How does God respond to unbelief and doubt? While it is true that God often shows
exceeding amounts of patience, especially to the Lost who do not know him, God
also responds with disappointment, even anger, when those who should already
know him persist in not hearing his word and obeying it. Jesus was asked by a crowd of his fellow
Jews, people of the Covenant who have the Law and the Prophets to guide them,
who have the Temple and the priests, and who were raised to know the name of
the LORD, for a sign from heaven. This
request for a sign came on the heels of yet another miraculous healing by
Jesus. The response to the request by
Jesus was to tell the crowd that no new sign would be given to them except “the
sign of Jonah”. Jesus then explains that
the people of Nineveh, a wicked people with no advantages of Law and no
prophets before Jonah, had repented when he warned them of God’s impending
judgment, and because they repented, despite their lack of advantages, that the
people of Nineveh would condemn the generation who listened to Jesus and
rejected him. When you consider all the
advantages those listening to Jesus had in comparison to the people of Nineveh,
it is little wonder that God would be exasperated with them.
Jesus
then offers a second analogy, comparing the curiosity of the Queen of Sheba,
who came to hear of Solomon’s wisdom after hearing a rumor of it, to the
stubbornness of those listening to Jesus who though they already know of God,
are not interested in listening to his emissary. After having told the crowd that no new sign
would be forthcoming, Jesus concludes by comparing the doubt and unbelief of
those who know God, or know of God, but won’t listen to him, to someone who
lights a lamp and then places it under a bowl.
The purpose of a light is to shine forth, if the Covenant people are too
darkened by sin and unbelief to accept the light, then that light will go
elsewhere.
The
warning to the Covenant people that the Gentiles, who found God’s grace despite
not being a part of the Covenant, will stand in judgment against them, is a warning
that applies equally to the Church.
There will be no excuse for those raised in the church, or those living
in lands where the Church of Christ is active, who fail to respond to the
message of the Gospel. What excuse do a
people have who live in freedom, who have an abundance of Bibles, and a
Christian neighbors demonstrating the love of Christ, if those people fail to
accept God’s offer of forgiveness?
None. The warning is dire, but so
is the need for humanity to accept the grace of God through Christ. As Christians, such a warning ought to spur
us on to vigilance in our own house (both family and church) knowing that each
must choose Christ, and it ought to give us further incentive to continue our
efforts of personal evangelism to those in our lives who have not yet found the
light of Christ.
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