037. I would like to believe, but cannot. Will God condemn me for something I cannot do?
I would like to believe, but cannot. Will God condemn me for something I cannot do?
No, God will not condemn you for something you cannot do; but you can believe. Any one can believe. There is plenty of proof that the Bible is the Word of God and that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, proof enough to convince any one who really wants to know and obey the truth.
I have given in my book The Bible and Its Christ conclusive evidence that the Bible is God’s Word and that Jesus Christ is God’s Son, but one does not need to read books like that. There is plenty of proof in the Bible itself. John says in John 20:31 : “These are written (that is, the things contained in the gospel of John) that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through His name.” We here see that life comes through believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, comes through studying what is written. If any one will take the gospel of John and read it the right way, he will know and believe before he gets through that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and he will have life through believing it. Now what is the right way to read it?
First of all, surrender your will to God. “If any man willeth to do God’s will, he shall know of the teaching that it is from God” (John 7:17, R.V.). One can read the gospel of John again and again and not come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, if he reads it with an unsurrendered will, but if a man will first surrender his will to God to obey God whatever it may cost him, he cannot read the gospel of John through once without coming to see that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Second, each time you read look up to God and ask Him to show you how much of truth there is in the verses you are about to read, and promise Him that you will take your stand upon what He shows you to be true. Do not read too many verses at once. Pay careful attention to what you read. Read with a real desire to learn the truth and to obey it. By the time you get through the Gospel you will find that you can believe. In fact, you will find that you do believe. The reason that men do not believe is either because they are not living up to what they do believe, they have not surrendered their wills to God, or else they do not study the evidence that is calculated to produce belief. Men neglect their Bibles and read all kinds of trashy unbelieving books and then keep saying:
“I can’t believe! I cant believe!” A man might just as well feed himself on poison instead of food and then complain that he is not healthy. There is abundant evidence that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and faith is a matter of the will—it is willingness to yield to the sufficient evidence. Unbelief is the refusal to yield to the sufficient evidence. Unbelief is a matter for which every unbeliever is responsible.
God demands that we believe, that we yield our wills to the truth which He has abundantly revealed. Faith is the one thing that God demands of man, because it is the one thing above all else that we owe to God (John 6:29). Without that faith which is due to God it is impossible to please Him (Hebrews 11:6). If I had a child that did not believe in me, nothing else that he could do would please me.