The Harvest of Unbelief

1 Peter 2 in a passage that, as
I’ve told you the last couple of weeks, I think when I preached
this seven or eight years ago, I had one message on verses 4-10. And I think as we stand right
now, I’m on message 7 or 8 this time through. More and more impressed
with the overwhelming depth of this passage, almost every time
that I look at it. And the passage at hand this
morning is indeed an extremely humbling one. Greater minds than mine have
found the words in front of us this morning to be greatly profound. And so, I will appeal to you
in a special way, not only for mercy, but also for your prayers
even as we work through this passage. These are the very deep
things of God. I want to go back to this passage
in its entirety, but we’re going to zero in on verses 7 and 8
this morning, specifically targeting the whole nature of unbelief. I’ve entitled the message The
harvest of unbelief tied in, no doubt, to the season that
we enjoy. We had opportunity the last few
days to keep making forays into the garden to see what treasures
it might yield up at this late hour before the frost and freeze
comes. But as I was digging through
the garden, I thought of this passage and I thought of specifically
unbelief. What does unbelief reap? What kind of a harvest does unbelief
gain? That’s our question this morning
as we get into verses 7 and 8. But if you would, go back to
verse 4. In verse 4, Peter wrote, a note
of encouragement to those first century Christians. And in that
note of encouragement, he said in verse 4, and, coming to Him
as to a living stone, rejected by men, but choice and precious
in the sight of God, you also as living stones are being built
up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up sacrifices
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, For this is contained
in Scripture. Behold, I lay in Zion a choice
stone, a precious cornerstone. And he who believes in him shall
not be disappointed. This precious value, then, is
for you who believe. But for those who disbelieve,
the stone which the builders rejected, this became the very
cornerstone. and a stone of stumbling and
a rock of offense. For they stumble because they
are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also
appointed. But you are a chosen race, a
royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession,
that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out
of darkness, into His marvelous light. For you were once not
a people, but now you are the people of God. You had not received
mercy, but now you have received mercy.” When Peter makes this transition
in verse 7, he looks back over his shoulder at those first verses
The first four, if you will, essentially verses four through
six, if you will. And Peter says this precious
value is for you who believe. What precious value? Certainly,
even that word is used earlier and it’s used of Christ. But I don’t believe that’s what
Peter has in mind. I don’t think it’s a play on words here and
pointing back to that which was precious, although Christ is
precious to us. What Peter is essentially pointing
back to is the whole flow of verses four through six, everything
contained therein is a precious value to those who believe. But specifically, the simple
sentence there is, and I remind you that Peter’s intention here
was to encourage the hearts of these first century believers.
They’re in the midst of great persecution, not the least of
which was the sparsity of believers, that there were so few of them.
that if this gospel message is so great and if Christ is who
He is, why isn’t this gospel spreading like a wildfire throughout
the land? Why are there so few believers?
And why are the believers in this Lord Jesus Christ, why are
they persecuted? And Peter wrote these words as
a means of encouragement. And he said in the simple sentence,
and you also are being built up. You have a standard. You own a salvation. You have
an expected response to that salvation. You have God’s Word
to guide you. And you are also being built
up. And those words had to, just
like for us, had to be a great source of encouragement. One
Puritan. at the outset of this chapter,
said, besides all the opposition that meets faith within, and
you think about your own life, and remember how hard it was
for God to convince you and to save you. There were all of those
internal fights going on with your own affections. He says,
besides all the opposition that meets faith within, in our hearts,
It has this without, that is outside of our hearts, that it
rose against the great stream of the world’s opinion. And that’s
exactly where these first century believers were. They were rowing,
as it were, against the great stream of the world’s opinion.
And therefore, it hath need, especially where it is very tender
and weak, to be strengthened against that. The multitude of
unbelievers and the considerable quality of many of them in the
world are continuing causes of that very multitude. You know
what he says? What was going on in the first century with
these first century Christians and the persecution they were
facing, we too will expect. You probably got some this week,
didn’t you? You experienced what they experienced
in this hard hearted, faithless persecution. And the fewness
of them that truly believe doth much to the keeping of them still
few.” In other words, the fact that there are so few of us makes
growing that much more difficult. It’s not a popular movement.
