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00:01 Good morning church. Today's scripture reading is taken from Psalm 73.
00:07 Psalm 73, a psalm of ASF. Let's focus on the word of God. Surely God is good to
00:15 Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost slid.
00:22 I had nearly lost my foothold. For I envied the arrogant when I saw the
00:27 prosperity of the wicked. They have no struggles. Their bodies are healthy and
00:33 strong. They are free from common human burdens. They are not plagued by human
00:39 ills. Therefore, pride is their necklace. They clothe themselves with violence. From their callous hearts
00:45 comes iniquity. Their evil imaginations have no limits. They scoff and speak
00:51 with malice. With arrogance they threaten oppression. Their mouths lay claim to heaven and their tongues take
00:59 possession of the earth. Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters
01:04 in abundance. They say, "How would God know? Does the most high know anything?
01:10 This is what the wicked don't like. Always free of care." They go on
01:15 amassing wealth. Surely in vain I've kept my heart pure and have washed my
01:21 hands in innocence. All day long I have been afflicted and every morning brings
01:27 new punishments. If I had spoken out like that, I would have betrayed your children. When I tried to understand all
01:34 this, it troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God. Then I
01:40 understood their final destiny. Surely you place them on slippery ground. You
01:46 cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by
01:52 terrors. They are like a dream when one awakes. When you arise, Lord, you will
01:57 despise them as fantasies. When my heart was grieved and my spirit and bittered,
02:03 I was senseless and ignorant. I was a brute beast before you, yet I'm always
02:09 with you. You hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and
02:15 afterward you will take me into glory. Who may hide in heaven but you? And
02:20 earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail. But God
02:27 is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Those who are far from
02:32 you will perish. You destroy all who are unfaithful to you. But as for me, it is
02:39 good to be near God. I have made the sovereign Lord my refuge. I will tell of
02:46 all your deeds. This is the word of God. Thank you so much for the reading of the
02:53 word. Well, good morning church.
02:59 Good to see everyone here. Uh the sound can we there's an echo at the back. Can you lower the sound?
03:07 Okay. So, um it's worse now.
03:13 our chief AV um person Fred is away so
03:18 we're having some difficulties. I hope you'll forgive us. Uh so today we're going to be looking at praying our
03:24 doubts and part two will be next week. After that Brandon Wong will be taking us um from roaring agony to redeeming
03:33 peace. Um 1 Samuel, we're going to be looking into the life of David. David is
03:40 the person the Bible writes most about in the Old Testament. So, we thought we'd take a journey with David until we
03:47 introduce David's son, Jesus Christ, at Christmas. So, that's the next half of
03:52 our uh sermon schedule. Let's pray. Father Lord, we
03:58 ask this morning as we come before thee that you open up our hearts to what your
04:05 word has to say to us. that we learn through your word that we can be honest
04:12 with you and honestly display and wrestle through our doubts and how to
04:18 overcome these doubts as we walk in this journey of faith. We ask for Jesus sake.
04:24 Amen. Right. So today we're looking at Psalm um 73 uh praying our doubts part one. uh
04:33 it's a such an important topic that I we decided that we should have at least two sermons of of that. Uh if you've got
04:40 books to I will always try to recommend books we should be people reading if you don't have the paper book you get the
04:46 Kindle version God in the dark by Os Guinness uh he basically it's a it's a
04:52 fantastic book where he actually breaks down all the aspects of doubt that we
04:57 might have and all the reasons and what are the solutions. Okay. So three things today basically mainly the first two we
05:04 need to admit we have doubt we need to look at the reasons for doubt and we need to learn to wrestle with our doubt
05:10 which is basically uh next week. All right. So truly God is good to Israel,
05:16 to those who are pure in heart. But for me, my feet has almost stumbled. My
05:23 steps had nearly slipped. He's not talking about falling down. You know, he's talking about the fact that if God
05:30 is good to Israel, all the people called by his name. But for me, I nearly
05:36 slipped. I nearly doubted that. So that is the framework of which we are looking
05:43 through Psalm 73 that reveals gaps in
05:48 our faith when we say one thing theoretically but for me right application it looks looks as if God is
05:55 not really good to me there's a contradiction here and
06:01 doubt is common here is the archbishop of Canterbury in 2014
06:06 he actually often in his mind he ruminates over this question. Is there a
06:12 God? If there's a God, where is God? Here's the Archbishop himself. CS Lewis
06:17 writes, "Now that I'm a Christian, I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable. But when I was an
06:24 atheist, I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable. It looks as if doubt is a human
06:30 problem." And I think it's accentuated the fact that in in our our faith is a
06:37 clash of mindsets. Paul says the Jews demand signs and the Greeks seek wisdom
06:42 but we preach Christ crucified stumbling block to the Jews and a folly to Gentiles. It is something that's so out
06:49 of the ordinary is so out of our worldview that doubt is
06:55 almost certain. You look at uh this article from Scientific American losing
07:01 your religion analytical thinking can undermine your belief. So we're talking about some people are more analytical in
07:07 their thinking. Some people are not. Let me take a poll here. If five people take
07:13 five minutes to sew a dress, right? Think about it. Right? How long would it
07:20 take 100 people to sew 100 dresses? How many say 100?
