Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Praying Our Doubts

Episode Date: November 25, 2024

The anger, the fear, the hostility, the rawness, the white heat of the emotions expressed in the Psalms really just disturb people today. You look at it, and you say, “What is that doing in the Bible?” The answer is the psalmists are not discussing feelings, and they’re not expressing feelings. They’re praying their feelings. They’re processing their feelings in the presence of God.  What we’re going to look at today is doubt. Doubt always masquerades as more intellectual than it is, but doubt is a condition of the soul and the heart. And in Psalm 73, here’s a person filled with doubts, struggling with doubts about God and about faith. Let’s see 1) what’s the condition, 2) what’s the cause of the condition, and 3) what’s the cure for the condition. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 20, 2000. Series: Psalms – The Songs of Jesus. Scripture: Psalm 73:1-3; 12-26. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. We'd like to help you prepare your heart for Christmas by sending you a free daily devotional during the Advent season. To sign up, just visit gospelinlife.com slash Advent to receive an email each day from December 1st through December 24th. Again, to sign up, just go to GospelInLife.com slash Advent. Now, here's today's teaching from Tim Keller. I'm going to read from Psalm 73. Beginning and the end of it is printed in your bulletin. Psalm 73, 1 to 3 and 12 to 26 is what I'll read. Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.

But as for me, my feet had almost slipped. I had nearly lost my foothold, for I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. This is what the wicked are like, always carefree. They increase in wealth. Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure. In vain have I washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been plagued.

I have been punished every morning. If I had said I will speak thus, I would have betrayed your children. When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me. Till I entered the sanctuary of God, then I understood their final destiny. Surely you placed them on slippery ground. You cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors. As a dream when one awakes, so when you arise, O Lord, you will despise them as fantasies. When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant. I was a brute beast before you. Yet I am always with you.

You hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire beside you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." That's God's word. Now after the kind of lofty series of sermons we just went through, which we were looking at the great principles of the Christian faith, the Apostles' Creed, what we're going to do for a few weeks is we're going to go to some other, I'm not sure what spectrum, but

to the opposite end of some spectrum, and we're gonna look at some Psalms. And Psalms are not about so much lofty high doctrine as they are about how the heart works, how the human heart works. And when you get into the Psalms, you get into the deep parts, the deep recesses, the motives and the emotions of the human heart. What you actually have in

the Psalms is a gospel third way, a gospel third way to deal with feelings. Now, why do I call it a third way? It's a unique third way to deal with feelings because the main ways that you have in front of us in the world give you very, very different advice. On the one hand, you have what I call the religious approach to feelings. And the religious approach to feelings is to be very uncomfortable with them. Very uncomfortable, not wanting to really see the darkness and the profundity and the intensity and the rawness of what's really down there in that heart of yours. Because if, now what I mean by religion is this, if you believe that you must warrant God's attention and support through your own virtue. If you believe you must warrant God's attention and support

through your own virtue, you're not going to want to admit what's in your heart. You're not going to be comfortable with strong feelings. You're always going to be saying, I'm not angry. I'm not angry. I'm fine. And because the religious approach to feelings is to innocent stuff them and deny them and not look at them.

On the other hand, the secular approach, at least popular culture today, the secular approach to feelings is almost the exact opposite. The secular approach almost holds to the sovereignty of feelings. The secular approach has a premise which is, I think, completely indefensible, unbelievable, but it's there in our popular culture, And that is that your feelings is really who you are. Your truth, your feelings, when you find a feeling, you say, oh my gosh, there it is. There's nothing I can do about it. That's how I feel, that's how I really feel.

That's really me, not my beliefs, not my practices. My feelings is the real me, why? That's a totally arbitrary thing to say. That's only one part of you, why? But that's the secular approach, is to see feelings and being in touch with your feelings and expression of feelings almost as a good in itself. The Psalms don't do either. Not at all. The Psalms are a unique third gospel way with feelings. The Psalms neither are discussions of feelings, you know, sort of

rational detached discussion, nor expressions of feelings. The Psalms are not, they do not deny feelings and they don't vent feelings. Well, when you read the Psalms, very often, no matter who you are, whether you come from a religious or a secular background, people are constantly shocked by the rawness of the feelings in the Psalms. I mean, I suppose you know that a lot of you, unless you really, really, really, really read the Psalms, all the way through every verse right out of your Bible, if you rely on the snatches you see in cards or the snatches you see even in church or that is in the call to worship or the snatches you see in

responsive readings and all that you're not going to see an awful lot of stuff there is some amazing things that the anger the fear the hostility the the rawness the white heat of the emotions expressed in the Psalms really really just skirt they they disturb people today. And you look at it and you say, what is that doing in the Bible? And the answer is the psalmist are not discussing feelings and they're not expressing feelings, they're praying their feelings. They're processing their feelings in the presence of God.

