Dissolving Doubts

The following is an excerpt from the sermon...
Go ahead and take your Bibles. Turn with me in your Bibles and find Psalm Chapter 73. And we’re going to look down in a couple of verses here. We won’t read the whole chapter. We’re going to highlight a couple of things.
So, in preparing, this sermon, I want you to take a little bit of a journey with me and know my thought process in this. There are some sermons that are like meat and potatoes meals — they are good for you, and you need a constant diet of them. You can’t be eating cotton candy and coca-cola every meal. You need a regular diet of nutritious meals in order to live a healthy life. But you see, one meal is not life or death. You can skip one and not die — even if it feels like you are! Today’s topic is not one you can skip. It’s like the meal thing at all. This is like you’ve been bitten by a rattlesnake. If you don’t get to the hospital and soon, you will die. This is a spiritual life or death thing. I enjoy preaching meat and potato messages — I think to myself, Man this is such a good truth. I can’t wait to bake it and serve it to the people. It’s important but not spiritual life and death. Listen, please. This one is. This is the rattlesnake thing. We can’t skip this one. There might not be a single subject that is more dear to my heart than this. Tonight, I want you to lend me your ear and your heart for a moment as we deal with the subject of doubts. And that is the title and subject tonight — “Dissolving Doubts.”
I’m picking up that that phrase “dissolver of doubts” or “dissolving doubts” from Daniel 5:12. If you remember his life, his life was described as one who was a “dissolver of doubts.” When you hear that word “dissolved,” maybe you think of it like an Alka-Seltzer tablet. You drop it in water and you see it fizzle… or one of those Airborne things, and you watch it dissolve. That word “dissolve” there in the Hebrew, if you were to translate it very literally, it means “to untie knots.” It can also be translated “to unshackle someone from chains.” And if you’ve ever been caught in this whirlpool of doubt, you know exactly that feeling of being tied in knots or being shackled by chains. That’s a fitting description.
And in the Christian life, you cannot proceed farther when you’re in this whirlpool of doubt. Doubt cripples. It paralyzes like poison. It paralyzes you, and we have to make the trip to the hospital. We have to do that not only for us in learning how to dissolve our own doubts but also learning how to do that for other people like Daniel did.
And so, in Psalm 73 this is a psalm of Asaph. We don’t know much about him other than the psalms that he wrote, but we get a glimpse into his personality here and what was going through his mind. We will start reading in Psalm 73:1. It says this, and it’s through his voice — him speaking: 1. “Truly God is good to Israel…” Right, That’s starting off on a great note. Okay. 1. “Truly God is good to Israel Even to such as are of a clean heart.” And here we go. 2. “But as for me, my feet were almost gone; My steps had well nigh slipped.” Why? 3. “For I was envious at the foolish, When I saw the prosperity of the wicked.”
Verse 12, skip down there. Psalm 73:12 “Behold, these are the ungodly, Who prosper in the world; they increase in riches. 13. Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, And washed my hands in innocency. 14. For all the day long have I been plagued…” Plagued. He’s talking about illness. 14. ”…And chastened every morning.” So if he’s talking about illness and it happens every morning, he’s talking about chronic illness. 15. “If I say, I will speak thus; Behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children.” Here’s his conclusion about what he sees in the world. 16. “When I thought to know this, It was too painful for me;”
Asaph, the man who wrote this psalm was inspired by God. This is an inspired author of Scripture, who is here filled with doubts. What he knows to be true about God and His nature is not matching up with what he sees in reality. And when that happens, your mind is filled with doubts. What I’m seeing doesn’t match with what I actually believe. Should I abandon that based on what I’m seeing in front of me? What should I do? And this is where he lives. So, for Asaph, he doubted the goodness of God. He looks and he sees bad people, and good things are happening to the bad people. He looks at himself and bad things are happening to good people. It’s the reverse of what life should be, what he thinks life should be.
For Asaph, he doubted the goodness of God. But for others, that may not be the doubt in your mind. I tried to list some of them — some of the more common ones, but there are doubts that I probably have not even thought of that someone could be struggling with. And for everyone, your personality is different. You struggle with different doubts. Your life experiences are different.
For some people, it might be:
“Does God really love me?”
“Is Christianity really true?”
“Am I truly saved?” When you go through life with that constant question mark in your head, you cannot progress farther in the Christian life. When you’re knocking on doors going out soul winning and you don’t know if you are saved or don’t know that the Bible is actually true, you can’t witness to someone with any kind of boldness at all because you have doubts. Are you following me?
Maybe the question is, “Does God really answer prayer? Am I just wasting my time praying?”
“If God is good, why did he let such and such happen?”
“If God is good, why can’t I have any children?”
“If God is good, why am I still single?”
“If God is good…?” You see?
“Does God really have my best interest in mind?” Yeah, I believe in God, but maybe He just flung the worlds out into existence, and He doesn’t care about what goes on every day of my life. “Does he really care about me?”
“Is trying to live a godly life really worth it?
With this list and many, many others, if a question plagues you, you’re stuck. You’re stuck in quicksand spiritually. We’re going to talk about this here. Moments of doubt are life and death moments because during this time of doubt, your doubt either mutates into unbelief or it transforms into stronger faith. One or two things happen. So, it’s like this turning point, this pivot moment in life. Either you totally fall, like in Psalm 73. He said, his steps, his footing well-nigh slipped. Either you fall into unbelief, or you come out with a stronger faith than you had previously.