It was never designed to be a popular movement. He goes on and says,
and as this prejudice prevails within them that do not believe,
so it may sometimes assault the mind of a believer when he thinks
how many of them, how many wise men in the world reject Christ. It mitigates against Christ and
against the growth of the church when we look around and we see
nobody responding. And we begin to question, what
is it that we believe? Are we on the right track? Can
this really be that legitimate? And he closes with this, so that
they may know that this makes nothing against him, nor ought
to invalidate their faith at all, but that rather indeed testifies
with Christ and so serves to confirm them in believing, Peter
writes. Do you hear what he says there?
Rather than letting their faith slip away, as sands in an hourglass,
Peter says, you know what? This is proof. The fact that
there are so few of us that truly in genuine belief, that’s proof
of the validity. And Peter seeks occasion to encourage
them all the more. You know what? This isn’t anything
that God didn’t tell us beforehand. And he takes us into the heart
of his argument almost immediately. We’re going to look at the blessing that believers reap. But I want
to take you this morning to that second statement, to the antithetical
statement there in verse seven. He’s told us that the precious
value, everything in verses four through six, the fact that we
are being built up, the fact that Christ is the foundation
cornerstone. The fact that we are the very
materials for the building, the fact that there is a spiritual
and noble purpose of this structure, the fact that we are the servants
of the building, the priesthood, the fact that the blueprint for
that building was laid out in eternity past, encapsulated in
Scripture, in the prophecies of Isaiah. All of that is a precious
value for us. And that is a blessing. And there
are others and we will get there. But today we want to look. at
the harvest of unbelief. The harvest of unbelief. What
I’ve noted here are four dreadful results of unbelief. First of
all, and there’s a place there in your bulletin, not only where
the passage is, but a place for notes if you so choose. First
of all, let’s just look at the simple
word. This precious value then, everything in verses 4 through
6, is for you who believe. Pistuo, you place your faith
in. You believe on Christ. You’ve come to Him and you keep
on coming. You have no intention of letting
go of Him. But, For those who disbelieve, ah,
pisteul, those who do not have a faith of their own, who will
not place it upon Christ, who do not find Christ to be who
He says Him to be, and who will not believe. It’s that group
that we want to look at this morning. First of all, four dreadful results
of unbelief Number one, unbelief is no deterrent to God’s plan
of redemption. You know what? I believe that
this says in verse seven when it says, but for those who disbelieve
the stone which the builders rejected, this became the very
cornerstone. We’ll look at the various occasions
on which that verse was not only cited in its first place, but
when it was re-quoted by Christ even Himself and Paul and Peter. Do you know what I believe is
being pointed to here? I believe that there were people
that thought, you know what, if we reject this plan, God will
have to come up with another one. That’s right. They thought that they could
dissuade God, change God’s mind if they only rejected His plan,
if they only said, you know what, this plan is half-baked. We don’t like the sound of it.
We don’t like a suffering servant. We don’t like the fact that he’s
going to die on the cross. We want a powerful Messiah and
we demand it. And we demand God change His
plan. God wasn’t going to be buffaloed
or cowed by anybody. This precious value is for you
who believe, but for those who disbelieve, the stone which the
builders rejected became the very cornerstone. God isn’t changed. God isn’t going to be pushed
around. The quote, the quote, as we’ve
seen in the last couple of weeks, and you know what this passage
reminded me of? I kept trying to think of what
this reminds me of. Now, this is an invention of
the 60s, so I know that I’m going to miss 75 percent of you. But
when I was a kid, we had this thing called the Spirograph,
right? And basically what it was, was a series of gears and
you put your pen in a hole in the midst of the gear and you
went like this and it drew the most amazing designs as it went
around in this gear. That is what this passage is
like. You get this idea and then you
go around and you get new data and then you come back and then
you pick up more detail. And that’s exactly the case here.