07:25 How many? Five. So, it's five. Instinctively, you will think it's 100, right? Until you And
07:32 those of you who say it's five, it's analytical thinking. They actually did a study. They th showed two groups of
07:39 people. One a group of disco which is basically a Greek statue of someone
07:44 throwing a disc. The other one called the thinker. And after they saw individually these uh pictures then they
07:52 took a questionnaire they analyzed their belief in God. The score for belief in
07:57 God was 61 for disco and for the thinker it was 41.2 two which means analytical
08:03 thinking inhibits intuition if you think intuition uh discourages religious
08:09 belief so there's something that is inbuilt in the human being Osgus writes it's not primarily a Christian problem
08:16 but human problem the root of doubt is not in our faith but in our humanness how many of you get on an airplane
08:24 and you know the airplane will take you to London right and why is it that as the airplane is
08:32 taxiing down the runway. Suddenly you hit a bump and suddenly
08:37 and you kind of wonder whether you're going to go to London or not, but you know the plane's good. You said
08:44 I mean there's something that's human doubt is part of our humanness. Here's a
08:50 picture of a young boy who was um in the throws of fits. Okay. Who may be
08:56 demonpossessed and and and the all things are possible for those who believe. Mark writes, "Immediately the
09:03 father of the child cried out and said,"I believe, but help my unbelief."
09:08 And when Jesus saw the crowd was running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, "You mute and deaf spirit,
09:14 I command you to come out of him and never enter him again." Now the issue here is, is this unbelief? You see this
09:23 father says I believe but help my unbelief. Is this really unbelief? You
09:29 know why it's not unbelief? You know why? Because Jesus never responds to unbelief.
09:34 He only responds to doubt. And this particular case doubt is not unbelief.
09:42 There's a misconception among Christians that doubtfree faith is true faith. And
09:49 that flies against our human nature. that flies against scripture. Here's a a
09:54 couple that were basically gospel singers and they wrote Lisa Gango. God was the center of everything, the center
10:00 of our marriage. God is the reason we got married. We sang worship songs to each other in a little practice room and
10:05 that's how we fell for each other. Very romantic, right? Songs about God. It was all about Christian romance.
10:12 And then doubt was the opposition of faith. And so if you doubt, you're seen as a bad person. I felt like a I was a
10:19 bad person for questioning that made this perspective shift really difficult and painful. We ended up getting kicked
10:26 out of the church for some of the beliefs we actually had. So it seems as
10:31 if in the church there's no room for doubt. If you do have doubt then you'll be looked upon kind of you know that
10:38 you've lost your faith. I was looking at through the internet and uh this couple they always go on on
10:45 the podcast and it's called theology teo name is Theo theology and they were
10:51 discussing this why second generation Malaysian Christians are quietly leaving the church and she was asking the
10:57 question you know there comes a culture of questioning and you can call it healthy or unhealthy okay and he says I
11:03 think it's healthy but it becomes unhealthy when the pastor perceives it as a threat then they respond very
11:08 hostile towards this very earnest person. Hence, I cannot ask my pastor because they will think I'm losing my
11:14 faith. If any hint of doubt, then people think you're losing your faith and
11:20 you're moving off. All right? Doubt is not the opposite of faith. Doubt is
11:25 suggest that there's a lack of faith somewhere, but a person can still doubt and have perfectly sound trust in God.
11:31 Doubt is rather a state of uncertainty, a spiritual fork in the road. So, here you are of doubt. You either reject the
11:39 proposition completely which is unbelief or you accept the proposition which is
11:45 faith and and you have two minds a foot on both boats. It's a crisis of which
11:52 you actually have to resolve. Martin Luther says unless I'm convinced by scripture and plain reason
12:00 my conscience is captive to the word of God. It takes both. So that's doubt. We
12:06 all have doubt. The question is why? What are the reasons for doubt? We need to know the reasons so that we could
12:14 overcome doubt, right? So doubt is always based on a new experience, not new information. All right? It's not new
12:21 information. You don't actually have somebody coming and say, "Oh, we found the tomb of Jesus and he's hanging. He's
12:26 still inside there his bones." You will never find that because that's an established fact of resurrection. But
12:32 it's a new experience. Look at verse three. envious of the ang arrogant. I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They
12:39 have no pangs until death. Their bodies are fat and sleek. That's not a good
12:44 thing, you know. Uh they they are not in trouble as others are. They are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
12:50 Behold, these are the wicked, always at ease, increase in riches, all in vain. I've kept my heart clean and washed my
12:56 hands innocent. See, this happens when what we see does not correlate with what
13:03 we know. Man can't swallow another man from a helicopter, right? It looks as if he's doing it, but it's an illusion.
