In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of prayer and belief in experiencing God's work in one's church, life, and area. He highlights how unbelief can rob the Word of God of its power and lead to spiritual loss. The preacher shares a story of two brothers, one becoming a missionary and the other ending up in prison, to illustrate the power of belief in the gospel. He also addresses the issue of rock music, offering a booklet to help understand its potential negative effects. The sermon concludes with a reminder to have faith in Jesus and not be fearful, as He is always present in the believer's life.

Well, we're glad to be back with you again today on Eagle's Wings, our last message for this year. What's God done in your life this year that's been significant? As I share about revival and what God can do in your life and in your church, I have one thing that I run against continually, and that is unbelief. I have a real burden for pastors. Being a pastor for many years myself, I know what they're like. I'm one of them. But I run into unbelief among the pastors more than anything else in the area of revival, and it burdens my heart. I want to give you a message today, a preaching message on unbelief. And I trust that God will use this message to speak to your heart, to speak to this nation, in relation to revival and what we can see God do. I'm glad to be with you again today, and I want to share with you on a topic that burns in my bones. It's the topic of unbelief. Torrey said on this subject that sin is an awful thing, and one of the most awful things about it is the way it hinders prayer, and the way it severs the connection between us and the source of all grace and power and blessing. Anyone who would have power in prayer must be merciless in dealing with his own sins. I propose to you today that unbelief is the greatest sin in the church today. The Bible says in Hebrews 3, 12 through 13, 12 and 13, Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. And we have a departure today in the church in America. But exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Are you exhorting, or are you just coasting? Unbelief in departing from the living God. The scripture says, Faith is the heart of Christianity. We're born again by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. The Bible says in Hebrews 10, 38, 39, Now the just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. Faith and belief is the heart of Christianity. Now if faith is the most essential ingredient, then I propose to you that unbelief is the biggest enemy of faith. It's our biggest problem to faith. You say, well, what is unbelief? If you can give me a definition. I'll give you one. It's just doubt. You doubt God. In Genesis 3, 1, Yea, hath God said, that was doubt. Satan's first attack was to cast doubt on what God said. Eve believed the lie, sin resulted, and she fell, and Adam fell. If you won't believe God, and if I won't believe God, then we will fall. Unbelief is to not believe God. Belief is to believe God. Very simple. Even I can understand that. Paul in Acts 27, 21-25, after being many days on a ship in a storm, received a message from God in his spirit that they were going to be saved. And he said, wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer, for I believe God that it shall be even as it was told me. 2 Corinthians 5, 7, the scripture says, For we walk by faith and not by sight. And my friend, if you'll walk by feelings, and if you'll walk by circumstances, and if you'll walk by what others tell you, you'll be a wishy-washy, up-and-down person. And you won't have much faith. The scripture is given to us to build faith into us. It's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in faith. You remember when Jesus was walking down the Emmaus road with those two sad believers? And after listening to them talk in their downhearted spirit and attitude, He turned and He said, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? How would you like to be recorded in scripture as a fool because of your slow of heart and unbelief? In Mark 16, 14, the scripture says that afterward He appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen Him after He was risen. It's an evil heart of unbelief. Spurgeon said, All other sins strike at God's territory, but the sin of unbelief strikes at God's person, because he that believes not God has made him a liar. Unbelief. Unbelief says, God, I don't believe Your Word. Do you know what unbelief will do for you? What will it do to you? It will do these six things. First, it will shut off God's blessing in your life. In Mark 16, 16, the scripture says, He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. You won't get saved. You won't go to heaven without belief. No one's going to get into heaven without belief. You say, What do I have to believe? You've just got to believe the gospel. You say, What's that? The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. He was buried and He rose again the third day. