Gooding, David: 1 - Fear? Doubt? Worry?—Why?

My first very pleasant duty this evening is to thank you most warmly for your kind invitation. And not only so, for your kind persistence over, as you have heard, many months, in pressing upon me this pleasure to come and share fellowship with you here. My second pleasant duty is to bring you all the greetings of fellow believers of yours in the land of Czechoslovakia. I was recently there for some eighteen days, and from many assemblies that I visited come the love and greetings of the fellow believers. Each one of the groups I was with straightly charged me to tell you that they send you their greetings. Believers in Brno, in Herbici, in Prague, in Gottwaldov, in Český Těšín, in Ostrava, in Opava, in Martin, in Batizovci, in Zvolen, in Nitra, and in Bratislava. All places well known to you, I'm sure. You recite the litany daily. Well, in those places anyway, there were many believers gathered. Uh, some smaller groups, some larger groups, very often averaging about a hundred. In the conference at Ostrava for two days, upwards of a thousand. I took the liberty of telling them that you here, we here in Belfast, from time to time, pray for them. I hope I wasn't over rash in thus telling them, or if I was, that you'll now back me up and do as I said. They assured me that from time to time they pray for us here in this problem. As I say, one and all, they send you their love and greetings in the Lord. Now let's begin our study this evening, our meditation, by reading three short verses from the gospel by Matthew. The Gospel of Matthew, chapter uh eight, first of all, and verse twenty six. Matthew eight twenty six: and he, the Lord Jesus, said unto them, his apostles, why are you fearful? Then in chapter fourteen, if you will please, and verse thirty one. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and took hold of him and saith unto him, O thou of little faith, why did you doubt? What did you doubt for? Why did you doubt? And then in chapter sixteen of that same gospel in verse eight, uh sixteen verse eight, and Jesus perceiving it said, O you of little faith, why? Why? Reason you among yourselves, because you have no bread. And tonight I should like to give a practical and a pastoral talk on these three most unwelcome visitors that sometimes visit our hearts and minds and sometimes lodge and outstay their welcome. Fear, doubt, and distraction, or Or worry. worry. Now, I don't know how it appeals to you, but when I read Holy Scripture, I find it an immense encouragement that God does not pretend that he, the early Christians and his great apostles, were some kind of supermen and women who never had a fear or a doubt or a worry in the world, but lived every minute of their Christian life in triumphal rejoicing. How glad I am that he doesn't paint them so, else I must have concluded years ago that I was never a Christian at all. I find it an encouragement, I say, that God in his word shows us the realities of Christian life, shows us that even the greatest men and women of God were men of like passions as we are. I think of that great hero of the faith, that tremendous example of faith that was Abraham. And I think how one moment he was valiantly and courageously displaying his faith in God. Abram believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. In the next minute, so frightened, uh, that he disowned his wife and lost her first to the Egyptians and then to the Philistines. Or I think of that great character Elijah, standing on Mount Carmel and defying Ahab, and what was more fearful, Jezebel as well, to their faces, and taking on four hundred of the priests of Baal, bringing Israel back by his courage and faith to trust in the true God. And Five minutes after that, losing his nerve completely and running away for his life from Jezebel. And so here in the Gospel of Matthew, three times over, we find stories that let us see that even the apostles themselves were people like ourselves of ordinary flesh and blood, and from time to time they suffered from fears and from doubt and from distraction. And if sometimes we have found it so ourselves, here surely is encouragement from the Lord. Jesus knows all about our struggles. He will guide to the day is done. So let's think for the first moment of the first unwelcome visitor who comes to lodge sometimes, a visitor of fear. And when I hear the Lord Jesus talking, it raises a question in my mind. Said he, if you notice, to the apostles in the boat, with the waves lapping the gunnels and coming over, and the boat every minute seeming as if it were going down. When they woke in me said, why are you fearful? Why? You know, when I hear the Lord Jesus talking like that, and I read this verse and apply it to myself, I hope you won't think I'm desperately wicked, but I feel like turning around to the Lord and saying, well, excuse me, Lord, uh, uh, reverently and uh, with due respect, but... but you asked me why I'm afraid for. Do you suppose I, I get afraid on purpose? I deliberately set out to fear or something? I'd be as glad as anybody to get rid of my fears and have done with them, and if there were some kind of switch in my brain that I could, uh, reach and with my fingers turn the switch off and stop all fearing, well, I'd do that forthwith. Fancy asking me why I'm afraid? Isn't it obvious? I'm afraid because I can't help being afraid. Why are you afraid? And in that respect, that's a good place to start our thinking, isn't it? Why is it that sometimes we feel afraid? Well, at the first and basic level, it is because God himself has put a machinery for fear inside our hearts, has he not? God himself put fear in our hearts. For fear is a very healthy thing, isn't it? Put there to preserve us. I remember some years ago, a student of mine had come from Norway to take his courses in Queen, and at a reception I was asking him, uh, about himself and what he did for his hobbies, and he told me that one of his hobbies was jumping from aeroplanes on parachutes. I said, I suppose when you've done it a good many times, you lose your fear of jumping out on a parachute. No, he said, you don't, at least you shouldn't. For if ever you lost your fear of jumping out, it would be very dangerous. You'd do then something silly. It's good to have a certain amount of fear. You watch the little birds in the garden, and as you watch them picking up the crumbs that you've put out, you remember the words of the Lord Jesus, don't you? Your heavenly Father looks after the birds. You say to myself, well, why can't I be like them without fear? But wait a minute, the birdies are not without fear, are they? Haven't you watched them pecking at their crumbs in the garden? One peck at a crumb, a look over the left shoulder to see whether the cat is coming, a look over the right shoulder to see whether the dog