Is It Wrong to Doubt God?
Genesis 2:15-17 and 3:1-6. Psalms 73. John 20:24-28.
(If you feel this sermon is helpful, you are welcome to visit www.danachau.com for a free online course.)
Sometime ago one of my daughters asked me "If you could ask Jesus one question, what would it be?" I won't tell you my reply because I can't remember what I said. But we've all heard the encouragement to ask questions: There are no dumb questions. Really? Try theses.
What do you call a male ladybug?
Are part-time band leaders semi-conductors?
Can you get cavities in your dentures if you use too much artificial sweetener?
When I served with the college campus fellowship, Asian American Christian Fellowship, one of the concerns we dealt with was restoring college student's faith in God. Story after story were of youth who asked honest questions about Christianity, and church leaders responding with "you just need more faith." Soon they stopped asking and stopped believing.
There are at least three options: Believe. Doubt. Disbelieve. When we don't doubt, there is no guarantee that we believe. We may end up disbelieving. It depends on how we handle our doubt.
All of us ask questions about God. We ask Is there a God? If there is a God, what is He like? Is He good? Does He love? And does He love me? Or Is He angry with me?
We don't just ask these questions once. We ask these questions repeatedly over our lifetime. Especially during what I call "T" times. When tragedies strike. When temptations lure us away from God. When trials overwhelm us. When teachings contradict the Bible. Most, if not all of us, have been there.
Is it wrong to doubt God? Some equate doubt with weak faith. Maybe even unfaithfulness to God. Others accept doubt as a normal experience of everyone's faith journey.
We will look at real life doubters from the Bible to answer a few questions: Is it wrong to doubt God? How can we respond to doubt? And How do we help those who doubt God?
First, we will look at the real life doubters, Adam and Eve, from Genesis 2:15-17 and 3:1-6. We won't study this narrative in detail but look at how Adam and Eve responded to doubt. In short, they left what they doubt.
God said when you eat that fruit you will surely die. No longer be immortal. Satan said, "You will not surely die." And Satan added the temptation, "And you will be like God."
Adam and Eve didn't just doubt God's warning. They left God's warning behind. They left what they doubt. They ate the fruit when they heard a teaching that contradicted God's warning and a temptation that lured them to be in place of God.
A few weeks back, I met with an away college student. I asked where he was going to church and fellowship. He said nowhere. I asked why. He said he didn't believe anymore. I asked what happened. He told me that he got into a hot mess and that God didn't get him out of the mess. So he didn't believe anymore.
He doubted God. And he left what he doubt. This is one way to respond to your doubt. But I would not recommend this way. Here's what I shared with the college student.
When you are in trouble, don't leave the One who loves you and can help you. That's not wise. When God doesn't change the consequence of our action, He wants to change us. If you stay with God, he won't turn bad into good but He will bring good out of the bad. And you can grow in character, wisdom and ability.
What often causes us to doubt God and to leave God is an incomplete list of those involved in our tragedies, temptations, trials and teachings. We forget self with our sinful nature. We forget Satan with his spiritual forces. We forget we live in a sick world with floods, earthquakes and diseases.
So we blame God, doubt God, leave God, the One who loves us and can help us. That's what Satan wants. But I wouldn't recommend this response to doubt.
Second, we will look at the real life doubter, the writer of Psalms 73. (READ)
We won't study this Psalm in detail but look at how this Psalm writer responded to doubt. In short, he looked to the future and the past.
The Psalm writer contrasted his faithfulness but lowly condition with the prosperity of the wicked. This led to doubting God's goodness and justice. The question of the Psalmist is this: If God is good, why do bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people?
Then the Psalmist looked to the future. He saw that God doesn't punish the wicked or reward the righteous every day. But He will definitely do this in eternity.
Gavin Reid, the Bishop of Maidstone, tells of a boy in his congregation who shattered his back falling down the stairs at the age of one. For years, the boy went in and out of the hospital. When Gavin interviewed the boy in church, the boy remarked, “God is fair.”
