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00:01 Now this morning we're going to look at a topic that is very very important. How
00:08 many of us here sitting would actually admit to you or to each other that this
00:14 morning sometimes you're here and you're wondering it's a bit weird and I'm praying. I don't know whether anybody
00:20 listening does God actually exist? Can you put your hands up? The rest of you are totally convinced
00:26 God exists. Right? Not a shadow of a doubt. So this this sermon is probably
00:32 irrelevant. Well, I must admit I have a lot of doubts. Uh and I'm not afraid to admit
00:38 it. Uh the psalmist ASAP uh writer of scripture actually
00:44 describes the fact that he has doubt. Uh a lot of people have doubt. Um and if we
00:50 actually suppress our doubt and not deal with it, then we'll find that somewhere along the line it'll be like dirt
00:57 covered under the carpet. it'll spring out and it'll devour us. So this morning
01:02 we're we're going to deal with with doubt head on. We're going to talk about what is doubt. We're going to look at
01:09 why we have doubts. And thirdly, we're going to how do we process our doubt?
01:14 Because everybody has doubt. Um first thing is let's look at what is doubt. What is doubt? God truly God is good to
01:21 Israel to those who are pure in heart. But as for my as for me, my feet had
01:27 almost stumbled. My steps had nearly slipped. This is a more metaphorical way
01:32 in which ASAP deals with this topic of doubt. What is doubt? Doubt is like you're climbing up the tallest mountain
01:41 face on earth called Al Capitan, 3,000 m up. uh and um Jorgensson and Cadwell
01:49 actually did a world record recently when they climbed all the way up and conquered this but without ropes you
01:57 know I mean there's no petons there's no hammering nothing they just go up with
02:02 their bare hands on a sure cliff that goes uh all the way up this is a tremendous uh uh achievement but along
02:10 the way they shredded their hands they slipped many times And the only reason
02:16 why they didn't die because they cheated. They have ropes that will catch them if they actually fall. They didn't
02:21 really climb up like monkey Spider-Man without anything else. There were ropes but they didn't use it to to cl to pull
02:27 themselves up. So what is doubt? Doubt is basically slipping almost falling but
02:34 not dying. spiritual vertical as if you're running on your treadmill and
02:40 you're going one direction your mind is going the other direction and it's sort of almost slipping almost falling out so
02:45 that's what doubt is it's a misstep doubt is common in fact the very famous
02:51 philosopher Christian philosopher Dea actually found his conclusions by
02:56 doubting he doubted everything he possibly could doubt until he reached a point where he realized that there was
03:02 only one thing he couldn't doubt he could not doubt that he were doubting to doubt that he was doubting was to prove
03:07 that he was doubting. There's no doubt about that. Right? So then he he discovered yeah everything else in the
03:13 world is is is is an illusion except doubt. Um Archbishop Candidbury recently
03:20 admitted that uh was jogging one morning taking his his dog. He actually doubted
03:25 whether God existed because there were so many prayers he had for the wartorn conflicted areas in the world that were
03:32 not answered and say where is God and and he actually had doubt. Uh there are a lot of misconceptions about doubt. The
03:38 first misconception about doubt is that true faith has no doubt. If you really a
03:44 Christian, you shouldn't have any doubt. So maybe 90% of you never put your hands up um because you're afraid or
03:50 embarrassed that you shouldn't have doubts. Uh a doubt is the same thing as unbelief. It's not. Let me explain to
03:56 you what doubt is. This is famous actor house. If you say if you could reason
04:01 with rel religious people, there would be no religious people. And it's a fact. A lot of religious people think they
04:08 know everything. They've got this certainty. There's no doubt at all. You can't debate with a religious person
04:14 because there's no leeway. There's no certain doubt at all. Job sat with his friends when he had gone through a
04:20 terrible time in his life. Three friends called Zofa, Elephas and Bildad. If you
04:26 ever wanted friends, uh, look for people with those names. While he was suffering and questioning
04:33 why he was suffering, they came to him and say without a shadow of doubt, you must have sinned.
04:40 Otherwise, why did you lose your child, children? Why did you lose your wife? Why is skin erupting all over you? all
04:46 the skin lesions. Why are you suffering? The only reason why you're suffering is that you must have sinned. And Job is
04:52 sitting down and Job is beginning to have doubts, but I have no sin. And yet
04:57 God is punishing me. And he's working through his doubt. He's being real with
05:02 God. He's he's he's angry. He's disappointed. He's afraid of God. He
05:08 considers God his God has made him his enemy. But if you look at his three friends, his friends had absolutely no
05:15 route. They were so certain. They were sincere. Sincerely wrong.
