Jack was out jogging one day and as he passed a cliff, he got too close and fell. Grabbing hold of a branch, he was stranded. No way up and certainly no way down. He began to scream, “Hello up there can anyone hear me.” He yelled for hours and was about to give up when he heard a voice.
“Jack, Can you hear me?”
“Yes, Yes, I can hear you I’m down here.”
“I can see you, Jack, are you alright?”
“Yes, but...who are you and where are you?”
“I am the Lord Jack, I am everywhere.”
“The Lord? You mean God?”
“That’s me.”
“God, help me, I promise that if you get me down from here, I’ll stop sinning. I’ll be a really good person and serve you for the rest of my life.”
“Easy on the promises, Jack. First let’s get you down, then we can discuss those.”
“I’ll do anything, Lord, just tell me what to do, okay?”
“Okay, let go of the branch.”
“What?”
“I said, let go of the branch.”
“Let get of the branch? But I will fall.”
“Just trust me, let go.”
Jack paused as he pondered this and then yelled “Hello, Hello, is there anybody else up there?”
Doubts! They make us wonder if God is there. They make us wonder if He hears us. They make us wonder if we can trust him.
Last week I taught on doubts. We discovered from examining the life of John the Baptist that he had a crisis of faith that led to doubt. We found that doubt flourishes in isolation, which should lead us to confront Jesus with our doubts. In doing so, we give the Holy Spirit the opportunity to restore and strengthen our faith.
We came to the conclusion that doubt is not the opposite of faith but rather the opportunity of faith. Unbelief is the opposite of faith and leads to isolation and rejection of God.
Our final statement on the matter was “Let doubt be an exercise to strengthen your faith and not an excuse to lose it.”
Today I will discuss how we can get a handle our doubts. We will look at an Old Testament story that takes place in Israel. The Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord so He handed them over to be conquered by the Midianites. They were raiding their crops and taking all their livestock. The land was stripped bare and the Israelites were starving at the hands of the Midianites.
Therefore, the nation of Israel did what we all do when we find ourselves in a crisis that we created. They began to cry out to God. God sent a prophet to remind the of all the good things He had done for them and how they had rejected him. However, He was going to rescue them because of his promises to them. So our story begins.
Judges 6:11-12 “Then the angel of the Lord came and sat beneath the great tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!”
Our hero is Gideon. When the Lord finds him, he is in the bottom of a winepress, trying to thresh wheat while hiding. Two things we need to know here. The winepress was empty of grapes. Remember the land had been ravaged. So the winepress has become nothing more than a pit.
Secondly, you can’t successfully thresh wheat in a pit. Ordinarily wheat is threshed at the top of a hill. The worker takes his pitchfork and tosses the wheat up in the air allowing the wind to blow the chaff away. However, in a dark, damp underground winepress, there is no breeze to blow the chaff away. Gideon didn’t want to be seen on the top of the hill, so he was in a musty old winepress with sticky floors.
So this special messenger from God is sitting under a tree looking down upon Gideon who is hiding and thrashing about. And he says “Hello, mighty hero.”
Now at this point Gideon is acting like anything but a hero. But God looks beyond his cowardice and foolishness but instead sees his heart. God knows what Gideon is capable of although Gideon does not know. God knows what we are capable of although we do not know. The reason is He looks at our heart and not our actions.
So let’s take note of Gideon’s reaction.
Judges 6:13 “Sir,” Gideon replied, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn’t they say, ‘The Lord brought us up out of Egypt’? But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.”
The first thing we must do is confess our doubts.
Have you ever met a person who will not admit their doubts? “Well, praise Jesus. It feels like everything in life has been taken from me. I do not see the hand of God in anything going on in my life. It’s as if He has forgotten about me. But I will keep on smiling and look for that silver lining.”
Reality is there is not always a silver lining. This mighty hero calls out to God. “If you are on my side, why is this happening? Where are all these promises you made? Why have you left me?”
God understands our doubts. He will deal with our doubts in a kind and gentle manner if we call out to him. God shows no anger or annoyance toward Gideon for expressing his doubts. He tells him “I’m with you on this. I’m on your side.”
Let me tell you about C.S.Lewis, the author of the Chronicles of Narnia. In 1952, he had been writing to one of his fans an American woman named Joy Gresham, a recent convert to Christianity, and who had been a Communist Jew. She was also going through a hard divorce. He autographed her copy of his book, The Great Divorce. He wrote, "There are three images in my mind which I must continually forsake and replace by better ones: the false image of God, the false image of my neighbors, and the false image of myself.”
What he meant by that quote was that we form an image of God, or of another person, or ourselves after reading a book, hearing a lecture or sermon, or having a conversation with a friend, and we may temporarily get clearer thoughts. We may understand God better. But if we hold onto this new picture too tightly, it becomes an idol that must be broken in order to allow a better image to take its place.
He eventually married Joy Gresham. Even though she once brought such joy to his life, that joy ended too soon, because she died of cancer in 1960, after only 4 years of marriage. Lewis fell into grief, even asking whether God was a good God or (as Lewis put it) a "Cosmic Sadist."
In time, Lewis wrestled with all the previous ideas he had had of God. They came face to face with the reality of God, who Lewis thought God was vs. who God really is. He said, “My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it himself.”
Our admission of doubt may be caused by the shattering of preconceived notions of who we think God is and the reality of who He is.
Next, be clear about your doubts.
Judges 6:14-16 Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!”
“But Lord,” Gideon replied, “how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!”
The Lord said to him, “I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.”
Gideon has just confessed his doubts about the Lord’s faithfulness to his people. Instead of being angry The Lord instructs Gideon to go with the measure of faith that remains and rescue Israel. But Gideon has doubts about his abilities to accomplish what he has been called to do. So he wants to be very clear on how he perceives himself.