13:10 What we see does not correlate with what we know. For they have no pangs until death. Their bodies are fat and sleek.
13:18 And I heard he's hanging out in Shanghai. Hello. But one day and uh I was envious of the
13:26 arrogant. I saw the prosperity of the wicked. So maybe he gets to spend time in his mansion. All right. So there's a
13:34 cognitive dissonance. The Lord commands in of Psalm 42. His steadfast love at
13:39 night his song is with me. A prayer to the God of my life. I know this that you delight in me. My enemies will not
13:45 triumph over me. That is what we believe. But if you look at Psalm 42, you have rejected us, disgraced us and
13:52 not gone out with our armies. You have made us turn back from the foe. And those who hate us have gotten spoiled.
13:58 You have made us like sheep for slaughter. You have scattered us among the nations. You sold your people for a
14:04 trifle, demanding no high price for them. All this has come upon us. Though we have not forgotten you, we have not
14:10 been false to your covenant. Yet for our sake, we are being killed all day long. We are regarded as sheep to be
14:16 slaughtered. So there are triggering factors where we see what we know doesn't correlate with what I see. That
14:23 triggers our doubt. Now how there are three reasons of doubts I'm going to bring up today because of the brevity of
14:30 the time given. The first thing is that we have doubt because we simply forget
14:35 to remember. When I thought of how to understand this, the fat and sleek fellow, right?
14:41 It seemed to me a wearism task until I went to the sanctuary of God. Then I
14:47 discerned the end until I went to church as it were then I discerned the end. We forget to remember this is that famous
14:55 uh painting by Tishian. is called an allegory of prudence where he basically paints a picture of three men and three
15:02 animals where the there's an old man represent the past. There's another man who represents the present and a young
15:08 man about the future. What is actually saying in this particular art piece is that we need to look at the past to
15:16 enable wise decisions at the present to establish the future. All right? So it's
15:22 the past that's important. You look at Genesis chapter 3, Satan comes up and
15:27 says, "Did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?"
15:34 God only gave one commandment, right? And God's a doubt. Why? Because she
15:40 can't remember or she refuses to remember. So forot forgetfulness affects
15:46 our conscience because it diminishes faith and increases self-sufficiency and independence. Remembrance of the things
15:53 of God brings in faith, increases faith and increases thankfulness. Look at the
15:59 example of Israel. When they were in Egypt, they cried to God, we want to get
16:05 out. When they in Sinai, they cried to God, I want to go back. When they got
16:10 lack of water, they complained, "We got plenty of water." They also complain got no meat. You know, so they tend to be
16:18 ungrateful. You know why? Because they forget. Which is why Moses is always you
16:23 look Exodus 13, Deuteronomy 6, Deuteronomy 8, always the key note is
16:29 what? Remember, don't forget remember. So one of the most common causes of
16:35 doubt is the fact that we don't remember. We forget to remember. story
16:41 told of the Luke chapter 7 of the lady who came into the Pharisees house called
16:47 Simon and she crashed in and she cried before the Lord and her tears washed the
16:55 sand and the mud caked up between his toes on feet and she used a jar of
17:02 alabaster uh uh with with with perfume with eight months pay used to pay for
17:08 that to cleanse his feet. And Jesus said to the lady, "Therefore, I tell you, her
17:15 sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But he who forgiven
17:21 little loves little." You know who he's referring to? He's referring to the Pharisees Simon, whose house Jesus was,
17:27 whom Jesus came in, nobody cleaned his feet. Right? Now would it be then
17:36 logical to say that the woman had forgiven much therefore she actually
17:42 appreciated it? Do you think her sins actually you to look at how people state
17:48 uh uh use language? Do you think this woman has more sin than Simon?
17:54 How many you think this woman got more sin? She's prostitute right than Simon. Put your hands up.
18:00 Or same. Yeah, same. It's just that Simon forgot
18:06 to remember. All the sins I do are so subterranean.
18:11 They're not obvious. If you're a prostitute, you're on the street every day, you everybody knows you're sinning. But if you are a person like a pastor or
18:19 a Pharisee, it's so well hidden or elder. Okay. All right. It's so well held hidden, nobody can see. She
18:27 remembered and because she remembered it affected her heart and she went to the
18:32 Lord. What about the Pharisee and the tax collector? Everybody know who's the tax collector. He comes to your house.