05:21 Francis Bacon says if you begin with certainty, you will end with great doubts. If you start off with doubt, you
05:28 will end up with great certainty. So doubt is a process through which you
05:34 work through and arrive at certainty. If you start off with certainty and you
05:40 think life is like this and you give no room for doubt one day when something
05:47 happens to you when the business plan didn't quite work out when your children didn't quite turn out or that illness
05:55 can hit your life then you wind up with great uncertainty. So having doubts is
06:01 not wrong. the misconception. Francis Bacon says, "If you begin with certainty, you will end up with great
06:07 doubt. If you start off with doubt, you will end up with great certainty." Uh Daniel Taylor wrote a book recently and
06:14 he didn't like to call Christians doubting. You know what he called them? Instead of doubting, he called them reflective Christians. Uh truth is best
06:22 served in my view by our being equally unimpressed with those who claim to have
06:27 it all neatly tied in their own package with those who pedal the self-fulfilling cliche that there is no truth. Most
06:34 people who live in the real world understand the foolishness of both poles. And what he's saying there are two types of people. One that says
06:40 there's no truth at all. We must doubt everything. And those who think they're so certain uh that there uh there's
06:46 there's no room for doubt. So uh this is called the myth of certainty. So what is doubt? Doubt is actually a being in two
06:54 minds, a foot in each boat. Haven't decided whether you want to accept the
06:59 proposition which is faith or reject the proposition which is unbelief. And in many of Jesus' dealings with Sadducees
07:06 and Pharisees, they were the opposite. They was thrown and shown all the evidence and in the end they actually
07:12 rejected the proposition. They actually had unbelief. St. Augustine believes in the thinking
07:17 Christian. He says Christians are those who think in their believing and believe in their thinking. The world of the
07:23 Christian faith is not a fairy tale makebelieve world questionfree problem but a world where doubt is never far
07:30 from faith's shoulders. All right. It's a very realistic view. Uh Martin Luther
07:36 when he was brought before the diet of worms to defend the 95 thesis stood up
07:41 before the panel and he said unless I'm convinced by scripture and plain reason
07:47 my conscience is captive to the word of God. Two things undergur the foundations
07:52 of his belief. One is scripture and the other one is plain reason which is
07:58 logic. So God gives us logic and need to depend on that. Doubting Thomas. Some of
08:03 you think, "Oh, this is a horrible fellow." He's not a horrible fellow. He asked that I won't believe until I, you
08:09 know, stick my finger there. Right? And and and and if that was such a bad
08:14 thing, Jesus would have rebuked him. would have said to Thomas, "You're a
08:20 naughty fellow and I won't give you anything." You know what Jesus did? Jesus said, "Come." And he showed him
08:26 his wounds and he stuck his finger and he saw the sunlight through it. Right?
08:32 Why? Why did God allow himself to do that? In the end, you know what Thomas said? He said,
08:41 "My Lord and my God." So from that uncertainty came certainty,
08:49 doubt. He wasn't wrong. But Jesus said, "Blessed are those who, you know, dis
08:55 believe with less evidence." But the process is uh uh uh attested by our
09:01 Lord. Why do we have doubts? Well, we need to look at why. First of all, ASAP
09:06 says, "When I saw the prosperity of the wicked, um, truly God is good to Israel
09:12 and those who are pure in heart." So, if God loves you and me who are Christians
09:19 and he's good to us, right? Then you look at the prosperity of the wicked,
09:24 what about them? They're supposed to the bad guys and they're doing well. Then what about me? All in vain. Have I kept
09:31 my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence for all day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning I be
09:37 punished every morning here I'm suffering facing bankruptcy sickness and all sorts of evil and that fellow is
09:43 doing so well my neighbor he's got a big BMW he's he's you know he's a banker
09:49 and and and what I mean I I am a full-time worker and I'm suffering and and the whole whole issue is why we have
09:55 doubts is that is it doesn't what we see doesn't compute with what we actually uh
10:01 have our beliefs uh you know look at that
10:06 or about that what we see does not correlate with what we know there is some dissonance we know something but
10:13 what we see and what we experience is completely different this guy can't be eating soldiers out of the helicopter can he all right uh doubt is actually
10:20 based on new experiences not new information we very seldom get new
10:25 information that affects our faith very very seldom may maybe perhaps in the past somebody published this uh Dan
10:32 Brown's Dainci code. They said maybe Jesus had a wife and then maybe a a twinge of doubt seeps in intellectually
10:38 but in the end that's proven to be untrue. Then the talpot graves are supposed to show you Jesus bones or that
10:45 also been proven untrue. The very few instances in life when there's really real new information that comes in that
10:51 causes doubt. What actually causes doubt in ASAP's experience is new experience.
10:58 when you experience something that doesn't quite match up. For example, you've got uh K-pop band and they're
11:05 hugging the girls and they the department of whatever comes up and say, "Oh, this is not good. They should be
11:11 put in jail." Women shouldn't hug men in public. And then how come this fellow can hug this one and this one can hug uh
11:20 uh right on her chest some more, you know?
