Doubts

Luke 24:36-48 

³⁶ While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

³⁷ They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. ³⁸ He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? ³⁹ Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

⁴⁰ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. ⁴¹ And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” ⁴² They gave him a piece of broiled fish, ⁴³ and he took it and ate it in their presence.

⁴⁴ He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the
Psalms.”

⁴⁵ Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.⁴⁶ He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷ and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.⁴⁸ You are witnesses of these things.

Today, I will address this issue of doubt.                                                                        

And since I am a Biblicist I want to look at this issue from a Biblical point of view.

Generally, doubt is described as a feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction

Let me say this to you who have a faith in Jesus Christ:

God has no problems with us doubting.

I love the Bible verse where God tells the prophets that He is willing to reason with you and me. Yeah, to have a good discussion Him and us.

“Come now, and let us reason together,” is how the prophet Isaiah puts it 

In other words:

“OK! People! Tell me your issues! I am big enough to take your questions and doubts..”

Let’s establish some ground rules about doubting God.

There are several things we need to understand up front:

1.

Many people think doubt is the opposite of faith, but it isn’t.                                                                                                 Unbelief is the opposite of faith.                                     

Unbelief refers to a willful refusal to believe, and doubt refers to inner uncertainty.

So, even an agnostic who, at least struggles with faith is not condemned.

 An Agnostic believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.

An agnostic is given a right by God to, at least trying to be honest.

And I believe that when a such a person honestly struggles to find out about God’s claims he or she will be satisfied with the evidences that are there about Truth.

It is never our doubts that judges us.

It is our disbelief (rejection) that judges us separates us from God.

An individual who firmly asserts his or her violent aggression toward God and makes God only to another slave of his or her imagination by absolutely rejecting God is what God calls a fool.

Remember “The fool says in his heart; “There is no God!”

God is OK with you and me when we doubt and pretty much say: “Forget my unbelief!”

2.                                                                                                               Some advocate that doubt is unforgivable, but it isn’t. God doesn’t condemn us when we question him. Both Job and David repeatedly questioned God, but they were not condemned. God is big enough to handle all our doubts and all our questions.

I would also add, as long as we are willing to reach the evidences for His existence.

3                                                                                                                       Still others think struggling with God means we lack faith, but that’s not true.

Struggling with God is rather a sure sign that we truly have faith. If we never struggle, our faith will never grow.

Listen to what John said in 1 John 3:20 -22 

“If our hearts condemn us, G od is greater than our hearts, and He knows all things. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God”

You see, it is our hearts that condemn us

Sometimes our heart just keep condemning us as Christians.

·        We doubt our salvation.

·        We doubt that God heard our prayers.

·        We doubt God’s love when we have messed it up. Etc. Etc.

Emotions comes from the hearts and takes over with doubts

– The way I have been trained has taught my attitude and my personal beliefs so that the hearts responses with my selfish learnt ways.

Feelings, sentiments, passions, excitements, imaginations.

All those come from the seat of my emotional throne – the heart.

And, many times they are the real threat to growth to Christian maturity.

When we exchange God’s Truth with how we perceive things from our self-learned self-created universe, often the result is that God says loses out.

We make Truth become equal with our emotions, impressions.

Yes, we make our emotional stability become the norm of our thinking.

Sometimes we just must train our mind become the ruler of our rather than letting emotions run our lives.

Isn’t that what is creating anxieties?

Most of the times anxious impressions are not related to thinking the right way?

How many times don’t we hear from our doctors that the heart attack you just think you have is rather an experience of our imagination playing with your emotions.

The same thing goes with our relationship with God.

Our hearts (emotions) struggle with the Truth that God tells us.

Again; ^“if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.”

What God says is that He is Sovereign, and the Greater than all our small inclinations and dispositions and He knows where we should put our minds.

Make a distinguish between God’s Truth and your self- learned pseudo truth.

Colossians 3: 10                                                                                              “Therefore, since you have been raised with Christ, strive for the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds Set you minds  on on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.…”

God knows also that we are made of dust and easily lose sight of things now and then, so He tells us that we, when issues

Therefore, strive for the things above,

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.…”

Doubts arise between when you and I start arguing with God’s Heavenly Truth

Let’s take an example

Let’s take the issue about your Salvation.

When you doubt about your God-given Salvation by faith (which we do now and then.)

What do you do then?

If you have done something wrong and you don’t feel that you deserve to be called a child of God.

In other words; you have a battle of the mind.

What are you to do?

You take your God-given Bible-the very Word of God and turn to 1 John 5: 13 we you will read these words of God though Saint John.

 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”

The, you ask yourself: Who should I believe?

Should I believe my self-taught riddle that I just lost my God-given Salvation, or should I simply believe God’s promise.

God or me?

Doohh!

Just think of it. That that Bible verse tells us that when we believe – trust in Jesus Christ as Savior we are His.

Again Folks! God said it – I believe it. It is settled and my doubt flis away!

You are not the one doing the work for your salvation.

You see, the work has already been done.

In the sufferings of Jesus.

In His death on the Cross of

And through Jesus conquering death through the Resurrection.

