Print this pageWithout Faith
Elder Mark Green
"But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him" (Hebrews 11:6). This is a very important verse of Scripture. It is true in both an absolute and in a practical or relative sense.
Those who have no faith - who do not possess it, those who have not been born of the Spirit - are not able to please God at all. They can never do it. They are utterly unable to do anything that would receive the approbation of the Almighty. Paul told us, "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God" (Romans 8:7-8). They cannot do it. That which is pleasing to God is that which is in obedience to His commands, and those that are devoid of the Spirit are not subject or obedient to the law of God. They have carnal minds and thus are in a state of enmity against God.
All the Free Will exhortations to sinners to do something to bring them into a saved state certainly are things they feel are pleasing to God. They present God as wanting to save sinners, but unable to save them without their aid. If He wants them to do those things, then certainly it is pleasing to Him if they were to do them. Paul says those who do not have the Spirit of God dwelling in them "cannot please God." Any condition therefore that requires something pleasing to God is something that the dead sinner is unable to do. Without faith it is impossible to please God. Until one has been born again it is impossible for him to please God.
Our verse is also true in a relative or practical sense. Though God's regenerate children are able to please Him, they do not always do so. When we sin, those actions do not please Him. Our Lord said, "I do always those things that please him" (John 8:29). He always obeyed the law, to a jot and a tittle. He never sinned. To please God is to obey Him. When the disciples were made to be afraid by the storm, Christ rebuked them, "Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?" He was not saying that they were utterly devoid of it, but that they had failed to exercise it, and He manifestly was not pleased by their lack of it. When they were unable to cast out a devil on one occasion, He remarked, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?" When they asked Him why they could not cast out the devil, He frankly answered them, "Because of your unbelief." When we do not exercise our God-given faith as we should, it is displeasing to Him.
It is acts of obedience, done in faith, that are pleasing to our heavenly Master. As Paul charged the Thessalonians, "Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more" (I Thessalonians 4:1) Those are weighty words. Would to God that we would heed them!