is coming. What do you think they do that for? If they're not afraid, and if they weren't afraid of the cat and the dog, they wouldn't last five minutes, would they? So God has put the mechanism of fear into the hearts of animals and birds, and our hearts as well, as a healthy preservative Conservative thing. thing. Sometimes I hear preachers telling the public that if only they trust Christ, they would never be afraid to die again. They would not fear to die. And I wish I could have a word in their ears and say, please explain yourself a little bit more. What do you mean you wouldn't be afraid to die? In that wickedness that's inherent in me, I think I'd like to get them and stand them in the middle of a forty-acre field, and when they weren't looking, put a mad bull behind them and see what happened when they discovered and heard his snorting and turned around to see this two tons of a bull coming at them head down, horns at the ready. Whether they would be afraid to die or not, I think I know what would happen. Without a thought, they'd run as hard as they could for their very lives, wouldn't they? And jump the five-bar gate and be over it before they knew they were. Yes, not afraid to die? What the good preacher means is that if you trust the Lord Jesus Christ, you won't be afraid of death. That's a very different thing. For it is true that when we trust the Lord Jesus, he removes the fear of death. For what is death? The sting of death, says scripture, the sting of it, you'll see, is sin. The sting of death is not in dying, however painful dying might be. The sting of death, the thing to be feared in death, is what happens next, isn't it? And to die unforgiven, to die with sins unremoved, not at peace with God. Oh, there's a terrible sting in a death like that. When we come to the Savior and he forgives us, he removes the sting. And for a believer to depart is to be with Christ, which is very far better. The believer doesn't fear death. But most of us fear dying, don't we? Of course we do. God himself that has put within our hearts the mechanism and nature within us, whether we will or not, will fight to the very last in order to survive. And we fear to put our hand in a flame, nature tells us. And if I were to poke my finger near your eye, you'd draw back involuntarily, wouldn't you? You have no control over it. Because God has put a mechanism of fear within to preserve us. And not only a fear to fear physical death, but to fear for ourselves, our personalities. To fear rejection. To fear and to be ashamed of sin. It would be a very bad thing if we lost our fear for that, wouldn't it? There are people of whom God complains in the Old Testament that they not only sinned, but when they sinned, they couldn't even blush. Some people are ashamed of blushing, aren't they? It can be a very good thing. Shows that we still are human, shows that we still have some sense of decency, shows that we have some respect for the moral order, that when we sin, we blush and are afraid of no- people knowing about it. Good, isn't it? Why do we fear? Because God has put a fear mechanism within us to help to preserve us. And we should notice, shouldn't we, that such, uh, emotions, such fear mechanisms that God has put within us are not under our immediate control, are they? Mercifully, they're not. If you're walking down the road, jaywalking, and you step off the pavement, and to your, uh, consternation, you hear a double-decker bus, uh, two feet behind you going at forty miles an hour. What do you do? You say you turn around and you say, now let me think, what do I do when I discover a double-decker bus doing forty two yards, uh, yards, uh, behind me? Of course you don't. You don't even stop to think. Your fear mechanism takes over, and you've jumped a yard onto the path, haven't you, before you know what you've done. Isn't that merciful? Because if you had to stop and think, you might be too slow in thinking, and that would be the end of you. Why are you afraid? What do you think disciples would be in a boat with the water coming over the sides and the boat nearly full and about to go down any minute? Why are you fearful? At one level, there's an obvious answer to it, isn't there? They would have been in human machines if they weren't fearful. But you see, why am I fearful? Sometimes I shall have to learn that while I, certain things make me afraid, I must do them. I must face them. When I was in Czechoslovakia just recently, they took me and showed me the places where the early Moravian believers first translated the scriptures into the Czech language, and showed me the pictures of their history and of the terrible persecutions that subsequently they endured. They showed me a picture of one man who, for his faith's sake, his faith in the gospel, and for his speaking of the gospel, was taken to a gibbet and nailed by his tongue to the gibbet and left there for so many hours, nailed to the post by his tongue. Who of us, I wonder, called upon to suffer like that for the Lord, wouldn't be afraid? Yes, but what we mustn't do, says Holy Scripture, is to allow that fear to dominate us. Luke tells us that on one occasion, when the crowd had objected to what they heard the Lord Jesus saying, their leaders were whipping up the crowd into a frenzy against him, and everything was beginning to look very ugly, and the crowd was so large and furious, they were beginning to trample on one another. And our Lord Jesus warned his disciples and said, now you beware of hypocrisy, won't you? Hypocrisy of the sort that pretends not to be what you really are. Do beware of that, he said. And you know, I think if I were in a crowd that were getting ugly, I should say to myself, well, now look here, Gooding, you don't need to confess the Lord just now. I mean, perhaps, uh, if you keep quiet, you'll be wiser and slip away, and then you'll live to preach another day. No, said the Lord Jesus. You know, you're trying to cover up what you really are. That's a form of hypocrisy. And anyway, if you try it, it will come out in the end. Look, said he, if you want to conquer your fear, the way to do it is this: learn to fear the thing that really should be feared, the biggest thing to fear. Don't fear them that can kill the body, and when they've killed the body, have no more they can do. Fear him rather who, when he has killed the body, could, uh, destroy both body and soul in hell. Fear him. And the bigger fear will cast out the lesser fear. Imagine you were on your holiday in the Alps somewhere, or perhaps in the Tatra Mountains of Chittatubek, and you had come to a very high mountain, and there was a chasm going down ten thousand feet, and there was just a plank across the chasm. And you stood there and you said, no, I can't possibly go over that. Oh no, I can't. No, I can't stand the heights. I, I, I, it would be