Doubt and Fear- What Does The Bible Say About Doubt

Welcome to episode 84, John 1:1.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Welcome to episode 84. I'm going to continue our talk on doubt and fear, and we're going to concentrate on doubt today and what the Bible says about doubt. And if you're just joining us for the first time, I want to thank you for being a part of this episode. And if you have not clicked the subscribe button, if you like what you hear, go ahead and subscribe. If you are a frequent flyer, thank you again for coming back, you fanatic, and I hope you are having a great day. And here we go, we're going to get into this doubt. We've talked about fear in the previous episode, and that God had not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. But doubt and fear kind of goes hand in hand, and that's kind of why I've called this whole podcast No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe. And so we've got the two negatives in front of, and then the positives, was to kind of clarify what I've got as the doubt and the fear, as we've just named it or exposed them, then we can destroy them using the Bible. And that's why I get on my soapbox all the time. If you've listened to me multiple times, you'll know that I'm always encouraging you, not begging, but strongly encouraging you to get into your Bible. Read your Bible, dig into the Bible, plant the Bible into you. It's the incorruptible seed. It is the water, it's living water, so much bread of life, and it is Jesus. The Word was God, and the Word was with God, and the Word became flesh. You know the whole routine, but the Bible is Jesus. The Bible is the word of God, and the Bible is the only truth that we have in this world. Now, people can argue with it, and if you're kind of rolling your eyes right now, you need to dig in and you need to prove that it's not true. I'm telling you, for the last 28 years, I've dug into this thing and it has changed my life. It is incredible the things that it has taught me, and it is incredible the peace that I get. From reading the Word of God and spending time with God. And by staying in the Bible, my relationship and my faith is strengthened by reading the Word. And so I want to talk about doubt right now. And I think a synonym or a similar word for doubt would be unbelief. And it's easier to find how Jesus talked about, or the Bible talked about, unbelief than it is doubt. So when we see doubt I want you to picture unbelief. When Jesus talks about unbelief, you can put the word in doubt. And sometimes he'll say doubt and unbelief, but it starts with— I believe the biggest problem with where unbelief comes is the hardness of your heart. And if you think Jesus was all lovey-dovey, touchy-feely with his disciples, you obviously have not read the Bible. Because Jesus, when he was teaching his disciples, He would get onto them. He would say, "How long am I gonna suffer with you?" And all of this stuff, it's incredible 'cause he's trying, he knows, Jesus knows that he came here to die and he's got 3, 3.5 years of ministry with these men. He know God's ways is knowing the end from the beginning. So Jesus knows that his end is the cross and he's got so many days to get this into these people and his disciples, and he knows that, you know, he— and he gets a little bit frustrated. And I don't know if God can get frustrated or not. I know I can. You know, Jesus is saying, how long am I going to suffer with you? Bring him to me. And let me go to that real quick, and I want to pick up the story. It's in Mark 9, and I mean, we're going to start at 14. There's a lot of scripture, but if you've listened in previous episodes, you know I do a lot of scripture. And when he came to the disciples He saw a great multitude around them and the scribes disputing with them. Immediately when they saw him, all the people were greatly amazed and running to him greeted him. And he asked the scribes, "What are you discussing with them?" One of the crowd answered and said, "Teacher, I brought you my son who has a mute spirit, and whenever it seizes him, it throws him down. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid. So I spoke to your disciples, that they should cast it out, but they could not. 43:19 He answered him and said, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him to me. 43:20 Then they brought him to him, and when he saw him, immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth. 43:21 He asked his father, How long has this been happening to him? And he said, From childhood. And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. Jesus said to him, If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes. Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help my unbelief! When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you to come out of him and enter him no more. Then the spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly, and came out of him, and he became as one dead, so that many said, he is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up. He arose. And when he had come into the house, his disciples asked him privately. Well, I want to stop there. That was a mouthful. I want you to see how Jesus handled that. First thing, They had just come down, James and John and Peter had come down from the Mount of Transfiguration and they had just seen Jesus transfigured on this mountain with Moses and Elijah. It was phenomenal. Then they come down and when they come down to this mountain, they've got all these people gathered together. You know, they had tried to cast out this demon and his disciples couldn't do it. You know, and I want you to notice what Jesus, how Jesus acted. Jesus didn't say, "Oh guys, it's okay." 