18:40 He basically extorts you. He knows his sin. The other fellow is far more sophisticated. He covers his sin. The
18:47 fact that he gives arms or or tithing twice a week, he thinks he can cover that. You see what I mean? So the thing
18:53 is doubt is there because you forget to remember. Doubtful grown is not a lapse
18:59 of memory but a willful refusal to remember. It's not that we actually forget you know we actually refuse to
19:07 remember and when we refuse to remember later on our consciousnesses are evolved
19:13 doubt will start to flow in. Now the second cause of doubt which you can see
19:18 here is faulty presuppositions. Now this is very very important. It comes and
19:25 affects every single one of us. All in vain I wasted. I have kept my heart
19:31 clean, washed my hands in innocence. All the day long I've been stricken and rebuked every morning.
19:38 Wow. So this guy is thinking uh I've been such a good fellow. I paid my
19:44 taxes, never cheated on my wife, I did all these other things as some kataro
19:49 today. You know the the I I I I was basically slammed by a car as it were.
19:56 If you remember the sermon last week, what is God to you? God can either be
20:02 useful because he gives you gifts. You behave yourself then you get gifts. Or
20:07 God is beautiful where God is the gift himself. And the problem was the default
20:13 mode in religion is God is useful. I do something, God does something. I give
20:20 something, God gives something back. So therefore, when this breaks down in vain, I did something and then God
20:26 didn't perform. God's end of the bargain wasn't worked out. But if you look in Psalm 50, God says, "If I were hungry, I
20:35 won't tell you, for the world and his fullness are all mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of
20:41 goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Perform your vows to the Lord, to the most high. Call upon me in
20:48 a day of trouble. I will deliver you and you shall glorify me. God doesn't need your sacrifices.
20:55 God doesn't need whatever you got to offer him as if you can bribe him so
21:01 that he can give you gifts. Philip Yansy writes, "We tend to think the good book on the disappointment with God. We tend
21:08 to think life should be fair because God is fair but God is not life. If I
21:14 confuse God with the physical reality of life by expecting constant good health, for example, then I set myself up for a
21:21 crashing disappointment." Make make no mistake at the back of our minds all of us think life is fair and
21:30 we got good health because of what we have done. It's a back of our mind presupposition even non-Christians.
21:36 Here's a a chap from the Malaysian Air Force who was sacked you know uh he he
21:42 says he who actually he dobbed in the people who were using indelible ink. Malaysian made indel indelible ink
21:49 actually rubs out very care very easily. The honest ones are often the criminals while liars who betray are the ones who
21:56 are agilated and given various recognitions. I was merely exposing the fact that indelible ink used in the
22:02 election could be washed off. Right? I was just doing the right thing as a citizen and a serviceman to be
22:09 disciplined and truthful. However, these qualities were hated by the previous government. So he complains he's a guy
22:16 life should be fair. What about your presupposition? If you come from a church where your presuppositions are
22:22 driven by this sort of books or sermons, your best life now become a better you.
22:31 Power thoughts become a better you. Which means Jesus Christ is there to
22:37 create a better version of you. Get a version of life. And a lot of people come to church for that. So that's your
22:43 your presupposition. If you come to church with that kind of presupposition, doubt will creep in because there's no
22:50 better version of you or our life falls apart. And whatever keys he says for you
22:55 to break out, it is usually for most of us not an extraordinary life. Going back
23:02 to this podcast and the lady was saying, you know, when you're in church, just don't share
23:08 victory stories, share process stories. I think uh she's referring to a lot of
23:14 churches where you actually have people sharing of how the Lord blessed them,
23:19 healed them from illness, gave them victory, but you never share the process, you know, and the man answers,
23:25 well, we don't share these things about failing because you will stumble people.
23:31 But then you're giving people a lopsided version of Christianity, isn't it? Christianity only gives you answered
23:38 prayers. the ones in between process story before God answers the prayer. You never mention those things and it's very
23:45 very damaging. I often share with you one of my patients in EO had a paraplegia and the nurses were so so
23:53 confident they bring him to a healing rally that he would walk the next day. He didn't.
23:59 He didn't. What do you think happened to his faith? Because you're you're sharing a one-dimensional view of God that God
24:06 only heals. You see what I mean? And and if that's your presupposition, then you're putting
24:11 him a straw man to knock down because that's not the true picture of what God is. Right? So here you look at Mark
24:18 chapter one. A leper came to him imploring him, kneeling to him and said,
24:24 "If you are willing, you can make me clean." Here he doesn't doubt God's
24:31 ability, but he go he doubts God's compassion. If you look here in Mark
24:37 chapter nine and from childhood it has often cast him to fire to the fit uh and
24:43 a demon to destroy him. But if you can do anything have compassion on us and help
24:49 us. Jesus said if you can all things are possible for the one who believe here the doubt is what he's not he doesn't
24:56 doubt his compassion he doubts his ability because he says if you can so
25:01 doubt is there it's part of it. What about Abraham and Sarah
25:07 promised to have a child? Both of them are laughing. You know why they're laughing? Abraham and Sarah old,
25:13 advanced in the aged, the way of the woman had ceased with Sarah, which means
25:18 what? Menopause. So Sarah laughed to herself saying after I'm worn out and my lord is old, he got
25:26 erectile dysfunction, I think. Shall I have pleasure? Right? Why did Sarah
25:31 laugh and say shall I indeed bear a child that I am old? Is anything too hard for the Lord? Here the problem with
25:39 Sarah and Abraham that God their presupposition that God will just use
25:44 menstrual cycle, fertility, eggs and you know uh uh their God is too small,
25:51 right? and the behavior of evil people. They scoff. They speak with malice. They threaten violence. They set their mouth
25:58 against heavens and their tongue stirs through the earth. And and and these are evil people.