terrible. I should fall over. You fear the heights. A very natural feeling in many people, isn't it? And suppose as you stood there quivering, you turned around and saw a great bear coming up behind. Now what would you do? I think you'd make your choice, and you'd be over the plank as hard as you could go. Why? Well, not because you didn't fear the plank, but because you feared the bear more than you feared the plank, and the bigger fear overcame the smaller fear. But our Lord, if you're going to fear, now get your fear in good proportion and fear the things that really ought to be feared. Of course, let me say in passing, sometimes the fear mechanism in our, our brains goes wrong, doesn't it? I mean, some folks, it gets jammed. It's sort of like a thermostat in a motor car. And perhaps you ladies don't know about that. I don't really know. I wouldn't know where to find it. But, uh, my car goes like that sometimes. There's a thing inside it somewhere called a thermostat, you'll see, and, uh, when the engine gets hot, then this thing expands and works and switches on the fans or something and makes it all get cool again, you'll say. And then sometimes it gets jammed and it doesn't work, and the car overheats, and you've got to stop forthwith, eh, till the thing is put right again. And sometimes that is so with our fear mechanism, isn't it? Through some special shock or some kind of wound, your fear mechanism will come on when it's not supposed to come on, and it will get jammed on, so people fear all sorts of things that they've no real objective need to fear at all. And if ever you came across anyone like that, well, do tell them, please do tell them. That's not a sign that they've lost their salvation or something. It's simply a little wire got crossed inside the fear mechanism. Tell them rather to go and seek some professional advice from someone who knows about that kind of thing, so that the crossed wire can be uncrossed, if it's possible to do it, and the old fear mechanism shut off. But granted that the fear mechanism is working as it should work, healthfully as God intended it, then here come lessons for the, from the Lord Jesus himself, how we are to control it. Why are you afraid, said he to the apostles in the boat? Why? You say they couldn't help it, surely. Well, yes, they could have done. And even with what limited knowledge they had of the Lord Jesus at that moment, they ought to have been able to control their fear, didn't they? They feared in the first place that the storm was going to have the boat at the bottom of the lake and the whole lot of them drowned. And to make it worse, the Lord Jesus was asleep, and it seemed as if he didn't even know what was happening. And they were afraid that he would keep asleep and they'd all be drowned before he woke up. And then they were afraid that he, uh, was asleep, and he not only didn't know, but he didn't really care. For one of the gospel writers tells us that, that they came and shook him, and they said, Lord, carest thou not? And that is a scary thing in life, isn't it? To meet some great problem that threatens disaster. That's bad enough, and naturally all our fears get moving. And if in that moment we think, or feel that the Lord has gone asleep somehow, and he's not really aware of what's happening, that makes it more scary still, doesn't it? And then if the idea gets into our hearts that he not only doesn't know, but he doesn't even care, then we feel desolate indeed, as though we had been abandoned by God himself. And it adds ten thousand times to our fear. How could they have controlled those fears? Why are you fearful, he said, oh, you of little faith? Why didn't they realize who it was in the boat? To say they didn't know him yet as the Son of God? Well, so, but the centurion of whom we read of, could read a few verses earlier. Even the Roman centurion had begun to wake up, had he not, to who the Lord Jesus was. For he said to the Lord Jesus, you've no need to come to my house. Speak only the word, he said, and my servant shall be cured. I too am a man under authority, said the centurion. I say to this one, go, and he goes, and to that one, come, and he comes. You speak, and death itself will depart. And if a centurion, an old Roman centurion, have been able to perceive that much of who the Lord Jesus was and act upon it. Surely the learned apostles ought to have perceived even more who Jesus really was, and believing it would have found the secret for overcoming their fears. If they were afraid, we've less excuse, haven't we? Who do you really believe the Lord Jesus is? Do you suppose that even while he was here on earth, it would have been possible for him to get drowned and go to the bottom of the lake because he happened to be asleep and didn't know about it. And the whole of God's work come unstuck, and the great plan of redemption never be accomplished because he happened to fall asleep just when there was a storm, and before he had the chance to wake up, he got to the bottom of the lake. Of course not. The thing is ludicrous, isn't it? We know a savior not merely who, being human, slept in the boat, but is risen again and at the right hand of God. This of he is he of whom scripture says that in him the whole vast universe was created, and through him and unto him. And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Nothing ever takes him by surprise, not in the vast great universe even. You'll notice, I expect, or if you haven't noticed, the scientists have told you that our universe is so big that light from the sun takes eight minutes to get here anyway. And if we had eyes big enough to see any events that were going on the s- on on the sun, well, they would happen, but it would be eight minutes before that we ever saw them, because that's how long it takes the light to get here. Some stars are so distant that it takes thousands of years for their light to get here. And if there were things going on in those stars and you could see them through some powerful telescope, what you would be looking at is not what is happening there now, but what did happen there, was happening thousands of years ago. And you know, it's not merely in the universe that we often are behind, it's in life, isn't it? Here's a good wife, and she's making her husband's dinner at night, for he's coming home as he always comes home at quarter to six every night, and she's making his dinner. She's expecting him any minute now, because, well, it's, it's twenty to six already. What she doesn't know is he's lying in bed in hospital in the Royal, had an accident. She won't find that out, you see, for another half an hour, perhaps an hour. We are always behind events, aren't we? Well, often behind events. We find out after they've happened. That never happens so to Jesus Christ, our Lord. He is always before all things. Nothing