Moving The Walls of Doubt
James 1:2-8
IS IT A SIN TO DOUBT?
IS DOUBT THE OPPOSITE OF FAITH?
I want to address the second question first...
Is doubt the opposite of faith?
NO!!! Opposite of faith is unbelief.
Faith is being sure something is true.
Unbelief is being sure it is not
Doubt is not sure.
Doubt is not the absence of faith IT IS a shortage of faith, not having enough faith TO ACT ON.
Now the other question… IS IT A SIN TO DOUBT?
Lloyd J. Ogilvie..."That depends on whether doubt is dynamic or debilitating.”
Debilitating faith leads to death, to turn from God, from faith, to self...that is sin.
Dynamic faith leads to growth, to questioning and to thinking.
Maybe to searching and study and finding.
Dynamic doubt is just the boundary line of your faith, it is as far as your faith goes, all you have.
It means there is territory not yet conquered by faith, a sign that you need to grow.
It is like a fence to separate what is yours and what is not yours.
What is on your side is what your faith can handle.
What is on the other side ... is what your faith can’t handle.
The good news of God is…
That fence can be moved...
your faith can grow
Before you can push it back you have to bump into it,
become aware of it—that is facing our doubts.
Doubt invades our minds...from several places:
I BELIEVE THAT 90% OF ALL DOUBT COMES FROM THESE TWO AREAS...
THEY USUALLY COME FROM SOME AREA OF OUR LIFE WHERE YOU NEED HIS POWER BUT FEEL IT IS ABSENT.
1. unanswered prayer
2. suffering and death.
Satan points at "unfair suffering"
"needless suffering"
"unanswered prayers"
and shouts "God is dead"
"God is not able"
"God does not care"
The devil has a plan for your life:
Doubt - To make you question God’s word and His goodness;
Discouragement - To make you look at your problems rather than at God;
Defeat - To make you feel like a failure so that you don’t even try;
Delay - To make you put off doing something so that it never gets done.
We begin to doubt God then to blame him.
We see unanswered prayers and suffering as denials of our faith, proof it is a farce.
We wonder if He really loves us,
If he can’t, or won’t do this, can He be trusted in other areas of your life.
Specific doubt turns to general doubt.
God’s word tells us how to deal with our doubt.
Listen to James...as he writes to early church
It sounds like condemnation of doubt but is really to show what doubt is and the cure.
They were facing persecutions that tested their faith in God’s adequacy.
Thy had been pressed to edge of doubt/faith.
They became uncertain of Him… IN THEIR TRIALS
They questioned HIS KNOWLEDGE OF THEIR NEED
They questioned HIS INCLINATION TO HELP.
THEN came questions about HIS NATURE-good/bad
HIS WILL— is it best
Behind most intellectual doubt is a HURTING HEART
RON— I chose to argue with him about doctrine and theology rather that realize that the root of his problem was a hurting heart that blamed God, and needed an expression of love and concern.
HOW DO WE MOVE THE FENCE, THE WALLS OF OUR DOUBT???
1. CONFESS.
Go ahead, admit your doubt to God.
"I believe, help thou my unbelief"
I have some faith, but not enough for this. I’m beginning to doubt you. Give me the wisdom and faith to trust you in this.
Lacks—leipetai—banking term= shortage of resources, INSUFFICIENT FUNDS
Doubt is the spiritual overdraft notice
ASK—aiteo—present active indicative
Keep on and on and on and on and on asking.
Wisdom—sophias— wisdom and understanding that is practical and applicable in actual situations.
2. Step out on faith you have.
As you do you will see God work in new areas as He has in old, you’ll realize that God is not limited,
Faith is a gift like talents in that He only gives more to those who use what they have.
3. Collect and read scriptural promises.
You must read bible for this.
4. Keep a list of answered prayers
ways God is working in areas you do possess… your side of the fence
You’ll become more aware of His ABILITY
5. Keep a journal of His Blessings.
Ways he blesses in areas not even prayed about.
You’ll become more aware of his MERCY and LOVE for you.