11:27 So when you see this and you see that they're getting arrested right and there
11:34 she's getting away then there's some doubt isn't it because what you see and what you know are two completely things
11:41 for example uh the the newspaper put up in soal jaw TV3 21st of um January this
11:49 year prime minister came on or 16 sorry 15 Yeah,
11:56 when I work too late at night, my mind races. And he said Malaysian development Bhart
12:02 1 MDB was only $1 million in terms of shares, but today it has assets worth of
12:08 50 billion ringit. But then how come the ring keep on sliding?
12:13 So what he says and and the whole world whether it believes or not bottom line
12:19 whether they buy your ring or not, isn't it? So there is a dissonance between what you say and what there is. So he
12:27 doubts the system. This is a poor gentleman who was recently sacked a major. He says his dismissal proves
12:33 honesty doesn't pay in Malaysia. He has doubts about his own country. This is what he says. The honest ones are the
12:38 criminals while the liars who betray are the ones who are adult agilated and
12:44 given various recognitions. The honest ones are criminals. That's him, Major
12:50 Zidi. Uh, and and he's so disillusioned, there's doubt when what you see, what you experience is in actual conflict
12:57 with what you know to be true. This is a uh person who actually left the faith. The Malaysian Chronicle published uh let
13:05 me read to you what she felt. For a while, I reveled in my new found faith. The pastors told me my father's death
13:10 was in accordance to God's will and his ways are higher than ours. It didn't make much sense to me, but death never
13:16 does even till this day. At that time, I pushed the illogicality of the church's explanation. The closed ties, the sense
13:22 of belonging, the way everyone seems all together in their worship gave me a sense of purpose at a time when my world
13:28 had plunged into chaos. Through the years, however, cracks begin to appear
13:33 in my tightly constructed faith. And that this describes a lot of people even here this morning. You got a good
13:40 friends, fellowship, you sing some nice song, you come here, everybody upper middle class, you know, feels good,
13:45 isn't it? And whatever things that you don't really understand, you sweep under the carpet. But one day
13:51 the the the doubts will grow bigger and bigger. Why? Because of different experiences in your life. If you go
13:56 through a life without suffering, then you don't have any doubts. But when you start having suffering, then the doubts will start to come up and all the smell
14:03 will come out under the carpet. And so therefore, we need to process our doubt. Uh learn how to process it so that it
14:10 doesn't kill us. So there are five steps. We're to examine our doubts. We're to engage in worship with others.
14:16 We're to compare footholds, feel for his uh hand and make God our refuge. The
14:22 first point, let's settle down. The first point, first point is that we need to re-examine our doubts. For I was
14:27 envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. Why did this
14:34 person doubt? Anybody know? This is class time. Any anyone can
14:39 answer. Why did this person doubt? Huh? Professor Tan always answers my
14:45 gamma class. So he's he says he's jealous. You see, jealousy
14:51 is an emotion. You don't doubt because there was new new information,
14:57 right? A new experience produces jealousy. They are so rich. I'm so poor.
15:03 And actually, if you reexamine your doubt, actually it's not because anything new has come up. It's just is that you're jealous. That's not a
15:11 legitimate reason to doubt. Uh let's read on. The scripture is beautiful. Why is he jealous? They have no pains until
15:17 death. That means they never suffer until they die. Their bodies are fat and sleek. I don't know why you want to want
15:23 to in that case I look real good, right? They're fat and sleek. You translate
15:30 today, their bodies are six-packed and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are. They're not stricken like the rest
15:36 of mankind. Some of these people like walk on water. Nothing happened to them. How many of you know people who are like
15:41 that? Who basically nothing happens. They are fairy tale life. They grow up in a rich household. They marry the most
15:47 beautiful men in the world. They have 15 kids and and and they always do well. Anybody know them? Yeah. And you hate
15:53 them, right? Yes. You hate them. Why? Because you're not like that. Um and and
16:00 let's read on. Um therefore, their pride is the necklace. Violence covers them as
16:06 a garment. Their eyes swell out through fatness. I don't know how that means. You know, they your eyes will pop out
16:12 because you're you're so rich. Uh and their hearts overflow with follyies. They scoff and speak with malice.
16:19 They're not truthful people like this, the big fat cats on Wall Street or all the corporations. They do so well, isn't
16:25 it? Or remember our former Mry Basar. He lives in this big bungalow and we now know he'd been convicted of stealing
16:31 money from public. Yeah, they do very well until they're convicted. Um and then he says they set their mouths
16:37 against the heavens, their tongues struck through the earth. Therefore his people turned back to them and final
16:43 fault and they say how can God know is their knowledge in the most high? Behold these are the wicked always at ease the
16:50 increase. They seem to control the media. They seem to control the the the the what we're talking about in society.
