Why are there some pastors who do not believe?

Well, we have at least two of these apostles. Surely, that is quite enough. Very likely the other apostles taught the very same things by word of mouth. But we have this warning about these characters, written down by two besides Jude; one the apostle Paul, the other Peter in both his Epistles. In his First, Peter says that the time is coming when judgment must begin at the house of God, and judgment on just this kind of ungodliness then working up; but in his Second Epistle there is a deal more. And I think that Jude goes still further, and that his Epistle was written after Second Peter, and for this reason, that there is an advance of evil. Peter speaks of unrighteous men, Jude speaks of men that once seemed to have the truth, and through their bad life, bad ways, pride, vanity, or whatever it was, they lost it. That is quite a common thing. By common, I do not mean that any very great numbers break off in this way, but that it is a sin which every now and then breaks out. Why, even since "Brethren" began there have been the most terrible cases of people giving up all the truth. The greatest infidel of modern days was one of the early "brethren." He was a very clever man, and gave up his fellowship at Balliol to go to the Eastern world, among Arabs and Persians and the like, with the gospel. He seemed to be devoted to the Lord. But even on his way out he betrayed that he was not a true believer at all. How? By doubting about the full proper Deity of the Lord Jesus; and when he came back brethren enquired into it. There had been whispers of it before his return, but then he was out of the way, so that till his return it was not possible to deal with him fairly, or to examine him fully, not merely whispers. When he came back he was seen and written to, and his words were the words of an unbeliever; he was therefore refused any place in our fellowship. After this, he went among the dissenters, who welcomed him most heartily, and he preached in their chapels and was most acceptable among them, particularly as he ran down the "brethren" pretty hotly. At this time, he still appeared to be pious in his outward ways and manner, and still read the Bible. But he gradually gave up everything and gave an account of it in a book which he wrote bearing a very anomalous title indeed, for it would appear that he really never had faith. He was a man who was very impressionable, and he easily took the colour of those with whom he was. He valued and was charmed with the sound of the truth, and thought he had it, but I am afraid he never had. So he lived, and so, I fear, he died. There have been others of no such prominence who have had a similar end; not so marked, perhaps, but as sad. Some had once been in fellowship, and seemed to be very honoured persons for a time, before they were really known. And this kind of thing falls in with what we have here.

"Everywhere there is the cry of a shortage in students for the ministry, and church councils have decided that the cause is insufficient support. Friends, the cause is more serious than this. It is because, under the withering power of rationalism, many who go to the Seminaries lose the conviction that they must preach the Gospel. They leave without a Christ to preach. No wonder they quit. They are more honourable in doing so than those who continue to hold pulpits and deny the very Lord that bought them. I wish a thousand more would quit, but do not slander them and say it is because the support is insufficient. Men that are called of God are still willing to bear the reproach and suffer physical need if need be. Our Seminaries are in truth 'Cemeteries,' where hopes die and many make shipwreck of faith."

This aspect of infidelity rendered it repulsive to me. I wanted something elevating and productive of good. But things have changed and for the worse. In my young days the attack was from the outside. To-day it is from the inside. There is little need for aggressive atheism. Modernism and Higher Criticism are carrying on the evil work within the professing Church. "Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light … his ministers also … transformed as the ministers of righteousness" (2 Cor. 11:14-15). Clergymen and ministers, who have on solemn oath promised to uphold the Word of God, are undermining it in many a pulpit. They pocket stipends for the work of upholding the Gospel of God, and are traitors in the camp, wolves in sheep's clothing. Professors of Theological Colleges are poisoning the minds of young men preparing for the ministry. Alas! how many of them are unconverted, blind leaders of the blind.

You remember how He speaks of His own in John 10:27-30: ”My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one.” Of His own He says, “I know them.” Of these others, in spite of all their activity, in spite of all their accomplishments, He says in the day of judgment, “I never knew you.” That is a very solemn thing. That answers a question that is frequently put to us. I do not know how many times I have had individuals come to me with a hypothetical case like this: “Suppose a man who joined the church, who professed to be saved, who for a number of years was a very active Christian worker, perhaps a Sunday school teacher, perhaps an elder or a deacon in the church, maybe a minister, but after some years of apparent consistent Christian living and helpfulness in testimony he turns his back on it all, returns to the world, utterly repudiates Christianity, and now denies in toto the gospel he once professed. How does that square with your doctrine of the eternal security of the believer?” That does not touch the matter at all. The apostle John tells us how we are to understand a case like that. He says in 1 John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us,” or literally, “That they were not altogether of us.” That is, it is possible to do all the things that I have spoken of and yet never be regenerated. It is quite possible to join a church, to make a Christian profession; it is quite possible to observe the Christian ordinances, to teach and to preach, and yet never be born again. If one teaches and preaches the truth, it will produce good results and will do men good whether the teacher or the preacher be real or not, for it is the truth that God uses. Of course He can use the truth to better advantage when it is proclaimed by a holy man living to the glory of God than when it is proclaimed by a hypocrite. Nevertheless, God uses His truth regardless of who may proclaim it, and that explains how people may do mighty works in the name of Christ and yet never be born again.