'You tried your best. It's not a big deal. Let me bring him here.' He didn't say any of that. He said, 'You faithless and perverse generation, how long am I going to suffer?' And I'm paraphrasing, but how long am I going to have to deal with this? How long am I going to be here dealing with this mess? I'm dealing with the same thing. And then he turns to the father, who, you know, he starts asking the father questions. And he said, 'You know, how long has this been happening?' And then the father talks about how long it's been happening. And I want you to understand too, while all this is going on, this boy— this demon is convulsing, convulsing this child. I mean, I think it's kind of— in, in my mind, it's like an epileptic fit, but the demon is convulsing this child. And Jesus just turns to the father and says, how long has this been happening? You know, there's a strength, there's a peace of knowing what you're going to do, and you've got the faith. I think it was Ronald— President Reagan that said peace through strength. And when you start thinking about what Reagan did as president, Reagan said, you know, we need peace, we need to have strength, we're going to have peace through strength. And I think if you can kind of picture that in your mind, Jesus had all power, all authority. People were astounded by his authority. But he, he talked to this father. I want you to go back to the scene. This boy is convulsing on the ground, and then he starts asking the father questions. How long has this been happening? The father then says, he often throws himself into the fire and into the water, but if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. And I just want you to hear the desperation in the father's voice. You know, he's taken him to the disciples. The disciples had already, you know, he sent them out in pairs in previous chapters and, you know, the previous time where they came back and saying, man, even the demons are subject to us. So the disciples had seen success. They knew how to cast demons out and they knew how to heal people and all that stuff. They don't know what's going on here. But Jesus asked him and then the doubt in his, you know, in the Father, "If you can help, if you can do anything." And Jesus, you know, said, I kind of see God with his eyebrow up, "What? Do anything?" And then Jesus said, If, if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes. And immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. And I just wanted to get to that scripture right there. There is a difference between belief and unbelief. And if you think that it's the same thing, or if you just have a little— I, I see it as two separate entities pulling in a— if you've ever had a tug of war and you, you had the little red flag and you got two sides pulling, now if both sides pull with the identical force, that little red flag in the middle of the mud pit is going to stay centered. It's not moving anywhere. But as soon as one pulls with more authority or more power, it goes— the, the people on the other side are being pulled into the mud. What happens when you have belief and unbelief at the same time, you have a, just a stalemate. You have just, if you can just see that red flag in this tug of war with two people pulling, you got belief on one side and you got unbelief on the other side. And if you've got more unbelief than belief, then your belief's gonna get pulled through the mud. What we have to do is we need to destroy the unbelief. And the only way to do that is to believe. I told you this Christian walk is simple, but it's not easy. This is where it's going to get a little bit tougher, is where you have actually has to— have to read the Word of God, and then you have to act on it, and you have to, by faith, you have to believe it. And it's easy to say, it's a little bit harder to practice. And I'll go back to the episode that I told you about my tooth. Where I was talking about having that toothache, and it went on for days, and it hurt so bad. I told you, I could— it hurt to blink. I mean, it hurt. And, and I just started— instead of going— I know I probably should have gone to the dentist and all that, and I, I know that, but I want, I want to live this life. I want something that's pleasing to God, and I want to use my faith, and I want to just exercise that so I can get stronger. In the Lord. And by doing that, I destroy my unbelief, because I had a bunch of unbelief when I took my Advil, because I couldn't sleep. I couldn't— and I mean, it was— I was fighting that unbelief, and my body was saying, "You are crazy." And so I took the Advil just to shut my body up, but I started to talk, and I started speaking with faith. And I'm telling you, within a couple of days, my tooth no longer hurt, and I didn't do anything other than brush my teeth and floss. But I'm telling you, it took me a minute to get it done, but I got it done because I pulled the unbelief into the mud. I used my belief and just stayed on it. And sometimes it takes some effort, and sometimes you got to pull and tug. And I don't know if you've ever been in a tug of war, but it— I mean, any side, unless it happens real quick, if you're in it for a while Everybody on that, on both sides, are wore out, tired, and you're going to have to use some effort to get rid of unbelief. Well, this is going way longer than I wanted, but there's a, there's a lot to be said in this, in this scripture, and there's a lot to be said about unbelief and doubt, and it's probably not going to happen in a 10-minute episode. So I want to pray real quick. God, I thank you for your word. I thank you that you showed us, Lord, that it is unbelief is what's hindering sometimes our belief. And I pray that you would just continue to pour into the person listening to this the belief in your word. Lord, encourage them, Holy Spirit, that if they dig into your word and you get the word, your word into them, Lord, that you can change things. And I thank you, Lord. I, I stand here as an example that I'm not perfect. But Lord, I am trying, and I want to encourage them that if they'll just try, that they will have the exact same— you are not a respecter of persons— they will have the exact same and probably better results than I have. Because I am, you know, I'm hard-headed, Lord, but I love you and I thank you. And we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for listening, and I look forward to visiting with you on the next episode.

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