That's neither the religious nor the secular way, because to be under aware of feelings or over-awed by your feelings is disaster. I don't know any other way to do it than to do it in the Psalms. So each week for about four or five weeks, we're gonna take one of these deep feelings and instead of expressing it or just discussing it, we're going to see how they pray it. Now what we're going to look at today is doubt. And maybe you don't think of it, maybe, doubt always masquerades as more intellectual than it is. But doubt is

a condition of the soul and the heart. And what I want to do, maybe not every week, I won't stick with this same outline, but what I want to do, maybe not every week, I won't stick with this same outline, but what I want to do right here is look and see what this psalm, Psalm 73, here's a person filled with doubts, struggling with doubts about God and about faith. See what the condition is, what the cause of the condition is, and what the cure of the condition is. What's the condition? Let's see how he describes it.

Then secondly, what the cause is of it, And then thirdly, how do we cure it? How do we deal with it? How do we address it? Very practical. This is not a soaring sermon. This is soul doctoring. Interesting. You know, you never come out of the doctor's office saying, wow, that was great experience. But you're very happy if it heals you. Now, let's take a look. First of all, what's the condition? Verse one and two, surely God is good to Israel to those who are pure in heart, but as for

me my feet had almost slipped. I had nearly lost my foothold. Now you don't talk about foothold if you're walking on level ground. You don't say I lost my foothold. You might say I stubbed my toe or I tripped. You lose your foothold when you're climbing, when you're fighting gravity, when you're moving on up, you see. You're climbing a ladder, climbing a mountain.

And notice, he doesn't say, I actually slipped, but he says, I almost slipped. I nearly lost my foothold. And so what you have is a very interesting picture of someone teetering or tottering on the precipice, someone who is dizzy, someone who's experiencing vertigo. Now, in the Bible, the idea of your foot slipping, and we're going to see it happens later on too, your foot slipping off the mountain, it really is a way of saying being lost, being eternally lost, and therefore what the man is saying is, I almost lost my faith. I almost experienced the complete destruction of all of my spirituality and faith. My doubt

was so severe I was just teetering right on the brink. And what we actually have is a pretty interesting and vivid image describing doubt. What is doubt? It's a spiritual form of the dizziness or vertigo that happens when your eye gives your brain something that it can't process and makes you put your foot in the wrong place. By the way, this happens to me fairly regularly. I don't know. Some of you are younger and sleeker and therefore I'm sure this doesn't happen to you. When I run on the treadmill in the morning I have noticed that if I look down I'm fine, if I look ahead I'm fine, if I look at the all the little figures and things, you know all the different

sorts of numbers that come on the treadmill. But if I look up, if I look at the ceiling I think I'm in the middle of the treadmill and next thing you know I find that for some reason I'm drifting off to the right. I don't know, I'm sure that doesn't happen to you, but it does happen to me. My brain thinks I'm in the middle but I'm not going to the right. I don't know if it's because I'm right handed, I don't know what, but there we have it. What do we have?

There's a dizziness, I start to get dizzy. My eye is telling my brain something it doesn't seem to be able to process. Next thing I know I put my foot off of the little running treadmill onto the part that's stationary and I'm stumbling. Now, doubt is a form of spiritual vertigo where something you see, your heart spiritually can't process it. See, I thought God was good, verse 1, but something I saw, verse 3, we'll see in a minute, gave me that vertigo. I couldn't, I was ready to fall, I was ready to drop everything, I was ready to just fall down. I was just filled with doubts. Now, before we go and see what the cause is, he says, I saw.

What is the cause? Well, we'll look at that in a second. But let's just think about the condition for just a minute. What do we learn in this psalm about the condition? Well, you have to stand back and think about it, but here's what you learn. First of all, doubts happen to anybody. Doubts are not just things for outsiders, people who don't believe at all and aren't in the church.

If you're a person who is looking at Christianity and you've been sort of seeking and trying to figure it out, you say, I have a problem with doubts. I consider myself outside the Christian faith. I don't think I am a Christian. Of course, you have doubts, but I have news for you. Let me tell you something that maybe the rest of them out there don't want you to know.