26:05 I go backwards. How do I go backwards? Can we go back? Oh, here it is.
26:10 Therefore, his people turn back to them and find no fault in them. And they say, "How can God know? Is there knowledge in
26:16 the most high?" And and the unbelievers will say, you know, we're doing doing as we like. things are going swimmingly
26:22 with us. So therefore, God doesn't know. So that the picture of God is too small.
26:28 It seems that our picture of God is not unlike this lady, you know, photoshopped.
26:34 We all have a view of God and and and this is true. Every single one of us
26:40 have a photoshopped view of God of what we want him to be so that it fits us. I
26:48 mean if you look back in history you look at uh you know this chapter one the founding fathers of America all right he
26:55 actually Thomas Jefferson his Bible has a lot of holes there you know why he cut out all the places where there's miracle
27:00 he has a nice moral teacher in Jesus Christ but cannot do miracles so that's his version his photoshop early
27:07 photoshop version of the of God we create our own user friendly version of God which cannot contradict us cannot
27:15 correct us and in the end if that's your version of God, then he really cannot help you. Here we actually have the
27:22 picture of Bath Sheeba and David. He committed adultery with her.
27:29 He murdered the husband, corrupted the army, and took a year. And
27:36 Nathan confronted him. And he realized he was wrong. He
27:41 repented. And Nathan said to him, and Nathan said to David, the Lord has put
27:48 away your sin. You will not die. Which means God has forgotten your sin. You
27:53 know, God has forgiven his sin. It's finished. It's cleansed. The trouble is the next sentence.
28:01 Nevertheless, by this deed, you have utterly scorned the Lord. The child who is born to you shall die.
28:10 Now, you only have two conclusions from this. Right? And it's based on your
28:15 presuppositions about who God is. Either God, you either hate God because
28:21 he's such a horrible person that you can say, "I forgive your sin and I'm going to take the life of a un of a innocent
28:29 child." What kind of God does that? What kind of person does that? Or you will hate
28:35 yourself because you're the one who committed the sin and your innocent child has to pay because of your sin.
28:41 There's no way out of that conundrum. You see what I mean? But then again, if you have a one-dimensional view of God,
28:48 that's what you're going to feel. And if you want to know the answer to this, please tune in 3 weeks time. I'll be
28:53 preaching on this. Elijah was on a journey
28:60 with uh this story told the famous Jewish story told by uh uh the the the
29:06 Pharisees or or the Jewish people. It was a story of Elijah. Not true. No. Is this a story? On a journey with Rabbi
29:12 Jakanan, traveling through this countryside where they came upon a house of a poor couple
29:20 and all they had in this poor couple in their house was in the barn was one cow.
29:26 But they eagerly invited these two into the house, gave them their master
29:31 bedroom, had a nice meal prepared, the milk from
29:36 the cow and bread and the best All right. After this meal, they left.
29:43 The next morning, the only cow they had died.
29:48 But they left. And then they went to another man's house. This man different, very rich, full barns full of cows and
29:56 all. Very, very rich man. And the rich man said to them, "Oh, you're coming here. All right. Uh uh you don't stay in
30:03 my house. I'm I'm I'm renovating. You know, I think you better stay in the barn." So, they stayed in the barn. You
30:08 know what? He gave them bread and water. So at the end of the visit, Elijah and
30:16 Rabbi Jakanan were leaving. And as they were leaving, Rab uh Elijah contacted a
30:22 contractor and asked the contractor to go and repair the wall inside the barn
30:28 which had broken down. Then they left. When they were walking down the road, Rabbi Jakan,
30:35 he asked Elijah, "Hey, what's the situation? Why is it like that? The poor people,
30:42 the only cow they had mid and this rich man, you went and asked the contactctor to fix his barn wall. My goodness, what
30:50 are you doing? It's not fair." And Elijah said to him, "Do you know Elijah prophet?" That day the woman was
30:59 prophet destined to die. Instead, God is kind. He took the life
31:06 of the cow. And you know, in a man's barn, there was
31:11 a stash of gold. And if the man were to repair his own
31:17 wall, he would have found that stash and become richer. So I hired a contractor
31:22 to hide it. You see to you it seems that God is illogical,
31:29 isn't it? All right. So So as we grow in our faith, there are two things we need to understand when we grapple with with
31:35 doubt. Mystery and absurdity. Mystery is the fact that we accept that
31:41 we're human. That God is not human. But there are things that he does that are
31:46 beyond humanly discernable reason. And then there's absurdity which is
31:52 beyond reason. If you think that God is a teacup circulating around the sun, those
31:59 absurdity mystery is beyond human reason but is not against reason itself. So
32:05 presuppositions are very important. Check yourselves. Whenever you feel that God is not trustworthy, you may have a
32:12 presupposition that is not biblical. That's why we need to sit before the word of God which is accurately preached
32:20 so that you have the right version of God in your mind. The second the third
32:26 one is emotions. Now all of us are baked in this way. We
32:33 have knowledge and we understand the knowledge and uh and so and then we have faith. So we understand and you know
32:40 Bernoli's principle the the jet can fly right there. understanding, right? So
32:46 therefore, I don't mind sitting in the jet, right? And then there's will and then there's emotion. But the problem is
32:53 when you actually have sin, this entire situation is disrupted.