takes him by surprise. We'll say the story of the storm on the lake is not told us, is it, to assure us that we shall never suffer loss, never meet with an accident, never be killed. No. Yes, sometimes the Lord is pleased to intervene in our circumstances, isn't he, and save us from what looks like a disaster about to occur. He doesn't always. I can never think of this passage of scripture about the storm on the lake and the way the Lord Jesus saved his apostles, but what I think of my experience, oh, thirty and more years ago in Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk in England, where at the breaking of the bread after the Lord's Supper, a brother had got up and read this passage about the storm and exhorted us to trust the Lord, saying that if we trusted the Lord, we should find the boat never went down. And when he sat down, a gaunt and lean looking stranger, at least he was a stranger to me, got up, and quietly he said, my brothers, my sisters, sometimes the boat does go down. It was Dr. Tidmarsh reporting the first that anybody had heard in our part of the world, that his five colleagues, the young missionary men, had been killed by the Auca Indians. I never forgot the phrase. President, he said, sometimes the boat goes down. You say it would have been impossible for a boat to go down with the Lord in it? Well, perhaps so, until the time came, of course. There came a time when even with the Lord Jesus it was true. They let took his body down from the tree and they laid it in a sepulcher. Sometimes, you know, the boat goes down. Why would you fear? Not Calvary itself happened without his being aware of it first, did he? If he let it happen, that was all right. And if he lets our boat go down, it's not because he doesn't care. My brother, my sister, if he lets our boat go down, he is with us in that boat. For he's been through the ultimate, hasn't he? Himself has passed through death. By dying, he might put out of action him that has the power of death and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Why are you afraid? Oh, we could be afraid because of pain, natural mechanism of fear inside us, couldn't we? But ultimately, our Lord Jesus assures us nothing shall harm you. Not death itself ultimately harms a believer. How can I overcome my fear? What would you do, Mum? Suppose you've got a little toddler, he's just beginning to toddle around about the place, and he's following you with the housework, and this morning you've got the Hoover out, haven't you? And for the first time, to his knowledge, he hasn't known these things about before, but for the first time in his knowledge, you switch it on and it makes that hideous noise that hoovers make, or used to make, at least when I, when I used them, that's a long time ago. Ah, ah ha. And the child is thrown into convulsions of fear at this hideous noise and this great monster with its snake-like tube going across the carpet. And you know he doesn't need to fear it. Uh, how would you help him overcome his fear? Might be a long process, mightn't it? But little by little, getting a little cat's confidence to see what this thing actually is and dare to come and touch it and dare to look it in the face and dare to hear the noise and then find out that it didn't harm. How can I overcome my fear? By asking myself again and again and again and again, who is this Jesus Christ who travels with me over life's sea in the same boat as I travel in? Who is he? I love the words of that hymn that says, I leave it all with Jesus day by day. Faith can firmly trust him, come what may. Worlds on worlds are hanging on his hand. Life and death are waiting his command. Yet his tender bosom makes the rule. He rose and rebuked the wave and the wind, and he holds authority and power over them. Fear. Why did you fear? Why did you doubt, says our Lord to Peter? And I feel like saying the same thing when I hear the Lord say that. I say, well, with all due respect, Lord, but did you suppose I set out to doubt then? You say, what did you doubt for? Well, I didn't doubt for anything. I mean to say I didn't set out to doubt. I wanted to believe. But these doubts assailed me. Yes. From time to time, doubts assail everybody, don't they? I suppose there are believers, though I've never met them, who've never been plagued with doubts ever. But my little experience suggests that more believers are troubled with doubt in their hearts from time to time than actually allow other folks to know. Why do you doubt? Well, some people doubt even before they come to the Lord Jesus, don't they? And doubt can be simply a smoke screen, uh, by which we deceive ourselves, because behind our doubts we have moral problems, maybe. We instinctively recognize that if Jesus is the Son of God, then our behavior has been wrong and sinful. And rather than face that, then we're looking around for things to doubt, holes to pick in scripture, reasons why we shouldn't believe, till eventually we forget the real reason why we entertained the doubts, why we almost welcomed the doubts. The only way to get rid of those doubts is to face the original moral problem that gave rise to them. There's not always, is it, that we've got some secret moral problem that we don't want to face that gives rise to doubt. For instance, you take that worthy man, Nathaniel. When Philip came dancing down the road to preach the gospel to Nathaniel and said, we have found the Messiah. Nathaniel was immediately filled with every kind of doubt. Can any good thing, said he, come out of Nazareth? Could it possibly be true? The reason for his doubting, of course, was not his fault, it was Philip's fault, wasn't it? Philip came saying, we have found him of whom Moses and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth. And Nathaniel, knowing the Old Testament, knew that the Messiah should be born not in Nazareth, but Bethlehem. Why didn't Philip think to tell him we found Jesus of Bethlehem? It would made it easy, wouldn't it, instead of putting unnecessary difficulties in the man's path and making it difficult for him to believe. By presenting a message that was true in part and then all mixed up with mistakes in the other part. We may be grateful that Nathaniel solved the problem of his doubt. Instead of shouting behind it, he said, all right, Philip, you say come and see, I'll come and see. I will meet the person himself. That is number one tactic to be, uh, adopted in facing the question of doubt, to come and see. Come to the Lord Jesus. Tell him your doubts, and let him dispel them. It was so, wasn't it, with that famous doubter, at least so he's called, Thomas, who, being absent the first Sunday that the Lord appeared to his apostles, and being told by the apostles, we've seen the Lord, you know, Thomas, he said, well, sorry, if you believe that, well, that's okay by me. You believe