But if you're inside, you're filled with very often doubts come along, too. Doubts can happen to anyone. Why? Who is this guy? Well, now, if you have a with very often doubts come along too. Doubts can happen to anyone. Why? Who is this guy? Well now, if you have a Bible, don't open your Bible, but it'll say the man's name is Asaph. Asaph was one of the authors of the Psalms.

The Psalms were all written by David, in spite of the fact that that's the name of my series, Songs of David, but here we have one of Asaph's Psalms. But here's the point, even though you may have never heard of him, I would suggest to you that he has gotten a little further in the spiritual life than you or I will ever get. He's an author of scripture. That's pretty high. You know, I don't know what, is that on your goals? Write some scripture before I die. It's not even on my goals. I don't even aspire to it. I don't believe I can, I mean, you have to be realistic about your goals. Here's a guy who says, I was about to blow everything, I was ready to throw it all over.

But who is this man? This man is obviously a man of high spiritual attainment, great wisdom, and yet he's filled with doubts. Doubts so severe he was ready to throw it all over. And he's an author of scripture. It can happen to anybody. It does happen to anybody. In fact, in some ways you don't grow without doubts,

which we'll look at here in a second, and that is right now. So the second thing we see, what gave us this psalm? Why do we even have this psalm? It's a marvelous psalm. The way it ends is some of the ending verses, some of the most wonderful passages in the Scripture. What gives us this psalm? Doubts. It's the doubts that brought this psalm along. When you think of the most famous doubter, who do you think of? Thomas. And Thomas was a really hard-nosed guy. I mean, you know, the other

disciples saw Jesus appear to them and he ate a fish, you know, and he walked through the door and they said, I believe. But now Thomas wasn't there, was he? You might remember. Thomas wasn't there, was he? You might remember. Thomas wasn't there. So we read in John chapter 20 that they came to Thomas, and they said, Thomas, we saw Jesus, and he's alive from the dead. We believe.

And he said, well, that wouldn't have been good enough for me. Just seeing him wouldn't be good enough. What do you want, Thomas? Well, says Thomas. Now here's a skeptic. He says, just seeing him, him who knows you know, maybe Who knows why that what I want as I want him to raise his hands I want to be able to see daylight through the nail print and I want to put my finger through it then I'll believe

Well, you know, that's a pretty hard bargain He's really pretty hard-nosed and yet when Jesus shows up He looks at at Thomas and he calls to him, and Thomas, what does Thomas do? When Thomas gets through his doubts, he says, my Lord and my God. And almost every commentator I know, every commentator on the book of John I know says, that is the loftiest, the most direct, the highest confession of faith by any human being in any of the Gospels. You know, all the disciples are constantly

struggling. Who is this one? And Jesus is always making these enormous claims and they can never quite bring themselves to accept what he's saying. But who's the one who finally does? What is the greatest of all the confessions, the highest of all the confessions of any human being in the Gospels? It comes from Thomas. Who's Thomas? The greatest doubter became actually, in some ways, gave you the greatest expression of belief. Now this shouldn't surprise us. It shouldn't surprise us a bit. Francis Bacon, who was a pretty famous, he was a Christian, but he was also a scientist and an educator, and he wrote about just education in general in a famous old book, 400 years old, called The Advancement of Learning, and in it he says this, if you begin with certainties, you will

end in doubts. But if you're content to begin with great doubts, you will end in certainty. Hmm. Now he's not talking about Christianity though of course it applies, absolutely applies. Here's what he's saying. He says what happens if you come into a class and the teacher gives you a body of teaching and what if all you ever do is you say, oh great teacher I am unworthy, I am a fool, I'm an idiot, I accept everything you say. Don't question, mustn't do that. You just accept it. You don't question, you don't ask skeptical questions, you don't inquire, you don't say,

wait a minute, doesn't that contradict this, doesn't that contradict, how does that, no, you just accept. What's he saying? You'll start with certainties, but you won't get it. You won't really understand it. It won't really be yours, it won't be something you can use. And when you actually get out there in the world because you haven't get it. You won't really understand it. It won't really be yours It won't be something you can use and when you actually get out there in the world because you haven't thought it out because you didn't start with doubts

You started with absolute certainty You won't be long before reality will hit you and you realize wait a minute I don't know exactly how that works I don't know whether how that fits there and I don't see how that wait a minute Isn't that a country if you start with certainties you end with doubts? But if you're willing to start with doubts, ask the hard questions. You end in certainty. And what does this mean? The Bible has an amazingly balanced view of doubts. I doubt there's anybody in this room, including

me, including me, just because I'm telling you doesn't mean I do it. Don't you know that? The Bible's view of doubts is unbelievably balanced. The Bible sees a tremendous amount of positive energy in doubt, yet a lot of sin in doubt. Now, we don't like that. When doubts come along, we either are very, very condemning in ourselves, mustn't doubt, stop it, don't doubt, mustn't doubt, I've got to be a person of faith, don't you dare doubt, or in other people we say, don't ask questions, just believe. Or, see, or else we're just paralyzed by our doubts.