16:58 They seem to be all pervasive. When my soul was ambited, see
17:05 bitterness. When I was pricricked in the heart, I was brutish and ignorant. I was like a beast towards you. The psalmist
17:11 is so clear and so honest with his emotions. It made him so upset. Not only
17:16 was he envious, he was bitter. He looks at any rich fellow or belong to the particular political party, he gets so
17:23 upset, you know, and and bitter. So therefore, that is not the reason for doubt. Okay? There's nothing new.
17:29 There's no new new information. The fact that you examine your doubt, your doubts actually based on your jealousy, uh,
17:35 which is illegitimate because all day I've kept my heart clean, washed my hands in innocence. All day I've been
17:40 stricken and rebuked every morning. His suffering. Roy Clemens, very famous preacher. In fact, I heard him once when
17:46 he came here, very brilliant expositor of the Bible, pastor of the Eden Baptist
17:53 Church in Cambridge for the last 20 years. um one day wrote a letter to John
17:58 Stodd and in the letter he wrote in short I don't believe I can be cured by behavioral therapy I am gay and always
18:06 will be so and because he's gay he then left the church uh that motive is sexual
18:13 desire he had a sexual desire which was inconsistent with scripture and that was the reason why he doubted Christianity
18:19 not because there was any new information but it was a new experience for him and so therefore that was actually we actually look in in his
18:25 letter the motive is his sexual experience not the fact that suddenly he discovered Jesus didn't rise from the
18:31 dead he didn't discover that he discovered that his motives made him doubt uh we have so many uh positive
18:39 declarations from Joel Austin and some of you who believe uh the biggest problem is that he says if you declare
18:46 all promise all the positive things in life then you will get them but if you
18:52 follow what Joelin says uh you'll find that most of you
18:58 will find a problem because whatever you declare you are still poor. Whatever you declare your your your children are
19:04 still struggling or are sick or your spouse it doesn't quite work out. When that work doesn't work out then you've
19:10 got doubts and the doubts here are because of personal motive. You actually
19:17 your motive not to serve God or glorify God but your motive personal success. And because you didn't get personal
19:23 success, then you start to doubt. For example, if you're a college kid, if
19:29 you're going to to to to college and you love this time of partying and and
19:34 enjoying and and in college, nobody believes in God. Usually, uh the reason why don't believe in God because they
19:41 don't have time for God. And so therefore, you go in and and you come from a nice Christian church like this
19:47 and after three years in college, you don't believe in God anymore. You know why? because you want to join the rest
19:52 of the crowd. Jesus says, "How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek glory from the one that comes from the only God?
19:59 Because in college, nobody believes in God. So therefore, when you go to college, you join the rest because it's inconvenient to believe in God. You
20:05 can't party with the rest of us. So therefore, the motive here is social acceptance."
20:11 What about this? All three of these people here have something in common, right? There are pastors, high-ranking
20:19 pastors in the United States and all three of them fell down either from sexual infidelity or from stealing
20:26 money. And many people have doubts after that. Many people left their church
20:31 because of that because they placed their hopes on what human beings rather than on our Lord Jesus Christ. You build
20:38 it on the wrong foundation. Lastly, if you're a young person, and this happens
20:43 very often, and you're waiting and believing that God will have somebody in mind for you in their life, that you're
20:50 not supposed to be unequally yolked, and you're pushing 35, you're pushing 40,
20:56 and nobody comes on the radar screen. Either you didn't switch on your radar or or what, but but nobody comes and you
21:04 I mean, the commandment stays the same, right? But your experience is different. God, where's the where's the the spouse?
21:13 You know, and then you start to compromise and you look somewhere else. You join non-Christians, find somebody in the bus stop uh that's that's not a
21:21 Christian. Uh you've got this unmet expectations. Nothing has changed. It's just that
21:28 you've got unmet expectations. Look at the confession of this atheist. This atheist said she left Christianity. I
21:35 don't have to try to fit into the divine when science can explain the way the world works. Most of all, I don't have
21:42 to bother reconciling my ideas of women's rights and sexist notions in Christianity and the major religions. If
21:47 other women are happy being submissive to their husbands because the Bible tells them to do so, that's up to them.
21:54 But at least now I can choose not to and I'm free to seek a more egalitarian
21:59 relationship outside the misogynistic boundaries of religion. I found freedom in atheism, the freedom to think. Now
22:07 this woman left Christianity not because of any new information is because she
22:12 doesn't want to live under authority of the truth and she wants that she doesn't
22:18 like the truth. The whole issue is that truth doesn't depend on whether you like it or makes what most miss most sense to
22:25 you personally. I can illustrate this most common every day I see patients.