He took our sins on Himself so that you and I don’t have to carry it and be judged for it.

You see, God’s Salvation has nothing to do with you.

Or what you think or what your emotions are.

It is not revealed by your intellect or intuition or self-understanding.

It is simple God’s action separated from your and my imagination!

Again!

“For God so loved the world that HE gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Let’s take an illustration:                                                                                                                                         

You go to Elmer’s or Meier’s to buy a can of beans.

We trust it there are bean in that can.

We know that humans have put that label there and we trust that human.

Made by men.

BUT then why don’t we trust God the more?

Personally, I think that Jesus’ Disciples should have believed little more than they did.

Here is an lesson from the life of John, the Baptist when he sitting in prison waiting to be executed by Herod.

Sure we can understand him why he is doubting.

He has a lot on his mind and really wonder about Jesus being the Messiah.

Before he was so cotton-picken sure of Jesus, but now in his situation he doubts.

Matthew 11:7

“When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”                                                                                                   Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 

The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble because of me.” As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind?

Jesus did not condemn poor John the Baptist for doubting, but He tells his John’s disciples.

They experienced saw it with their own eyes

Not disciplining our minds to trust in God’s word first and then always will creates havoc for us.

James 1: 6                                                                                                                                                                                                       Let him ask in faith, without doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.”

James 1:5-8 encourages those who lack wisdom to let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

God cannot lie promises Titus 2:1

Faith is the name of the Game.

Do we believe God?

Listen to Romans 10: 17

“Therefore, since you have been raised with Christ, strive for the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.”

Do we really believe that God is there and that He does not lie?

Faith and trust is something that happens all the time in life. Even the materialist and the rationalist and the atheist ultimately place his or her trust in certain issues that require faith.

Even to say that truth is only intelligible through reason is itself a statement of faith. Denying the existence of God is as much a leap of faith as asserting it.

“Most of the things we most deeply believe in — for example, human rights and human equality — are never empirically provable.”

So, God has provided a very pleasant life-style that works well for every one of us.

A life of faith.

A life in simply trusting, instead of always doubting Jesus.

And the way we Christians grow is to read and study the Bible more and carefully consider what it can do to our Christian maturity.

“Trust and obey, for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey.”

Book Review: 'Authentic Faith: A Survival Guide for Christian Living' by Bo Lange

By Tyler Tichelaar, BLOGCRITICS.ORG

Bo Lange’s new book, Authentic Faith: A Survival Guide for Christian Living,builds upon his earlier book Simple Faith, incorporating some of the same material but taking it farther. The new book looks at just what it means to be a Christian and how one can feel confident that Christianity is based upon authentic truths.

Lange begins by discussing how he grew up in Sweden and saw how secularism was taking over the culture there. After immigrating to the United States, he saw the same issues affecting the culture here—people no longer know what to believe, having been taught to doubt and question anything having to do with religion and all forms of authority. But Lange does not write about religion. He makes it clear that religion is full of rules and regulations that are largely unnecessary and simply complicate matters. The bottom line is that one must have faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and that is enough for salvation. Once that faith is established, people should grow in their faith and spread that faith to others, as Lange demonstrates throughout the book.

Having faith is not easy. Lange does not find anything wrong with having doubt. He argues that God does not expect or want us to accept his truth and promises based on blind faith. Rather, God wants us to be assured that our faith is based in truth. Lange discusses how we must study the Bible to find proof that it is God’s Word, authentic and true. He walks the reader through various passages in the Bible that include prophecies that were fulfilled and even descriptions of the universe that could not have been known by ancient man unless revealed by God as proof of the Bible’s authentic truths. Lange’s arguments are enticing and based in common sense, and while some objections might be raised, he foresees and responds to most arguments throughout his discussion.

After establishing that the Bible is scientifically and historically true and also speaks truth about the future, Lange turns to discussing how one is to live once faith has been established. He discusses what life is like for people prior to becoming Christians, how life should change once one accepts Jesus Christ as Savior, and what sorts of difficulties and setbacks one can expect in a life of faith and how to work through those obstacles. In chapter six, “Letting God Use You,” Lange shows how the mission of Christians is to help others find God. In chapter seven, “Spiritual Warfare,” he explains what we should expect as our body and mind go to war with our spirit, as well as how the world and the devil try to turn us against God.

In the end, Authentic Faith is a refreshing book that even the most devout and longtime Christian will find to be an affirmation of faith that breathes some new, or rather old and authentic, fresh air into the Christian faith. I believe anyone struggling with his or her faith, anyone skeptical of Christianity, even anyone who mocks it, will find food for thought here. That spiritual food will make his life happier and easier once he embraces faith and allows God to work in his life.

I run into Christians that stopped reading the Bible,mainly because of so many human interpretations that are to be found out there. Therefore, I decided to write down these thoughts to show you that you can still have confidence in your Bible reading.

I have a deep desire to understand what the Bible says. I am tired of trying to manipulate a texts’ message by interpreting it through my human limitation. I want God to be able to speak directly to me right from the text without interference of any human judgment.

Let me propose by saying that you can still read the Biblical text without  edit it by your own assumptions. You don’t have to force your own interpretation on it to understand what specific Bible passage is trying to tell you.

