Sermon Tone Analysis

Doubting Salvation

Even unbelievers have their moments of doubt.

C. S. Lewis, who was an atheist before he was saved, wrote (source unknown),

Just as the Christian has his moments when the clamor of this visible and audible world is so persistent, and the whisper of the spiritual world so faint that faith and reason can hardly stick to their guns, so, as I well remember, the atheist also has his moments of shuddering misgiving, of an all but irresistible suspicion that old tales may, after all, be true, that something or someone from outside may at any moment break into his neat, explicable, mechanical universe.

Believe in God, and you will have to face hours when it seems obvious that this material world is the only reality; disbelieve in Him, and you must face hours when this material world seems to shout at you that it is not all.

No conviction religious or irreligious will, of itself, end once and for all this fifth-columnist in the soul.

Only the practice of faith resulting in the habit of faith will gradually do that.

We usually associate doubt with the infamous “Doubting Thomas,” but at first, all the apostles doubted the reports of Christ’s resurrection ().

In the text before us, even the great forerunner, John the Baptist, was struggling with doubt as he languished in Herod’s prison.

Although some respectable commentators don’t attribute doubt to the great man, I do not agree.

I think that in spite of the fact that John was a great man of God, he was wrestling here with doubt.

Through his honest question, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for someone else?” and through Jesus’ reply to John’s disciples and His comments to the crowd, we can learn some things about dealing with our doubt.

These verses fall into three sub-units: John’s question and Jesus’ reply (7:18-23); Jesus’ commendation of John (7:24-28); and, a rebuke to Israel’s leaders for rejecting both John and Jesus in spite of their differences in style (7:29-35).

Luke wants his readers to grapple with the question of Jesus’ true identity and with the response of faith His identity demands.

Luke makes it plain that while many had repented and submitted to John’s baptism, most of the Jewish leaders had not responded rightly to John or to Jesus.

Rather than follow in their footsteps, Luke wants his readers to think clearly about who Jesus is so that they come into a full assurance of faith in Him.

To understand this text and to deal properly with our own doubts, we must recognize that two kinds of doubters are portrayed here.

In John we see the doubts of a godly man who was confused on account of the difficult circumstances he was in.

He couldn’t reconcile his understanding of Messiah’s ministry with the fact that he, as Messiah’s messenger, was still in prison while the wicked Herod flourished.

Quite distinct from John, the second group of doubters is represented by the Pharisees and experts in the Jewish law who did not want to face their own sin and rebellion.

They were not just doubters; they were scoffers.

They needed to submit their hearts to God.

The overall principle is:

To deal with our doubts, we must submit our hearts to God’s revelation about Jesus Christ and hold to it in spite of our difficult circumstances.

The first principle of dealing with doubt is:

1.

To deal with doubt we must submit our hearts to God’s revelation about Jesus Christ.

There is debate about whether verses 29 and 30 are Jesus’ words or Luke’s parenthetical explanation.

They are probably Luke’s words, but either way doesn’t change the meaning.

One group, made up mostly of common people including notorious sinners such as the tax collectors, acknowledged God’s justice in John’s preaching.

In other words, when John thundered against their sin, in their hearts they said, “God is righteous and I am not.

I am guilty before His holy throne.”

So when John pointed the way to God’s forgiveness through repentance and baptism, these people readily responded.

But, the very people who knew the Scriptures and who should have welcomed John’s message and the Messiah to whom John pointed, did not.

They rejected God’s purpose and refused to humble themselves to be baptized by this radical prophet.

Their pride kept them from acknowledging themselves as sinners and from participating in an activity, such as baptism, where sinners admitted their need for cleansing.

They thought, “We’re better than these no-goods.

We know the Scriptures and they don’t.

John’s baptism may be okay for them, but we don’t need it.”

And so they missed God’s purpose through John’s ministry and they missed God’s Messiah whom John announced.

Jesus uses a parable to expose their root problem.

Those who had rejected both John and Jesus were like children playing games in the market place.

Jesus’ use of children for His illustration was a rebuke in itself, in that He is implying that these men who thought of themselves as too sophisticated for John’s crude style were, in reality, so immature that a children’s game refuted them.

