Disciplines of Doubt - C

Jack Hibbs: God, you're good. God, you're amazing. Your promises are wild. God, they're fantastic. Whatever you're reading, if it's John's gospel, I don't care where you're reading in the Bible, tomorrow, pray it.
David J: This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David J, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's word, the Bible.
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David J: On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series called The Disciplines of Life and a message titled "The Discipline of Doubt." Now, the Christian walk is full of disciplines, trials, and setbacks, but it's those hard seasons of life that God uses to shape our faith from the inside out. So when we doubt, we're open to one of the most dangerous enemies we face as a believer. You see, every single one of us has wrestled with doubt at some point in life. Maybe it was before we became a believer, or maybe it crept in after we'd been following Jesus for years. Those nagging questions, the moments that we wonder if God really cares about us and if He's really there when we're in pain. Today, Pastor Jack teaches that doubt must be overcome. And it can be overcome through faith and God's word. You see, God's word is the only weapon strong enough to defeat doubt. Daily devotion time with the Lord not only pushes any doubt we may have out of the way, it deepens our trust and keeps us growing spiritually. Before we get into the message, I had a chance to sit down with Pastor Jack and talk about it with him. So let's get into that. Pastor Jack, doubt is something that almost every believer runs into at some point, but not everybody's willing to say it out loud. You don't ease into this one; you say doubt ravaged the first three years of your Christianity. Tell me about that.
Jack Hibbs: I was doing pretty fine until I heard the gospel and found out that God loved me. That was really hard. For the first three years of my Christian experience, my internal struggle was: how could God love me? So doubt ravaged my life, but I'm grateful for it now because God's amazing. He redeems things. It was the power of His word that dispelled the doubt, and I've discovered that's the only answer for doubt is knowing the word of God. It removes doubt.
David J: So you say at one point that you're actually grateful for Thomas. Why?
Jack Hibbs: Thomas, if you find him in the New Testament, he's always the guy that's questioning the situation. He's not going to give his belief over easily. He says, "I'm not going to believe until I'm able to put my finger in the holes of His hands," speaking of Jesus and the post-resurrection experience. I love that. God doesn't make fun of that; He doesn't chastise Thomas for being like that, and I think it's a beautiful thing. So here's the deal. Doubt is a sin if we don't dispel it. Doubt is more of a temptation. When it hits us, if we don't get the answer from the Bible and we don't get those questions answered, then it becomes sin because it robs from the power of the word of God in our lives beautifully. The Bible answers the doubt with faith.
David J: And how can it be cured? How can doubt be cured? You said you had to face it head-on, right?
Jack Hibbs: Romans 10:17 says faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. And that is exactly—there's no substitute, by the way. That's how doubt is dispelled and dealt with: by the word of God. More Bible, less doubt. It's a spiritual truth. More Bible, less doubt.
David J: And that's the disciplines of doubt. Let's jump into it.
Jack Hibbs: Listen, when we're sick, when we're hurting, guess who knocks on the door but doubt. Doubt says things like this: if your God is with you, then where is He right now in all this pain? If God's with you, how could you get in this car accident? If God is good, then why is this happening to you? You ever hear thoughts like that in your head? If you listen very, very carefully with the right heart, you will hear it this way: "So, where is God now in this situation?" Didn't he speak to Eve in the same tone of voice? "Come on, Eve. Take a bite. It's amazing." If he can start to plant that seed of doubt in you and you nurse it, then you say, "Yeah, that's right. Where is God? In fact, I just watched a Christian television station that said I should be rich and never sick. And so right now, I'm poor and vomiting, and God must have left me." Did you know that's what that doctrine does to people? Because it's from Satan. It destroys people. So they woke him up. "We're going to die! We're perishing!" I love his answer: "Why are you so fearful, O you of little faith? What are you guys doubting for?" Then he rose, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And they all, by the way, if you keep reading, it's very cool—they all freaked out. This is the hand of God. Of course. Our spirituality, my friend, listen. Doubt will rob us of this. We don't see God in stuff. When we don't see God in our situation 24/7, this is the greatest manifestation and proof of our doubt: complaining. There's nothing worse. "I don't know why. I can't believe. This is ridiculous." Every one of those human-based, carnal responses that come from us are literally challenging the very authority and the ability of God. You guys know that I grew up—I stuttered so bad, and my dad would say, "What's the matter with you? Spit it out! Come