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July 19, 2023
What do we say to someone who professes to have faith but has plaguing doubts about the existence of God or the inspiration of the Bible, or has difficulty having faith in God? These are questions that shouldn’t be dismissed with an admonition to simply “believe” despite a seeming lack of evidence. Let’s look one by one at the three doubts and see how they can be addressed.
1. The Existence of God
“The existence of God is unprovable. We simply accept it by faith.” That’s a common thought, but it’s not true. It has nothing to do with faith. This is why:
For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God. (Hebrews 3:4)
No house ever built itself. Its very existence is evidence of a builder. Even if the builder had died fifty years ago, we know he existed. The building is proof of a builder, without a doubt. No faith is needed. All we need is eyes that can see.
Everything we see—gorgeous flowers, amazing birds, life-giving trees, cute puppies and kittens, delicious fruits, the four seasons, the marvel of the human eye, the miracle of childbirth, male and female in each species, etc.—shows us the genius of God’s creative hand. These things are clearly seen:
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. (Romans 1:20, emphasis added)
The existence of God is clearly seen in His creation. That’s why we are without excuse and why the Scriptures relegate an atheist to being nothing but a fool (Psalm 14:1).
2. The Inspiration of the Bible
The Great Commission of Mark 16:15 doesn’t say to go into all the world and convince people that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. Rather, it says to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (emphasis added). This is because the gospel is the power of God to salvation (Romans 1:16). In other words, the gospel is the means by which sinners are saved.
Let’s imagine that I neglect to proclaim the gospel and instead try to convince a skeptic that the Bible is God-inspired. And let’s imagine that by appealing to logic, I’m able to convince him that the account of God creating Adam and Eve does makes sense—and therefore can be believed. I now have the formidable task of convincing him that it was also logical that a serpent spoke to Eve, that Methuselah lived for 969 years, that Noah built an ark and filled it with animals, that Moses opened the Red Sea, that the walls of Jericho fell down with a shout, that Samson’s strength was in his hair, that Balaam’s donkey spoke with a man’s voice, and that Jonah was swallowed by a big fish. And I haven’t even begun to try to convince him that Jesus did walk on water, that He calmed a storm with His voice, raised Lazarus from the dead by speaking to his corpse, told Peter to catch a fish with a coin in its mouth, and raised Himself from the dead after three days in the grave (see John 2:19-21), etc.
“Everything we see—gorgeous flowers, amazing birds, life-giving trees, cute puppies and kittens, delicious fruits, the four seasons, the marvel of the human eye, the miracle of childbirth, male and female in each species, etc.—shows us the genius of God’s creative hand.”
If I take a skeptic down Intellectual Avenue, it will more than likely do him a great disservice. This is because, if his faith is merely intellectual—with no knowledge of sin and the cross and no biblical repentance—he is still unsaved. The Scriptures say:
And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:4-5)
When the Pharisees asked Jesus for a sign, He pointed to the power of the gospel:
But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” (Matthew 12:39-40)
When a sinner repents and trusts in Jesus, he is made a new creature. Old things pass away, and all things become new (2 Corinthians 5:17). He is radically born again with a new heart and new desires. He once drank iniquity like water, but now he thirsts for righteousness. The new life that came through the power of the gospel is the irrefutable sign that God gives the sinner. He gives him his own personal miracle.
“A Christian may get depressed, saddened, fearful, sickened by moral decay, disappointed, or even in despair of life. But in our trials we should never entertain the sin of not trusting the promises of God.”
After more than 50 years, I am still reeling at the radical nature of my conversion. The Bible suddenly came alive, and it explained to me what had happened. I had been born again. I had passed from darkness to light, from death to life. Faith was suddenly present. That is normal biblical conversion.
If we forsake the Law in its capacity to show sin to be exceedingly sinful (Romans 7:7,13) and instead use intellectual arguments to reach the lost, we will continue to have the common oxymoron of the doubting believer sitting in our churches.
3. Difficulty Having Faith in God
Life is built on trust. We trust banks with our finances, dentists with our teeth, surgeons with our bodies, and pilots with our lives. We trust mechanics to fix our brakes and traffic lights to get us through an intersection. We eat food prepared by unseen hands in restaurants, trusting that they are clean, and we eat food in cans at home, trusting that they’re salmonella free. The alternative to daily exercising trust would be to live in paranoia.
Not to have faith in someone is an insult. Tell your spouse that you don’t trust him or her, and it could ruin your relationship. Tell your boss that you don’t trust him, and it won’t be long until you’re out of a job. To fail to trust someone is to insult him. It’s to say that he is untrustworthy—that you think he is devious, not worthy of your faith.
How much more, then, is it an insult not to have faith in God? The Bible says, “He who does not believe God has made Him a liar” (1 John 5:10). It also says:
Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. (Hebrews 3:12, emphasis added)
The angel of the Lord immediately struck Zacharias dumb because of his unbelief (Luke 1:20). Jesus rebuked His disciples on the road to Emmaus because of their lack of faith. He called them “foolish ones, and slow of heart” because they didn’t believe the Scriptures (Luke 24:25). The Bible says that without faith it’s impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6).
Look at Scripture:
We were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:8-9, emphasis added)
A Christian may get depressed, saddened, fearful, sickened by moral decay, disappointed, or even in despair of life. But in our trials we should never entertain the sin of not trusting the promises of God. We know that despite the darkest circumstances, we always have the bright light of our trust in God. It is our life-sustaining oxygen. Trials bring the true believer closer to God. Storms send roots deeper into the soil. This is the message of the wonderful faith chapter of Hebrews 11.
If you have been a doubting “believer,” may I encourage you to first ask God to forgive you for not trusting His precious promises. Then, read the Bible daily, believe it with all of your heart, and obey it without question. That’s trust in action. You will never go wrong.