When he cites this passage once again, Psalm 118 verse 22. Somebody find us a spirograph
on eBay so my illustration is worth something. Psalm 118, verse
22. Peter basically suggests here,
more than suggests, he tells his first century believers that
the Jews were the builders who rejected Christ the stone. The
Jews, and the word here is a very incredible word. When it says that they rejected,
it’s not that they didn’t have enough information. It’s not
that they didn’t see Christ for who He was. It’s not that they
didn’t know the Scriptures. This word means to test. It’s used of assayers of metal
who go in and they examine metal and they look at it objectively.
They take in the facts of the case and they make a judgment. I mean, it’s incredible that
the Jews here looked and they examined and they knew and they
had the facts and they had the very Messiah in front of them
and they still rejected Him. They rejected Him in the face
of all that knowledge. They didn’t accept the One, and
so God made Him the very cornerstone. You know what? There’s people
who have given me advice on shows or movies or books before, that
then I know if they give me advice on a book, I’m not buying it.
If they tell me I should go see a movie, I ain’t buying it. And
God said the same thing of them. You know what? You call yourselves
judges, but you didn’t judge Christ correctly. And because
you didn’t, I’m making him the very cornerstone. Here’s the
scene. Let me tell you the scene. You
have all these incredible architects gathered together and all the
general contractors and the builders and all the so-called experts,
right? And it’s building day. It’s the day when the construction
starts. The pit is dug. And now the wall, the construction
of the great edifice is to begin. And along comes this truck, or
perhaps because of the day, a wagon, right? And on the wagon is this
huge stone. And all the men unload the stone. And the stone is just about to
be fitted into place when the so-called experts come and they
look at the stone and they say, no. This one won’t do. And everything
comes to a screeching halt, right? Everything comes to a screeching
halt. This cornerstone simply will not do. We don’t like the
looks of it or perhaps we think there’s some kind of a flaw in
it. And they leave. They shut down the whole job
site and they come prepared the next day to see the stone demolished
and they see it set in place perfectly. And they see the wall
beginning to be built upon it, that God Himself had placed the
stone. That’s exactly the image. To them, Jesus Christ was worthless
as God’s cornerstone because He didn’t fit what was their
little preconceived idea of what the Messiah was supposed to be
like. They hated Christ. They hated Christ for claiming
to be this so-called cornerstone. And they rejected Him outright.
But not God. Jesus quotes this on a number
of occasions. And it was because Jesus, everywhere
He went, met with rejection. He knew what was going on in
the hearts and minds of these people. Note just a few of the
key moments of rejection in Christ’s life. Matthew 13, he came to
his hometown, began teaching them in their synagogue. They
were astonished and said, where did this man get his wisdom and
these miraculous powers? Is this not the carpenter’s son?
Is this not his mother called Mary and his brothers James and
Joseph and Simon and Judas? And his sisters, are they not
all with us? Where did this man get these things? And they took
offense at him from the very outset of Christ’s ministry. But Jesus said to them, a prophet
is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household. Luke, chapter four, another moment
of rejection. Jesus closed the book, gave it
back to the attendant and sat down in the eyes of all the synagogue
were fixed upon him and he began to say today, the scripture has
been fulfilled in your hearing and all were speaking well of
him and wondering at the gracious words which are falling from
his lips. And they were saying, is this not Joseph’s son? And
he said to them, no doubt you will quote this proverb to me.
Physician, heal yourself. Whatever we heard was done at
Capernaum. Do here in your hometown as well.
Prove yourself. It was over and over again the
cry to Christ. And all the people, it says,
became so angry they were filled with rage when they heard these
things. They got up, drove him out of the city, led him to the
brow of the hill on which their city had been built in order
to throw him down the cliff. And in some miraculous way, it
says that Jesus passed through their midst and he went on his
way. It wasn’t his time yet, but the rejection was already
in place. It was already underway. They
slighted Him, as one said. They threw Him by as unfit for
the building. The so-called builders who profess
to have the skill of office, the power of building, the doctors
of the law, the scribes and the Pharisees, they should have known. And they rejected Christ outright. Luke chapter 6 on another Sabbath.
