Mark 6:6

Mark 6:6

I. Let us consider the nature of unbelief. What is it? The word, so translated, will be found twelve times in the New Testament, and always in one signification. In its fullest sense, of course, it only exists in lands where men enjoy the light of revelation. Where there is little known there can be little unbelief. It consists in not believing something or other that God has said, some warning that He gave, some promise that He held out, some advice that He offers, some judgment that He threatens, some message that He sends. In short, to refuse to admit the truth of God's revealed word, and to live as if we did not think that Word was to be depended on, is the essence of unbelief.

II. Let us now inquire why and wherefore unbelief is so wonderful. What is there in it that made even the Lord Jesus the Son of God marvel? (1) For one thing unbelief is a spiritual disease peculiar to Adam's children, it is a habit of soul entirely confined to man. Angels in heaven above, and fallen spirits in hell beneath, saints waiting for the resurrection in Paradise, lost sinners waiting for the last judgment in that awful place where the worm never dies, and the fire is not quenched, all these have one point, in common, they all believe. Surely a habit of soul, so absolutely, entirely confined to living man, may well be called marvellous. (2) For another thing unbelief is marvellous when you consider its arrogance and presumption. For, after all, how little the wisest of men know, and none are more ready to confess it than themselves. How enormously ignorant the greater part of mankind are if you come to examine the measure of their knowledge. When a man says he is troubled with sceptical and unbelieving feelings about Christianity, while he has probably never studied a dozen pages of Paley, or Butler, or Chalmers, or Bishop Nelson, and never thought deeply about religion at all, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that one of the most curious things in much unbelief is its wonderful self-conceit. (3) For another thing unbelief is marvellous when you consider its unfairness and one-sidedness. Who has not known that some of the minor facts and miracles of the Bible are the ostensible reasons which many assign why they cannot receive the book as true, and make it their rule of faith and practice. And all this time they refuse to look at three great facts: the historical person Jesus Christ, the Bible itself, and the amazing change which has taken place in the state of the world before Christianity and since Christianity. (4) Unbelief is marvellous when you consider how the vast majority of those who profess it, drop it, and give it up at last. Few of us, perhaps, have the least idea how seldom any man leaves the world an unbeliever. If those who profess to deny revelation generally died happy deaths, and left the world in great peace and joy, holding their opinions to the last, we might well expect them to have followers. But when, on the contrary, it is the rarest thing to see an unbeliever dying calmly in unbelief, and giving no sign of discomfort, while the vast majority of unbelievers throw down their arms at last, and seek for the very religious consolation which they once affected to despise, it is impossible to avoid one broad conclusion. That conclusion is, that of all spiritual diseases by which fallen man is affected, there is none so truly marvellous and unreasonable as unbelief.

Bishop Ryle, Oxford Undergraduates' Journal, May 27th, 1880.

References: Mark 6:6 . Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvi., No. 935; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 262; Bishop Ryle, Three Hundred Outlines on the New Testament, p. 36; G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 142; Homilist, vol. vi., p. 199. Mark 6:7-13 . Preacher's Monthly, vol. iii., p. 253; H. M. Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man, p. 129; A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 99. Mark 6:7-30 . W. Hanna, Our Lord's Life on Earth, p. 205.Mark 6:12 . Todd, Lectures to Children, p. 9. Mark 6:14 . Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiii., p. 41.Mark 6:14-16 . W. Walters, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 42.Mark 6:14-29 . R. S. Candlish, Scripture Characters and Miscellanies, p. 137; H. M. Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man, p. 129; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 72.Mark 6:16 . Preacher's Monthly, vol. v., p. 358; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 534.Mark 6:17 . Homiletic Magazine, vol. xi., p. 235.Mark 6:17 , Mark 6:18 . Ibid., p. 49.