22:30 All right. And many times you to tell them something unhappy. You tell them you got stage four cancer. Nick Ais is
22:37 stage four cancer, right? There's nothing much I can do. And they say to me, I don't believe you. Simply because
22:43 why? I don't like what you're telling me. If you don't like what you're telling me doesn't make it less true,
22:49 isn't it? And this woman believes that truth is inside herself. Truth is outside yourself. Whether you like it or
22:56 not, when you got stage four cancer, you are going to die. So the the veracity of
23:01 the truth doesn't depend on whether you like it or not. And many people leave Christianity like this woman simply
23:07 because she doesn't like to live under the authority of the word of God. Does not liking it doesn't mean it's not
23:14 true. Second thing that we need to learn about doubt is that we engage in worship
23:20 with others. When I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a
23:26 wearism task until I went into the sanctuary of God and I discerned the end. See, this was terrible. He got so
23:33 racked with guilt and doubt. He didn't know what to do. And suddenly he went to
23:38 church. He went to the sanctuary and suddenly from the sanctuary he discerned
23:44 the end. The point is that you don't get into doubt because of new information.
23:50 You get into doubt because of a new experience. So when you go to the
23:55 sanctuary, what are you doing? Getting an counter experience. You worship and
24:01 you experience God with the family and that will counter whatever you're
24:06 experiencing. So, so you don't, so we go to tabernacle. You go to church at that time as a
24:14 tabernacle or the temple and you see um all the elements that witnessed to God's
24:22 great love for us. Um Hosea says, "When they had graced, they became full. They
24:29 were filled. Their hearts were lifted up. Therefore, they forgot me." We human
24:35 beings have this very very bad memory. When life is too good, we forget God.
24:41 And when we go to the sanctuary, the moment you enter the sanctuary, you offer sacrifice. The sacrifice reminds
24:48 you of your sin. The priest reminds you of the distance between God. You enter the church, you see the cross, and the
24:55 cross reminds you that all that has been paid for by Jesus Christ. And the
25:00 experience refloods your heart. Um, you shall remember that you were a slave in
25:06 the land of Egypt in the land and the Lord your God brought you from there with a mighty hand and outstretched arm.
25:12 Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. Keeping the Sabbath day produces week after week a
25:20 constant stable experience of God in your life. The whole week you immerse
25:25 yourself in experience with non-Christian who tell you God doesn't exist. God of God doesn't exist. You go to college, you go to work, you you
25:31 switch on the radio and TV. None of them tell you God exists. And so you're bombarded week after week. So Sunday you
25:38 go back and you remember, yes, there is a God. I'm accountable to that God. And
25:44 it deals with your doubt. That in fact, the Jews were so fidious about this
25:50 experience that they used to wear tassels. You see, and it shall be a
25:55 tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord. Every time they they they look around their
26:01 clothes, they they see these knots and they touch this knot, it reminds them the commandments of the Lord. So So, so
26:06 the whole Jewish religious experience is an immersion into something that always
26:12 continues to remind you that God is real. And when we come to the Lord's supper, taking of the bread and the wine
26:19 re-emerses us in the experience and brings us back to the foot of the cross. So the way we deal with doubt is to
26:25 re-enter these sort of experiences that help counteract doubt.
26:31 Uh then when he goes into the sanctuary, then he discerns the end. Then he can see uh what true spirituality really is.
26:39 Jason Harren is a famous uh uh um gospel singer who struggles. If you see his
26:45 songs, his songs usually reflect the fact that he's struggling with his faith, whether God is real, whether his
26:52 faith is real. Um and recently he wrote this uh article in Christianity Today
26:58 and he summarizes as such. He says, "I'm happy when I sing. Praise God. I believe
27:05 when I sing I might be a bit tired and angry guy with underlying suspicion of
27:10 futility but when I sing I believe when
27:15 I sing I believe. So when you have doubt, when you're angry, when you think
27:21 it's all not worthwhile, and all of us will face that, take up your guitar,
27:26 join the service and sing. Because when you sing, you remind yourself of
27:32 scripture. You remind yourself of the beauty of God. You remind yourself of his care for you and his provision for
27:37 you. And when you sing, you believe. When they sing, you believe. When you sing, they believe. So that's part of
27:44 it. So you need to process your your your doubt with your community. It's you you never process it alone. God provides
27:52 you a community. So it's very important to come to church and not only come to church and have a listen to the sermon and you walk off, but you come and join
27:59 the community so that we could encourage each other and remind and immerse other
28:04 new experiences that will confirm your faith and dispel your doubts.
28:11 Thirdly, we need to compare footholds. There are two verses here that we compare side by side. The the psalmist
28:17 comes and and he looks truly you set them in slippery places, you make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in
28:24 the moment swept away by utter terrors. This describes the end of the people who are wicked. And then he looks at
28:30 himself. Who am I in heaven except you? And there's nothing I desire on earth
28:36 except you. He takes the two foundations, their foundation and he looks at the ultimate end. It looks at
28:42 his foundation. What does he really value in life? Actually, it's God. Who am I in heaven except you? There's
28:48 nothing I desire on earth except you. When you stand in the place of doubt.
28:57 All right? There is a gap. There's a gap between
29:02 you and God. And there will always be a gap. There's a difference between faith
29:08 and knowledge. You know what knowledge is? Knowledge is complete certainty.