He entered the synagogue and was teaching. There was a man
whose right hand was withered. The scribes and the Pharisees
were watching him closely to see if he healed on the Sabbath
so that they might find reason to accuse him. And he knew what
they were thinking. And he said to the man with the
withered hand, get up, come forward. And he got up and came forward. And Jesus said to them, I ask
you, is it lawful to do good or harm on the Sabbath to save
a life or destroy it? And looking around at them all,
he said, stretch out your hand. And he did so and his hand was
restored. And we might well expect to read, and they all rejoiced
at the miracle of God. But that’s not what’s written.
Verse 11, it says, but they themselves were filled with rage and they
discussed together what they might do to Jesus. In Psalm 118, we saw how it was
characterized, this passage, that Israel, the builders, were
the rulers of the day. And in the case there at hand, God
uses it of Israel, this cornerstone image. And the political structures
that were in place counted Israel of no account. And Jesus, they
would have known this image, they would have known this illustration.
And Jesus, on more than one occasion, took and pointed it directly
at them. So did Peter, not only in the
passage before us, but as we saw two weeks ago in the passage
in Acts chapter four. Turn over to Acts chapter four,
if you would, just quickly. In Acts chapter 4, look at verse 5. Back up all the way to verse
1. As they were speaking to the people, Peter and his companions,
the priest and the captain, the temple guard and the Sadducees
came up to them being greatly disturbed because they were teaching
the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the
dead. And they laid hands on them and put them in jail until
the next day, if it was already evening. And so you have these
Servants of God in jail and verse five on the next day, the rulers,
scribes, elders and scribes were gathered together in Jerusalem.
And Annas, the high priest, was there and Caiaphas and John and
Alexander and all who are of priestly descent. When they had
placed them in the center, they began to inquire by what power
and what name have you done this? Then Peter, filled with the Holy
Spirit, said to them, rulers and elders of the people, if
we’re on trial today for a benefit done to a sick man, as to know
how this man was made well, let it be known to all. He doesn’t
shy away. So let me stand on a taller chair,
if need be, and proclaim Christ. Let it be known to all of you
and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ
the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead
by this name, this man stands here before you in good health.
He is the stone which was rejected by you, the builders.” Peter
points to them, to their very face. I mean, imagine the boldness
of this one-time coward who stands on faith in Christ and proclaims
to them that they are the very ones that rejected Christ. Because of that, he became the
cornerstone. This rejection would not hold. This rejection doesn’t affect
God’s plan. This rejection doesn’t prompt
God to seek out another avenue of redemption for people. didn’t
stop things at all. The stone which the builders
rejected, God went right on with His plan of making that stone
the cornerstone. Remember, as we saw last week,
this whole thing, this whole program is a work of God. Remember when we looked at that?
It was point two of our message two weeks ago. I lay a stone. Those are God’s words. And what
God was doing was not going to be thwarted by any unpopularity
or any plan or any strategy of man at all. The work wouldn’t be stopped.
