What is faith, and what is it not? What is faith as opposed to hope, knowledge or presumption? How can we obtain faith? This article investigates faith, addressing these questions and others on this vital subject. 

Edited by Laura Johnson

I don’t want to talk about faith or lack of faith, but rather unbelief. Unbelief is not simply an absence of faith. It is a great war, which stops God completely from working. It is not just a quirk of personality that makes some people into believers and other people into non-believers, but it is a result of certain set attitudes and certain decisions that a person has made. I want ‘to look at some of the kinds of unbelief in Scripture, and we are going to see ourselves in some of these illustrations.

The Unbelief of Familiarity

"And great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore." (Matthew 13:2) This chapter continues to record Jesus teaching all the parables of the kingdom – tremendous teaching! Then we see something interesting later in the same chapter.

"Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these parables, that He departed from there. .And when He had come to His own country, He taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, "Where did this Man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this Man get all these things?" (Matthew 13:53-56)

They were saying, "We know all about this guy, he is so ordinary, we know everything about him." What a contrast! When He was away from home, multitudes were flocking to hear this great teaching. When He came home, it was a flop, because they knew Him too well to be in an attitude to receive from Him. This is the unbelief of familiarity.

This was concerning the Lord Jesus Christ; there wasn’t anything wrong with him. What chance does a preacher have, who has clay feet? His weaknesses stick out very plainly when he is at home. When he is away from home people can receive the ministry. When he comes home, his ministry is a flop. "Well, we know him, we know his wife, his kid, we know all about him." So, the unbelief of familiarity stops God from working.

The same account is in Mark 6:5-6, "Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief. Then He went about the villages in a circuit, teaching." He was amazed at their unbelief. He could do no great work there because of their unbelief. He just healed a few sick people and that was it. This was the unbelief of familiarity.

Another thing that I want you to notice here is that Jesus had lived in his home town for thirty years. He had lived a perfect life, from the time He was a little boy through growing up to manhood; they all knew Him as the carpenter. "Is this not the carpenter’s son?" (Matthew 13:55) He had lived a perfect life, but He had never done a miracle because the time had not yet come for His Father to send the Holy Spirit with that powerful anointing which would cause Him to move out in a totally new dimension of ministry. Part of the problem was that they had been familiar with the non-powerful Jesus for so many years that they could not receive Him when he came in power.

Many of us have been brought up and lived in a Christian environment for decades, but how many of us have seen the mighty power of Jesus? Praise God, we have seen some of it, but I find that the climate of the average church life is, "Well, we are just coming here and we are so familiar with Jesus, we are not expecting anything to happen." It puzzled me for years that when I would go to India or to Africa I would see so much more happen than at home. Why doesn’t it happen in the western world?

Because God loves the poor people? No, He loves everybody. It says in Scripture that there is no respecting of persons with God. I don’t believe this lie, that in a sophisticated society God holds back His miraculous power just to show special blessing in the needy areas of the world. It has nothing to do with that; it has to do with the attitude of the people.

We all have to hear God, because unbelief is an activity that stops God when God wants to work. We are crying out for multitudes to come into the church, and God is saying to me, "Tell them about unbelief! They’re not waiting for Me, I’m waiting for them. I want to save and I want to blaze across the city with a mighty outpouring of My power. Talk to them about unbelief."

At the end of Mark 6, we come to verse 53, where it says that He had come to the land of Gennesaret. This land was outside what we call the Holy Land. It says in verses 54-56, "And when they came out of the boat, immediately the people recognized Him, ran through that whole surrounding region, and began to carry about on beds those who were sick

to wherever they heard He was. Wherever He entered, into villages, cities, or the country, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged Him that they might just touch the hem of His garment. And as many as touched Him were made well." This is the same Jesus in a totally different environment.

I will give you another illustration of this. Andhra Pradresh is a central state of India. It is a Hindu state, and there were not any Christians there until God began to move there about ten years ago. I was privileged to work there with a man called John Babu. We saw thousands of these village Hindus saved and filled with the Holy Spirit, as well as every kind of miracle that the Bible ever recalls. We saw them happen. Most of those Hindus had no theological background; they knew nothing about Jesus. They just knew that He is the God of the Christians. But the reputation of Jesus has now spread and most of these Hindus know that there is a mighty God called Jesus, and the one thing they know about Him is that He works miracles. That is all they know about him. If they come to a Christian meeting, they come with an expectation that this Jesus is going to heal. So what happens? It has nothing to do with poverty; it is an attitude of the heart. You cannot say that the Hindus have got any faith, but what they do have is an absence of unbelief! That is enough for God to work.

But informed people who have lived for decades with knowledge of a non-powerful Jesus are so programmed against Jesus moving in power that there is a war that has stopped even Jesus from doing His works.

When the prophet comes home to his home town, to his own country and to his own people, the Bible says that he is without honour; we do not expect anything to happen through him because we know him too well.

Another area of familiarity is an attitude like, "Oh well, I’ve seen that before. I’ve seen blind people getting healed; this is nothing new to me."

With that attitude you will not see any more. What always amazes me is a man like Reinhard Bonnke. I know quite well that every time somebody gets saved, it is just as if it is the first time. He gets so excited, like a little boy. Do you remember when you heard somebody speak in tongues, how amazing it was to you? Or the first time a prophecy came into your church? "Oh, what a wonderful thing, God spoke a prophecy!" Now, we do not even believe it is from God anymore. Scripture says, "Despise not prophesying but test everything." (1 Thessalonians 5:20). What are we to do? To hold fast to everything that is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21). So this area of familiarity actually brings a contempt to the gifts of the Spirit and the way God works. If we stop feeling that fresh and wonderful excitement we felt when God first began to move by His Spirit, we lose it. I pray, "Oh God, I want to be as excited about the millionth person who gets saved as about the first one. I want to be really thrilled and excited when somebody gets healed." This supernatural God is working. Pray for this freshness!