Wrestling with Doubt
Matt 18:17: Isaiah 45:5-7
30 July 2023
We are continuing in our series called: What do you believe and why? Today we will look at a passage from the book of Matthew on the topic of: Wrestling with Doubt. Why are we going through this apologetic series? Because every Christian, young and old, will wrestle with times of doubt and unbelief when it comes to their faith in a living God. There will be times when we question His will or the circumstances He allows in our lives, times when we question His Word when the voices in our culture become louder than His. There may be times when we question God’s wisdom and aspects of His nature.
For example, we can have a great day with God and the next day completely forget who He is and all He is able to do. Just like Elijah, who defeated 450 pagan prophets, trusting God to do a miracle to show them that He was the only true God. Everyone saw fire come down from heaven in a miraculous display of His power and authority. Then the next day he is running for his life because one woman was threatening his life. What happened? In Matthew 28:17, after the disciples saw the resurrected Jesus worshiped Him—but some of them doubted. Doubted that it was really Him even after hearing His teaching, witnessing His miraculous/messianic works, and even His resurrection.
Have you ever seen God answer prayers in a miraculous way and then get into squabbles over differences and allow situations or people to threaten your very being? Ever get into the fight or flight mode? Where is God in our situations? Do we ever doubt that He can or will intervene in the lives of our friends, family members, or the people we work with?
As we are bombarded by the details of life, relational issues, very real problems in this world, our culture’s ever-changing ideology, is our faith in the Lord being diluted? It reminds me of how my mother used to water down the orange juice to be able to stretch it for five kids. We were so used to drinking diluted orange juice that when we drank the real thing we were like “Wow, what is this?” In the same way, our faith won’t be truly full and satisfying when we drink a thinner version of it. We can’t diminish the infinite greatness, supreme goodness, or perfection of God but we can definitely dilute our view or perception of who He is. Don’t we all want the real thing?
This is why we are talking about the evidence for the existence of God and recognizing Him for how great and majestic He is. As a timeless, extremely powerful, intelligent, infinite, and personal being, He created the universe, the earth, and everything in it, including us as the crown of His creation. He made us in His image, for a purpose, and to live on an earth that is perfectly suited for life. We aren’t only dependent on God for our very breath, for food, for sustenance and health, meaning and purpose, we need the rest of creation and each other.
Every religion, every belief, every world view seeks to find ultimate meaning and purpose for why everything exists and makes exclusive claims about the reality of the world around them - even about unseen realities. We all try to make sense of this world and how we live and the destiny of our lives ultimately hinges on this one question, “Does God exist?” If God exists, and more specifically the God of the Bible—then what we believe and how we live will matter in time and for all eternity. If God doesn’t exist and there is no afterlife and everyone and everything will eventually be forgotten, then there is no objective game plan for life and ultimately nothing matters.
I have a question for you - in a society filled with a plethora of worldviews and beliefs, can every religion, or worldview be right? Maybe you have heard people say: “Well we all worship the same God - we basically believe the same things.” This view is called pluralism.
Pluralism is the claim that all religions are equally true. All beliefs lead to God or salvation. Following any religious path enables the believers to reach their religious goal.
A liberal theologian and philosopher at Princeton Seminary by the name of John Hick pointed to the ancient Islamic parable of the blind men and the elephant to justify his pluralistic worldview. The blind men came to a conclusion about what the elephant was after touching different parts of it. After feeling the trunk, one blind man said the elephant was like a tree branch; the one feeling the leg another said it was like a pillar, after touching the tail, one said it was like a rope; etc. Each blind man came to different conclusions about the elephant and in the same way, every world religion has a different, limited perspective about God. Hick claimed that all religions are different human interpretations of the one true divine reality. Hick thought the differences between religions were merely cultural. Does anyone see a problem with this logic and this illustration of the elephant?
The problem is, the one who is telling the story about the elephant sees the whole truth, sees the entire elephant and has the obligation to tell the blind people that their perceptions are not only limited, but wrong. Even though every religion agrees with each other on some issues they disagree on the deeper issues such as about the nature of God, ultimate reality, sin, and the way to salvation.
David Hume, a philosopher of skepticism in the 18th century argued that all religions cannot be true since they make contradictory truth claims. Either Jesus was the Son of God or He wasn’t. If He was, Christianity is true. If he wasn’t, then Judaism or Islam could be true. Hindu and ancient Greek/Roman religions believe in multiple gods, whereas the Abrahamic religions believe in just one.
The contrary view to pluralism holds that only one of the items offered for sale in the marketplace of religious ideas will actually deliver as promised. It claims that only one religious path leads to God but others don’t. A person who holds this view is an exclusivist. Exclusivism can either be secular or religious.
Exclusivism: claims that their way best explains reality - the fundamental problem of humanity, and the best solution to that problem. Exclusivism does not deny the varieties of beliefs, nor the universal truths found in other religions or worldviews; it does not deny the right to believe whatever you want to believe. It just denies pluralism. The question religious exclusivism asks are:
1. Which religion’s teachings are true? Which religion or belief best explains reality, the fundamental problem of humanity, and the best solution to that problem?
2. Which religion actually leads us to God?
As many of us know, the Christian worldview teaches us that God is the reason that everything exists. Isaiah 45:5-7 says:
I am the LORD, and there is no other; there is no God but Me. I will equip you for battle, though you have not known Me, so that all may know, from where the sun rises to where it sets, that there is none but Me; I am the LORD, and there is no other. I form the light and create the darkness; I bring prosperity and create calamity. I, the LORD, do all these things.
