And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)
Faith is necessary. It is impossible to please God without faith. And faith is not what we say it is, but it is what God says it is. When we have faith, we believe certain things about God.
First, we believe that God exists. This refers to something specific. It does not mean that we can choose whatever we want to call God, and then claim that we believe God exists. When our text from Scripture refers to God, it has in mind only the God of Scripture. So when it says we must believe that God exists, it means we must believe the God that the Bible describes is the one that exists. To say it another way, we believe what God says about himself in the Bible.
If someone worships a rock or a bird and calls that God, he does not really believe in God, because to him God means something different and contrary to what God says about himself. This person is merely using the same word, but a word is only a symbol that represents a meaning that we wish to communicate. If someone uses the same word to refer to something different, then we are not talking about the same thing. When we say that we believe in God, we refer to the being and the reality, and not the word itself. This being and this reality that we call God must be the same as what Scripture calls God, or what God says about himself.
So if someone claims that he believes in God, but this so-called God is not all-knowing and not all-powerful, this is not the being that we mean when we refer to God, because there is only one God, and only one true idea of God, and this God is all-knowing and all-powerful. If someone claims to believe in God, but this so-called God does not forgive all our sins and heals all our diseases, this is not God, because God’s inspired word states that he forgives all our sins and heals all our diseases. Thus when we say we believe in God, or that God exists, this is what we mean. We believe in this being, this person, this God, as he describes himself in Scripture.
Second, we believe that God is a rewarder. You might ask, if God is a rewarder, then shouldn’t we say that this is part of what it means to believe in God, or that God exists? Indeed, it makes sense to say this. Apparently, in the context of the verse we are using, it is important to the writer to emphasize this about God. In another context, we might say that we must believe that God exists, and that God is all-powerful, or that God has sent his Son to save us, and so on. Here it is important to insist that we must believe that God is a rewarder. If a person does not believe that God is a rewarder, or if he teaches against the idea that God is a rewarder, or if he teaches that God does not reward us with the things that Scripture says that God offers as rewards, then this person does not believe in God and he has no faith.
For example, the Bible teaches that God rewards faith with healing for the body. If a person does not believe this or if he teaches against it, then his idea of God is contrary to the God that is described in Scripture, and so he does not believe in God. He does not have faith. You say, perhaps he has faith, but he has been deceived. However, if someone has been deceived into calling Satan his God, it surely cannot mean that he has true faith. Why should we make farfetched excuses for people? In any case, we can test this by teaching him the truth. If he rejects it, then we have no right to say that he believes in God or that he has faith.
A religion that does not see God as rewarder becomes a form of self-worship, because a person would have to reward himself, so to speak. If you think that you should not receive certain things from God, or that having faith in God does not mean you can expect certain things from him, you would still pursue those things, but now you will strive for them by your own effort. In other words, you will reach for them by having faith in yourself.
The Faithless castigates the word of God on healing, prosperity, and various blessings. They claim that such a message is man-centered and unspiritual. However, they still strive after health, money, and other things that they claim we do not receive from God by faith or by virtue of our relationship with him. Therefore, their true worldview is a form of practical atheism, or to say it another way, they have made themselves their own gods.
They are not too different from those who explicitly affirm a worldview of atheism. Both of them have no God in their lives. Atheists, however, are more honest, since they admit that they have no God. The Faithless, on the other hand, has God in their worldview, but only as a symbol, and not in reality. This is what we witness in the theology of cessationism and other false doctrines and religions. God is only good for what they call spiritual things. In other areas of life, he is at the most a philosophical principle to guide their opinions and efforts. God himself does not do anything for them or work miracles for them in an active, constant, and obvious manner in healing, prosperity, supernatural protection, and in other areas of life. The Faithless refuse blessings from God, but they use their own effort to reach for the same results. There is no religion or theology more self-centered or man-centered than this. They are high-minded and self-righteous. Their allegiance to Christ is false.
The ones who brag about how they exalt God as ruler over all of life, are often the ones who compartmentalize their lives more than everybody else. They are unaware of this because they are too impressed with how God-centered they are. They pretend to apply God’s word to politics without asking him to perform signs and wonders, when that was how the early disciples handled political opposition. They pretend to apply God’s word to economics without having faith in him for prosperity. They pretend to apply God’s word to healthcare without having faith in him for miracles of healing. You see, they do not think of him as God at all. The God in their “God-centered” religion is really themselves. They have made themselves God, and they decide what it means to be God-centered regardless of what God has said and what God has promised and commanded.
The Faithless think it is a deception to believe that the more spiritual you are the more you will receive from God, although the Bible teaches exactly this. The true deception comes from the Faithless, who teach that the more spiritual you are the less you will want from God. According to the Faithless, if you are spiritual, if you are mature, you will only want to grow in holiness and character, and you will not want healing and prosperity, success and protection, and signs and wonders and various supernatural experiences. This is the true deception, because by this lie Satan has been able to keep Christians weak and unhappy. It follows that the gospel makes less progress and sinners burn in hell.
