To Encourage You

John 3:3 “Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’”               

We’ve all heard the saying, “Seeing is believing.”  It’s one of those old sayings that has just been passed down through the years.  However, like some other old sayings that people seem to take for granted as true, this one is most definitely not true, particularly in relation to spiritual things.

We see examples of this throughout the Bible.  The ministry of Jesus was marked by many miracles.  John tells us of a number of them in his gospel, but then he goes on to say “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25). For those who lived at the time Jesus walked on the earth, their unbelief was not because they didn’t see.  For them, seeing was not believing.  If anything, seeing did nothing more than harden their hearts in unbelief. 

One of the most incredible examples of this is the resurrection of Lazarus.  Surely, this was one of the most awesome miracles that Jesus performed.  Yet, we are told that although many people believed in Jesus as a result of this, the religious leaders of that day, “made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus” (John 12:10-11).  Thus, Jesus’ teaching in the account of the rich man who ended up in hell because of his unbelief rang true. In that account, the rich man wanted someone to go back from the dead to warn his brothers so that they wouldn’t end up there. He reasoned that surely, they would believe if they saw someone rise from the dead.  But to this he was told “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them . . . If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead” (Luke 16:29-31).  In other words, according to the Bible, “believing is seeing” and not the other way around.  Although people have been convinced from time to time that the gospel is true because of the things they have seen, we are told in Scripture that “faith comes by hearing (not seeing), and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).  With these words we are told that the most effective means of believing the truth of the gospel is by hearing its words, and not by witnessing some physical miracle.

God has so empowered His Word that it is enough for the unbeliever.  God has told us that His Word “is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:12-13).  That means that if you hear the gospel and refuse to believe it, it’s not because it’s not powerful enough in and of itself to convince you. No, it only means that your unbelief is willful, and that you’ve hardened your heart against it.  It is evidence of the power of your love of sin, and because of that love, you’ve “refused to love the truth and so be saved” (2 Thessalonians 2:10).  It is that unbelief that will keep you from ever being born again, which Jesus speaks about in the verse above from John 3.  And notice what He says: “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”  Elsewhere Jesus taught that “the kingdom of God is in the midst of you” (Luke 17:21).  The kingdom of God: it was staring them in the face, for Jesus embodied all that the kingdom was and is, yet so many in His day were blind to it.  And the kingdom is present in His followers, for they are Christ’s ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20), in effect sent from heaven to earth as that kingdom’s representatives. 

Then there are the words recorded for us by the prophet Isaiah as he heard the seraphim crying day and night in the temple of God “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:6).  And while this is very true and evident to anyone whose eyes have ever been opened to it, the unbeliever is blind to it, although it is evident in every aspect of the Creation God has made. 

So, what about you? Do you believe what God has said in His powerful Word?  You should know that if you refuse, if you are too stubborn to believe, if the Truth of the Bible is something that you turn away from or disregard, then there is no hope that you will ever see the things that God has for you, for, sadly, not even seeing will be believing, for you.