon said about that? He said, Faith is the soul at rest in the love of God. Think it through. I want to talk about faith for a little bit. We all know we're saved by faith, right? But it's surprising, over the years, people I've counseled with, one lady said to me, I have asked Jesus into my heart at least 50 times, and He never came in.

So I said to her, and who's lying? You're Jesus. And she didn't like that approach. Well, I'm not. Oh, Jesus is? What are you getting at, she said. I said, when you ask Jesus to come into your heart, would you thank Him for being there?

I can't do that. He wasn't there. The feeling was there. I said, it's got nothing to do with feeling. You're supposed to believe. And she'd never seen this before. And so I said, now let's do it again.

Ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart, and I'll thank Him. Never mind how you feel. Thank Him for being there. And she did. And then she said, Oh. Oh. That's different. And she had assurance. But how often we run across people like this.

Salvation and Assurance by Faith

There was one case in Winnipeg, between meetings in 1972, and that was revival time. This gal came to my wife and me, and she said, I'd love to be a Christian. I'd love to have faith, but I have no faith at all, and I don't know how to manufacture it, and I don't know what to do.

And I said, would you mind if my wife and I prayed that God would give you faith? The Bible says faith is a gift from God, you know. And she said, can I do that? And I said, sure. So then through this now, my wife began to pray, and before she was through praying, the girls slapped their hands and cried, I've got it.

I've got it. God just gave her faith. I can't explain that. Theologically. But it's God, you know. Faith is a gift from God. And He did that for her. And I don't doubt it in the slightest. So we're saved by faith.

It's not how you feel. You know, sometimes people say, you know, to be perfectly frank and honest, God's a thousand miles away. I say, what God are you talking about? He fills the heavens and the earth, the one in the Bible.

You're talking about some other God, aren't you? Because He fills the heavens and the earth. No matter where you go, God's there. If you could fly at the speed of light for a million years and get off on some distant planet, He'd be there, you know.

You can't go anywhere where God isn't. He is never, ever a foot away from you. In Him we live and move and have our existence. In God. When you wake up to that, it has nothing to do with how you feel.

It has to do with what He's told us and taught us in the Bible. He is everywhere. Always. Night and day. And sometimes people say, well, I think He's given up on me. What God are you talking about? The God of the Bible, He said, I will never leave you nor forsake you, so that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.

What God are you talking about that forsook me, you think? You know. You just go down the line, people have all kinds of stupid notions, sinful notions, about God. We need to get lined up, connected with the Word of God, what He's told us about Himself.

He's a great God. Listen, the Bible says in Isaiah that He has counted all the stars. Do you know what they're telling us now, this Hubble telescope thing? They've been saying up until recently that there are 50 billion constellations, spiral nebula, like the Milky Way.

And they just recently discovered, no, no, the figure's wrong. There are 100 billion like that. And that Milky Way constellation, on which we are part, is so vast that if you travel at the speed of light, 186 miles a second, isn't that about it?

Some millions of miles an hour, it will take you 100 ,000 years to cross the Milky Way. This is what God we're dealing with. How do you think that God feels when you doubt Him, and you doubt His promises, and you doubt His Word, and you're making Him a liar?

How the Word of God, how God must grieve that we look so strangely at His promises and His Word. So we're saved not by feeling, we're saved by faith. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house, don't forget the little postscript there, and thy house.

Don't let the devil have any of your kids. If he's got some of your kids, don't give up on them. Trust God to do it. Believe God for it. God will do that for you. You have to believe God. I had a daughter that strayed.

She walked out of our life. We came home one day, she was gone. And she used my van to move all her stuff. We didn't know where she was. We found out. We contacted her. We asked her to come home for a talk.

She came home. She defenselessly, she walked to the door. I mean, just whoop. And so we talked, said, Honey, we want you to know that we love you. We're sorry you're gone, but we'll find a better place.

That's fine by us. So we just walked in, we prayed for her, and we contacted her, and so on, you know. And the years rolled by, and we didn't see anything happening. When I was in Vancouver with my wife, she had lived in New York, and Montreal, and Toronto.

Now she's in Vancouver. No, she's back in Toronto now, but she was in Vancouver then. And we visited her. And she was glad to see us. This week they established a pretty good relationship, but she wasn't with God.

