30th Mar 26 | 13:54
Studies by Book
Luke 21 20-24 WATCH AND PRAY III 05 Luke 21 20 The sin of unbelief
📖 Luke 21:20-24
*FRIEND OF GOD*
28May2021 - *The sin of unbelief* - _Luke 21:20-24_ - WATCH AND PRAY III (05) – Bible reading: _John 6:26-29_
The church needs to realise that the Holy Spirit is operating through us in bringing about a restraining effect of sin in our world. We are here to reconcile a lost world to God but this work entails us being the restraining agents in the hands of the Holy Spirit.
Luke 21:20 “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near.
Apostle Paul talks of two signs before the great day of the Lord and those are the falling away and the revealing of the son of perdition. He then speaks of the time when the restraining work of the Holy Spirit in the world will be removed. What does this mean? This is when the rapture will take place and the church will be taken away from the world.
We can only imagine the full-scale outworking of sin in our world and all of its terrible consequences when the restraining work of the Holy Spirit will be taken away. This is when the true face of the son of perdition will be revealed.
How are we to fulfil the work of restraining along with the Holy Spirit? There are three specific areas of restraining that Jesus has shown to us.
_John 16:8-11 And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: (9) of sin, because they do not believe in Me; (10) of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; (11) of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged._
(9) *of sin, because they do not believe in Me*; - The Lord sees the problem of sin as the problem of unbelief.
How do we understand belief?
Belief or believing is not a neutral, passive term. Belief is a strong active term. Belief is the frame of reference from which we operate. All of us have a frame of reference from which we live, that is what we believe.
Belief is not just an intellectual affirmation of a certain point of view, idea, or philosophy. We may intellectually agree with a certain point of view but that is not belief. *When we intentionally take a certain point of view, philosophy or ideology and begin to live our life on the basis of this view, then it becomes belief*. This is why belief is a strong active term.
Belief happens by choice. We choose to accept a certain frame of reference over and above against another frame of reference. This becomes our belief.
We were once living our lives on the basis of a certain point of view but when we come to Jesus, *we make a choice*. We repent and ask forgiveness from Jesus for living on the basis of another frame of reference, we now put aside whatever may have been our earlier frame of reference and we accept Jesus as the one on whom we will base our life.
This is the conversion experience.
Conversion is not just repenting of our sin and receiving Jesus into our lives. Conversion happens when we shift completely out of our earlier frame of reference, on which had been living and we now turn, surrender and submit to the new frame of reference, who is Jesus. This is what it means to believe in Jesus.
Many of us, claiming to be ‘born again’, have never come to this place of conversion. We repented of our sin, by which we meant repenting of certain habits in which we had been indulging and we accepted Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. Internally, our frame of reference by which we had been living, never changed. This shows that we have never believed in Jesus.
When we say that we have repented of our sin, it should be clear to us that we have repented of our *sin of unbelief*. _Hebrews 3:12 Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you *an evil heart of unbelief* in departing from the living God;_
The work of the church is to convict the world of the sin of unbelief. Our task is to get people to turn from the current belief system and come to live on the basis of Jesus. This is the work of the Holy Spirit in and through us.
In _John 6_ we read a pertinent incident that explains for us this matter of the sin of unbelief. The people lived from a frame of reference that food was the basis for life. So, they were looking for Jesus for they had witnessed the feeding of the five thousand.
_John 6:26 Jesus answered them and said, "Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled._
The Lord taught the people the understanding of belief.
_John 6:27-29 Do not labor for the food which perishes, *but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you*, because God the Father has set His seal on Him." (28) Then they said to Him, "What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?" (29) Jesus answered and said to them, "*This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent*."_
The people were not wanting to believe in Jesus. They believed in the material things as their basis of life but at the same time, they wanted a relationship with God, for they saw that a relationship with God would help them augment their basis for life, which was the material.
This is the convicting work of the church, to the world. *The church has to convict the world of sin in the realm of belief since the world operates on the basis of the material as their frame of reference*.
_Matthew 6:31-32 “Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' (32) For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things._
We live out of Jesus and not by the material. _Matthew 4:4 But He answered and said, "It is written, 'MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE, BUT BY EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD.' "_
*Thought to ponder*
```Are you living on the basis of Jesus or are you claiming to live by Jesus but actually living on the basis of the material things of life? Are you a part of the restraining work of the Holy Spirit through the church in the end times, of convicting the world of the sin of unbelief? If you are not, would you set this right this very moment?```