The work wouldn’t be slowed. It wouldn’t be changed, even
if all the world reject Christ. One pastor said it this way, how sore a trial must it have
been for the faith of Jewish Christians to see that their
own chosen people, even the most learned of them, rejected Christ. You know what he points back
to? He points out to that crisis that these first century Christians
were in. There’s so few of us. And the few of us that there
are being terribly persecuted. Peter uses that as the very means
of encouragement, and he does so for us as well. He says, look,
you can expect it. It’s part of what we’ve inherited
as Christians. He goes on to say, so that they
may know that this makes nothing against him. Nor ought to invalidate
their faith at all, but rather testifies with Christ and so
serves to confirm them in their belief. The apostle makes use
of these prophetic scriptures that foretell the belief, the
unbelief and contempt with which the most. Would entertain Christ,
that’s that’s exactly according to plan. And this must encourage
us in our day as well. that all the unbelief that the
world throws in the way of Christ, all the rejection that they heap
upon Christ, all the scorn that we field being in the way of
Christ, that’s proof. It ought to encourage our faith,
not weaken our faith. Unbelief is no deterrent to the
plan of God’s redemption. I said there were four dreadful
results of unbelief. Secondly, unbelief is no deterrent,
not only to God’s plan of redemption. Unbelief is mired in contemplating
Christ. They looked upon Christ, they
examined Christ and they could not get over him. They couldn’t
get around Christ, and so they stumbled upon him. They were
mired. by looking at Christ. It’s not
that they didn’t know. It’s not that they didn’t have
a good picture of who Christ was. They stumbled. And to Him, Christ became a rock
of offense. An interesting word there, meaning
from where we get our word scandal. Scandalizo. I want to take you to the context
of this passage. A stone of stumbling. and a rock
of offense. I want to take you to Isaiah
chapter 8. This is Isaiah, God’s servant. taking instruction from God as
to the nature of His ministry on this occasion. And He says,
look at verse 11 if you would, For thus the Lord spoke to me
with mighty power and instructed me not to walk in the way of
the people, saying, You are not to say it’s a conspiracy in regard
to all that this people call a conspiracy. And you are not
to fear what they fear or be in dread of it. Do you get the
gist of that? I mean, they had this idea that
everybody was against them and, you know, perhaps that they were
going to have to make some kind of an agreement, some league,
some pact with some of the heathen nations in order to get out of
this sticky mess that they were in. And Isaiah, Isaiah says that God
told him, don’t buy into this whole thing. Don’t buy into this
conspiracy theory. Don’t be afraid of what they’re
afraid of. You need to be a man of God. You need to stand in
faith and proclaim what I tell you to proclaim. Look at verse
13. It is the Lord of hosts whom
you should regard as holy, and He shall be your fear and He
shall be your dread. Would that the people of God
were more afraid of God than these heathen nations. That’s
what Isaiah says. And then in verse 14, then if
you regard God in that way, if you are fearful of Him, if you
acknowledge Him as being holy, then He shall become your sanctuary. What a beautiful word that is.
A safe haven, a safe house, a place of refuge. That’s what God is
to us, isn’t He? I hope. Then He shall become
a sanctuary. But to both houses of Israel,
a stone to strike and a rock to stumble over and a snare and
a trap for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Many will stumble
over them. Then they will fall and be broken.
They will even be snared and caught. God wanted to be their
sanctuary. And this passage is used to proclaim
that Christ would have wanted to be a sanctuary to people.
But because of unbelief, he became a stumbling block. It’s implied
that Christ ultimately in view in
this passage, Christ would become a stumbling block even to the
people of Israel. The Lord Himself in the original
context here desired to be a God who was feared and trusted. He wanted to be the refuge for
the people. He wanted them to trust in Him,
place their faith in Him. But if He wouldn’t be that, He
would become a stumbling stone, a rock of offense to anybody
who did not trust Him. When God here declares that He
should be a sanctuary to one group of people, At a rock of
offense to others, he meant here that in the person of his son,
the Lord Jesus Christ, that he would be trusted in by some,
rejected and despised by others. Ultimately, that’s exactly what
this passage is pointed to mean. Christ is the focus of this passage. Christ is the one ultimately
rejected. But think of the image at play
here. To enter into fellowship with
the Lord God, Jehovah, is to be in sanctuary. It is to find
safe haven. The one who stands on that stone
that forms the very threshold of the sanctuary has gained a
safe haven like none other. It is a safe spot. It is the
most secure place of all to be on God’s doorstep, isn’t it? But in order to do that requires
faith. And the one that walks blindly
or without faith stumbles over that very stone. That’s the image
at hand. The prophecy goes far beyond
what was going on in Ahaz’s day. The very stone, Immanuel, that
should have been a sanctuary by belief, became a fatal stumbling
stone to others. I want to show you two places
where Christ used this very language. Matthew chapter 21. They should
have known Christ. They should have known His heart.