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Do you believe it? Do you believe Jesus died for you? Then you ask Him to save you. And it's Him and His blood alone that will get you there, not your good works or anything else. Unbelief. God is saying, You'll be lost. You'll go to hell. You'll not have a chance to go to heaven if you live in your unbelief. I remember a man when I pastored my first church in Wyoming, and I've shared this with you before, how he just cried. He said, I can't believe it. I just can't make a decision. I can't pray. I wondered about that song that says, Have you counted the cross? Maybe right now you've crossed the line. I've wondered if he'd crossed the line of some kind. He just could not trust Christ as his Savior. You know, if you have not believed in Jesus Christ, you're already lost. You don't have to do anything else. Just keep on the way you are. And you'll die and you'll go to hell. You're in trouble. The Bible says that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on Him. You're either saved or lost right now, my friend. Either you're believing in Jesus Christ, you're trusting in Him to get you to heaven, or you're trusting in yourself. Unbelief is a terrible, terrible sin. Unbelief prevents from entering in. It prevents us from entering into heaven. It prevents us from entering into God's blessing. This was the way it was with the children of Israel. They marched through that desert for 40 years, and then God brought them up to the door and said, Go in. And they said, Well, we better send in a convention. We better check this thing out. And they came back, and the ten of the spies had an evil heart report of unbelief. And they wandered another 40 years in the desert. No faith, no heaven, no faith, no blessing. Revelation 21, verse 8 gives the classification of those that are in hell. And they're not in heaven. These are in hell, it says, first of all, the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars. They're not in heaven. They're in hell. The second one listed was unbelief. Secondly, what unbelief will do to you is bad enough, but what unbelief does to God is bad also. Unbelief grieves God greatly. You remember Moses in the desert, and the people wanted water? And he came to God. And he said, God, they've got to have water. He said, Okay, strike the rock. Another time, they came back, and they were complaining about needing some water. And God told them, Just speak to the rock this time. And he was angry with them, and he struck that rock again. And God, in His grace and mercy, gave them water. And you say, Well, why was it such a bad thing? Well, first of all, let me tell you, that God wouldn't let Moses into the Promised Land because of his disobedience. But it spoke of Christ being crucified, and Christ was only crucified once. That's always necessary. And then all you have to do is come to Him in faith and believe and speak, and you get saved. But the Scripture says, Because you believe Me not to sanctify Me in the eyes of Israel. That's what God told Moses. Because you believe Me not, you can't enter the land, Moses. You can't get in. Because of unbelief, Israel was broken off. In Romans 11.20, Paul, if you'll remember, he told them, Because of unbelief, they were broken off. And thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear. We stand by faith. We're saved by faith, and we stand by faith. That's our belief. Remember Stephen, when he was being stoned, he turned to the leaders there, and possibly Paul was right there. And he said, You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Spirit, as your father did, so do you. Did you know that unbelief is resisting the Holy Spirit? Unbelief is a great sin against God. Thirdly, unbelief prevents God from working. I want to share with you, if I can get back to Psalms 78, verse 40. God said, How often did they provoke him in the wilderness and grieve him in the desert? Yea, they turned back and tempted God and limited the Holy One of Israel. You will be limiting God if you live in unbelief. It just limits God. We limit God by our unbelief. You say, Well, I don't see much happening. It's because you're not believing God to do much. I'm seeing things happen because I'm believing God to do it. I used to live on that street of unbelief. Boy, that's a bad neighborhood. The devil's crowd hangs out in that neighborhood. If you're living there, get out of it. God's children aren't supposed to live in that neighborhood. Move out. Move over to Faith Avenue. Someone said, God has limited His activity in the spiritual kingdom to the faith of His people. And I believe that. I believe every time somebody gets saved, somebody has prayed for them to get saved. Matthew 13.58 says that Jesus didn't do many works in His own country. Why couldn't He do much in His own country? Well, the Scripture says, because of their unbelief. Bill McCloud said, sometimes a church never gets off the ground because the pastor or people or both don't believe God is going to do anything. Wouldn't you like to see God do something? Believe Him to do it. Start praying and believing Him to do it. We believed God in 1985 to send revival to our area. And He did. And it continued for seven months. And even today, it's continuing in western Nebraska, what He did. Would you like to see God do a work in your church, in your life, in your area? Start praying and believing Him to do it. Fourthly, unbelief robs the Word of God of its power. Paul said, for I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto everyone, to salvation to everyone that believe it, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Reminds me of the famous story of two brothers. One became a famous missionary. And the other was a prisoner in the penitentiary. They both were raised up in the same family, in the same background, had the same teaching and everything. What was the difference? The difference was belief. One believed God and the other didn't. If I can take you over quickly to a passage in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 13. Did you know that the Word of God only works in those who believe? For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, Paul said, because when you received the Word of God which you heard of us, you received it not as the Word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God which effectually worketh also in you that believe. As I travel around, the one thing that will shut me down from ministering to a believer is unbelief. If I share something from the Word of God with them and they are seeking