We just say, oh, there's nothing I can do about it. There they are. The Bible is not like that. Well, somebody says, doesn't Jesus command Thomas to stop doubting? No, not exactly. Thomas says, I want to see the nail prints in his hands. And when Jesus shows up, does he say, what a terrible thing, Thomas.

No, what does he do? On the one hand, he calls him to stop doubting. He says, don't doubt and believe. But he shows him the nail prints. Now, if what he asked for was wrong, why in the world would Jesus have done it? See, there's this balance. There's enormous positive energy and doubt. Doubt is something through which we come to understand the gospel, we come to see it. If you start with doubts, you end in certainties. If you start with certainties, you end in doubts. This is the reason why there's a whole lot of churches that do not like people around who are always asking lots and lots of questions, hard questions, they don't like it. They want people to come in and say, I accept it, no questions, and they're just setting those

people up for failure. There's enormous positive energy. You have to recognize it in yourself, it's one of the ways you grow, but you also have to respect the people around you. It's one of the ways you grow, but you also have to respect the people around you. You need to be, if you have people around you who doubt, you've got to show that same kind of balance. Don't let them be overawed by their doubts. Don't not challenge them. But on the other hand, recognize that there's a lot of wisdom in doubts. Almost every doubt has got some kind of objection in it that really is a true

problem, something that if you wrestle with you'll understand Christianity better. You know, if you want a model, you go to the book of John chapter 1. Philip has met Jesus. Philip, his life has been touched by Jesus. So he goes to Nathaniel and he says, Nathaniel, I want you to see the Messiah. I found the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. And what does Nathaniel say? He says, can anything good come out of Nazareth? Now for many years I thought that was just a prejudicial statement. That's just like somebody from Alabama saying New York City.

I thought it was just regional prejudice. But it wasn't because he's asking a great question. He says, wait a minute, Nathaniel says to Philip, everybody knows the Messiah comes from Bethlehem. How could this guy be the Messiah and be from Nazareth? Now what does Philip do? On the one hand, Philip does not say, stop that s-questioning.

If you don't believe, you'll never receive him. Or on the other hand, he doesn't say, oh my gosh, you're right. It's wrong. That's it. Can't be the Messiah. What does he say? Come and see. Which means, let's go figure this out together.

He respects the question enough to not say, stop it. But on the other hand, he doesn't respect the question so much that it stymies him. And that's very difficult. So you have to understand there's enormous positive energy in doubt. But let's move on. What causes this man's doubts so we can understand how doubts actually happen? I'm going to be brief here because I really want to spend virtually every last minute I got left on the cure. But look carefully. It says in verse 3, I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. Now what he says here is two things. I saw the prosperity of the wicked. Now when he says prosperity of the wicked, he's actually

telling us the particular thing that created doubts. So there's many, many, many things that can create doubts. I've seen a lot of people who have said, well, I thought I believed in Christianity, and then I went off to somewhere and I met all these people of different faiths and different religions and different philosophies and they were all so intelligent and they were so smart and they were so kind and they had lived such

good lives and I began to say I don't know how Christianity could be the truth, okay? Now that's not what happens here, I'm saying something comes in that you, and gives you doubts. In this case, it's injustice. In this case, it's evil and suffering. He looks out there and he sees the injustice. He sees people who are wicked and who are selfish. Now, mercifully, I cut out verses 4 to 11, not only so it would fit on the page, but because it's a perfect and embarrassingly accurate description of most of the people that live in Manhattan. It talks about very self-promoting people, many, many very, very ruthless people, many very, very, very smart people, but people who are basically promoting themselves and

cutting throats and being very ruthless and they're doing very well. And a lot of people who wash their hands in innocence and are trying to live just lives and generous lives and simple lives and humble lives, you know, find that their lives aren't going well at all. And so he sees the injustice. Now, there's always something, but here's the point. He says, I saw it. Now, if you want to understand doubt, really, you have to realize that doubt is never just a matter of thinking.