They should have known His character. They should have known that he
was the Messiah, but they didn’t. And he told them a parable, look
at verse. Thirty three. Listen to another parable, there
was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and
dug a wine press in it and built a tower and rented it out to
vine growers and went on a journey and he had them right where he
wanted them. He has them in rapt attention
because that image was a common one. It would be as if I told
you about my garden, and I grew corn, and I had a wall around
it, and I had a hose woven through the corn to water the garden.
It’s an image that we all understand, and He had them right there.
And when the harvest time approached, verse 34, He sent His slaves
to the vine growers to receive the produce. And right here,
they’re still right there. This is all expected. This is
exactly what a vine grower would do. This is exactly what the
landowner would do. He would come at the right moment
expecting the fruit of his harvest. The next part they didn’t expect.
Verse 35, and the vine growers took his slaves and they beat
one and killed another and stoned a third. And by this point, these
hearers of Christ, these Pharisees and scribes just had to have
been on their heels. They were shocked at the turn
of this story. This made absolutely no sense.
This was a heinous crime. Again, Christ says gently, He
sent another group of slaves, larger than the first, and they
did the same thing to them. But afterward, He sent His Son
to them saying, they will respect My Son. And here, perhaps, the
Pharisees and the scribes’ hearts welled with hope that maybe they
will respect this man’s Son. But when the vine growers saw
the Son, they said among themselves, this is the heir. Come, let us
kill him and seize his inheritance.’ And they took him and threw him
out of the vineyard and killed him.” The whole story is so shocking
that you can almost imagine that the Pharisees couldn’t even bear
to hear the end of it. It’s absurd, it’s so shocking. Therefore, Jesus concludes, when
the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine
growers? And he puts the question to them. They, that is the chief priests,
the elders and the Pharisees said to him, he will bring those
wretches to a wretched end. He will run out the vineyard
to other vine growers who will pay in the proceeds at their
proper seasons. They didn’t know how right they
were because those group of slaves that the landowner kept sending
in were the prophets. They were the prophets of God
constantly going into the vineyard, calling God’s people back to
repentance and constantly needing ill treatment and constantly
being beaten and even killed. And God said, I will send My
Son. They will respect My Son. And
when He sent His Son, they killed Him too. And Jesus said, you don’t know
how right you are. When you say, he will bring those
wretches to a wretched end and will run out the vineyard to
other vine growers who will pay him the proceeds at their proper
seasons. You’re exactly right. Thanks for that answer. And then
he takes them to the Old Testament and he takes them to our passage.
And Jesus said to them, did you never read the Scriptures? The
stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief cornerstone. And with that, the Pharisees
were absolutely stunned. Jesus concludes by saying, therefore,
I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you. Verse
43, given to a nation producing the fruit of it and he who falls
on this stone will be broken to pieces. But on whom it falls,
it will scatter him like dust. And when the chief priests and
the Pharisees heard his parables, they understood that he was speaking
about them. And they sought to seize him, but they feared the
multitude because they held him to be a prophet.” They were cowards. They were unbelieving cowards. I want to take you to another passage,
Romans chapter 9. In Romans chapter 9, Paul explains
the same thing that Christ just explained. Paul here in these
great chapters talking about Israel, talking about the Jewish
people, talking about their place in God’s economy, set aside temporarily,
but ultimately to be woven back in. But for the time being, look at verse 30 of chapter 9. What shall we say then? The Gentiles,
who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even
the righteousness which is by faith. But Israel, pursuing a
law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because
they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling
stone. And the stumbling stone was faith
in Christ, which gives us righteousness. Verse 33, just as it is written,
Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense,
and he who believes in Him will not be disappointed. They stumbled at Christ. They stumbled over Jesus Christ
and instead of choosing Him, falling on Him in faith as the
chosen of God, the precious foundation stone on which to rest their
hope, They rejected Him altogether. They looked for a Messiah of
a completely different character. And they rejected the Christ
that God had sent. They rejected Christ and He became
to them a stone of stumbling. Ultimately, that occasioned His
rejection by those who, by not believing Him, ultimately were
cut off from communion with God. There was no other way to God.