Gavin asked the boy, “How old are you?”
The boy replied, “Seventeen.”
“How many years have you spent in the hospital?”
The boy answered, “Thirteen years.”
Gavin asked, “Do you think that is fair?”
The boy replied, “God’s got all of eternity to make it up to me.”
The Psalmist not only responded to his doubt by looking to the future, but he looked to the past. He understood that the present injustice doesn't define who God is. He recalls God's past faithfulness to him.
When I doubt God's existence, goodness or power, I also look to the past. For instance, seven years ago, my Dad died of leukemia. Here's what I wrote in my journal:
The forecast was for rain on the day of the funeral. The night before the funeral, my Mom asked me to pray for no rain the next day. She was concerned the rain would deter people from going to the graveside burial or make it dangerous.
I prayed the night before and the morning of the funeral. Rain poured down nonstop as we had the funeral service. I got up to defend God. I said to family and friends that I prayed to God that there would be no rain today, but God let it rain so we could see how much you all loved my father and my family to come in the heavy rain.
Then we left for the graveside from the funeral. As we got on the freeway, the rain stopped and the sun peeled back the dark clouds. It stayed sunny throughout the graveside service. Nonbelievers came up to me after the burial to say, "God answered your prayer."
As we drove out the cemetery exit, the rain began to pour heavily again. I felt God saying to me: "Dana, if I stopped the rain the entire day, you would have thought the forecast was wrong. But I stopped the rain at the last minute and just long enough for the graveside service so there could be no mistake it was My involvement."
Someone has said, "There are the facts of life and there are the acts of God." The facts of life are that we are broken people living in a broken world. The acts of God are the past answered prayers and the future awesome promises of God. And looking to the acts of God is a good way to respond to doubt.
Third, we will look at the real life doubter, Thomas. (READ John 20:24-28)
Again we won't study this narrative in detail but look at how Thomas responded to doubt. In short, he looked to Jesus.
Thomas doubted that Jesus had risen from the dead. He had to see for himself. For Thomas and many of us, Seeing is believing. Jesus accommodated Thomas' need for proof.
The Good News of Christianity is that God entered human history to demonstrate His love through Jesus Christ. God didn't just say He loved us; He came in a form we could understand. What we believe is not just spiritual; it's historical.
When we doubt God is good, because life isn't good, God gives us a powerful reason to trust Him. Romans 5:8 reminds us, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Through Jesus Christ, the invisible God became visible. Because of Jesus, the impossible became possible. Mankind without sufficient goodness can have eternal life by trusting in God's goodness.
After I became a Christian for about two years, I almost lost my faith in God. I was the only Christian in my family at the time. And I was away from home in college.
One day, my family called to tell me that my aunt in the East Coast was very ill. I asked God to heal her. Within a couple of days, she was out of the hospital. But two days after she left the hospital, she died.
I broke down in tears that day. I was ready to give up my faith in God. What kept me believing in the existence of God and a God who cares was the historical evidence of Jesus' life, death and resurrection.
Is it wrong to doubt God? It doesn't appear to be. Doubt could just be a need to know more. But, doubt, can lead to wrong response, such as violating God's instructions.
Let me close with a story that Pastor Steve shared with me this week.
At 9 years old, William Maillis is like a lot of other boys his age, enjoying video games, knock-knock jokes, sports and hanging out with friends. But William is no ordinary kid when it comes to academics.
In May, he graduated from high school and is now a college student already working on his own theories of how the universe was created.
Bottom line, according to William: “I want to prove to everybody that God does exist,” he says, by showing that only an outside force could be capable of forming the cosmos.
Until William comes up with his proof, meanwhile, we have the acts of God and the person of Jesus to look to.
(If you feel this sermon is helpful, you are welcome to visit www.danachau.com for a free online course.)