it. If you get comfort out of it, well, that's all right, but as far as I'm concerned, I couldn't possibly believe that, my brethren. Well, he was honest, wasn't he? What is the use of pretending we don't have doubts when we do have doubts? You know, when Philip, uh, when Thomas had his doubts about the Lord's resurrection, it wasn't because he didn't love the Lord, was he? When the Lord, uh, sometime earlier had said to his apostles, I'm now going to Judea to deal with my good friend Lazarus, who's fallen asleep. The apostles said, don't go, Lord, for the Jews will s- stone you, they'll kill you if you go. I know that, said Pilate. I shall go nonetheless. Then said Thomas, well, all right, let's go with him, brethren, that we may die with him. Absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus. He was simply, when faced with this idea that Jesus had bodily risen from the dead, he couldn't take it in. Wasn't any indication of disloyalty to the Lord Jesus. Being honest, he expressed his doubt. And said, except I see the print in his hand. Go. I know that, said Pius. I shall go nonetheless. Then said Thomas, well, all right, let's go with him, brethren, that we may die with him. Absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus. It was simply when faced with this idea that Jesus had bodily risen from the dead, he couldn't take it in. Wasn't any indication of disloyalty to the Lord Jesus. Being honest, he expressed his doubt and said, except I see the print in his hands and side, I will not. What did the Lord Jesus do? Why, the next Sunday he appeared, and straightway he said, Thomas, I believe you were asking for some evidence to help you get over your doubts, Thomas. Well, here it is, Thomas. Uh, put your finger into my print of the nails in my wrist, Tom- Thomas, and thrust your hand into my side. You wanted evidence? Well, here it is, Thomas. Said our Lord, you haven't chosen the best kind of evidence that you could think of, have you? Because the evidence of touch and the evidence of sight in the end is not the highest kind of evidence that you could have. There's stronger evidence than that. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed, and believed on greater and firmer evidence than the evidence of sight and touch. But Thomas, if you must have evidence, here it is. And I have found through a long career, sailed by external doubts, if not internal ones. And whenever I've had my real doubts about Holy Scripture, is it true? Is the gospel true? Or is the whole thing made up by religiously minded people? Is it a psychological deception? I found that if you take those doubts to the Lord and say, Lord, well, here are my doubts. Lord, you give me the evidence. It's not by trying to overcome the doubt, it is by applying to the Savior for the evidence that he overcomes the doubt. We cannot forget, can we, the kindness of our blessed Lord, when even such an one as John the Baptist fell into a period of doubting the Savior. And sent messengers to the Lord Jesus saying, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another? Poor old John. You say he shouldn't have doubted like that. How did it come that the great forerunner, the biggest of all the prophets, fell to doubting? You say, surely he didn't doubt that the Lord Jesus was the Christ. Well, there was something he doubted, wasn't there? We'll say John had come, and in the name of the Lord Jesus, the coming Messiah, he had preached that when the Messiah came, he would baptize people with the Holy Spirit. That is, he would give people eternal life. And then said John, he will also, with his fan thoroughly clean his threshing floor, grain he'll gather into the garner, the chaff he'll burn up with unquenchable fire. That is, our Lord will give eternal life to the believers. He will judge and bring eternal judgment on the impenitent. And then John had faced that wicked old King Herod and publicly denounced him in the name of the coming Messiah for his immorality, and Herod had responded by putting John in prison. And it seems to me that John had expected that, well, now was the time for Jesus Christ to prove himself. Here was an impenitent rascal, Herod, who had defied the gospel and defied our Lord's forerunner and publicly rejected the preaching of the gospel and the call to repentance. Must not the Messiah come and deal with him and publicly let John out of prison and show the world what the Messiah thought of such impenitent rascals as him? The Lord Jesus didn't come anywhere near the prison. And Herod went on in his old adultery and evil, utterly unchecked, and no bolts came from the blue, no visitation of judgment from the Messiah. John, like a good many more before him, felt a wondering, well, well, how long is it going on? If Christ has come to deal with the wicked, how long, O Lord, will you not, uh, rise up, put evil men down? Are you really the Messiah then, said he? Or do we wait for another? How had he made his mistake? Well, yes, Jesus was the Messiah, and our blessed Lord sent messengers to John and said, tell John what you see and hear. Tell him of my lovely miracles of healing. I'm doing things that the prophet Isaiah prophesied I would do, and the poor are hearing the gospel, and men and women are finding God and finding forgiveness and finding eternal life. Men and women are finding healing. Tell John that, and he will see that I'm fulfilling one part of the prophecy. But the other part, the execution of the judgment of God upon this evil world. No, John, that's not. Yet his tender bosom makes the room. He rose and rebuked the wave and the wind, and he holds authority and power over them still. Fear. Why did you fear? Why did you doubt, says our Lord to Peter? And I feel like saying the same thing when I hear the Lord say that. I say, well, with all due respect, Lord, but did you suppose I set out to doubt then? You say, what did you doubt for? Well, I didn't doubt for anything. I mean to say I didn't set out to doubt. I wanted to believe. But these doubts assailed me. Yes. Yes. From time to time, doubts assail everybody, don't they? I suppose there are believers, though I've never met them, who've never been plagued with doubts ever. But my little experience suggests that more believers are troubled with doubt in their hearts from time to time than actually allow other folks to know. Why do you doubt? Because some people doubt even before they come to the Lord Jesus, don't they? And doubt can be simply a smoke screen by which we deceive ourselves, because behind our doubts we have moral problems, maybe. We instinctively recognize that if Jesus is the Son of God, then our behavior has been wrong and sinful. And rather than face that, then we're looking around for things to doubt, holes to pick in scripture, reasons why we shouldn't believe, till eventually we forget the real reason