29:15 Faith is the dark gap between what is known and what is complete certainty. There's
29:23 a gap. All right? And basically you you know there was a young man called Sydney
29:28 Vanukan and he was contemplating um faith in God. He started to weigh up
29:35 his options. He was in college and he says, "If I'm going to give my life to God, I really got to be sure. Either
29:42 there's going to be letters of fire across the sky to tell me I am Jesus. I love
29:48 you. Otherwise, I'm not going to give you my whole life." He waited. He waited. He waited. No letters of fire
29:54 across the sky. Very disappointed. And then you know what happened? Let me
29:59 read to you his book. Then I realized there was a gap behind me as well. If I
30:05 had to believe in Christ, there would have been a leap of faith as there was no certainty. But even to go back is the
30:12 leap of faith. It would take enormous faith to reject Jesus Christ. Once I saw the gap behind me, I flung myself
30:19 forward in leap of faith towards Jesus. You know, I mean, for me to believe in
30:24 Jesus, there's no certainty. There has got to be a dark gap for which I could jump across, right? I can't jump.
30:32 But if you jump back and say there is no God also, can you prove to me that
30:38 there's 100% no God? There's a big gap. And many of people
30:43 who attend alpha and beta and gamma who come you you speak to them before they
30:48 start the alpha course. Then you speak to them halfway through the alpha force or towards the end of the alpha course. They they say, "Can you go back and be a
30:54 Buddhist or a Muslim or agnostic?" Most of them can't jump back. It takes even greater faith to jump back and say there's no God. And Sydney Vanukin says
31:03 if there is a gap behind you and a gap in front of you, what do you do? Might
31:09 as well jump forward. Isn't it? It makes sense because either way you have to
31:14 have faith. You really have got to faith to believe there's no God in this world. It is a very very sterile proposition.
31:21 Um so compare footholds. Bla1 Pascal who is the famous philosopher and scientist
31:27 breaks it down. You believe in God. You may suffer a bit in this life for a
31:33 little while but you have whole eternity of enjoyment if God is true. If you
31:39 believe there's no God, you have a great time on earth. Maybe there are a lot of people who are bankrupt who are also
31:45 atheists, right? You may or may not have a good time but you whole spend the whole life
31:51 of eternity in m misery. So you balance the mathematics out which one works
31:57 common sense. The gap behind is worse than the gap in front.
32:02 Fourthly we need to feel for his hand. When I were my soul was embittered when I was pricricked in heart I was brutish
32:10 ignorant. I was like a beast towards you. Nevertheless I am continually with
32:15 you. you hold my hand. Or the other way to translate, I've been with you all along, you hold my hand. Sometimes when
32:22 we're so bitter with God, we're so hurt and pricked in the heart, you don't
32:27 really want to listen and you don't want to do anything, but you realize that God has been with you all the time. I
32:33 remember having a very difficult time in 2008 where there was a certain uh person
32:39 inside the place where I worked and who started to do all sorts of contracts and
32:44 try to uh make life difficult for some of us doctors and and I' it was and that
32:50 guy who was doing this was so rich uh and so corrupt and started to force
32:55 these contracts on us and we were so upset. I'd like to believe that I was
33:01 the perfect Christian. Oh yeah, I'm Christian, you know, from the First Baptist church. I didn't retaliate in
33:06 anger. I kept my cool, very nice to him. No, I was very upset. I shouted and screamed at him. Uh uh and I was totally
33:14 really uh I I lost it. And I look back today, I'm totally ashamed of what I did. Totally ashamed. And I and and and
33:22 this psalm describes me completely. My soul was bitter. I was pricricked in the heart. I was brutish like a cow.
33:30 ignorant like a beast towards you. And yet throughout that situation, God
33:36 preserved us and showed the management what kind of person that person was and
33:42 that we were actually righteous in the end. And then you see in the end he's
33:48 holding our right hand, a place of our see no matter how terrible the doubt goes through and in a situation where
33:54 you didn't quite perform, in the end you find out that actually God holds your right hand. You guide me with your
34:00 counsel. Afterward, you receive me to glory. Who am I in heaven but you? And there's nothing on earth that I desire
34:06 beside you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God's the is the strength of
34:11 my heart and my portion forever. I like this, you know, my flesh and my heart. I
34:16 gave up on God. I didn't behave as I should. But God was my strength. God is my
34:24 portion forever. And he kept me safe. And that's fantastic. You know, John the
34:30 Baptist is one of the greatest saints that ever lived. Um you you can't get a better
34:38 person than this during Jesus' time. And if anybody knew that Jesus is the son of
34:44 God, that Jesus is the Messiah, it must be John the Baptist. You know why? Because he is the one is the voice in
34:50 the wilderness. Mark chapter 1 that says a voice in the wilderness declaring coming the lord make straight the path
34:55 level the hills right he's the one that says behold the son of god the lamb of
35:02 god who takes the away the sins of the world he's the one who actually has
35:08 Jesus Christ in front of him in the river Jordan and he dips him in right so
35:15 does John know that Jesus is the son of god of course he knows because you know
35:20 Why? The heavens opened up and from there a big loudspeaker says, "Behold,
35:26 this is my beloved son." If I put you through that experience, you think you'll ever doubt God? Would you ever
35:33 doubt God? Yes, you will. Because in the middle of
35:39 prison, in the middle of prison, he got there because he criticized the
35:45 equivalent of the one that was hugging just now.