6. Read biographies… what He has done in others’ lives.
"The Kidding Place"
"Vanya"
In The Presence of Mine Enemies
The Point of the Spear
7. Share his mercies with others.
Tell them about what God is doing, has done.
“Christians keep the faith… but not to themselves.
Not only move your own fences, but for others too,
8. As your faith grows, as doubts fade, ASK for more understanding and faith.
Ask God to help you to conquer more and more territory.
I want to end with this story.
There once was a weak and sickly man. The man was so sick and he could not afford going to town to the doctor. The man lived in the deep back woods in an old log cabin, his condition seemed to grow worse. Out in front of his cabin was a huge boulder. The rock was massive in front of his place. One night in a very real vision, God told him to go out there and push the huge rock all day long, day after day. The man got up early in the morning, and with great excitement he pushed the rock until lunch, then he rested a while and pushed the rock until supper time. The man loved pushing against the rock, it gave him meaning. The dream was so real that it was with great excitement he pushed against the rock. Day after day he pushed. Day rolled into week, and week into months, he faithfully pushed against the rock. After 8 months of pushing the rock, the weak sickly man was getting tired of pushing the rock so much, in his tiredness he started to doubt his dream. So one day he measured from his porch to the rock, and after daily pushing the rock, he would measure to see how much he had moved the rock. After two weeks of pushing and measuring, he realized he had not moved the boulder not a 1/32 of an inch? As a matter of fact, the boulder was in the same place as when he started. The man was so disappointed, he thought the dream was so special and now after 9 months he saw his work had accomplished nothing, he was tired and his dream seemed dashed upon the rock. The man sat on his porch and cried and cried, he had invested many hundred hours into nothing. Nothing, it was all nothing! As the sun was sitting in the west, Jesus came and sat down next to the man as he cried. Jesus said, "Son, why are you crying?" The man replied, "Lord, You know how sick and weak I am, and then this dumb dream gave me a false hope and I have pushed with all that was within me for over 9 months, and that dumb old rock is right where it was when I started." Jesus was kind and said to him, "I never told you to move the rock, I told you to push against the rock." The man replied, "Yes, Sir, that was the dream." Jesus told the man to step in front of the mirror and look at himself. As an act of obedience the man stepped in front of a mirror and looked at himself. The man was amazed, he had been so sickly and weak, and what he saw in the mirror was a strong muscular man. The man realized that he had not been coughing all night. The man started thinking of how well he felt for several months and the strength that he had built by pushing on the rock. Then the man realized, that the plan of God was not for the rock, but for the man. So, I suggest to you today, that God is building people. God is building churches. The storms, the trials, the heartaches, the disappointments, are all but part of the process. We should never use people to build the church, we must use the church to build people. Don’t start measuring your success, trust the God that will take the process, and build His people. God is stretching you, God is growing you! Kyfingers@aol.com
I love these words from Gary Parker,“If faith never encounters doubt, if truth never struggles with error, if good never battles with evil, how can faith know its own power. In my own pilgrimage, if I have to choose between a faith that has stared doubt in the eye and made it blink, or a naïve faith that has never known the firing line of doubt, I will choose the former every time.”
Gary Parker as quoted by Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Pub. House, 2000), 243
The Apostle Paul wrote: "We are often troubled, but not crushed; sometimes in doubt, but never in despair; there are many enemies, but we are never without a friend; and though badly hurt at times, we are not destroyed." (2 Cor. 4:8-10, TEV).
DON’T QUIT When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill, When the funds are low, and the debts are high, and you want to smile, but you have to sigh. When care is pressing you down a bit, Rest if you must, but don’t you quit. Life is queer with its twist and turns As every one of us sometimes learns, And many a failure comes about, When he might have won had he stuck it out; Don’t give up though the pace seems slow, You may succeed with another blow. Success is failure turned inside out, the silver tint of the clouds of doubt, and you never can tell how close you are, It may be near when it seems so far; So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit, It’s when things seem worst, that you must not quit. SOURCE: By Clinton Howell from "Chicken Soup for the Unsinkable Soul." Copyright 1999 by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen
Gospel Invitation