why we entertain the doubts, why we almost welcomed the doubts. The only way to get rid of those doubts is to face the original moral problem that gave rise to them. It is not always, is it, that we've got some secret moral problem that we don't want to face that gives rise to doubt. For instance, you take that worthy man, Nathaniel. When Philip came dancing down the road to preach the gospel to Nathaniel and said, we have found the Messiah, Nathaniel was immediately filled with every kind of doubt. Can any good thing, said he, come out of Nazareth? Could it possibly be true? The reason for his doubting, of course, was not his fault, it was Philip's fault, wasn't it? Philip came saying, we have found him of whom Moses and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth. And Nathaniel, knowing the Old Testament, knew that the Messiah should be born not in Nazareth, but Bethlehem. Why didn't Philip think to tell him we found Jesus of Bethlehem? It would made it easy, wouldn't it, instead of putting unnecessary difficulties in the man's path and making it difficult for him to believe, by presenting a message that was true in part and then all mixed up with mistakes in the other part. We may be grateful that Nathaniel solved the problem of his doubt. Instead of sheltering behind it, he said, all right, Philip, you say come and see, I'll come and see. I will meet the person himself. That is number one tactic to be, uh, adopted in facing the question of doubt, to come and see. Come to the Lord Jesus, fill in your doubts, and let him dispel them. It was so, wasn't it, with that famous doubter, at least so he's called, Thomas, who, being absent the first Sunday that the Lord appeared to his apostles, and being told by the apostles, we've seen the Lord, you know, Thomas, he said, well, sorry, if you believe that, well, that's okay by me. You believe it. If you get comfort out of it, well, that's all right, but I thought as far as I'm concerned, I couldn't possibly believe that, my brethren. Well, he was honest, wasn't he? What is the use of pretending we don't have doubts when we do have doubts? You know, when Philip, uh, when Thomas had his doubts about the Lord's resurrection, it wasn't because he didn't love the Lord, was he? When the Lord, uh, sometime earlier had said to his apostles, I'm now going to Judea to deal with my good friend Lazarus, who's fallen asleep. The apostles said, don't go, Lord, for the Jews will s- stone you, they'll kill you if you go. I know that, said Christ. I shall go nonetheless. Then said Thomas, well, all right, let's go with him, brethren, that we may die with him. Absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus. He was simply, when faced with this idea that Jesus had bodily risen from the dead, he couldn't take it in. Wasn't any indication of disloyalty to the Lord Jesus. Being honest, he expressed his doubt and said, except I see the print in his hand. Oh, I know that, said Caius. I shall go nonetheless. Then said Thomas, well, all right, let's go with him, brethren, that we may die with him. Absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus. It was simply when faced with this idea that Jesus had bodily risen from the dead, he couldn't take it in. Wasn't any indication of disloyalty to the Lord Jesus. Being honest, he expressed his doubt. And said, except I see the print in his hands inside, I will not believe. What did the Lord Jesus do? Why, the next Sunday he appeared, and straightway he said, Thomas, I believe you were asking for some evidence to help you get over your doubts, Thomas. Well, here it is, Thomas. Uh, put your finger into my print of the nails in my wrist, Tom- Thomas, and thrust your hand into my side. You wanted evidence? Well, here it is, Thomas. Said our Lord, you haven't chosen the best kind of evidence that you could think of, have you? Because the evidence of touch and the evidence of sight in the end is not the highest kind of evidence that you could have. There's stronger evidence than that. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed, and believed on greater and firmer evidence than the evidence of sight and touch. But Thomas, if you must have evidence, here it is. And I have found through a long career, sailed by external doubts, if not internal ones. And whenever I've had my real doubts about Holy Scripture, is it true? Is the gospel true? Or is the whole thing made up by religiously minded people? Is it a psychological deception? I found that if you take those doubts to the Lord and say, Lord, well, here are my doubts. Lord, you give me the evidence. It's not by trying to overcome the doubt, it is by applying to the Savior for the evidence that he overcomes the doubt. We cannot forget, can we, the kindness of our blessed Lord, when even such an one as John the Baptist fell into a period of doubting the Savior. And sent messengers to the Lord Jesus saying, art thou he that should come, or do we look for another? Poor old John. You say he shouldn't have doubted like that. How did it come that the great forerunner, the biggest of all the prophets, fell to doubting? You say, surely he didn't doubt that the Lord Jesus was the Christ. Well, there was something he doubted, wasn't there? We'll say John had come, and in the name of the Lord Jesus, the coming Messiah, he had preached that when the Messiah came, he would baptize people with the Holy Spirit. That is, he would give people eternal. And then, said John, he will also, with his fan, thoroughly clean his threshing floor, grain he'll gather into the garner, the chaff he'll burn up with unquenchable fire. That is, our Lord would give eternal life to the believers. He will judge and bring eternal judgment on the impenitent. And then John had faced that wicked old king Herod and publicly denounced him in the name of the coming Messiah for his immorality, and Herod had responded by putting John in prison. And it seems to me that John had expected that, well, now was the time for Jesus Christ to prove himself. Here was an impenitent rascal, Herod, who had defied the gospel and defied our Lord's forerunner and publicly rejected the preaching of the gospel and the call to repentance. Must not the Messiah come and deal with him and publicly let John out of prison and show the world what the Messiah thought of such impenitent rascals as Herod? The Lord Jesus didn't come anywhere near the prison. And Herod went on in his old adultery and evil, utterly unchecked, and no bolts came from the blue, no visitation of judgment from the Messiah. John, like a good many more before him, felt a wondering, well, well, how long is it going on? If Christ has come to deal with the wicked, how long, O Lord, will you not, uh, rise up, put evil men down? Are you really the Messiah, then, said he? Or do we wait for another? How had he made his mistake? Well, yes, Jesus