Sermon Tone Analysis
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three little words
“I Doubt It”
“I doubt it.”
These three little words have become a byword for our age.
We have become the age of the question mark.
It’s not that people find believing in the possibility of the supernatural difficult.
People today choose to believe in all kinds of supernatural things except Jesus and the Bible.
Actually a little doubt wouldn’t hurt if applied to the superstitious and the cultic.
It may be that doubt is a doorway to true faith.
Submitted to you today is the story of John the Baptist.
John emerges as the voice crying in the wilderness.
He was not afraid to take on the powers that be.
Herod arrests John, and he is now alone and in prison.
That is enough to discourage any man.
He is facing death.
Let’s learn along with John something about what happens when a believer says, “I doubt it.”
“I doubt it.”
These three little words have become a byword for our age.
We have become the age of the question mark.
It’s not that people find believing in the possibility of the supernatural difficult.
People today choose to believe in all kinds of supernatural things except Jesus and the Bible.
Actually a little doubt wouldn’t hurt if applied to the superstitious and the cultic.
It may be that doubt is a doorway to true faith.
Submitted to you today is the story of John the Baptist.
John emerges as the voice crying in the wilderness.
He was not afraid to take on the powers that be.
Herod arrests John, and he is now alone and in prison.
That is enough to discourage any man.
He is facing death.
Let’s learn along with John something about what happens when a believer says, “I doubt it.”
These three little words are probably some of the most used words of our time and our existence.
People have questions about everything.
We’ve become a society that doesn't trust in anything, least of all God.
People believe in super natural things and they do it all the time.
It’s just that the Bible and Jesus are not very often one of those things.
It’s gotten to the point where God and Christianity are looked down on in more than a few circles.
But you know sometimes doubt can be a good tool.
A little doubt won’t hurt and is often a good thing in this day and age, especially with dawn of social media and other philosophies that around these days.
It may be that doubt opens the door to true faith.
I submit to you today the story of John the Baptist.
4 John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.
5 Then all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.
6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.
7 And he preached, saying, “There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose.
8 I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
John emerges as a voice crying in the wilderness.
He was not afraid of the powers of the time.
The upper echelon of the temple were not immune to his preaching.
He had told Herod that it was not lawful for him to have Herodias, so Herod had him arrested.
If you upset the establishment, even if it is undeserved, this is what you get.
If you were alone in prison with only your own thoughts to keep you company, would you not also become discouraged as John did.
He was facing death and he new it.
Let’s learn along with John something about what happens when a believer says, “I doubt it.”
It’s all right to come with honest questions
I’m sure you’ve heard some say and you have maybe thought it yourselves, that we should never question our faith.
this thougth is wrong.
It is a superstition or maybe a better word would be ignorance.
You’ll notice that in our scripture read earlier, Jesus never gives any rebuke to John’s question “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another.
John was the one who said “Behold the Lamb that takes away the sin of the World”.
He all so said “I am not worthy to untie His sandals” and “He must increase and I must decrease” He was convicted of these things when he said them.
Now he wonders in his depression “Are You the One”?
Have I believed a lie?
We all have doubts.
Doubts come in every form, shape, and size.
We have doubts about our health, about our jobs, whether we’ve done all we need to to keep them.
We have doubts about relationships.
Sometimes doubt is intellectual, especially with spiritual things.
John may have needed simple reassurance that his thoughts were in the right place.
Or his doubt could have been emotional.
John may have been thinking “I was the forerunner.
I deferred to you, and this is how I get treated.”
We, when we get discouraged, do the same thing with our thoughts.
Did you notice in our passage for this morning, that Jesus was not the least bit afraid of an honest doubt.
He didn’t respond negatively like we would do.
We would try and justify and explain ourselves to convince the person questioning us.
Are we afraid that our faith is so fragile that it can’t stand up to a few questions?
We need to develop our faith so that it can withstand any thing that Satan throws at us.
John is described by Jesus as the greatest man ever born of woman.
Would that we could have that compliment from Jesus.
Look again at John’s request.
He didn’t say “Are you the one, or do we give up?”
He says, “Are you the one, or do we look for another?”
That’s faith.
Where did John develop that faith?
We can get a clue from from his comment to the people listening to him preach.
Isaiah prophesied that he would be the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
John was able to get that kind of faith from his wilderness experience with God.
Now I will admit that we can’t all find a desolate place to focus on our relationship with the Lord, but we can focus our time and energies on getting to know our Lord.
So I ask, do we have that kind of faith when we ask for things?
How many other people in the bible can you think of that have questioned and doubted God?
3 jump out at me right away.
Moses, Job and Judas.
Moses questioned God about His choice for the person to lead Isreal out of Egypt.
Several times no less, until the Lord got exasperated with him.
Yet Moses was the “the friend of God”.
Job also told God that he had made a mistake.
He told God “It would have been better if I had not been born.”
He asked time and time again what he had done to deserve the things that had happened in his life.
God did not blot Job from off the earth, he had to set him straight and come down and talk with him, but that was another matter.
Job received back many fold of everything he had lost.
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