counsel but yet they won't believe it, then I don't have much else to say. I just gave counsel a few weeks ago to a lady. God was really working, giving her some good counsel to His Word. And she rejected it. And I heard just a little bit later that she tried to kill herself. Continuing to go to the ungodly for her counsel, to ungodly psychologists. They can tell you you've got a problem but they have a hard time helping you solve it. I know a little bit about that since I started off majoring in psychology. God, by His grace, saved me and showed me that there was a better way. Unbelief robs the Word of God of its power. Do you want more faith? Would you like to have more power? Then just apply Romans 10, 17. Take it just like you take a vitamin. So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. If you'd start reading your Bible more than you read your newspaper and your magazines and other books, you'd have more faith. That's the food that feeds your spirit. Fifthly, unbelief robs the Christian of his joy and peace. You've been having trouble having joy in your life and peace? Romans 15, 13 says, Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. Belief brings joy and peace into your life. If you get downcast, disgraced or something, just start praising God and believing Him to work. Just start giving Him thanks and see if things don't change. They will. 1 Peter 1, 8 Whom having not seen you love, in whom though now you see Him not, yet believing you rejoice with joy unspeakable, full of glory. The gloomy, doubtful, up and down, depressed Christian is filled with unbelief. And he's a detriment to the cause of Christ. He's not a witness. And you won't be witnessing if you're filled with unbelief. Who'd you talk to about Jesus Christ this week, this month? What about this past year? What do you plan on doing this next year? You say, well there wasn't much there. Well you're living in unbelief if there wasn't much there. Remember the Lord Jesus. He had the disciples. They were in a boat, asleep. He was asleep and they were out there worrying and thinking they were going to die any minute. And they woke Him up. And He looked around and He said, why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith? They had God Himself in the boat. And they were afraid. You have Jesus in your life, yet you're afraid. Why? Unbelief. Why is it that every time a little storm comes along and a little water splashes in your boat, you panic? Who's in the boat with you? Well you say, well I'm a Christian, Jesus is in my boat. That's right. So why are you afraid? My friend, if you don't have Jesus in your boat, you're going to sink. You have grounds to be afraid. You invite Jesus into your life to be the pilot of your boat. If you have a negative attitude, that's unbelief. Billy Bray said, I was born in the fire and I can't live in the smoke. Some of you are in the smoke and living in the fog. You don't see God working, you don't see where you're going. It's because of unbelief. He that comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. Some will depart from the faith, Timothy said. The love of many shall wax cold. We have many that have grown cold in their love to Jesus Christ. Why? Well, it's because of unbelief. If you're not living in faith, the next thing that's going to go is your love for Jesus Christ. You just look around at the people that live around you. Do they hear you talk about Jesus? Are you just a church person? You go to church regularly, but when it comes to talking about Jesus, you say, that's a personal thing, I don't talk about that. You're not living in faith. And I might even doubt whether you're saved or not. And there's others that probably would be surprised if you told them you're a Christian. They'd say, why, I would have never guessed. Unbelief, it does a lot for you in destroying you. You know, it's going to be bad in the last times, and I believe we're getting pretty close to being right in the middle of the last times. But don't focus on the bad. We see things happening so fast now it can make your head spin. But don't focus on it. Sixthly, the last thing. Unbelief prevents God from answering our prayers. You remember the Lord Jesus, He told the disciples in Luke 9-1, I'm going to give you all this power, all kinds of power, go out. And they took off, and they went out. And they ran across a case that they couldn't handle. Couldn't cast out this little old demon. Or pack of demons or whatever. Matthew 17-19, they said, why could we not cast him out? And Jesus said, because of your unbelief. You see, you can have all the power of God in you, but yet if you don't have faith, you're not going to do anything. You've got to believe. Jesus said to one man that came up to him, can you heal me? The man said to Jesus, can you heal me? If thou canst do anything. And Jesus turned to him and said, it's not me, it's you. If thou canst believe, if you can believe, you'll be healed. Don't try to throw it on God. Our prayers are like this, oh God do something. And God, if you can just imagine Him listening to our prayers so many times. He says, what do you want me to do? Name it. We say, God do something. Well man, He can do something alright, but what do you want Him to do? What are you believing Him to do? Take heed brethren, lest there be in you, any of you, an evil heart of unbelief. However much you believe God, that's how much God will do for you. If your faith is built on the Word of God, you can have confidence. This is the confidence that we have in Him. That if we ask anything according to His Word, according to His will, the Word is His will. You'll have your answers my friend. Faith is built on the Word of God. You look at Abraham, man, he walked with God. And he had things happen. One of the greatest things in