There was no other avenue. There was no other path. Jesus was the foundation stone. Jesus is the cornerstone. And
a lack of faith mires one. It mires you and it
absolutely befuddles you as you begin, if it isn’t by faith,
if you begin to contemplate spiritual things and you don’t place your
faith in Christ, you wander. Always learning, as Scripture
says, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Haven’t you met the philosopher? Haven’t you met the learned one?
The well-read one? The one that always wants to
banter with you about spiritual things? I have a friend of mine.
Same thing. Always learning and never able
to come to the knowledge of the truth because they will not look
at Christ. They will not evaluate Christ as He is. There’s a third
dreadful result of unbelief. Unbelief is no deterrent to God’s
plan of redemption. Unbelief mires one as they contemplate
Christ. And thirdly, unbelief is characterized
by a life of disobedience. It’s characterized by a life
of disobedience. The one goes hand in hand with
the other. Look at verse eight. For those
who disbelieve, A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, for they
stumble because they are disobedient to the word. Their sinful life
is such that they can’t even contemplate setting aside their
sinful life, and they come to Christ, who is righteousness,
and they stumble over him. The Greek word there is disobey.
Disobey is not the same thing. It’s not the same word as to
disbelieve. But the two things are so closely
related that they’re almost intertwined. They’re inextricable. You can’t
separate the two. One said of it, that this unbelief
itself is the grand disobedience. Did you get that? Unbelief is
the ultimate act of disobedience. The Gospel commands us to believe. Repent. Believe on Christ. It calls for faith. It demands
faith. And so there is nothing indeed,
as one said, more worthy of the name of obedience than the subjection
of the mind to receive and believe the supernatural truths which
the Gospel teaches concerning Christ. That is the basics of
what obedience is. The word here used for disobedience
essentially means unpersuasion. And nothing can more properly,
as one said, express the nature of unbelief than that. It is
the very nature of our corrupt hearts because we are children
of disobedience. And unbelief then is just merely
the root of all other disobedience. All other acts of rebellion and
disobedience come from this root. of lack of faith, a lack of belief. Those who reject Christ stumble
and suffer divine judgment because they are disobedient to the Word. Unbelievers receive the exact
penalty that they’re due because they don’t obey the Gospel. They don’t obey the command to
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Principle is carried through
out Scripture, isn’t it? John 3, 18. He who believes in
him is not judged. He who does not believe has been
judged already. It’s not like you wait for the
great white throne judgment. If you don’t have Christ, you
stand condemned wherever you are. The rest of the verse reads,
“…because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten
Son.” John 3.36, “…he who believes in the Son has eternal life.
But he who does not obey the Son…” Fascinating verse. “…he who does not obey the
Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
He calls us to faith. He calls us to place our faith
in Him. He commands it. And anything
less is an act of disobedience. John 8.24, “…therefore, I said
to you, you will die in your sins. For unless you believe
that I am, you will die in your sins.” There’s a great call that goes
forth. There’s a call to believe the Gospel. And that initial
act of obedience also becomes, if you will, the root from where
all other obedience stems. It begins there. It begins in
a life of obedience to Christ. Unbelief. I said there were four dreadful
results of unbelief quickly on the last. Unbelief is no deterrent
to God’s plan of redemption, mired in contemplating Christ,
characterized by a life of disobedience. And fourthly, it is judged by
God already. It is judged by God already. As I said, it isn’t that we need
to wait and look forward to a day of judgment. Unbelievers will
receive exactly what they already deserve. God appoints judgment
on every unbeliever. God judges unbelievers as a consequence
of their lack of love for Him and their disobedience to the
Word and their refusal to believe in Christ. That’s the bottom
line. It’s not so much the deeds that they’ve done, but it’s their
lack of faith. I want to take you to a passage
quickly. It’s an interesting before you go to the passage,
let’s go to the passage that we’re looking at. And this. I’m going to leave
you hanging because I don’t have the final explanation on this,
because I haven’t been to heaven yet and I haven’t heard God’s
commentary on the passage in its entirety. I’ll tell you what
I know. I tell you what I see. And it
is disturbing. These are the kind of passages
that chip away at your popularity when you preach them. I have
no choice. Look at verse eight, stone of
stumbling, a rock of offense for they stumble because they
are disobedient to the word and to this doom they also were appointed. You know what? I don’t know how
else to read it. There is a measure of sovereignty, strong, however
you judge it. There is a measure of God’s sovereignty
in this, that they are getting exactly what they deserve, exactly
according to God’s plan. You know what? Even so far as
to say this is the same word that is used in the earlier verse. In verse six, it said, I lay,
I place in Zion a stone. That’s something that God did.
