Do Away With Doubt
Introduction
A freshman, in a supposedly Christian institution, took it on himself to be a “personal Billy Graham” to an atheistic professor and philosopher. However, it turned out to be the single most miserable time the young man had ever experienced as a follower of Jesus Christ.
He walked into class one day full of pride, thinking that his conversation with the professor would quickly bring the instructor to his knees, weeping and giving his heart to the Lord Jesus. However, by the time their conversation ended, the seasoned skeptic had the young man so confused he walked out of the professor’s office wondering if there was a God. He later commented, “If I had walked into his office the way I walked out, I might have walked out the way I walked in.”
Have you ever lived in a similar dark shadow of doubt? Does it seem natural and undeniable one moment that God exists and cares for the world and the next moment uncommonly naive? Someone at work says, “Christians check their brains at the door of the church every Sunday, and most of them don’t bother to pick them up on the way out.” Do you ever find yourself agreeing?
How certain are you that you know God’s desires concerning specific political, social, and moral issues facing our society? i
Do you ever wonder if there really is a God? A heaven? A hell? Do you ever doubt that prayer makes a difference? Do you ever doubt your own relationship with God?
If you can connect with any of these doubts, I have some promising news for you. You just joined the rest of us. Do you know that even the strongest servants of God in the Bible had their doubts? If you read the Psalms, you will find that David had his doubts. Read Ecclesiastes and discover that Solomon had his doubts. Read Job; it is full of doubt. Read the writings of the prophet Jeremiah, a God-called preacher, and you will find his doubts drove him to tears.
The church has been badly infected with a spiritual virus called “doubt” since its beginning. I agree with the words of Christian apologist Lee Strobel: “We could divide Christians into three groups. The first would consist of those who have doubted. The second would be those who haven’t doubted yet, but who will. The third group would be those who are brain-dead.” ii
If the demon of doubt has ever plagued you, put your mind at ease. There is nothing wrong with doubt. Faith presumes doubt. Faith’s nature dictates it must be preceded by doubt. If there is no room for doubt, there is no place for faith. I like the way this author put it: “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.” iii
There is a difference between doubt and unbelief. Doubt asks questions while unbelief won’t even listen to answers.
As we endeavor to do away with doubt, we ought to look at a man in the Word of God whose problem with doubt was so severe it earned him a nickname: Doubting Thomas. Although Thomas has gotten a bad rap through the years, he does teach us how to do away with doubt. He was able to starve his doubt and feed his faith, and he shows us exactly how to do it. So if you are dealing with doubt these days— doubt about God, about His goodness, about His grace, even about His very existence—you can learn some priceless lessons from Thomas.
I. Eliminate the Cause
First, let me set the scene for you: The Lord Jesus had been raised from the dead. He had appeared to all the disciples except Thomas. When the disciples tried to convince Thomas they had seen Jesus alive, Thomas doubted. He was the only one who doubted, but there was a reason for his doubt. John 20:24 holds the key to understanding what really happened with Thomas. “Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.”
In the verses directly preceding this one, we find out where Jesus had appeared to the disciples and shown Himself to them and spoken to them, but Thomas hadn’t been there. He had missed the fireworks. He had missed an opportunity to both fulfill his doubt and fortify his faith.
If you are living in the middle of doubt right now, the first question you need to ask yourself is this: “Why do I doubt?” Often doubt has a common cause similar to these:
When a sudden unforeseen tragedy comes into our lives, we instantly begin to doubt the goodness of God.
When we pray at length for a particular outcome without the desired result, we doubt the power of God.
We live right. We endeavor to do what God wants us to do and still suffer for it. Then we doubt the justice of God.
Sometimes sin in our lives causes us to doubt because living in sin pushes us further away from God. The further we are from Him, the more we will doubt Him or our relationship with Him.
If you have never decided to become a follower of Jesus Christ, you are either living a hand-me-down faith from your parents or have willfully decided that being a Christian is just not for you. You are probably filled with doubt. If you are struggling with doubt at the moment, be honest enough to ask yourself the question, “Why do I doubt?”
With Thomas, it was his absence from the fellowship. He was not where he should have been when he should have been. But then Thomas did something that is essential to dealing successfully with doubt.
II. Express the Doubt
Many people live their lives every day sitting silently in the dark room of doubt, too ashamed to let anybody know what they are feeling. They are afraid of what people might think if they knew about their doubts about Jesus, God, the Bible, or the church—or even the purpose and meaning of life. I fear too many believers have written four words across the struggles they repeatedly have with their own faith: Don’t ask. Don’t tell. They have placed an “off-limits” sign across their heart and are too afraid to be transparent with questions that are both honest and in need of answers.
We need to give Doubting Thomas credit where credit is due. He had the courage to interrogate the crowd. He had the courage to raise his hand. He had the courage to pose a question, and he had the courage to demand an answer. The Bible says, “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’” (John 20:25). Be aware that this was not the first time Thomas had expressed his doubt.
In John 14, Jesus first talked about heaven with His disciples. He spoke these now famous words: “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.” John 14:1-4. Jesus barely finished these great words before Thomas asked, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” (John 14:5).
Every other disciple was probably thinking the same thing, but only Thomas had the courage to ask. He wasn’t trying to be argumentative or rude, but he had honest doubts about what Jesus had said.
I thank God that Thomas had that courage because it opened the door for Jesus to give one of the greatest statements of faith as an answer to one of the greatest questions of doubt. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).
Notice how Jesus handled Thomas’s doubt. Jesus didn’t rebuke him. He didn’t look at him and say, “You moron! Have you not learned after all the time I have spent with you where I am going and how you can get there with Me?” Jesus respected his honest question and gave him an honest answer. God is big enough to handle any question you throw at Him. In fact, God is not the least bit insulted by your doubts if you are honest with Him. Don’t you think He would rather have you be honest with Him by simply expressing your doubts than living a lie and confessing a counterfeit faith? He knows what is going on inside you anyway. He knows the doubts you have. Nothing catches Him by surprise.