32:60 I I I show that ding dong. You know why? To remind myself that I am on a diet.
33:07 Yeah. Laugh. It doesn't seem to work right. And and my wife always scolds me, you
33:13 know, the dinner time, she prepared all these good things to eat and I'm cutting down. I saying, "This one I won't eat.
33:19 This one I won't eat. This one I'm going to read." You know, and then halfway through the night at about 11:00 or 10
33:25 something I order. And then she found the next
33:30 day. Hey, what is this? Ding dyong. The wonders of grab.
33:35 Nothing beats grab. So what what is that? knowledge, understanding, will and
33:42 emotion. But the thing you cannot control is what? Emotion.
33:47 Halfway you see uh tasu power in the advertisement. Suddenly emotion and
33:53 emotion overcomes knowledge and understanding and we break our own thing. Look at Elijah. Elijah at Mount
34:00 Carmel. Wonderful victory. He actually called down by the Lord's grace fire
34:06 onto the sacrifice and defeated all the Bal prophets and 800 of them were slain.
34:13 This is a fact. You could see the graves of the false prophets. You could see the the ashes on the p where the animal was.
34:22 It's a fact. God answered. The next day he was threatened by Jezebel.
34:31 one woman and he rose and ran for his life and
34:36 came to Bashiba which belongs to Judah and left his servants there. He himself went a day's journey into the wilderness
34:42 and came under the broom tree and there he asked that he might die. It is enough
34:48 now Lord take my life I'm no better than my father. Is this not doubt? Why did he
34:55 have doubt in the face of overwhelming evidence that the Lord is with him? emotion. He was tired out. It was a
35:04 culmination of all the prayer and trials. He didn't know whether God would
35:09 answer his prayer. He didn't know whether he could defeat the prophet of Ba. But he did and God answered. And in
35:16 that moment of time, he was vulnerable. A little a little
35:22 threat came out and he succumbed to his emotions. When my soul was ambited,
35:29 when I was pricricked in the heart, I was brutish and ignorant. I was like a
35:35 beast towards you. You see, when your emotion come, it doesn't matter whether angry, revengeful or something hurt,
35:42 somebody hurt you. It doesn't matter what you know, but when your emotions take over, we become like animals. That
35:50 is part of the human psyche. So, so the doubt is not based on new experience. Uh uh uh but not new information but new
35:58 experience. Whom have I got in heaven but you? There's nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my fa
36:05 heart heart will fail but God is a strength of my heart and portion forever. That's what he knows but that's
36:11 what he feels two different things. All right. Winston Churchill was like this.
36:18 He used to sit with his spare time reading Plato, Aristotle, Macaulay, Gibbon, Darwin and after that he became
36:27 violently and aggressively anti- relligion. He went through that phase and after that phase he then reverted.
36:34 His faith came back because he had an experience during the war with a special
36:40 protection from the enemy shot at him and somehow God saved him. Therefore, I
36:45 acted according to my feelings without troubling to square such conduct with a
36:50 conclusion of thought. So, see his faith went back because what he felt rather
36:55 than what he thought he didn't work out why Darwin affected him. These
37:01 confessions from someone uh in 2014 which I read the Malaysian Chronicle.
37:06 For a while, I reveled in my new found faith. The pastor told me my father's death was in accordance to God's will
37:12 and that his ways are higher than ours. didn't make much sense to me, but death never does even till this day. At that
37:18 time, I just pushed the illogicality of the church's explanations. The close ties, the sense of belonging, the way
37:26 people seem so together in their worship gave me a sense of purpose at a time when my world had plunged into chaos.