You will never deal with doubt. Doubt always presents itself as intellectual only. But when he says, I saw it, does he mean he had never even known about injustice? No. Look what happened in verse 13 and 14. He says, in vain I have kept my heart pure, in vain I have washed my hands in innocence, all day long I have been plagued. He always knew about injustice, but recently it hit him.

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video with an Advent meditation from Tim Keller, followed by a brief discussion with Tim and his wife Kathy. Again, to sign up, visit GospelInLife.com slash Advent. May Christ's birth be a source of joy and hope to you this Christmas and all through the year. And this is what real doubt is like. C.S. Lewis tells a story to try to help you understand what faith and doubt really is about.

Most people think that faith is opposed to reason. But Paul doesn't say that. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, 7, he says, we walk by faith, not by sight. He doesn't say we walk by faith, not by reason. He doesn't say faith is opposed to reason, not a bit. What he's actually saying, faith is holding on to what you know to be true in spite of how things appear to your heart.

Now, Lewis gives a really great example of this. I'm going to actually turn it around. It's a slight variation if you know it. It's in mere Christianity. But here we go. It goes like this. Imagine you're a woman. You're a single woman, and some great guy asks you out.

So you're excited, but 20 other women who are friends of your, they've never lied to you, you trust them completely, you know them perfectly, and every one of them said, don't fall for this guy because he's the kind of guy that the minute he can tell you're falling in love with him, he loses interest and drops you. Every woman thinks, I'll be different. No woman is. So you listen and you process it and what do you think? On a rationally, you believe them. Why not?

Why wouldn't you believe them? Twenty of them. Every one of them been through the same thing. Every one of them are down to earth people who have never misled you before. Okay, you say, I'll go. But you go out and halfway through the date, you start to doubt them. Why?

Well, because, boy, he's really nice, and he's really intelligent, and he's really, really everything you've always wanted. And now you're starting to doubt what they said. You're saying, well, you know what? Maybe I will be different. Now, what's going on? Have you got new information that you

didn't have before? Are you seeing some logical flaw? No. What's going on is the claims of your friends are on audio, but the claims of the hunk are on video. In other words, it is not a fair fight. It's not a fair fight because what happens is you're having doubts because your heart is having personal experience of something that contradicts what your mind knows. Faith is not opposed to reason. Faith is not holding onto something in spite of the evidence. Faith is holding onto something in spite of the evidence. Faith is holding on to something in spite of the appearances. It's holding on. In other words, let's go back to the vertigo thing.

Basically, it's really, in a way, pretty simple. Doubts come when personal experience makes what your mind knows unreal to your heart. Got that? Doubts come when what your mind knows becomes unreal to your heart because of the experience. See, for example, you might say, well, look, I know there's suffering in the world. I know there's suffering in the world, but you know what? God's so much wiser than we are, and therefore there might be some purpose. There's probably some purpose in the suffering that we don't know until it happens to you.

And when the suffering actually hits you, you haven't really gotten anything, you haven't gotten new information that undermines the logic. What happens is it just doesn't feel real, doesn't seem real. There's a real intellectual question at the heart of every doubt. But doubts never just come through thinking, they come through experience. Now, if that's the case, what do we do? Do we just say, well, I have a doubt? Of course not. I mean, there's all sorts of problems. I mean, obviously, for example, you can see in the case of that particular woman who's out on that particular date, she needs faith.

She needs faith in her friends. She needs faith in what her friends have told her, what she really knows to be true. How are you going to get it? That's no different really than how do you grow in faith in God. You don't say, well, faith in God means you stop looking at the evidence and you just believe anyway. Absolutely not. Doubts don't come because we don't believe the evidence. don't come because we don't believe the evidence. Doubt comes because we can't believe the evidence in light of what's happening in our hearts. So what do we do when doubts come? Four things. How do we cure them? And these are, I'll just tell them to you and then I'll explain them to you. Doubt your

doubts, okay? These are the four things. Doubt your doubts, verse three. Enter the temple, verse 17. Compare footholds, verse 18. And feel for his hand, verse 23. Doubt your doubts, enter the temple, compare footholds, and feel for his hand. Every one of them extremely important, or else you're gonna get stuck in doubts, or just be deathly afraid when they happen.