And, uh, walking from where she lived one day, there was a big Baptist church, you know. So I said to my daughter, Hey, honey, you ever gone to that Baptist church? Oh, and she said, It's dead. I said, If you've never gone there, how do you know it's dead?

She said, Dad, I've walked by there on Sunday. There isn't a single car parked at the curb in front of that church. She didn't know there was a big parking lot in behind. There's hundreds of cars there, you know.

So I went there Sunday morning to check it out. Wow. About 800 people was parked there. There was a bat who was there, the dancers were there, the singers were there, the pitchers were there. Wow, it was fiery and great.

So I told her, Honey, I said, you better check it out. There's a fire burning over there. Two weeks later she checked it out. And she finally said, Dad, he got through to me. He got through to me. And, uh, there's more to this story than that.

She's in training now. Well, we're getting emails from her all the time and the last email she was saying how she was praying about a certain thing. I don't think she's connected with the church at this moment.

She had something happen in Vancouver and a very personal friend was knifed and she lost something at that point. So we're still praying for her and trusting God for her. But she loves the Lord and she loves us.

Anyway, don't give up on your kids. No matter what Satan's done, don't give up on them. And thy house. And thy house. Okay, so we're saved by faith. We're not kept by faith. You can't keep yourself. The Bible says we're kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

Faith is part of it. Just believe God. Don't worry about it. The devil tempts people. I remember a lady one time she said to me, I don't feel safe until the gates of heaven clang shut behind me. I said, what's the measure of where we live?

There's something that is in the gospel, you know. It doesn't say, you don't feel safe until you get there, you know. And so you tremble and shake up. But you know about 35 years later she and her husband came to a better understanding and they wrote me a letter and said, well now I know what you're talking about.

We're saved by faith. We're in the hands of God forever. That was good to hear. We're kept by faith. You can't save yourself. You can't keep yourself out of it. The Bible says we stand by faith. It says we walk by faith.

2 Corinthians 5. You know, that's one of the best texts in the whole Bible. We walk by faith. It has nothing to do with how you feel. It has to do with what God said and the guidance you're getting from God.

We walk by faith. Now George Muir of Bristol, England, God raised him up by impositive to bring a blessing to the church forever. He had 2 ,000 orphans, a staff of around 300. He had no organization backing him.

He had no particular churches backing him. He got no help from the government whatever back in those days. He never once told anybody what the need was. And he had their faith. If God knows what the need is, who else needs to know?

Hey, think it through. If God knows, who else needs to know? Nobody else needs to know. So he never, he never, no matter what the need, and he had strange things happen, you know. One time they had nothing for breakfast.

And so they prayed about this, had all the kids at the table and they prayed for breakfast. And a guy was going by with a milk wagon and something happened to one of the horses and he couldn't go any further so he came in and asked if they could use some milk.

So they had milk enough for breakfast and then a guy came along with a bread wagon and something happened to the bread wagon. He brought all this bread and he didn't want it to go stale. I mean, things like this were happening all through his life.

He had 85 ,000 recorded answers to prayer. And Charles Spurgeon used to try and spend at least one day a year with George Muir, he said, he's got such a simple, childlike faith, it's so refreshing to be with him.

He just believed God, you know, no matter what. He was coming to speak in Montreal, Canada one time and he shipped up to Cannes in the Gulf there and the St. Lawrence River in a big fog. The captain was a Christian and so Muir said, I have an appointment Sunday afternoon at 2 o 'clock in a certain church in Montreal and it doesn't look like we're going to make it.

He said, what's with this fog thing? And the captain said, well, it could last for three or four days. No, it can't, Muir said. I have never been late for an appointment in all my life and I'm not starting now.

And the captain laughed and he said, you don't know this fog business. And Muir said, you don't know this God business. So he said, let's pray. So Muir prayed and I read the prayer short so I just went like this, dear God, I'm sure it would please you to lift the fog.

Thank you for doing it, amen. So the captain began to pray and he stopped and he said, you don't need to pray the fog's already gone, he said, and besides you don't believe it's going to happen. So the captain rushes to the door and said, the fog is gone, you know.

And this was happening all through his life, you know. So you read these stories there's a book on his life that's called Delighted in God. It's a recent book and it's powerful. You ought to get it and read it.

When I was first converted, the only book I had was a book on the life of George Muir of Bristol, England. It was a tremendous blessing to me. I saw this faith thing right away at the beginning. I didn't learn it 10 or 15, 20 years down the road.