It is God’s glory to bless his people. God glorifies himself by showing his power and grace, and by making a distinction between Christians and sinners. It is his glory to show the world that he is a father, a provider, a healer. It is his glory to show the world that he is a teacher, a warrior, a defender. If we are God-centered, we would listen to his teachings on how to think about the things we want for our lives. If we are God-centered, we would listen to him when he says that anyone who approaches him must believe that he is a rewarder. He is not a taker. He is a giver. And he wants us to be the takers, to take from him when we seek him. This is what glorifies him, because this acknowledges him as God.
God is not only the God of the hills or the God of the valleys. He is the only God, and he is the God of everything. Since the Faithless behave as if he is God of the spirit and not God of the body, they make him into a pagan deity, in a similar way that Israel represented him by a golden calf. And we know that pagan deities are either demons or myths. If we were living under the Old Testament, true believers would have had to slaughter the Faithless to appease the wrath of God, lest the rest of the community become implicated. Today we ought to excommunicate the Faithless, but Christians are unfaithful and disobedient, so that those who teach faithless religion are not expelled, but rather tolerated and even admired as leaders and scholars, and as defenders of orthodoxy. God does not want you to have faith so that you can help him, but so that he can help you! God does not want you to have faith so that you can give him a good life, but so that he can give you a good life. The Faithless reverse all of this, as if they also wish God would fall down and worship them!
The Faithless insist that faith should lead to suffering, when they are the ones causing suffering to those who have faith. Most of the persecution suffered by Jesus and the early disciples came from religious zealots, leaders, and scholars that claimed to worship God. The Jews handed over Jesus to Pilate. They insisted that Jesus be crucified even as this heathen official tried to set him free. The Jews betrayed and murdered the apostles. And then the Jews followed Paul around and caused arguments and violence in order to oppose the gospel. They were also the ones who tried to introduce legalism and heresy into the church.
Christians teach that God is a good God, and that he has made promises of salvation, healing, prosperity, favor, protection, signs and wonders, and all kinds of miracles and spiritual experiences. The Faithless are indignant and claim that there is not enough suffering in this gospel, and they follow Christians around to persecute them and criticize them in the name of their faithless orthodoxy. Christians who teach the message of faith indeed experience suffering, and this suffering comes from the Faithless who complain that the true gospel has too little suffering in it! The Faithless complain that the gospel of faith has no enemies, but the Faithless are themselves the enemies of the gospel.
Most non-Christians do not care enough about the gospel to persecute the Christians. Most of them either believe and convert, or they mind their own business. Those who persecute Christians are few in comparison to the Faithless who persecute Christians. The Faithless — those who are religious but unbelieving — are those who persecute Christians and cause most of their suffering. This is identical to the situation we see in Scripture, but the Faithless are so self-righteous that they remain unaware that they are now in the same position as those who murdered the prophets and persecuted Jesus Christ and his disciples.
The ones who have faith face opposition from those who are without faith. Some persecution comes from those who deny that God exists, but much more persecution comes from those who deny that God is a rewarder. It is impossible for either group to please God. Of course, those who refuse to believe that God is a rewarder in fact refuse to believe God as he is or as he has revealed himself. Therefore, when they claim to believe that God exists, this belief is a sham, because they believe in something contrary to what should be called God.
Anyone who comes to God must believe that God exists, or that God is as he is, or that God is what he says about himself, and he must believe that God is a rewarder to those who seek him. His rewards are the things described in Scripture, and they include all kinds of blessings and benefits that apply to all areas of life. Christians might be criticized and persecuted, mostly by faithless religionists, but even then we will overcome and live a good life. We will leave the Faithless behind to be captured and abused by Satan, and afterward they will burn in hell.
The most faithless and hypocritical religionists are those people who brag about their “God-centered” theology but at the same time bulldoze over everything in the Bible that is contrary to their idea of being “God-centered.” In reality, they are centered on the religion that they have invented, and they are determined to force everyone else to conform, including God himself. If God says it is his nature and pleasure to heal the body by miracles, they throw that out because it is too centered on man. If God says that his followers has no need to worry about money, food, and clothing because he will provide these things in abundance so that even Solomon cannot compare, they denounce that as a gospel of greed.
These same people claim that God is not only “spiritual” but that he is for all of life, but they are the ones who refuse to allow God into most areas of their lives. They put themselves into all areas of their lives, and also into God’s life. They think that a message teaching that God will solve all our problems is man-centered and unspiritual, as if we are the ones who would solve our own problems and also God’s problems. This is supposed to be God-centered and spiritual, but the fact is that they have made God into a symbol only, and they have made themselves God instead.
This kind of religion cannot lead to heaven, because it does not really believe in God. There is only man in this theology, and no God at all. God-centered theology should not mean that we do not care about healing and prosperity, success and miracles, but it should mean that we care about what God thinks first of all. If God says he gives us these things, then God-centered theology will scream that we shall have these things. A theology is not God-centered if it demeans what God promises us and if it refuses to care about what God cares about.