Number one, doubt your doubts. Now, what do I mean by that? Don't you want to be fair-minded? You mustn't just doubt the faith. You also have to doubt your doubts about the faith. What do I mean by that? Well, look what he does. Amazing honesty. What does he say in verse 3? I envied the arrogant. Now, here's the first basic point, and that's this. Your motives are

never pure when it comes to doubts. You might have a real intellectual issue. He looks at injustice, and the Bible insists that injustice is a great problem for believers in God. The injustice and suffering and evil in the world is a real problem, believers in God. The injustice and suffering in the world is a real problem. But he admits that if he wasn't actually having personal problems, if his life hadn't been going badly, he never would have been bothered by it. Isn't that an interesting, you see? Or put it another way, he's really saying, I never would have been angry at God for allowing the wicked to prosper if I hadn't started wanting a piece of the same pie they had.

I'm angry because I'm not getting my part. I'm not getting the comforts. I'm not making any money. I'm not moving up in the world. What he's starting to do is something that most doubters don't want to do. In fact, also something that people who are not doubting don't want to do. We either condemn the doubts as evil or else we let the doubts just sort of hit us with all their strength but you have to distill out of the doubts the dishonesty. There's always honest and dishonest parts to your doubt, always. So you have to deconstruct and doubt your doubts and distill it. You know there's an interesting place in The Great Divorce

where C.S. Lewis, it's a fiction novel, of course, well, I should say of course, it's a fiction novel about a bustle of people from hell who go to the outskirts of heaven. And people from heaven come down and meet old friends who are now living in hell. And they try to get the people in hell to repent. It's a very, very, very, very interesting book. But one of the most interesting parts is where two academic, let's just say two academic spirits, a spirit from heaven and a spirit from hell meet. And the academic spirit from heaven, had once been an atheist I suppose, but anyway talks to the academic person from hell and says, you know, one of the reasons you're in hell is because you don't believe. And the academic ghost from hell says,

that's ridiculous, these are just honest opinions that I have, who would be penalized for an honest opinion? And this is what the ghost or the spirit from heaven says. He says, wait a minute. He says, my opinions were not completely honest. And then he says, you know, and when we were in college, we found ourselves in contact with certain currents of ideas and we plunged into them because they seemed modern and successful. At college, we just started automatically writing the kinds of

essays that got good marks and saying the kinds of things that won applause. We were playing with loaded dice though. We didn't want the faith to be true. We were afraid of crude salvationism. We were afraid of a breach with the spirit of the true. We were afraid of crude salvationism, we were afraid of a breach with the spirit of the age, we were afraid of ridicule of our smart, intelligent friends, above all of real spiritual fears and hopes. Now what's he doing? He's not saying, and I'm not saying that all doubts are dishonest. He's just saying there's always lots and lots of dishonest motives and doubts, even when you experience evil and suffering. You see, sometimes I'd say doubts are about 10% honest and 90% dishonest.

They're just ways of getting out from having to be serious. But a lot of times it's 90% honest and 10% dishonest only. Like when, you know, you've had some terrible suffering, some terrible tragedy, but there's always something. There's always some dishonesty. Even suffering. Even in suffering, if you're saying, I can't believe in a God who would let this happen, what you're really saying is, because I can't see a purpose in it, there can't be one. There's always some pride. There's always some desire to control. There's always a setting of self up. So the first thing you always have to do

is distill the dishonesty out of your doubts and doubt your doubts. That's the first thing. Number two, verse 17, enter the sanctuary. I'll be brief, but it's very important. Why did he go into the sanctuary to do? See, some of you may think, well, it's just like here in Manhattan,

there's these beautiful buildings that are open, these beautiful, you know, this is a beautiful building, and there's other beautiful buildings around the city, and we like at lunch hour sometimes to go in and just sit down and meditate. But that's not what he's talking about. When he went to the sanctuary, he went in there and participated in worship. Here's the principle. You do not get into doubts only by thinking, and therefore you're not going to get through the doubts only by thinking.

You got into the doubts, as we've been trying to show you, through experience. You know, you might say, well, when I was at Columbia University, I was reading all these skeptical books and that's why I lost my faith. Well, no, not just that. You also had all these intelligent friends around you who were laughing at Christianity too. That's what C.S. Lewis is saying. And you certainly didn't want to look like a jerk. It's never only just thinking. You're a whole person. There's personal experience involved.

And if that's the case, if you don't get into doubts only through thinking, you'll never get out of doubts only through thinking. And what did he do? He prayed, he sang, he approached God. If you're a skeptic, even if you're a skeptic who says, well, I don't even believe in Christianity, are you suggesting I come to church or I pray to God?