It was a tremendous help and challenge to me. So we stand by faith, we're kept, we're saved by faith, we stand by faith, we walk by faith. It doesn't matter how you feel. What has God said? Standard and promise.

You know when you're reading the Bible every time you come across a promise, put a big P in the margin. You'll finally have 7 ,487 if you read it right. That's what Dr. Herbert Lockyer found when he read it and wrote a book on it.

Promises exceeding great and precious, Peter said. You'll never, listen, you'll never run into a problem ever in your life anymore at any time that isn't covered somewhere in the Bible. That's why you need to get to know it well.

There's something there for you, always, anytime. Then it goes on to say, the Bible speaks about your work of faith. Your work of faith. Your work in faith for God. You're doing what you're doing, trusting God who's going to bless what you're doing.

You're giving out cash, you're blessing, you're believing God, He's going to bless that. You're witnessing to people, you're preparing some whatever you're doing, you're believing. It's the work of faith.

Faith as a Spiritual Fight

And it's a fight. Fight the good fight of faith, it says. It's a fight. The devil will be there trying to knock you down. Remember it says, above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith we shall be able to quench, put out all the fiery darts of the wicked.

You can't stop the devil from throwing these darts at you, but you can put them all out through faith. So you need it. Take the shield of faith. Remember, above all, with all the armor you have, that's the most important.

Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith we shall be able, I say, to quench, to put out. You know, it's a fire. Satan throws fiery, fiery darts. You've got to take care of them. The devil climbs on.

Remember one time when I was preaching way back years ago in the Shahnameh mission of logging camps, and I walked as much as 25, maybe 30 miles a day with a pack on my back of Bibles and New Testaments and tracts and stuff, you know.

And you get to a camp, and if there's an empty bunk, you can be sure of one of two things. Either it's cold, or it's lousy. And so, my wife and I made that a matter of pledge. You know, I never brought a louse home in all this time.

I was four and a half years in the bush camps, and I never brought a louse home once, you know. We prayed about half-truth. And I remember being in one camp, and in the morning, the guys around me said, How did you sleep last night?

Great, I said. And then they told me this bunk was lousy. Now, I didn't pick anybody up. Just a little thing, a big dog, you know. He could do anything. And sometimes, I remember one time I was riding, it was 40 below.

And they had two roads. A go-down road and a go-back road. And you had to get out on the right road. If you got on the wrong road, you'd meet traffic coming your way, and there was no way to turn out.

And these roads were rather than ice, and you couldn't turn out. Your wheels might turn, but you wouldn't get out. We got into that trouble one time. Anyway, this day, I'm on top of a load of lumber. This truck is doing not more than 25 miles an hour.

But remember, it's 40 below, so you know how cold it is then. I'm lying on top of this green, frozen lumber. And there's a big couple of chains across this lumber, holding it down. The only thing it had to hold on to to keep from sliding off was the chain.

But if the load slipped, and your hand was under the chain, you'd lose your fingers. So I'm riding, and the devil got on my back, and he said, you stupid fool. You could be, you could be, you could be, you could be, all these things, you know.

I listened for a while, and I said, now wait a minute. I don't like what you're saying. Shut up. In Jesus' name, just shut up. And he quit. So that's how you have to handle it, you know. Forget about it.

Things go bad. One day, I'll tell you, just one other incident. I was in a camp, and I talked with some Christian guys from another camp. They knew I was going to be coming out in the road, and I was going to walk 12 miles and meet them at this junction.

They couldn't get the car started. It was 40 below or something. You couldn't get the car going. I didn't notice, so I started walking up their road. I started to freeze up, so I started walking back.

My back began to freeze up, so I got off, and I found some, it was all green timber, but I did find some dry stuff, and I got a fire going. I waited around the fire. It didn't show up, and the fire went out, and I couldn't find any more dry wood, and I was in a serious position.

So I just said, hey, God. And I had a car coming. And it was these guys. They were driving furiously, because they knew I'd be in trouble, you know, because they knew what the day was like. But everything, it always worked out for me.

You just trust the Lord. And just one other thing I can mention here from those days also. I'm walking out of a bush camp. It was Saturday night. I walked 12 miles in. When I got there, they weren't having a meeting, because they had a big fight on in the camp about wages and stuff, and it was a big argument.