37:32 Throughout the years, however, cracks begin to appear in my tightly constructed faith. This happens to many,
37:39 many people. It's the fellowship. It's the church lunch. It's something
37:45 like that that affects your feelings and then you suppress the illogicality of the resurrection and all the other
37:52 proofs that we actually have and then but one day those doubts will come up
37:59 through the cracks and then they will become unbelief. A young believer thrust back into his own family and community.
38:07 loneliness, rejection, countercultural pressures of life very easily will have
38:13 doubts and they fall back or some of them who are from churches where who
38:19 practice positive confection. All you have to do is have positive thoughts. All you have to do is word of faith.
38:25 Doesn't matter about the facts. Just do that will actually fall apart. Most
38:31 people either in the church or out the church. if they're out of church, you know, but on the fringe, maybe coming to
38:37 to to to uh unforgettable, they they don't really believe, but they have no idea why they disbelieve. And some of
38:44 you in the church don't really disbelieve, but have no idea why you believe. Yeah, it's a fact. And and when
38:52 doubt comes, you actually fall apart. You see, faith is not a thing which one
38:58 loses. We are merely ceased to be have our lives shaped by faith. If your life is
39:04 not shaped by faith, you will actually lose it as it were. You don't just lose
39:10 it that you've lost it. You've got to have your faith constantly
39:15 framed and transformed by it. You you take the words of the Lord and you
39:20 actually practice it. Here's a prophet Jeremiah.
39:26 He writes, "He has made my teeth grind on gravel and made me cower in ashes. My
39:32 soul is bereft of peace. I forgotten what happiness is. So I say, my endurance has perished. So has my hope
39:39 from the Lord." If you read this passage on his own, you thought the fellow has given up, right? It's totally
39:46 crying. And you know why? Because he's been put in prison for such a long time. He's been beaten up and nobody listens
39:52 to him. He's been ignored and he thought his life is finished. And yet during the
39:58 siege of Jerusalem in 597 uh BC,
40:05 God gave him a vision. He shall take Zedekiah from Babylon and there he shall remain until I visit him, declares the
40:11 Lord. Though you fight against the Calaldians, you shall not succeed. All
40:17 right. So in the middle of all that, everybody is chaboting, you know, going
40:22 away. He says, 'The word of the Lord came to me. Behold Hanamel, the son of Jal
40:28 Shalom, your uncle will come to you and say, buy my field that is at the Anthought at the right redemption by
40:35 purchase is yours. People are leaving the city, then you invest and buy property. You know,
40:41 you can see what I mean. So, here's a man who struggles with his emotions, but in the end, the word of the Lord
40:48 prevails. So, so we need to understand all the reasons that we might have
40:54 doubt. That is not ne unnecessarily a bad thing but it gives us an opportunity to wrestle with it. Don't don't suppress
41:03 your doubt. Use the time Gary Habus wrote a book called dealing with doubt. Use the time of doubts to explore your
41:10 faith. Use it as a time for growing stronger in your faith and knowing what you believe and why. So our journey is
41:18 that you've got a every time you have got a triggering event. It triggers doubt. You pray, you wrestle, talk to
41:26 another Christian or a Christian uh leader in your church to help you wrestle with the word of God and then
41:32 you get your resolution. Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in
41:37 heart. As for me and my feet had almost stumbled, my feet had almost stumbled.
41:44 My steps had nearly slipped. So, so what he does is in this particular psalm is that what he's doing is that he doesn't
41:49 suppress his doubt. He's actually verbalizing his doubt to whom? To God.
41:55 So, we need to do that. We need to complain to God as a part of the process where we resolve our doubts. I was
42:04 envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
42:10 So here wrestling means being honest with God. The fellow lie driving Lamborghini. I'm driving bicycle.
42:18 Of course, I want the Lamborghini. Who wants the bicycle? So therefore, at least I'm honest. I come to Lord, Lord.
42:25 Yeah, I'm look at me. Yeah, I got bicycle, you know, you know, then the Lord will probably
42:31 point you to somebody else who's walking. But it doesn't matter. But wrestling means being honest with God
42:37 and and not and not coming to God and trying to put your best face forward as if God, I'm very faithful.
42:44 Whatever happens, I'm okay. I'm okay. But in your heart, you know, you're not okay. Inside is bursting with envy and
42:51 anger. God, you told me to forgive that God, but I cannot forgive. I can't even hate the sight of him. Right?
42:58 But you dare not say it to God. And that makes it worse because you're actually ruminating, stewing in all
43:05 those juices of hatred. And and God can't minister to you because you're not being honest.
43:11 Wrestling with God is just like this chap here who who comes before the Lord and he says, "I am envious. I am
43:18 jealous. I'm pissed off." But you're telling God. And when you do
43:24 that, God ministers to you. It's a mental process. But when I thought how
43:31 to understand this, it became to me a wearisome task. You see, he thinks
43:37 through. So when you actually have doubts, you need to sit down with someone and and with God also and to
43:43 think through and work out why is it that person has a Lamborghini? I'm only driving bicycle.