He tells the Lord that out of all the different clans that make up the tribe of Manasseh, his clan is the weakest in faith. And of all the families that make up his clan, his family is the weakest in faith. And of all the members of his family, he is the weakest in faith. He is being very clear to the Lord that he doubts that he is the best one to select for the job.
In Streams of Living Water, Richard Foster told of Billy Graham preaching at Cambridge in 1955. For three nights he tried to make his preaching academic and enlightened, but with no effect. Graham finally realized that presenting the intellectual side of faith was not his gift and began preaching the simple message of Jesus rescuing us from our problem with sin. Foster wrote, "The results were astonishing: hundreds of sophisticated students responded to this clear presentation of the gospel. It was a lesson in clarity and simplicity that he never forgot."
When we are clear about our doubts then God can begin to assist in overcoming them. He promises us that He will be with us and give us victory over our doubts.
We should also contend with our doubts.
Judges 6:17-18 “Gideon replied, “If you are truly going to help me, show me a sign to prove that it is really the Lord speaking to me. Don’t go away until I come back and bring my offering to you.”
Gideon has established a running conversation with the Lord. He has questioned the Lord’s motives. He has questioned the Lord’s wisdom. The Lord’s response to this is for Gideon to be who he is and not what he perceives himself to be. It is through this dialogue that Gideon’s faith is beginning to become stronger.
Contend means to struggle in opposition too. Gideon has begun to oppose his doubts. Part of this struggle will require the Lord giving him some type of assurance that his faith will be stronger than his doubts. Gideon’s request is not for the removal of all doubt but rather the edification of his faith.
Paul Harvey tells the story about a 3-year-old boy who went to the grocery store with his mother. Before they entered the grocery store, she said to him, "Now you’re not going to get any chocolate chip cookies, and so don’t even ask."
She put him up in the cart & he sat in the little child’s seat while she wheeled down the aisles. He was doing just fine until they came to the cookie section. He saw the chocolate chip cookies & he stood up in the seat & said, “Mom, can I have some chocolate chip cookies?” She said, “I told you not even to ask. You’re not going to get any at all.” So he sat back down.
They continued down the aisles, but in their search for certain items they ended up back in the cookie aisle. “Mom, can I please have some chocolate chip cookies?” She said, “I told you that you can’t have any. Now sit down & be quiet.”
Finally, they were approaching the checkout lane. The little boy sensed that this might be his last chance. So just before they got to the line, he stood up on the seat of the cart & shouted in his loudest voice, “In the name of Jesus, may I have some chocolate chip cookies?”
And everybody round about just laughed. Some even applauded. And, due to the generosity of the other shoppers, the little boy & his mother left with 23 boxes of chocolate chip cookies.
Be persistent with God about your doubts. Don’t present them to him once and walk away. Pray and keep praying until you get satisfaction concerning those things that create doubt in your life.
Now we should consider our doubts.
Luke 24:35-43 “Then the two from Emmaus told their story of how Jesus had appeared to them as they were walking along the road, and how they had recognized him as he was breaking the bread. And just as they were telling about it, Jesus himself was suddenly standing there among them. “Peace be with you,” he said. But the whole group was startled and frightened, thinking they were seeing a ghost!
“Why are you frightened?” he asked. “Why are your hearts filled with doubt? (See! Thomas was not the only filled with doubt.) Look at my hands. Look at my feet. You can see that it’s really me. Touch me and make sure that I am not a ghost, because ghosts don’t have bodies, as you see that I do.” As he spoke, he showed them his hands and his feet.
Still they stood there in disbelief, filled with joy and wonder. Then he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he ate it as they watched.”
Remember last week we discovered the Greek word for doubt meant to judge a dispute or make a distinction. This is where the disciples are at with their mind. Logic screams that coming back from the dead is impossible. They are startled, frightened, filled with disbelief yet joyous and in wonder. They are at a critical point of making a distinction between logic and the promises of God. They are caught in a dispute between these two and must judge what they will believe.
Gideon had that same dispute. Logic told him that he could not accomplish what the Lord promised he could do. He had to judge the dispute between his opinion of himself of being the weakest of all and the Lord’s opinion of him being a mighty hero. He had to make a distinction between his reasoning and the Lord’s might.
When we doubt we must step back and analyze the situation. We have to ask questions of ourselves. Who am I doubting, God or myself? What am I doubting, my own abilities or God’s ability to keep his word? When do I doubt, those times when I haven’t been spending time talking to God? Where do I doubt the most, in the midst of impossible situations? Why do I doubt? Is it because God has a track record of not being faithful or I have a short memory of all the times He has been faithful?
And lastly we must concede our doubts.
Deuteronomy 29:29 “The Lord our God has secrets known to no one. We are not accountable for them, but we and our children are accountable forever for all that he has revealed to us, so that we may obey all the terms of these instructions.”
God may never reveal the answers to your doubts. He may choose to keep the answers to himself. If He does then all we have is our faith to hold onto. And that maybe the very reason He is being quiet on a doubt we are having. But never quit seeking him no matter what.
A little boy asked his dad, “Dad, why is the sky blue?” I don’t know son” the dad replied. "Dad, why is the grass green?" he asked, “I don’t know son.,” he answered. On and on the questions kept coming with the same reply, “I don’t know son.” Finally, the boy said, "Dad, do you mind me asking these questions?" The dad replied "Why no son, if you don’t ask questions you don’t learn anything.”
We need to be like that little boy, always asking questions. However, unlike the dad, He has all the answers. Just listen and let him answer the ones you need to know.
