Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. Hebrews 3:12
The devil launched similar attacks on two men in a particular Assembly who had become very ill. The enemy caused both of those men to consider the very real possibility that they could die of their illness. As the first man considered the possibility, he opened his Bible to eagerly learn all that he could about Heaven. ‘If I am going to die,’ he said, ‘I want to know more about the place where I am going’. To him, death had no fear because of his confidence in God. The other man became deeply worried, and sought the advice of more doctors, and even some people who were not doctors. He became bitterly angry at God for allowing him to be so sick and for his life to be endangered. Both men recovered from the illnesses, and they were both greatly changed from what they had been before. The first man lived in joyful appreciation of his salvation. The second man lived in worry and misery. One man lived in the good of belief, the other lived (if you could call it living) in the evil of unbelief.
Look carefully at our text and know that it is written, not to the unsaved, but to Christians. It is true that those who don’t know God have evil hearts of unbelief. We feel sorry for them, because their unbelief is robbing them of the joy of knowing their sins forgiven, of the relief of knowing that they are forever spared the punishment, and of the happy anticipation that they will be in Heaven forever. Their unbelief prevents them from enjoying the daily guidance of the Holy Spirit, the delight of fellowshipping with the Lord’s people, and the deliverance from temptations and evil habits. Sadly, unbelief robs Christians of all of those things too. Failing to trust God, and looking only at the world all around, a Christian can be just as miserable as those who have never come to know Christ. That is not the way that God wants us to be, and there is no need for us to be like that.
What is unbelief? Simply put, unbelief is failing to take God at His Word. Our first parents were guilty of unbelief. God had given them a warning. But they listened to and acted on the tempter’s lies. You and I were no better. When we heard the Gospel, we at first failed to heed its message. It took the goodness of God to bring us to repentance, and it took the striving of the Holy Spirit to bring us to faith in Christ. But our salvation has not made us immune to unbelief. We still hear the tempter’s lies, and we still heed them more often than we should. We still see the dazzling attractions of sin, and we yield to more temptations than we should. God has called us to be holy and separated unto Himself, and has promised us rich blessings for doing so. If we are enjoying God’s rich blessings, it is only because we have cast unbelief aside and are fully trusting the Lord.
Unbelief is evil. But it is our biggest enemy. Let us live today in the good of faith and reject the evil of unbelief. – Jim MacIntosh