The picture is of one group of children saying, “Let’s play wedding and dance.”

But their friends say, “No, we don’t want to play something happy.”

So, the first group says, “All right, then let’s play funeral.

We’ll play a dirge and be sad.”

But the friends refuse to play this game as well.

In other words, you can’t please them no matter what you do, because they don’t want to play unless they make up the game and the rules.

The point is that John came with an austere way of life, preaching God’s judgment, but the Pharisees didn’t like him.

Then Jesus came along, enjoying normal food and drink, offering a message of God’s forgiveness to sinners, but the Pharisees didn’t like Him either.

The problem was not in the message or in God’s messengers.

The problem was in the proud, unrepentant hearts of these religious leaders.

Verse 35 goes back to those who have submitted to God’s way (7:29).

The thrust of it is, the ones who are truly wise will acknowledge God’s righteousness and their own need of repentance and will therefore submit to God’s messengers, but especially to Jesus who is the final revelation of God.

They will not fall into the supposedly “wise” ways of the Pharisees and scribes, who refuse to submit to God.

Applied to our struggles with doubt, we all must ask, Is my heart truly subject to God’s revelation in Jesus Christ?

Have I bowed before God’s righteous judgment regarding my sin?

Have I repented of my sins?

Have I laid hold of God’s provision of salvation in Jesus Christ?

Have I publicly confessed my repentance and faith in Christ through baptism?

Or, could my doubts merely be an excuse so that I can continue running my own life in my own way?

A few years ago a man who did not believe in Christ and his wife, who did believe, began attending the church I pastored in California.

He had come for quite some time when his wife had to go into the hospital for surgery.

I went to the hospital to wait with him while her surgery was under way.

After we had talked about a number of things, I said to him, “Bruce, you’ve been coming to church for quite a while.

Where are you at spiritually?

Have you put your trust in Christ as your Savior yet?”

He replied that he had not yet trusted in Christ.

When I asked him why not, he said that he still had a lot of unanswered questions.

I said, “Well, we’ve got some time right now.

What are your questions?”

He said, “I have a lot of them.”

I said, “How about if you make a list of all your questions.

If I can provide satisfactory answers to your questions, would you then become a Christian?”

He got a wry smile on his face, as if I had found him out.

Then he said, “If I’ve been hearing you correctly, if I trust in Christ as my Savior, I’ve got to quit running my own life and let Jesus take over.

Is that correct?”

I said yes.

He said, “Well, I’m not sure that I’m ready to do that yet.”

He saw that the matter was not intellectual, but rather of yielding his will to God.

A few months later, he did yield his life to Christ and I had the joy of baptizing him.

Doubt is often just a smokescreen for a heart that wants to play by its own rules.

God has given sufficient evidence that Jesus Christ is who He claimed to be.

If your doubts stem from sin and rebellion, you won’t see them removed until you repent and submit your heart to Jesus as Lord.

So the first step for dealing with doubt is to turn from your sin and rebellion against God.

Acknowledge that God, as the Sovereign Creator of this universe, has the right to run your life.

Recognize that Jesus Christ offered Himself as the necessary sacrifice to satisfy God’s righteous judgment.

Accept Christ as your Savior and Lord.

Yielding your heart to Him will remove many doubts.

2. To deal with doubt we must hold to God’s revelation about Jesus Christ in spite of our difficult circumstances.

As I said, many weighty commentators refuse to attribute doubt to John, since he was such a great man of God.

Jesus gives John the highest imaginable commendation (7:24-28).

Unlike the reeds that swayed in the breeze along the Jordan River where he preached, John was a man of unswerving conviction.

He didn’t change his message in the slightest when the big shots from Jerusalem came to hear him preach.

Further, John’s convictions were backed up by his lifestyle.

He wasn’t preaching so that he could wear the finest clothes and eat gourmet food.

John was a prophet, and more than a prophet.

He was the very messenger whom God promised in to prepare the way before Messiah.

Because Jesus speaks so highly of John, many think that John’s question did not stem from his doubt, but was designed to shore up the doubts of his disciples.

In spite of John’s greatness, I reject that interpretation for two reasons.