However, the real question is if we really will allow the Bible to speak for itself?

The real danger is to force the understanding of a Bible text by manipulated to mean what we desire it to say.

This attitude of forcing your own human understanding on the Bible text is used by many more progressive theologians. Many of us pastors have even been taught from theological seminaries to stop the Bible from speaking by itself into our lives.

I have early made a decision to be bound to the very specific Bible text. Now, I know that there are some hard issues to work through when you use this method. However, my choice is to struggle with the issue at hand. I am tired to continually adjust the of the meaning of a specific text to suit my desire or theology.

The Bible presents a systematic theology. The information of the Bible is presented as a unity. Remember that the Bible is a library of 66 books, written by approximately 40 authors during a time period of 1500 years and still there is a unity in its message.

By putting Bible passages that speak of the same issue together we can get clearer picture of what the specific text means to say. By letting Scripture be interpreted by Scripture we will receive a better comprehension of what the specific texts are all about. One passage clarifies what another passage says.

This way of using the Scripture can be called an "intra-biblical" understanding of the Bible. When you use this method you are in less need of human interpretation and relief from you being the authority of what the Bible says and what it does not say.

I just did a short study about the Bible's view of the Old Testament Law. What it can do and what it can't do.

Rom.1:16,17                                                                                                              For us to be "saved" we need a different new kind of righteousness than the OT Law for salvation. That new righteousness is found in the Gospel.  When we trust Jesus to be our Savior (The Gospel 1 Corinthians 15: 3, 4) we receive that righteousness by faith.

Rom. 2: 12                                                                                                          .      If we try to be righteous by the OT Law we will perish by the same Law.

Rom. 2: 13                                                                                                                It is not just to hear the Law, but we must do it to be saved. However nobody can obey the Law 100% and therefore nobody will be declared righteous. James 2:10 tells us that to be able to obey the Law 100%, but still fail in one point is guilty of keeping the Law. Remember that everyone has sinned at least once, right?

Rom 2: 17                                                                                                                   The Jews depended on the Law to be saved.

Rom 2: 20 The Law is an instructor to the sinner. Something that guides them to the righteousness that saves, which is Jesus Christ.

Rom 2: 20                                                                                                                   The OT Law is the embodiment of Knowledge and Truth of God.

Rom 3: 20                                                                                                                   The Law was given to us to see our sin                                                                                                          

Rom 3: 21                                                                                                                   The Law and God’s Righteousness are separated from each other.

Rom 3: 22                                                                                                                    Righteousness comes through faith in Jesus Christ, not through the Law.

Rom 10: 4                                                                                                                    For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes.

Rom 8: 4                                                                                                                     The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us (who are saved,) who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Galatians 3: 22                                                                                                             The Law was given to us to lead us to God

Galatians 3: 23                                                                                                            Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.

1 Timothy 1: 8                                                                                                             The Law is not The Law

Rom. 1:16, 17                                                                                                           We need a different new kind of righteousness than the OT Law for salvation. That new righteousness is found in the Gospel.  When we trust Jesus to be our Savior (The Gospel 1 Corinthians 15: 3, 4) we receive that righteousness by faith.

Rom. 2: 12                                                                                                                   If we try to be righteous by the OT Law we will perish by the same Law.

Rom. 2: 13                                                                                                                   It is not just to hear the Law, but we must do it to be saved. However nobody can obey the Law 100% and therefore nobody will be declared righteous. James 2:10 tells us that to be able to obey the Law 100%, but still fail in one point is guilty of keeping the Law. Remember that everyone has sinned at least once, right?

Rom 2: 17                                                                                                                   The Jews depended on the Law to be saved.

Rom 2: 20                                                                                                                    The Law is an instructor to the sinner. Something that guides them to the righteousness that saves, which is Jesus Christ.

Rom. 3: 20                                                                                                                  The OT Law is the embodiment of Knowledge and Truth of God.

Rom 3: 20                                                                                                                   The Law was given to us to see our sin.                                                                                                             

Rom 3: 21 The Law and God’s Righteousness are separated from each other.

Rom 3: 22                                                                                                                    Righteousness comes through faith in Jesus Christ, not theough the Law.

Rom 10: 4                                                                                                              For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes.

Rom 8: 4                                                                                                                The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us (who are saved,) who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Galatians 3: 22                                                                                                             The Law was given to us to lead us to God

Galatians 3: 23                                                                                                            Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.

1 Timothy 1: 8                                                                                                             The Law is not bad, but “we know that the law is good if one uses it properly.”

1 Timothy 1: 9                                                                                                             The Law is not for the believer, but for the sinner. It tells the sinner that they are not good enough for salvation since they cannot keep the same Law. The Law was instead given, so that people will see that they are not good enough and therefore need a Savior.

A Personal Note:

Remember the ”Holiness movement” which has done so much for the spread of God’s Good News has also have a over emphasis on the requirement of the Law that it also many times have a hard time to see these differences between God’s Grace and the requirement of the Law.. They have a hard time accepting the Grace of God, but still hold on to the Law. That is probably why many of them are so sad and still live continually under condemnation…