was the Messiah, and our blessed Lord sent messengers to John and said, tell John what you see in here. Tell him of my lovely miracles of healing. I'm doing things that the prophet Isaiah prophesied I would do, and the poor are hearing the gospel, and men and women are finding God and finding forgiveness and finding eternal life. Men and women are finding healing. Tell John that, and he will see that I'm fulfilling one part of the prophecy. But the other part, the execution of the judgment of God upon this evil world. No, John, that's not coming yet. It was never meant to come yet. That lies in the future. The tears will be allowed to grow with the wheat until the harvest, and then shall the judgment come. For failure to understand the timing of God's works, John got stumbled, didn't he, in his faith. Sometimes believers come to doubts that way. Some five years ago, four years ago, I was being driven in the car to Heathrow Airport after a weekend of Christian conference. Sitting on the side, on the seat by the side of me was a friend of mine, a younger man in his late uh thirties, a delightful believer, been converted as a student, who's giving his life to the Lord and in the service of the Lord. To cut a long story short, he had been, in the last two years, afflicted with a tumor on the brain. They had operated and done what they could. He sat on the back seat of the car with me. Said he, David, I've been told that we can claim healing through the atonement, and it's a tremendous comfort to me, and I'm claiming healing through the atonement. What do you think of it, Dave? I found that a very difficult question to have to face in those circumstances. I said, you know, I believe God is a God of healing. The Psalm says, doesn't it? He heals all our diseases. That is, those diseases that get healed. God's a God of healing, isn't he? Cut your finger. Well, don't if you don't have to, but if you do, you cut your finger and you'll find that God has anticipated the wound and he's put a mechanism in your finger, and all sorts of things will begin to happen. It will bleed, and then it will coagulate, and then there will come a rove on it, and all sorts of things happen. For the body has an inbuilt mechanism so that if you cut your finger, it can heal itself. It was the loving kindness of God that put the mechanism there. If you don't ever cut yourself, it won't ever need to work, but if you do, it's there so that you can recover from cutting your finger. If it weren't there, you'd bleed to death. And in that sense, you'll see it is God, isn't it, that who heals all our diseases. The old wise men used to say in Latin, it is the medic, the doctor who treats you, it is God who heals you. God hadn't put the healing mechanism there. The doctors could do what they like, and you'll never be healed. God who heals all our diseases, and he doesn't do it just for the believer, does he? He does it for unbelievers as well. He's kind to the just and the unjust. God does heal. That's nothing to do with the atonement. That's nature. And sometimes God, in his infinite mercy, is prepared to do a miracle of healing. We believe that, don't we? I suspect you do. And every time a member of the assembly gets ill at our prayer meeting, we mention his or her name, don't we, and call upon God if in his mercy he will, even now, when the doctors have come to the end of their resources, that even now God might be pleased to intervene and raise that one up by a miracle of his grace. I hope you still believe that much. Because why? Has nothing to do with the atonement either. But I to my friend, what we can't do actually is to claim that we have healing through the atonement. We have forgiveness through the atonement? Yes, now. And the weakest believer, the moment he or she believes the Savior, has forgiveness. And you see, if I believe on the Savior and you come to me and you say, have you got forgiveness? And I say, well, some days I think I have and some days I think I haven't. Please don't say to me, that's because your faith isn't strong enough. Now, only if you only had strong enough faith, you'd get forgiveness. No, sir. Don't have to have strong faith to get forgiven. The very moment the weakest little hand of faith goes out to the Savior, that moment the person is forgiven. If atonement and healing were through the atonement, and the moment we ask for it in the name of the crucified Christ, we should get it whether our faith was strong or weak. I said, what we can get through the atonement, my good friend, is the redemption of our bodies. Oh, thank the Lord for that. We have forgiveness now, but along with the rest of creation, we groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, that is the redemption of our bodies. All that will be far more than a healing. When the blessed Lord comes, and the dead in Christ shall rise, and we which are alive and remain shall be changed and caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air, our very bodies redeemed, and we be given a body like unto his glorious body. That's what we can claim through the redemption, through the atonement. The Bible tells us quite plainly when that redemption is going to come. Not now. Redemption of our body waits until the Lord comes. And my friend who was listening to this, sitting on the ca- in the car with a tumor on his brain, and clutching to the idea that he could claim healing through the atonement. He turned and he said to me, David, you're telling me what I don't want to hear. So we parted. And two or three months after that, I got a letter full of hallelujahs from beginning to end. I've just been to the hospital. The doctors can't face- find a trace of the tumor. I'm healed, thank God he's honored my faith. I claimed it, and he's given it. Three months after that, I got a letter from his widow. And she said, I feel like somebody who has climbed a terribly steep and dangerous mountainside, led by a guide, and has got to the top, and instead of finding a lovely, beautiful, flower-covered plain, I find it goes down immediately down a precipice to a chasm below, and looking round, the guide has deserted me. My husband died yesterday. Ah. When we claim things that we shouldn't claim and have no scripture for claiming, then it can lead to doubt, can't it? John did that. But how better Peter's example, when he got out of the boat to come to the Lord Jesus, and looking at the waves, he began to sink. And the Lord raised him up and said, Peter, what did you go and doubt for? Well, one thing I'm glad about that story, the Lord didn't watch him going down into the waters and say, Peter, you jolly well deserve it, Peter, you shouldn't have doubted. No, when the man began to sink because he doubted, the Lord grabbed him and lifted him up, and then preached the sermon to him. What a lovely Savior he is, isn't