And here in verse eight, the same word is used to describe
appointed. Now, I don’t know how to unravel
all of this. In fact, I looked for a way out of this in my flesh. I said, boy, if I could find
any way to ease this passage in people’s minds, let me look
at all the translations. Let’s look at Darby’s translation.
They are disobedient. being disobedient to which also
they have been appointed.” Well, that’s no help. Let’s look at
the ASV. They stumble at the word being
disobedient, whereunto they were also appointed. That’s no help. What about the ESV? Let’s go
to the new one. Let’s go to the one that Piper
uses. They stumble because they disobey the word as they were
destined to do. Let’s look, let’s look at the
good news translation. Certainly that will be helpful.
They stumble because they did not believe the word. Such was
God’s will for them. Let’s look at the King James,
which document is not exactly strongly influenced by Calvinism. Let’s look at the King James.
They stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto also they
were appointed. All right. Let’s be really dangerous
and let’s listen to one of these pseudo translations of our modern
day. Kind of one of the nicey nice things. Let’s listen to
the message, right? They trip and fall because they
refuse to obey just as predicted.” That’s as soft as I found. It’s
as soft as it came. Just as God planned to happen
to them, which also is what they were destined for, the NIV, to
which also they were appointed, the new King James. They meet
the faith that has been planned for them, the new living translation.
I tried everything I could. And there is a measure of God’s
sovereignty in this that can’t be explained away. That somehow
in God’s eternal counsel, this whole thing unfolds exactly according
to plan. As Acts says, by the predetermined
plan and foreknowledge of God. God knew it from the very beginning.
God planned it all, even down to those who were going to reject
Him. Which makes for us the salvation
that we own, an incredibly precious gift. One that was not given
to us because of something that we deserve, because of something
that we did or would do, but purely by the grace and mercy
of God. One pastor wrote, In fairness, we must not shirk
the further question which undoubtedly comes in at this point. Even
though the moment of their appointment to stumble was that of the utterance
of the prophecy, it cannot be denied that in a certain sense
it was God himself who appointed them to stumble. This is implied
in the very doctrine of election, because if God selects one man
out of 100 to present salvation through belief in the truth,
it seems to follow logically that the 99 are appointed to
have no share in that salvation. through disbelief in the truth.
People will get into it more next week. The positives for
us who purely by God’s mercy and grace have come to a saving
knowledge of Christ, where there it is a precious gift that we
should humbly accept from His hand. Let’s humble ourselves before
Him now. O merciful God, One day we do
look to have all the difficult verses explained. Lord, there’s in me a belief
that as soon as we arrive on heaven’s doorstep, we will have
no more questions. We will find You to be perfectly
righteous and good and just and holy. And we will fall at Your
face because of Your kindness to us. Lord God, we thank You
and praise You for this passage. We thank You for freeing us from
the perils of unbelief. And if there are any who don’t
know Christ, may today be the day of salvation for them, where
they place their faith on the only One who can save them from
their sin, our Lord Jesus Christ, the cornerstone of salvation.
To God be the glory, in Jesus’ name,