35:50 and got to trouble when he was in prison. He sent his disciples to ask one question. You know that was, "Are you
35:58 the one who is to come or shall we look for another?"
36:04 My goodness, this is the one that baptized Jesus Christ and the heavens open up and testify of
36:11 Jesus Christ. A couple of days under ISA, he's wondering, "Are you the one? Are we looking for somebody else?"
36:17 So doubt is never far from your shoulders as St. Augustine says. How
36:23 does Jesus deal with it? Does Jesus give him an SMS and say, "Hey, look buddy,
36:28 I'm coming. Don't you worry. I'm coming." All right, let's see how Jesus
36:34 deals with his doubt. Jesus says, he answered them, "Go and tell John what you see and hear. The
36:41 blind receive their sight. The lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up. And
36:47 the poor have good news. Preach to them. Hello. What about me?
36:55 And and John hears this and he re and he remembers, you know, these verses come
37:00 from where? Isaiah 35. The eyes of the blind shall be open, the ears of the
37:06 deaf unstopped. There shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. taken from here. But
37:13 if you go back, if your memory verse is very good, you go back one verse and you know what one verse says? Say to those
37:20 who have anxious heart, be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come with
37:26 vengeance, with recompense of the Lord. He will come and save you. If you remember that, he will come and save
37:32 you. But you know what happened to John? They chopped his head off. They chopped his head off.
37:39 You think about it. God says he will save him. And then God chopped off his head. I mean he allowed the the chap to chop off his head because Jesus sees
37:48 life not just as physicality for for Jesus. He says I am the God of Moses. I'm the God of Jacob. I'm He is a God.
37:55 When he says I am the God of Moses. I God of Jacob or Abraham. All that it is in the present tense. He didn't say I
38:01 was the God. Isn't it? He is a God of somebody that goes through all eternity.
38:07 From now he looks at us from now to all eternity. Whether you're dead or whether you're alive, you are still in his eyes
38:13 a person that lives forever and ever and ever. And what God sends him, God
38:19 doesn't send the cavalry to save him. God sends his right hand. What is his right hand? Scripture.
38:25 God sends scripture. And when we struggle with our doubt, when we're in a in a prison and in dungeon and and we're
38:32 racked with uncertainty and we don't know what to do, God sends the only thing that will work.
38:38 It worked for John. He met death boldly. He sent his word.
38:45 We have to make God our refuge.
38:50 All right? It is a cognitive decision. Whenever uh for me it's good to be near
38:56 God. I've made the Lord God my refuge that I may tell of your works. You when
39:02 you sin, when you have doubts, there only two things that happen. You either run away from God or you run towards
39:08 God. When you run away from God, you go to wine to drown your sorrows and alcohol. You go to women. You just do
39:15 the stuff they're not supposed to do just because you want to react. Or you could go back and run towards the very
39:23 person whom you doubt because you either jump forward or you jump back. And and
39:29 and the psalmist is saying you make God your refuge. Martin Na Nola was a
39:35 outspoken critic of the German government under Hitler and eventually
39:40 he was actually uh imprisoned and he described this great degree of fear and
39:47 trepidation as he's walking through the halls of the prisons total darkness didn't know what to do uh and
39:54 intimidating guards all around him um and this was the moment he didn't know whether he's going to make it whether he
39:60 will deny Christ whether he'll uh uh be be as strong or whether he'll be a martyr. And suddenly out of the darkness
40:07 as he passed one of the stone-faced guards, the guards actually slipped a piece of paper under him. And he opened
40:14 up the piece of paper and he read these verses. The name of the Lord is a strong tower.
40:20 The righteous man runs in and is safe.
