Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Is it OK to Doubt God? | New Testament | Matthew 11

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

Should you keep your doubts to yourself? How should you talk about doubt? Is it normal to doubt God? In today's episode, Keith uses Matthew 11 to discuss the role that doubt plays in the Christian faith. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in 2023. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Matthew 11

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. Okay, I got a quiz for you. True or false. Strong Christians never have doubts about God in their faith. Mature Christians are 100% certain, 100% confident. What's your answer?

True or false? Well, the answer is false. The truth is that if you have doubts, that makes you, now wait for it, that makes you normal. Jesus' mother Mary had doubts. Thomas is called doubting Thomas for obvious reasons. The prophet Elijah doubted, Job, Abraham, Sarah, they all doubted. It's hard to find people in the Bible who didn't have doubts. After Jesus was resurrected, he appeared to his disciples and gave them what's called the Great Commission. Here's what led up to that. Matthew 28, verse 16 and 17. Then the 11 disciples went to Galilee to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.

they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. The disciples have seen Jesus' miracles. They've been students of his teaching. They've witnessed his crucifixion and resurrection, and still, some doubted. Matthew doesn't cover this up. Instead, he points it out. Jesus looks at these worshipping doubters and sends them out to represent him to the world. You don't have to have it all figured out to be used by God, to be a part of God's story. Disciples are not people who never doubt. worship, they doubt and serve, they doubt and follow Jesus. It's kind of like holding in a sneeze. I was always told you shouldn't do that because it can be dangerous. And by the way, the sneeze is coming out anyway. In a similar way, you shouldn't hold in your doubts. You should verbalize them

to a safe person. Are you a safe person to express doubts to? Like if one of your children or a friend shares their doubts with you, do you explore it with them? Don't make them go it alone. Say to them something like, hey, that's a good question. I've wondered that myself. Let's try to figure it out together. What about the person who says, I never doubt? Well, it reminds me the engaged couple who says, we never argue. And I say back, well, don't get married then. You don't know each other well enough. You haven't talked through all the important issues. You're not being honest if you've never argued. Well, kind of the same way, if you've never had doubts, my guess is you haven't read your Bible are walked with God for very long or paid attention to what is happening in the world.

Today we're in Matthew chapter 11 and we find John the Baptist having doubts. Here's how the chapter opens. When John, who is in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, are you the one who is to come or should we expect someone else? People have doubts for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes doubt can be caused by a lack of evidence. The great atheist philosophy, Christopher Bertrand Russell was once asked what he would say if he found himself standing before God on the judgment day and God asked him, why didn't you believe in me? Russell replied, I would say to God, not enough evidence, not enough evidence. Well, who wouldn't want more evidence? But when you think about it, we have mounds of evidence that Christianity is true. We have great reasons to believe in

Jesus. More evidence doesn't necessarily eliminate doubt and lead to faith. If you're not going to put your faith in Jesus, who or what will you place your faith in? Yourself? Are you 100% certain about yourself? We'd like to remain neutral about God, kind of sit back and evaluate the evidence. Instead, we're forced to choose every day between belief in Jesus or belief in something else. Life doesn't stop while you figure things out. We spend our life praying or not praying, worshiping God or ourselves or something else. We make choices every day, and those choices are guided by some set of values. Everyone trusts in someone or something.

Bertrand Russell says there wasn't enough evidence to believe in God. Was there enough evidence to believe in himself? So back to John the Baptist. He sent his disciples to the Messiah to ask him if he was the one to come or if they should expect someone else. Why is John the Baptist doubting? Well, it might have something to do with him being in prison. John the Baptist is in prison because he confronted the

ruler Herod Antipas about sin in his life. He spoke truth to power and was punished for it. Now pretend you're John. You've done what you thought was right and now you're in prison? Eventually John is beheaded. When things don't go well in your life, when your plans get derailed, when you do the right thing and things don't turn out like you hoped, doubt can creep in. Some of John the Baptist's doubts are because he had wrong expectations about what the Messiah was going to do. When Jesus didn't live up to John the Baptist expectations, He doubted that Jesus was who he claimed to be. When we express doubts, sometimes other Christians scold us or are disappointed in us or even give up on us.

So what we've learned is that it's safest to keep our doubts to ourselves. Listen to what it says in Jude 22. Be merciful to those who doubt. Jesus's response to John is full of mercy. Jesus replies in verse 4, Go back and report to John what you hear and see. The blind receive self. the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf here, the dead are raised,

and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Jesus is referring to the book of Isaiah and telling John that he's doing the very things that God said the Messiah would do. He doesn't tell John to just believe or have more faith. Instead, he gives John reasons to believe. If you need reasons to believe in Jesus, can I suggest just a few authors? There are so many great resources available, but some of my faiths. favorites are written by Tim Keller or Rebecca McLaughlin or Eric Mason or of course C.S. Lewis. But the most

important thing you can do is take your doubts to Jesus. He will show you mercy. Hey, thanks for listening. If you want to go deeper, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talk newsletter. You'll get a short email once a week. It'll challenge you to grow in your faith, give you interesting background on today's passage, and a lot, lot more. Just click the link in the show notes to sign up. It'll help you deep Open your journey with Jesus.