A Christian’s approach to life situation part 1
Doubt
Not all doubting is bad.
1
John 4:1 Beloved, do not
believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because
many false prophets have gone out into the world.
Doubt becomes bad when we doubt God
Everyone has trouble with doubt from time to time even great people of the Bible did.
Judges 6 Gideon – call to fight the
Midianites. 32,000 to 10,000 to 300 against 135,000 Midianites
Abraham deceives the Pharaoh because of his doubt in God
Genesis
12:11 And it came to pass, when he
was close to entering Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, "Indeed I
know that you are a woman of beautiful countenance. 12 "Therefore it will happen,
when the Egyptians see you, that they will say, 'This is his wife'; and
they will kill me, but they will let you live.
13 "Please say you are my sister, that it may be
well with me for your sake, and that I may live because of you."
Sarah doubted God’s promise of a child – Hagar – and later on laughed
Moses doubted God and himself to deliver
the children of
Peter doubts by not
staying focused on Jesus
Matthew 14:25 Now in the fourth watch of the
night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea.
26 And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they
were troubled, saying, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out for
fear. 27 But immediately
Jesus spoke to them, saying, "Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be
afraid." 28 ¶ And
Peter answered Him and said, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to
You on the water." 29 So
He said, "Come." And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked
on the water to go to Jesus. 30
But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and
beginning to sink he cried out, saying, "Lord, save me!" 31 And immediately Jesus stretched
out His hand and caught him, and said to him, "O you of little
faith, why did you doubt?" 32
And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33 Then those who were in the boat
came and worshiped Him, saying, "Truly You are the Son of God."
Thomas Doubts because he
wants to see with his eyes
John 20:24 Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of
the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.
25 The other disciples therefore said to him, "We have
seen the Lord." So he said to them, "Unless I see in His hands the
print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my
hand into His side, I will not believe."
Notice Jesus response
26 ¶ And after eight days His
disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being
shut, and stood in the midst, and said, "Peace to you!" 27 Then He said to Thomas,
"Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here,
and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but
believing." 28 And
Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" 29 Jesus said to him, "Thomas,
because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have
not seen and yet have believed."
The fact that these people of God had trouble with
doubt means that we will have trouble with doubt as well. Now lets take a look
at some examples of how bad things take place because of doubt.
Eve Doubts and tempts
her husband to sin, brings about physical death, pain in child bearing, and man
having to work the ground. (Doubting is contagious)
Genesis 3:1 ¶ Now the serpent was more
cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to
the woman, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the
garden'?" 2 And the
woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the
garden; 3 "but of the fruit
of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You
shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.' " 4 Then the serpent said to the
woman, "You will not surely die. 5
"For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and
you will be like God, knowing good and evil." 6 So when the woman saw that the
tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a
tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also
gave to her husband with her, and he ate.
The people of Noah’s day doubted Noah’s
preaching (2 Pet. 2:5) that God would destroy them if they did not turn to him.
In Gen. 7 we learn that on Noah and his family were saved. Everyone died
because they doubted the power of God.
The children of
Numbers
13:31 But the men who had gone up
with him said, "We are not able to go up against the people, for they are
stronger than we." 32
And they gave the children of
Paul is a man who doubted that Jesus was the Son of God and so he did everything in his power to destroy Christianity. His doubt caused a lot of Christians to lose their lives and to be beaten before he stopped doubting. That why he tell Timothy,
1 Timothy 1:12 And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord
who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the
ministry, 13 although I was
formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy
because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.
So, as you can see that can be great consequences when someone doubts. Of course the greatest consequence of doubt is whet it causes a person not to become a Christian or when it causes a Christians to fall away from God.
Since doubt can be dangerous, how should we deal with doubt as Christian?
1. Consider Job. Job 2:9 Then his wife said to him, "Do
you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!" 10 But he said to her, "You
speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God,
and shall we not accept adversity?" In all this Job did not sin with his
lips.
2. Jesus is brought to a man who has son that is
possessed and His disciples cannot cast it out.
Mark
9: 21 So He asked his father, "How long has this been
happening to him?" And he said, "From childhood. 22 "And often he has thrown
him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do
anything, have compassion on us and help us." 23 Jesus said to him, "If you
can believe, all things are possible to him who believes." 24 Immediately the father of the
child cried out and said with tears, "Lord, I believe; help my
unbelief!"
We need to pray to God for help so that we do not
doubt and when we pray we must trust the God will answer our prayers because James 1:5-6 says that if you doubt when you
pray your prayer will not be answered.
3. Finally, to help us overcome our doubts there is
great need for us to study and meditate upon God’s Word because the more we put
His word in our heart, the less room their will be for doubt.