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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
‘And He marvelled because of their unbelief.’
Mar_6:6
I. All unbelief is an offence against reason.—The region of faith lies beyond reason; but reason takes us to the border, and shows us it is reasonable to go in. We can demonstrate, by close reasoning, that there is a revelation, and that the revelation is our Bible. And from that moment reason itself demands of us that we believe all that that Bible contains. Then the Bible admits us into the fields of faith. Once in the region of faith, reason stops. We are amongst the unfathomable, the mysterious, the incomprehensible. We have simply to accept. To reason here would be out of place.
II. What is faith?
(a) Faith realises. It makes unseen things realities to the mind; as great realities, and greater, than the objects of our senses; clearer than the things in which we daily move. It turns those unseen things into substances. It is the ‘substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’
(b) Faith appropriates. It makes those things our own. I see Christ on His Cross. He is very real to me. His blood is flowing. And I hear Him say, ‘This blood is shed for you. It is My life given instead of your life, that you may live, and never die. It pays all your debt. Your sins are cancelled.’ And as He says it, He looks on me, and I take it home to my heart of hearts, and I say, ‘Yes, Lord; I know it, I feel it; I am forgiven, my sins are pardoned, and I am free and happy. And I am safe. For Thou hast said it.’ That is faith.
(c) Faith is the mother of love. If I have it, I cannot help but love. I am forgiven. I am loved. And I love again. The ray must reflect itself. And that love makes holiness. It must speak; it must act.
This is faith’s pedigree. This is faith’s history.
III. Where is the secret of this strange marvel?—‘Mighty works’ are being done around you: many are converted; many are being raised to a new life; and the Mighty One stands at your door and knocks; and if He once came in, O what a change! from unrestfulness to rest! from ‘the wilderness’ to ‘the garden of the Lord.’ But unfaith has locked and barred the door. And there He stands! Perhaps He is going away to someone else! ‘He marvels at your unbelief.’
Illustration
‘We can never be too much on our guard against unbelief. It is the oldest sin in the world. It began in the garden of Eden, when Eve listened to the devil’s promises instead of believing God’s words, ‘Ye shall die.’ It is the most ruinous of all sins in its consequences. It brought death into the world. It kept Israel for forty years out of Canaan. It is the sin which specially fills hell. “He that believeth not shall be damned.” It is the most foolish and inconsistent of all sins. It makes a man refuse the plainest evidence, shut his eyes against the clearest testimony, and yet believe lies. Worst of all, it is the commonest sin in the world. Thousands are guilty of it on every side. In profession they are Christians. They know nothing of Paine and Voltaire. But in practice they are really unbelievers. They do not implicitly believe the Bible, and receive Christ as their Saviour. Let us watch our own hearts carefully in the matter of unbelief. The heart, and not the head, is the seat of its mysterious power. It is neither the want of evidence, nor the difficulties of Christian doctrine, that make men unbelievers. It is want of will to believe.’