Unbelief Always Finds What It Seeks

The crowds at the Feast of Tabernacles had every reason to believe Jesus was the Messiah, yet they found excuses to reject Him. Today we'll examine how unbelief operates and why the heart matters more than evidence.

John 7:27 "However, we know where this man is from; but whenever the Christ comes, no one knows where He is from."

The people had a problem with Jesus—they knew where He was from. "Isn't this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?" They couldn't get over the fact that they knew His background, His family, His hometown. In their minds, the Messiah would appear mysteriously, out of nowhere.

But here's what gets me—this wasn't even true. The Old Testament repeatedly declares that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem. When Herod asked the chief priests and scribes where the Christ was to be born, they told him plainly: "In Bethlehem of Judea." They should have known this. In the temple, there was an exact record of all genealogies, and they could have looked at Jesus's lineage and seen He traced back to David and the tribe of Judah.

They should have known, but unbelief always finds what it seeks. They refused to believe Jesus was God, so they found reasons to support their unbelief. They twisted facts, ignored evidence, and created false objections.

This is how unbelief operates. It's not primarily an intellectual problem—it's a heart problem. People don't reject Jesus because of insufficient evidence; they reject Him despite overwhelming evidence. They don't want Him to be Lord, so they find reasons why He can't be.

I see this constantly today. People say they can't believe in God because of suffering in the world, but when you address that objection, they move to another one. They say they can't believe because of hypocrites in the church, but when you acknowledge that reality, they find another excuse. They say they need more evidence, but when evidence is provided, they demand different evidence.

Unbelief is like a defendant in court who keeps changing his alibi. First he wasn't there. Then he was there but didn't do it. Then he did it but it was self-defense. The real issue isn't evidence—it's a heart that doesn't want to submit to the truth.

Jesus addresses this directly in verse 28: "You both know me and know where I am from; and I have not come of myself, but He who sent me is true, whom you do not know." He's saying, "Your real problem isn't that you don't know where I'm from—your problem is that you don't know God."

There's a sobering truth here: no one knows God who doesn't come to know Him through Jesus Christ. We live in a country where dollar bills say "In God We Trust," where people sing "God Bless the USA," where folks say "Oh God" as they take His name in vain. But there is not a single person who knows God who doesn't come to know Him through His Son Jesus Christ.

This is the dominating truth of the New Testament. Jesus says in John 8:19, "You know neither me nor my Father." He says in John 5:23 that if you don't honor the Son, you don't honor the Father.

The heart of unbelief isn't intellectual—it's volitional. It's not that people can't believe; it's that they won't believe. They've made a choice to suppress the truth in unrighteousness, and then they find intellectual justifications for their heart's rebellion.

But here's the hope: God can change hearts. The same people who were making excuses in John 7 could have their hearts transformed by God's grace. No one is too hard, too skeptical, too set in their unbelief that God cannot save them.

Stay dialed in.