his life was when God asked him to sacrifice his own son. And he didn't waver in faith. And he went ahead to do it. And he believed that God would raise him up. Hebrews 11.19 tells us that. How big is your faith? Can you lay it all on the altar like Abraham did? Can you? Let's go ahead with Jesus. Whatever is not of faith is sin. Romans 14.23b What's the difference between an unbeliever and a believer? It's faith. What's the difference between you and your neighbor? In unbelief, it's not what you can't believe. It is in actuality, who you can't believe. Paul said, For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. Some folks struggle with doubting their salvation. It's not what you can't believe, it's who you can't believe. Do you believe Jesus saved you? Then you're saved. Don't doubt him. Unbelief is an offense to God. It's just like if you would say to me, I'm going to do that for you. I'm going to paint your garage for you. And I get out the next day and grab me a paintbrush real quick and go out there and paint it. Then my friend comes over and he's got his paintbrush and he says, Hey, you painted your garage. You didn't believe me. I'm offended. That's the root. That's what we do with God. We offend him. It's an evil heart. In actuality, unbelief is a heart problem. What's the root? I believe the root is you won't meditate on the word of God and you won't believe it. You're not memorizing scripture and you're not meditating on it. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. You're listening more to man than to God. You won't meditate on the word of God and it's pride. Pride has something to do here too. You say, I can handle it. I can make my life work. I can make things work out. You won't get it done. The Pharisees couldn't get it done. Matthew 21, 32 says, For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and you believed him not. But the publicans and the harlots believed him. And you, when you had seen it, repented not afterward that you might believe him. Do you believe he can save you? He can do it. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. The Bible says, Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. You're living in unbelief? You've got a heart problem. You've got sin. You better take care of that. You've got a lot of other problems. But if you haven't taken care of that, you're not going to get anywhere with him. And some of you, maybe that's why you've never gone on with God the way he wanted you to go. It's because of your heart problem of unbelief. We need to call unbelief sin. We need to get right down there and say, God, I've got that hard heart. Job 9, 4, Who hath hardened himself against him and hath prospered? The answer is, no one. You're not going to prosper in unbelief. A hard heart needs to be broken and softened. An evil heart is a heart that is turned away from God. Confess it as sin. And God will meet you there and he'll bless you. And he'll turn your life into a great powerhouse of his glory. Do you believe it? Well, I've shared with you today on unbelief. And in our closing moment, I'd just like to add something else. Chambers said, Beware of the pious fraud in you which says, I have no misgivings about Jesus, only about myself. What are you doing looking at yourself? You look at yourself, you'll be discouraged. Chambers said, My misgivings arise from the fact that I ransacked my own person to find out how he will be able to do it. My questions spring from the depths of my own inferiority. If I detect these misgivings in myself, let me bring them to the light and confess them. You know, there's nothing in self. This is why we have this program to tell you, you need Jesus. He's all you need. There's nothing in our self. I know that in me dwells no good thing. There's nothing in my self. Do you have in you a heart of unbelief? An unbelieving attitude, a spirit of discouragement in times of pressure? Do you have an unbelieving attitude, a spirit of discouragement in times of opposition? A lack of confidence in God's timing? A lack of faith and trust in God's dealing? A disposition to worry and complain about problems? An anxiety whether everything is going to come out all right? My friend, you need to come back to Jesus. This program on Eagle's Wings is geared for revival. The heart of revival is repentance. I run across so much unbelief. People say you can't have revival. Yeah, you can have it if you believe it. If you believe God's going to work, He'll do it. Faith gets the job done. Unbelief doesn't get the job done. Believe Him. Believe Him. The last few weeks I've been offering a booklet, still offering it, on rock music. Many of you need to get this booklet. If you can send me $5, at least a $5 donation. Send more if you want to. But at least $5 to help me cover the cost. It'll help you understand why you're seeing some disunity in your church. You're seeing that in maybe your own life or your family. I'm convinced that the rock beat is from Satan. And I know this is a controversial subject. I'm not afraid of controversy. But I've gone through a lot. God saved me out of the rock Himself. I'm seeing a family right now in one church that's a main family. But they've got problems. Deep problems. And they can't seem to get it figured out. And I'm praying on how to minister to them. But they've got that rock. So-called Christian rock. Well, it's been good to be with you today. And I trust that God will be very special to you. If you haven't received Christ as your Savior, please do so today. Well, this has been on Eagle's Wings. We trust that you'll learn to live by the grace of God. Learn to walk by faith. And for sure not to live in unbelief. I trust that you'll have a good new year. And that God will bless you abundantly. Until next time, God bless you, my friend.