The Bible teaches us that God is the ultimate reality for all that exists as the Creator of the universe, the world, and all nature great and small. After God saw everything that He had made in creation, and especially after He created Adam and Eve in His image, what did He say? It was very good. But after the Fall, the effects of Adam and Eve’s sin marred all of creation and its effects have been passed down to all generations. There is a comprehensive corruption of our nature and we are all guilty - why? Well, what happens if you pollute a river at its source? You go downstream and see that the whole river is poisoned.
Sin, therefore, is the deepest, most fundamental human problem. Sin polluted the entire human race, resulting with physical death and separation from God. Sin wreaked havoc in every possible sphere on this planet and all of creation fell. Christianity doesn’t deny the reality of the fall, of sin and evil nor ignore the reality of personal guilt, however, Christianity provides a solution to this very real problem. The Christian worldview proclaims that God has made a way for sinners to be rescued from their sin, redeemed, and restored to fellowship with Him through the Person and work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. Christianity clearly specifies the origin or source of humanity’s fundamental problem and provides the perfect solution to the problem. Only the Gospel provides an assurance of hope and a certain and perfect rescue plan for sinners.
What do some of the other world religions hold to as the fundamental problem of humanity and what is their solution? What do Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism teach? What do the Jehovah Witnesses or Mormons believe? Are these religious views tenable?
Now let’s compare these religions to the materialist worldview which says humans are nothing but a combination of carbon, calcium, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and phosphorus.
Atheist Francis Crick said:
Ultimately… your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.
In his reality, you are no more than a molecular machine. Since there is no God, there is no ultimate standard of ethics or morality. English philosopher Bertrand Russell, when asked about the solution for the problem of the human race said, “I have no solution.” In reality, without God people can only find limited comfort and meaning in this life with no hope for their future. William Lane Craig said, if God does not exist then:
Mankind is a doomed race in a dying universe. Because the human race will eventually cease to exist, it makes no ultimate difference whether it ever did exist. Mankind is thus no more significant than a swarm of mosquitoes or a barnyard of pigs, for their end is all the same. The same blind cosmic process that coughed them up in the first place will eventually swallow them all again.
Even though this is the ultimate reality for the materialist view, Frank Turek found that they don’t live this way. Even Bertrand Russell found his own way of thinking abhorrent. People who hold that there is no standard of morality live as if there is a standard of morality and ethics. They speak of the metaphysical needs of love, care, and need for significance and benefit from moral ethics in society. But they don’t need God to be good.
So when our Christian faith is challenged with these worldviews, we need to ask ourselves some hard questions about what we believe and why. It’s going to mean putting on the hat of the investigator, the detective, the historian, the scholar, and the dedicated disciple. It’s going to require that you study the Bible, weighing the validity of its historical claims. It’s going to involve comparing its assertions with those of other religions, philosophies, and the claims of materialism. You and I need to personally wrestle with our doubts in order to find the reasons that underlie what we believe.
What do you do when you have doubts about God and the Scripture?
I find that whenever I share the gospel with people, many of which are atheists or agnostics who doubt the veracity of Scriptures and claims of the Christian faith, I am challenged to go back and investigate my faith. It is not enough to just believe because we want to believe something is true. Just because we want to believe heaven is real and that we hope to be there someday. It’s not good enough to say to a secular humanist, “It’s what the Bible says.” As Christians, and I think I can speak for most of us, we do believe that the Bible is true but also that science verifies and doesn’t contradict Scriptures. We believe in the God of the Bible, not necessarily because the evidence for God is scientific or foolproof but that there is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt for His existence and about what the Scriptures say about the issues about life and death.
Jesus said: I am the only Way to God, and the real Truth and the real life; no one comes to the Father but through Me (John 14:6 AMP). Jesus both asserts that He is the only way to God and specifically excludes any other means. Peter reaffirms that truth in Act 4:12 - there is no other name under heaven by which a person can be saved. The Word teaches us that it is only through trusting in Jesus through the Holy Spirit's power that leads us to God and that the biblical worldview is not just a religion but speaks of a relationship. When I speak about religion, I mean when people treat their relationship with God like a contract. We enter into a fee-for-service arrangement with God. I give money, show up to church, do religious things, think religious thoughts and in return I expect God’s help, protection, answered prayer, and rescue from punishment in the next life. We follow God expecting a spiritual reimbursement of health, happiness, and a heavenly reward. If God doesn’t meet certain expectations, then I won’t keep my end of the contract. We think God would do the same thing if we didn’t keep our end of the bargain. Most religions follow this pattern.
A relationship on the other hand is so different. It is where I am invited into a relationship, an unconditional covenant, with the eternal God of the universe. There, I experience every aspect of His love for me and in response I am free to love Him back. How many religions can claim to be able to call their God “Father”? A Father who provided the way to salvation that didn’t cost us anything but cost Him everything. In this relationship I am loved, brought into His family, promised an inheritance with His Son and a home in heaven for all eternity.
Personally, I believe the Christian worldview provides the most reasonable answers to the biggest questions in life and gives us a way to have a relationship with God, not based on our own merits but on His. It is only by knowing God that gives us meaning, purpose, satisfaction, love, and a rock-solid hope even in the face of death. Are there any other faiths, worldviews, or beliefs that can guarantee these things? When we know what we believe and why we can enter into a dialogue with those who have differing faiths and worldviews without insecurity, fear, or defensiveness and share our faith with joy and confidence.