Absolutely. It's not fair otherwise. This world gives you all kinds of sense experience that says, God's not real. So you got to do something to engage your senses as well as your intellect. You need to sing, for example. You need to sing a hymn. You need to actually at least sit down every so often and say, Lord God, I don't know if you're there, but if you are there, you're a person and you can hear me. So I need your help. So the second thing you got to do is don't make this God, if you ever want to find him, just an object of speculation, he must also be an object of worship even before you find

him or you'll never find him. I'm just telling you. So secondly, you go into the temple, you engage the senses. Thirdly, verse 18, you compare footholds. Now what's very interesting here is he, remember, the psalmist has likened faith to putting your foot on something that's shaky. You know, in other words, if you're climbing up the mountain and you see all these rocks on the path, every time you put your foot on a rock, right, you're putting your faith in the rock. If the rock doesn't hold you,

okay, so every single, and it's actually therefore a very good illustration, it's a very good image, is it not? And he's saying that my faith is shaky, but look what he says in verse 18. He says, surely you've placed them on slippery ground, how suddenly they are destroyed, swept away. Now here's what he's saying, and this is very important to understand in my own life, this is almost how I finally got the intellectual assurance that Christianity was true. You never ever have to choose between belief and non-belief. There is no such thing. Doubt of Christianity always masks the fact that it is also a leap of faith. You cannot disbelieve in God without believing in something else at that moment, at least your intellect and at least your cognitive faculties or your own intuition.

In other words, you can't prove there's a God. No, but you can't prove there's not a God and therefore every place you go is putting your foot on something in an act of faith. And what he's actually saying is, the reason I can trust my faith is even though my faith is shaky, their faith is impossible. Now, just let me give you a quick example of this. I'll give you a general and a specific. Sheldon Van Auken, who was a man who came to Christ, he wrote a book called A Severe Mercy. He puts it perfectly. When he was struggling as a college student with whether he should be a Christian or not, this is what he wrote. He said, I saw a gap between the possible and the proved.

See, now he wanted assurance, he said. He said, how was I to cross that gap? I didn't want to jump in faith. If I was going to stake my whole life on the risen Christ, I wanted proof, I wanted certainty, I wanted letters of fire across the sky. I got nothing. But then I realized, my God, then I realized there was a gap behind me as well. You hear this? I suddenly realized, of course, there'd have to be a leap of faith to acceptance,

because I couldn't prove that Christ was God. But by God there was no certainty or proof that he was not. And therefore to even go back was a leap of faith. This was not to be born, he said. I could not reject Jesus without great faith. And when I realized it would take enormous faith just to reject Jesus, I knew what to do. There was only one thing I could do. Once I saw the gap behind me, I flung myself over the gap toward Jesus. Do you see that? I mean, or what Blaise Pascal put it years ago. He says, look, you can't prove there's a God, but you can't prove there's not a God. But you're going to have to live one way or the other.

If you live as if there's a God and there's not, you run the risk of cutting yourself off from an awful lot of fun in this life, but if you live as if there's not a God and there is, you run the risk of being eternally lost. And therefore, he says, you are betting your life in an act of faith whether you believe in the gospel or not. And what he's doing, and this is extremely important, is to see that even though Christianity actually has lots of problems, what he's saying is, my faith has got a problem. I believe in a good God, but I see all this injustice. But the place they put their feet is even worse, and that's why I'm a Christian.

Say for example, one philosopher put it this way, think about suffering and injustice for a second with me. Just think. He says this, think about suffering and injustice for a second with me, just think. He says this, think about suffering and injustice for a second, he says the most appalling kinds of evil and horrifying wickedness are a problem for anyone who believes in God, but they are at least as big, if not a bigger problem,

for people who don't believe in God, and those are your only two alternatives. That's exactly what the psalmist is saying. Let me go on. Could there be such a thing as horrifying wickedness? If there were no God, he says, and we only evolved, I don't see how. An atheistic view of the world has no place for genuine moral obligation. The strong eating the weak is completely natural and therefore if there's no God there can be no such thing as genuine and appalling wickedness. But if you can't help but think that this part of the natural order of this world is horrifyingly wicked, then you have a powerful argument for the reality of God."

And you know what he's saying? He says, if you believe in the Christian God, big problem. You know, your foot's shaky. Because if his God is good, why is he allowing this? We don't know. That's very difficult. But if you don't believe in God, suffering is a bigger problem. Because you see, if there is no God, then strong eating the weak is just natural. Just natural. And you have no cause to be outraged.