he? You'll say, why did Peter doubt? He needn't have done either. If he'd kept his eye on this, not merely on the person of the Lord Jesus, but on the fact that when he came out of the boat, he had the word of the Lord Jesus for it. He said, as you, Lord, bid me come to the, to thee on the water, and the Lord said, come. It wasn't over any overzealousness or excitement. He had the plain word of Christ for it. And in response to that word, he walked. When he looked around at the difficulty and forgot the Lord and forgot the word, he began to sing. All but thank God, because he was responding to the word of the Lord. There stood the Savior ready to save him. For the soul that on Jesus has leant for repose, he'll never, no, never desert to its foes. That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, he'll never, no, never, no, never forsake. Why did you doubt when you had my word for doing it? And finally, said he to the apostles as they were rowing across the lake, why do reasonings arise in your heart? I don't know about you, but as I say, I feel like replying to the Lord Jesus, what do you mean, why? Do you think I lie there tossing on my bed with all sorts of reasons are going around in my head and thoughts chasing themselves around like a dog after its own tail? Um, because I want to. I'd gladly switch him off if I could. I can't. You see, the situation was they got into this boat and they're going across the lake, and the Lord began to talk to them a spiritual lesson. He said, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. And with that word leaven, you know how words will do sometimes, don't you? They'll provoke some thought in your mind, starts a whole chain of thought buzzing around in the head, and you can't concentrate on what the preacher's saying anymore because of all these thoughts that have come into your head. Hm. Happens sometimes to the good ladies, you know, they're eh eh going to entertain the visiting preacher for lunch, and he gets up to preach after the Lord's Sup and goes on a long while, and he happens to talk about food. Have I put the potatoes on, and ah, and do you think the oven has clicked on like it should, and when is the man going to stop preaching anyway, and ah... And the thoughts go round in the old head, don't they? And you can't listen to what the man's saying, you might as well leave off. I worked as a farmer's boy years and years ago. My dear boss was a Christian man, a delightful Christian man, but how many times he would sit in the evening meeting in the assembly there. And this was Sunday night, of course, and on Monday he had to, uh, decide what forty employees had to do on the farm. They couldn't afford to have forty men just sit twiddling their thumbs and do nothing. And you see, it would all depend on the weather. And perhaps he set them to do a task on Monday, and as he sat in the gospel meeting, the rain began to pill on the roof, absolute deluge. And what do you suppose then went through the man's mind? When he also concentrated on the word of God, he sure do. Yeah. Well, I could understand if instead of listening to the preacher, he was thinking about what was he going to do with those forty men tomorrow morning. Difficult, my brother, sometimes to switch off from business of the day, isn't it, to attend to the Bible reading. Difficult sometimes to switch off in bed, my dear sister. Well, thoughts go chasing through your mind. How we're going to move next month more. What is the secret? Said our Lord Jesus to them. When he perceived what was happening, they weren't really listening to him, as all these thoughts are chasing around their head. Why? Well, he said, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and with the word leaven, it made them think of ordinary leaven and bread, and they, oh, oh, oh, we've forgotten to take bread. What shall we do for dinner when we get the other side? They were so worried about that, they couldn't listen to what the Lord was saying anymore. Distracted by practical matters and taking attention to their spiritual lesson. Said our Lord Jesus to them, well, gentlemen, just a minute. Do you remember? When we, I fed the five thousand? how many basket loads of fragments did you take out? Oh, they said so many. And when I, uh, fed the seven thousand, how many basket loads, uh, loads did you take up of fragments? Oh, they said so many. Well, gentlemen, he said, why don't you use a little logic? Start with remembering how I got you out of difficulties in time past. And if I would do it then, use a bit of logic, wouldn't you? Wouldn't I do it again? How do I stop those old thoughts of chasing around? Well, it's one way of starting anyway to remember the past and the times I was worried before, and the way I saw Christ come in and meet the need. Yes, and if I try to do that myself, I have a confession to make. There have been times when I've been extraordinarily worried and couldn't forget it, you know, and then the Lord has provided, and I said to myself, you foolish man, you, why did you worry? Now the next time it happens, now I shall trust the Lord. And the next time it happened... I worried all over again. Well, you're better Christians than that, don't do more sense in your head. But the technique is to remember what he did in the past and to learn to argue that the Lord isn't irresponsible or inconsistent if he provided in the past, we may be certain he will provide in the future. His love in time past forbids me to think, he'll leave me at last in trouble to sink. Each sweet Ebenezer I have in review confirms his good pleasure to see me right full. He knows I need the time to think about spiritual things. I've a big eternity to prepare for, haven't I? What a shame if I let worry about mere material things so engross me that I hadn't got time and mental energy enough to think about those spiritual lessons I need to learn in order to prepare for God's great eternity. But your father knows, says the Lord. Think what he's done in the past. It'll give you confidence to trust him that he'll do it again for you in the future. Shall we pray? So, Lord, from the ancient page of these past history, thy voice speaks to us still. O Lord, thou knowest our hearts. None of us can be, uh, able to to claim that we are without fear always, or doubt or worry. Yet, Lord, we thank thee for thy patience and thy grace. Even when thou dost rebuke us, thy rebukes are gentle, they do not break upon our head. Thou whose yoke is easy and thy burden is light, look upon our hearts this evening, we beseech thee. Apply the ointment, the calming ointment of thy grace, thy presence, and thy word. Teach us, Lord, so to know thee, so to trust thee, so to concentrate on thee, that our fears may be under thy feet, our doubts under thy word, our distractions banished by thy faithfulness, for thy name's sake. Amen.