When you express your doubts, you are on the road to learning whether they are well-founded. This will help you reach the point where you can finally do away with doubt.
III. Examine The Facts
One man put it this way: “When does doubt become unbelief? Answer: When you let it.” iv
The first step to deciding whether your doubt is justified is to examine the facts. That is exactly what Thomas meant when he said in John 20:25, “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.” In other words, he wanted to examine the facts for himself.
Now, let me be candid with some of you who are living in the land of doubt. There is a difference between an honest doubter and a dishonest doubter. A dishonest doubter says, “I doubt (something) is true and I don’t want my mind baffled with the facts. I just want to continue in my doubt.” But an honest doubter says, “I doubt (something) is true, but I’m willing to examine the facts to see if my doubt is unjustified.” True doubt never overlooks the facts; it persistently pursues the truth.
There is something healthy about doing your own examination. Thomas was not going to believe what other people believed merely because they told him. He wanted to investigate for himself. He wanted to touch the hands of Jesus, feel His scars, put his finger in the spear wound in His side, and discover the truth for himself.
Let me make a practical application. I do my best by the grace of God and the power of God to be a man of God. Whenever I stand behind a pulpit, I endeavor to preach the truth of God by the Spirit of God, but I don’t want my listeners to blindly believe everything I say or agree with everything I preach. That might shock some of you, but I mean it with all my heart. You have not only the liberty but also the responsibility to check out anything I say and make sure it lines up with the truth of God’s Word.
One of my favorite churches mentioned in the New Testament is a little church in Berea. The apostle Paul preached at that church. This is what Luke wrote about those wonderful people: “The people in Berea were much nicer than those in Thessalonica, and they gladly accepted the message. Day after day they studied the Scriptures to see if these things were true” (Acts 17:11 CEV). They had open minds and confirmed truth for themselves.
I want to share with you one of the most sensible ways you can apply this chapter to your life so you can starve your doubt and feed your faith. Study the Bible. Read the Word of God. The entire book of First John was written to dispel the doubts of Christians who wondered whether they had a genuine relationship with God.
Don’t miss the important timeline in Thomas’s story. “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!’” (John 20:26). The scene is the same room where Jesus had met with His disciples earlier, but eight days had passed. For more than a week, everybody except Thomas had believed. He was the one doubter in the room, but what did he do? He hung around. He stayed to examine the evidence— that is what honest doubt does. Doubt says, “I will stay and study the facts.” However, unbelief—or dishonest doubt—walks away and says, “You believe what you want, but I am out of here! I don’t want to know whether I am right or wrong.”
There is nothing wrong with doubt, but there is something wrong with doubt that refuses to examine the facts. It has been well said that a Christian should believe simply, but a Christian should not just simply believe. Somebody, somewhere, is going to dispute your faith sooner or later. Not knowing why you believe what you believe is just as bad as not knowing what you believe. We need to examine the facts so we know not only what we believe but also why we believe it.
Do you see what you are doing with doubt when you eliminate the cause, express the doubt, and examine the facts? You are not just dealing with your doubt—you are strengthening your faith. And this leads to the last step where you trust in God’s goodness and love and are able to do away with doubt.
IV. Evaluate The Proof
When you straighten the shape of a question mark, what do you have? An exclamation point. After Thomas examined the facts, he evaluated the proof. Here is the result: Then He [Jesus] 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.” And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” John 20:27-28
Do you know one reason many people refuse to confront their doubts? Because deep down they are afraid their doubts are true, that their doubts will win, that what they believe has been wrong. No skeptic can come up with a doubt God doesn’t have an answer for. You don’t have to check your brains at the door of Christianity to become a follower of Jesus Christ. If you examine the facts about Jesus Christ, examine the facts about the truth of the book called “The Word of God,” and evaluate the proof, you will find evidence that demands a positive verdict. The Bible is true, God is real, and Jesus Christ is just who He said He was.
We cannot physically touch the Lord Jesus Christ, but seeing is not believing — believing is seeing. That is why Jesus said to Thomas, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). Do you realize who the “those” is in that sentence? That means you and I. I have never seen Jesus. I’ve never touched Jesus. I have never felt Jesus, but I want to tell you I know Jesus. I love Jesus. Jesus is more real to me than the air I breathe and the skin on my flesh because I have evaluated the proof. That has done away with my doubt — He is who He said He is and He did what He said He did.
Conclusion
I recently read about a lawyer named Frank Morrison, who was an atheist. He didn’t believe in God, thought the Bible was a joke, and certainly did not believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So he sat out to stop this crazy story once and for all. He examined the historical evidence with all his legal logic, with all his judicial experience, and with all his investigative expertise. He sifted through every possibility that might account for the disappearance of the body of Jesus Christ. The only explanation he could come up with was the one he found in the Word of God. In the end, he surrendered his life to Christ and wrote a book called Who Moved the Stone?
Do you have doubts? If so, I encourage you to bring your doubts to the Word of God. Bring your doubts to the Son of God. Be honest about them, express the doubt, and then examine the facts. If you will evaluate the proof, you will come to a point where you can say without hesitation, “Because of the love and the grace and the mercy of God, I can do away with doubt once and for all!”
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i Daniel Taylor, The Myth of Certainty (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1986), 14-15.
ii Lee Strobel, God's Outrageous Claims (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 102.
iii Gary Parker, The Gift of Doubt (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1990) 69.
iv R. C. Sproul, Doubt and Assurance (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993) 22.