If I believed the Word of God taught non-eternity of punishment, I would seek grace to proclaim it from the house-tops. Why be ashamed or afraid of the truth? There are literally thousands of ministers today, paid by congregations to propagate the gospel, who are veritable agents of the devil in undermining the faith of their hearers in the authority and inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. Such are traitors in the camp.

“A form of godliness”, is not godliness. It is terrible to think that Satan, who energized the attack years ago against the truth by open infidels such as Tom Payne, Charles Bradlaugh, and Col. Ingersoll, should now be able to undermine the citadel from within. We find Principals and Professors of Theological Colleges, Bishops, Deans, Clergymen, Ministers, now preaching Tom Payne’s views from the theological chairs and pulpits on every hand. There is no honesty in receiving emolument for professing to uphold and preach the gospel, when all the time they are destroying the faith of God’s elect, and instead of building up, they are pulling down.

A particular sign before the temple, done in His name, had roused not more the amazement of the multitude than the jealous fears of the religious chiefs, sore troubled because they proclaimed in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. How blinding is the influence of unbelief! They could not deny the reality of the miracle; they would not believe the gospel. They put in ward and further threatened the instruments of divine power. They have not a word to say about their own Scriptures bearing witness to their rejection and God's exaltation of the Messiah; yet they charged the apostles not to speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus, desirous of punishing them, but finding as yet no means how to do so, because of the people whose favour they dreaded to lose, without the fear of God. A truly lamentable picture of those who claimed to be exclusively His people on the earth!

'And when both the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these words, they were utterly perplexed about them whereto this would come.' Conscience could not but whisper, the more inexplicable to them it might seem. Strange things had Jerusalem seen and heard: not only when the Christ was here, but more widely and wonderfully since He died, and, as the disciples affirmed, rose and went to heaven. That God had somehow brought out of prison the apostles, whom Jewish authority had put in, was rather in keeping with all that had been of late transpiring in their midst in Solomon's porch and elsewhere. But unbelief is the rebellion of the heart and may work most proudly in the face of the fullest testimony, without one solid ground of objection or a reasonable excuse. And as it is the heart that is in question, neither age nor sex, neither knowledge nor ignorance, exempts a single person from its poisonous activity. Indeed an active or subtle mind, however much furnished and exercised only gives the larger means and scope for its evil opposition to God. 'Ye will not come to Me that ye might have life.' 'For with the heart man believes to righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made to salvation.' 'He that has received His testimony has set to his seal that God is true.' Men dread consequences. Faith is subject to God's word, and seeks to please Him. The Jewish rulers were afraid of the issues now. They had no thought of God in the unseen light of eternity.

The governor wielded the power of the Roman kingdom; but who were they that secretly instigated him? The false religionists of their day — the priests, utterly blinded of the devil. Always without simplicity of heart, they assembled together with the elders and took counsel; and those who bribed a treacherous disciple with "thirty pieces of silver" to put Christ to death, gave "large money" now to deny the truth of His resurrection. Such is man, such is the world; and, solemn to say, such is its highest and proudest phase. Such it was then: is the moral complexion altered now? If we read the Bible aright, we shall find in it not only the record of the past, but the divine lesson-book of the present and the future. May we read it for our own souls! Certain it is that the Jews, and especially the religious chiefs, took the lead in evil and in opposition to God before Christ's death (Matt. 26-27), while He lay in the grave (Matt. 27:62-66), and after He rose again (Matt. 28:11-15). But unbelief is after all as weak against God as faith is mighty with and by Him. Their own guard became the clearest, most unwitting and least suspected witness of the resurrection. What a testimony was the alarm of the soldiers, added to the doubts of His own disciples! It became more than unbelief now; it was a deliberate, wilful lie; and there are the Jews "until this day." Their fears were, without their meaning it, a sure testimony to Jesus; but their enmity leads them on now to reject what they knew was the truth, even if they perished everlastingly.

It is thus shown in the chapter that the Lord Jesus Christ was rejected in the hearts of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. There that poisonous leaven of disbelief was working. Their teaching was vitiated by their denial of the Christ, the Son of the living God. What they taught the people was something to poison and destroy their souls. Why? Because they disbelieved the Messiah. They refused to accept the Lord Jesus Christ, Who had come to them that they might have life.

Now, friends, let us never forget that the great touch-stone of the ministry of truth is the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The man who is not faithful to the glory and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ may speak words intended to do you good, and edify your souls, but if they contain what is derogatory to His Holy Name, however profound his teaching may be, however powerful and passionate his speech, however clever and attractive his sentences, they will be but as leaven to your souls, communicating the corruption of evil to your heart. "Beware", the Lord said, "of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees." They hated and despised Him, and made up their minds that He must die; they would not have Him to reign over them.