40:25 He clung on to these verses for the rest of his imprisonment and he survived prison. He didn't have his head chopped
40:31 off. Not like John Baptist but he survived because he made a decision that this verse was God's word to him. The
40:38 name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous man runs towards it. Um and so
40:44 basically we need to run towards God and make him his make him our refuge. Uh a
40:49 story in Mark uh about the man who son is demon possessed and is beside
40:56 himself. He couldn't don't know what to do. How can I save him? And he goes up to Jesus and Jesus says if you believe
41:02 your son will be all right. But you know he says I believe but help my unbelief. The unbelief is better translated as
41:09 help my doubts. He can't. He he believes but help my unbelief. He either way he
41:15 he's doubtful. And when you're doubtful you don't know whether to jump forward or jump back. Jesus is saying jump onto
41:22 me. I believe but help my unbelief. So our so so when we actually have doubts
41:29 we're not supposed to perform to certain aspect certain standard and then God is
41:34 pleased like an exam or you must get 100 marks God I'm 50 marks shy but I don't
41:39 know I leave it up to you I jump into your laps and that's what exactly God is saying we must make God our refuge
41:46 let me end well almost end with a picture of a saint uh Mother Teresa who
41:53 actually published some letters which she wanted destroyed because she
41:59 knew if these letters got published towards the end they may destroy the faith of many of Christians
42:06 but the Catholic Church didn't destroy these letters because uh they felt that
42:12 it made her real and what she wrote. I feel just that terrible pain of loss of
42:19 God not wanting me of God not being God of God not existing. She felt this for
42:26 many many many years. She immersed herself in helping the poor because of her love for our Lord Jesus Christ. But
42:32 yet in while she was doing that she felt the terrible pain of God not wanting her, of God not being God, of not being
42:39 existing. So she had doubts. She struggled with doubts right up to the moment she died. and she wrote, "I'm
42:46 told God lives in me, and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing
42:53 touches my soul. I want God with all the power of my soul. And yet between us there is terrible separation."
43:01 And I think this is a very very apt description because one thing, look, I
43:07 want God with all the power of my soul. And so here's a woman who struggles with
43:14 the emptiness. There is a emptiness or terrible separation. There's a coldness, emptiness in the soul, but yet she wants
43:21 God. Right? So therefore, she has made God her refuge. For me, it is good to be
43:29 near. I've made God my refuge. Just because you've made God your refuge
43:35 doesn't mean all the certainty suddenly floods into your life. because she made God her refuge. And yet between us there
43:42 is terrible situation, coldness and emptiness. And she struggled with this
43:48 all the way until the day she died. That's the difficulty of being a human
43:53 being and living with faith. So in the end, how do we process our
43:59 doubt? We re-examine our doubt to look for false motives. We experience worship
44:07 and allow that new experience to uh change the way we feel. We compare
44:12 footholds, our options. We feel for his hand and we make our refuge. And so this
44:19 morning I want to bring you back to end with the old widow in Matthew chapter
44:27 12. She comes and and you know what? Rich people come.
44:34 Rich people put lots of money into the bag. She puts two coins in the bag, less
44:42 than 1 cent each, right? And and Mark describes that she
44:48 put in her whole life. What is the difference between her and
44:53 the rich people? The difference between her and rich
44:59 people was she was willing to put everything she had. You know why? She
45:04 was unafraid. So rich people don't put everything they have because you know what? They're afraid. If I put in all, I'll be
45:11 bankrupt. Right. And I can't trust my in-laws to look after me and you know I can't trust
45:17 the bank to look after me. Right. Right. But what Jesus is trying to tell the
45:24 disciples when he's watching this is that this woman puts her whole life in
45:29 God's hand. Does she know what will tomorrow be? She doesn't. She's unafraid. And that is a picture of what?
45:36 Faith. And so therefore, doubt and fear are there. And many of us let our doubts
45:42 control us. But in the end, in the end, whether doubt controls us or not will be
45:48 dependent how much you put inside the plate of your life. Whether you actually pour your life out for Jesus Christ, it
45:54 doesn't matter how you feel. It doesn't matter how Mother Teresa felt. Mother Teresa felt the pain, the agony of not
46:00 feeling God so close to her. But you know what she did? She poured out her
46:05 life for all the poor. Doesn't matter how you feel, but in the
46:10 end, you get out there, you put your two cents inside, and that's called faith.
46:15 That's how you deal with your doubt. In the end, you get out there and you take your two cents, and no matter how you feel, the terrible separation between
46:22 God and you, the emptiness, you put that in. And that's what really matters.
46:28 Let's pray. Father Lord, we just thank you
46:34 for this beautiful psalm that's so real in our lives and and and
46:41 Father Lord, so many of us this morning, we we struggle
46:46 with doubt. We wake up in the morning and sometimes we think, well, I don't
46:52 know whether I want to come to church. It's the same. It's boring.
46:57 or sometimes when the plate comes along and I'm not quite sure whether I want to invest that much in God whether he's
47:04 real after all and father Lord for some of us this morning who are actually
47:10 struggling with doubt and the doubt is reflected in how much we give and in terms of service to you or even taking
47:17 up the Bible study because you know it's so boring the Bible and it doesn't really help my life we have doubts all
47:23 those behaviors reflect our doubt Father, we pray this morning that you
47:29 use this psalm as we go home and read it to help us re-examine our doubts, why we doubt, to re-examine our footholds,
47:37 to feel for your right hand, and finally to make you our refuge.
47:44 We ask you, ask all this in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.
