On
Tuesday night, August 10,
1976, I asked Jesus Christ
to forgive my sins and become
my Savior and Lord. But
when I finished praying,
nothing dramatic happened.
I saw no lights; I felt
no weight lift from my shoulders.
Many I've known over the
years have felt the same
way. Many ask, "Is
that all there is to it?"
And
my intellectual questions
about God didn't evaporate.
I still wondered about creation
and science, world religions,
why God allows evil and
suffering. And so did many
of you. Many of you have
doubted for months, even
years, whether or not your
salvation and faith were
real.
Were
we alone?
The
renowned historian Will
Durant mailed questionnaires
about the meaning of life
to a number of famous people.
After reading their answers,
he published them in a chapter
he titled, "An Anthology
of Doubt." Who hasn't
written in that chapter?
Researcher
George Hunter says, "The
number one factor in the
secular audience today is
not guilt but doubt. Secular
people doubt the claims
of the Gospel, partly because
of the plural truth claims
confronting people today.
They also doubt the intelligence,
relevance, and credibility
of the church and its advocates."
And
Christians are certainly
not immune from such doubts.
I was not. You're not.
What
do we do when we doubt our
salvation or our faith or
our God? How can we help
others deal with their doubts?
These are precisely the
questions this part of John's
first letter was written
to answer.
I.
Trust God's Word (v. 9a)
Start
with His promise: "I
write these things to you
who believe in the name
of the Son of God so that
you may know that you have
eternal life"
(1 John 5:13). We can "know"
with absolute confidence
and settled assurance that
we have eternal life. How?
First,
by trusting the Bible, the
"testimony
of God" (v.
9). Why should you trust
it? When doubts come regarding
the Bible, what do you need
to know?
The
Bible is God's word because
it keeps its promises. For
instance, the Old Testament
makes at least 28 specific
predictions about the coming
Messiah, each one fulfilled
completely by Jesus Christ.
The
odds of Jesus' fulfilling
just eight of these predictions,
as calculated by mathematician
Peter Stoner, is 1 in ten
to the 17th power. That's
a one followed by 17 zeroes.
Get the picture in your
mind: fill the state of
Texas two feet deep with
silver dollars, mark just
one, and give me a chance
to find it blindfolded.
The odds are the same as
those for Jesus' fulfillment
of just eight of the promises
about the Messiah. The Bible
keeps its promises.
The
Bible is God's word because
it agrees with itself. 66
different books written
over 1,500 years by at least
40 authors, with no discrepancies
regarding doctrine or faith
practice -- clear evidence
of the trustworthiness of
God's revelation to us.
And
the Bible is God's word
because it has been transmitted
accurately to us. The ancient
world wrote on papyrus,
a thin paper which disintegrated
in time. So we have no originals
of the Bible, or Caesar's
Gallic Wars, or the Histories
of Tacitus, or the work
of Aristotle, or any other
ancient book. But we have
copies. How accurate are
they?
We
have 5,000 ancient Greek
copies of the New Testament,
and 10,000 in other ancient
languages. These copies
go back to 40 years after
the originals were written.
"Compare
the Bible to Caesar's Gallic
Wars, with only nine or
ten manuscripts, none earlier
than 900 years after Caesar.
"The
Histories of Tacitus were
14 books; only 4 remain,
none closer than 900 years
after Tacitus.
"Of
Aristotle's books, only
five manuscripts remain
of any one work, none earlier
than 1,400 years after Aristotle.
Some
scholars estimate that the
Greek New Testament we have
is 99.2% the original, and
the remaining .8% affects
no matter of faith or practice.
Trust
the Bible because it keeps
its promises, it agrees
with itself, it has been
given to you accurately.
Examine your doubts in its
light. Find what God says
on the subject, and know
that it is true. And many
doubts will disappear in
the light of the word of
God.
Next
time we'll explore the second
thing we should do when
we doubt our salvation or
our faith or our God. Until
then, live in God's Word...you
can trust it absolutely.