Isn't it interesting, if you say you're outraged is the reason you can't believe in God. Outrage and evil is the reason you can't believe in God. If there is no God, you have no basis for your outrage, which was the original reason why you didn't believe in God. Outrage and evil is the reason you can't believe in God. If there is no God, you have no basis for your outrage, which was the original reason why you didn't believe in God to start with. So you're back. Now here's what I'm saying, and here's what I think is important. Whenever you say, I can't believe, but where are you going to go? There's a gap behind you. You're going to have to believe in something. It's going to be a leap of faith. And whatever that leap is, take a look and see where you're standing.

If it's not on the Christian God, then where you're standing, is that any better? No. It's more slippery. It's more slippery intellectually, even though being where God is, believing in God is hard, disbelieving in God is worse. It's more slippery emotionally. What does he say when at the very end he says, whom have I in heaven and earth but you? What he means is, if I don't have you, I have nothing. Everything else, I don't really have. They live for beauty, but their beauty is fading. They live for money, but their money is fading. They live for success, but their success is failing.

If you don't have God, you really don't have anything because everything is just slipping away from you. And therefore, it's hard to believe in God, you really don't have anything because everything is just slipping away from you. And therefore, it's hard to believe in God, but it's very shaky to believe in God, but it's more slippery not to. Now, lastly, feel for his hand. He says in verse 23, I am always with you, you hold me by my right hand. Now, here's what goes on. The reason that you have to understand this, ultimately, if you really start to try to work through your doubts, if you doubt your Now here's what goes on. The reason that you have to understand this, ultimately if you really start to try to work through your doubts, if you doubt your doubts, if you go into the temple and engage your senses, if you start to compare footholds, instead of

just looking at the problems of Christianity, if you look at the problems of where you would stand if you don't become a Christian, and the greater problems, the greater intellectual problems you have if you don't. If you work all through that, you'll start to realize, bottom line, I'm afraid of meeting God. That a lot of my doubts are not just intellectual, I don't want to meet him. I'm afraid of what he's going to do to me. I'm afraid of what he might command me to do. I'm afraid of not being accepted. I'm just afraid. And yet this man says, verse 23, the word yet means nevertheless. I was grieved, I was embittered, I was like

a beast toward you, yet I realize that you have been holding my hand all through the doubts. I acted like an animal, you've treated me like a son." How can he know that? See, ultimately unless you get assurance of a gracious God, you're never going to get through your doubts. How can you know that? How is it possible to know that? I'll tell you how. He went into the temple. And in the temple, what would he have seen? He would have seen the sacrifice, the sacrifice for sins. Now he just probably got the gist of it, but you and I have something a whole lot better. How can you know that in spite of all your doubts, even being bitter, even acting like a beast, how can you know that if you actually get to God, He's going to take you in?

Here's the answer. You know one of the nicest, there's a hymn that has a really great depiction of doubt. It goes like this, When darkness hides his lovely face, I rest on his unchanging grace. There's a perfect example of doubt. See, because doubt is when you don't feel God there. When nothing, it just doesn't feel he's there at all. Darkness is hiding his face. Now how do you know if you go to God,

God won't hide his face from you? And the answer is because there's one person who experienced greater doubt than anybody in history. Oh yeah, I know you wouldn't think of it this way, but think for one second. There was a person who was completely faithful to God and yet God hid his faith from him. And so, see, when Jesus Christ was on the cross, he experienced the greatest spiritual vertigo anybody has ever experienced.

He was, because on the cross, God let go of Jesus' hand. God let him slip. God gave him what doubters deserve so that we doubters can know in spite of all that we do, God never lets go of our hand. God let go of his hand and gave him spiritual vertigo so that in our spiritual vertigo we can know that God will never let go of us. And you have to know that. You have to know that there is such a thing as grace, that Jesus Christ was substituted himself and took upon himself everything that we deserved. Otherwise, you just are not going to have

the ability to work through your doubts. Are you ready for that then? That's what you need to do. When darkness hides his lovely face, you can rest on his unchanging grace. Doubt your doubts. go to the temple, compare footholds, feel for his hand, it's there. Let's pray.

Our Father, we pray that you'd make us people who know what to do with our own doubts and how to help people with theirs. I pray that Redeemer could be a church that if it had a building would have a sign out front saying, doubters welcome. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel in Life podcast. The Advent season helps us prepare our hearts to focus on the birth of our Savior.

We'd like to send you a free daily devotional from December 1st through December 24th. Each devotional has a daily meditation on a Bible passage that points you to the true meaning of Christ's birth. To sign up, just visit Gospelinlife.com slash Advent. Again, that's Gospelinlife.com slash Advent. Again, that's gospelinlife.com slash Advent. Today's sermon was preached in 2000. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. you