They said, we have no time for meetings. So I had to walk out 12 miles. So I'm walking along. It's very cold. You know when it's very cold in the bush, the trees will snap. You'll hear them snap in the cold at night time.

I walked along. The trees were snapping occasionally. And all of a sudden, a bunch of wolves hollered behind me. You know, not more than maybe 50 yards behind. My hair stood straight up my head, you know.

I must have jumped about 12 feet. I had one jump. And then my mind began to play tricks on me, because the trees were crying, oh, they're coming from this way. Oh, they're coming from this way. I had nothing to defend myself.

You see, the book says, that they won't attack you as long as you stand. But I wasn't positive until they read the book. And so, you know. And this went on until I got smartened up. And I stopped. I talked to them.

I said, Lord, you said the wild beasts of the forest are mine. These clunkers, they're yours. You take care of them. I had no more problems. And I started singing. And they kept hollering. And after a while they quit and they were gone.

So no matter what the problem is, you won't run into that kind of a problem, I'm sure. But problems like that. Trust God. He allows trials to come to test our faith. We get stronger through trials, you know, not weaker.

So you learn to trust God. And you can trust God for more. Miller said, and I'll put it in Canadian dollars, he said there was a time when I had difficulty trusting God for $5. The time came when I could trust God for $50 ,000 with no problem at all.

He got to know God. And he said faith is like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. The less you use it, the weaker it becomes. He's absolutely right. So don't think you can get through life without trials.

You can try. You spend a lot of time wasting time. Welcome anyhow. We must through much tribulation inherit the kingdom of God. The Bible says that. Okay, so, we stand by faith, we walk by faith, we run by faith.

Running the Race of Faith

Hebrews chapter 12 says, Seeing we also accomplished of what so great a cloud of witnesses, let's lay aside every way. And the sin which doth so easily beset us, let us run with patience the race that's set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.

He started it, he'll carry it on, he'll finish it. He'll be with you all your days. You're running a race by faith. Lay aside every way. And the sin which doth so easily beset us, dear people, I think, is the sin of unbelief.

That's what the book of Hebrews is all about. Unbelief and faith. Chapter 11, a great chapter on faith. Belief in God. And a great list of heroes of the faith. And by the way, you might be, you might even be reminded perhaps that Samson is listed among the heroes of faith.

Ever think about that? Well, he was a, kind of a wicked man, wasn't he? He judged Israel for 20 years and God raised him up to deal with the Philistines and did a pretty good job on that, you know. But there's two things about Samson that most people don't know.

One is he was listed as a man of faith in Hebrews 11. What did he do by faith? He had this mighty power. He never had it all the time, he only had it when he believed God in him. He knew about the spirit coming on him.

3 ,000 men of Judah came to him and asked his permission to tie him up so he could be delivered to the Philistines because they were free to Philistines. So he allowed them to do that. Now normally he couldn't have done anything about the ropes.

When the Philistines shouted something happened and Samson's spirit of God came on him, I am positive in answer to his faith. And the ropes melted off his arms and he fell on the jawbone of an ass, wasn't it?

Yeah. That's 2 ,000 men. He had to believe God for these things. The spirit of God was not always on him. Why would it say the spirit came on him if the spirit was always on him? Faith. And that humility?

He was an extremely humble person. He turned a lion with his bare hands. He never even told his father and his mother. You know, Spurgeon's comment on that was this. Samson killed a lion with his bare hands and never even told his father and his mother.

If he thought a Christian should kill a mouse, he'd have to publish it in the Gospel Gazette. And you know when he came back a second time on the same path he turned his side to look across the line and bees had made a nest in it and there was honey and he got this honey way down the path for his mom and dad to catch up and gave him the honey.

He never told him they got it. Why? He didn't want them to find out what had happened. He was an extremely humble person. He failed in some areas. Not to end he committed suicide. Let me die with Philistine.

Let me tell you something. When he died, he killed more than he did while he lived. Philistine enemies of God. All the top blasts were there. Everybody was there. 2 ,000 on the roof. I don't know how many down below.

And it was like he was on a cross because he was pushing the pillars up. It's a picture of Christ. He did more by dying than he ever did by living, you know. And we'll do the same so a lot. We'll do more by dying to self and then living to the glory of God.