43:49 You will think all right. Uh I don't have the answer now, but it's a process.
43:55 You need to understand it until I discern their end. Now what happened to Lamborghini crashed?
44:01 Hudson Taylor actually talked about pressure in life. And I love this quote.
44:07 He's a missionary from England to to uh China and he loved the Chinese people.
44:12 He tried his best to dress up like a Chinese people. Look at that. He's got his kung fu outfit, you know. uh and he
44:20 says it does not matter how great the pressure is. What really matters is where the pressure lies whether it comes
44:28 between you and God or whether it presses you nearer at to his heart. I I
44:35 think you need to practice this bit of wisdom because sometimes we got trials. You know, I have a lot of trials. Let's
44:42 say I'm I'm I'm operating on someone. I just had one two days ago where I was doing the prostate operation and all
44:48 hell breaks loose. It's operation I've done a thousand times. In this particular case, it was very big
44:54 prostate. It bled like hell. I used the laser to stop the bleeding. It wouldn't stop. And I almost run out of my bag of
45:01 trips, right? I've got pressure. The pressure does two things. It either pushes me
45:08 away from God. I say, "God, I prayed, you know, before this surgery and yet all hell breaks loose. That means God,
45:14 you're useless. You don't even know it. You don't even care. Or the pressure drives me towards God
45:20 where I pray and I accept whatever outcome and I know he will make it good.
45:25 Thankfully by God's grace the bleeding stopped and I grew closer to God. So
45:30 every time you get pressure which you unexpect, you cannot only two things. It either drives a wedge between you and
45:37 God because you allow go doubt to come in or it drives you towards God. And if it drives you towards God, you say,
45:42 "Praise God for the pressure." There's only two ways to live.
45:48 One bold message in the book of Job, Philip Yansi writes, is that you can say to God, "Throw at him your grief, your
45:55 anger, your doubt, your bitterness, your betrayal, your disappointment. He can
46:01 absorb them all." As often as not, spiritual giants of the Bible are
46:06 showing contending with God. They prefer to go away limping like Jacob rather
46:12 than to shut God out. And that's what we need to learn today. Let me end
46:20 with doubting Thomas. John chapter 20. Thomas was one of the
46:26 12 called the twin. Was not with them when Jesus came. And the other disciples
46:32 told him, "We've seen the Lord." And he said to them, "Unless I see the hands,
46:39 the mark of nails and place my finger on the mark of uh on the mark of the nails and place my finger to the side." Chung
46:45 goes in uh I will never believe. Right?
46:51 That's a problem with Thomas. You know what the problem is? They have seen the Lord. This is a chap
46:59 who actually walked with Jesus, lived with Jesus, went through ups and downs with Jesus, danger, victory,
47:07 three years, you know, and then when Jesus died and his mates, the the other 11 apost
47:15 apostles or or the 10 apostles come and tell him, hey, look, we saw the risen Christ
47:21 for him. That's not enough. How can it be?
47:26 Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God." When he put his finger went into the Lord's side, tickled the heart,
47:35 "My Lord and my God." And Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not
47:43 seen and yet have believed." You see, for him doubting Thomas, this extra
47:49 evidence was not necessary. You know why? Because it says Jesus did many things in signs in the presence of
47:55 disciples which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ
48:04 the son of God and that believing you may have life in his name. That is the
48:09 crux. We are all those people. We are not privileged to put our finger in the side of Jesus
48:15 chest but we have these historical events written for us. And that is all that we
48:22 need to trust him. May God guide us as
48:28 we struggle with our doubts and in that struggle come to a better understanding
48:33 of our faith and to be able to grow in our faith. And I hope I'll see you back here next week as we deal with part two,
48:40 how we actually go into the mechanics of wrestling with doubt. Let's pray. Father Lord, we
48:46 we confess to you that we are frail, fragile
48:52 people. At every turn, even after every victory, there is a possibility of
48:59 defeat. One day is great and we're on cloud nine. Another day we slip and make
49:06 a rookie mistake and we almost lose our faith. So, we are buffeted by so many
49:11 things in this world. We're like salmon swimming against the stream.
49:17 Teach us, oh Lord, to be honest with you. Teach us, oh Lord, to be honest with each other and to learn to wrestle
49:26 and use doubt not as a impediment to faith, but a
49:32 building block to faith. We ask for Jesus' sake. Amen. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be
49:39 steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in
49:45 the Lord, your labor is not in vain. So, brothers and sisters, you may be seated.
49:52 And if some of you would like who have doubts, please
49:58 don't be afraid or don't say that we get upset with you if you share with us your
50:04 doubts because it gives us a wonderful opportunity to minister to you and perhaps help clear up those doubts
50:10 because we all have doubts. Have a good week.