on, everybody else can talk normal." Okay, parents, that does not work. I've seen beautiful parents who understand. I did it until I was about 23 years old. But I've seen some little kids just have a little phase like our kids had a little six-month phase of that. And when you know what that's like, you just get down and you go, "Okay, take a deep breath. Slow down. You can do this. What is it you're trying to say? Nice and slow. Yep. Okay. Sure." That's how God is with us. When we get all knotted up and all excited, if we are in doubt, stuff will come out that an hour later, we will regret ever having said. Can you imagine these awesome disciples, men of God? These were the disciples, you guys. "Peter, can you sign my Bible? You're a disciple." Can you imagine? These were the disciples, and they're saying, "We're going to die!" We're just like that. We lose our spiritual reality. We're Christians. God saved us. How can we dare trust Him with eternity when we can't trust Him for the moment? The boat is sinking! But praise the Lord, we're going to live in heaven forever. How can you believe Him for that when you don't believe Him for this? The truth is, you don't know because you haven't faced that yet. "But I'm losing my car." Maybe you need to. Did you see the price of gas today? Let it go. Just let it go. Get a bicycle, man. But eternity? Oh yeah, no problem. Listen, you're not on your deathbed yet. And that's where the big test is. Spiritual reality matters because doubt destroys our hope. David says in Psalm 42, "Why are you so cast down, O my soul? Hope in God." You're so disquieted within me. What an amazing man David was. What a great thing. You guys mark this down. You ever get bummed out about stuff? You can almost see David move his robe, he looks inside his chest and he goes, "Why are you so down? Why are you so disquieted within me, soul?" He's talking to his heart. What's wrong with you? Heart, you're sick with doubt and fear. Look what he says: "Hope in God." He's preaching to himself. My friends, listen, grab your Bible and preach it to yourself. "Well, I don't know." Then just stay where you're at. Just keep sinking with the boat. Go down. Don't whine to us about it. If you want to sink, sink. Just go sink over there. Come on. And also this, mark it down, because doubt kills our future. Think about it. It kills our future by robbing us of the immediate now. You just get blinded by the doubt and by the fear. Because where doubt is, fear comes in, and your future's robbed because the moment that you're living in right now, you can't plan, you can't have vision, you can't have passion for the future. You look at your kids—I know the world's crazy, but guess what? I've read my Bible. "What if we get a tsunami?" Well, so what if we get a tsunami? What are you going to do about it? "That really worries me." Worry is a manifestation of doubt. Doubt can kill because doubt kills our future. Doubt kills by crippling. Okay, I need to warn you right now. We're going to show you something that, if you have any young kids, you might want to have them cover their eyes. Scared me to death. I want you to see something here in a moment. Doubt kills us by crippling. This is a tremendous story in nature. I don't like it, but it's real. And before you see this, I want you to think: doubt cripples the moment that we're living in. Listen, are you listening? Doubt just moves to the next day. It just waits for the calendar to click over, and it's there again if you don't kill it, because it will kill you. And you know what it does? It just systematically continues to bite on you until you're dead, until you have no faith left anymore. A man comes to you at the office and he says, "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. I'm married. I'm sorry. Forget I ever said it," and he walks away. Just walks away. Guess what? Is there some damage done? Huge damage done. Every time she sees him, guess what she hears in her ears? When she says, "You know what? I wish my husband worked hard like you do," a man is a sucker for that. Every time he sees her at the drinking fountain, it's "she respects me." One little bite at a time will kill. All right, you guys want to roll this? Cover your little kids' eyes maybe, or your own. There's a remote part of Asia where prehistoric monsters still rule. These ferocious predators are so powerful they kill creatures ten times their size. Maybe the buffalo senses it's being watched. The real-life monster makes its move. We call this animal the Komodo dragon. It drools with anticipation. The buffalo escapes, but the dragon's job is done. It needs just one bite to kill. We stopped it because you don't need to see the rest. That's pretty good, huh? Now listen, you need to see that because that's exactly what doubt does to us. I'll tell you the rest of the story. One bite and then it walks away. And then at a space that varies—100 yards to 200 yards—it follows the buffalo for three days. Why? Because by the time the third day comes around, the buffalo is so enraged with a fever that it goes mad. Why? Because the one bite was so infectious that it contaminates the bloodstream of the animal. And it goes mad because of an internal infection from an external bite. And while it is alive, it is eaten because it is disabled by the fever and by the sickness, by the infection. One bite. Doubt will do that. Christian, from this night on, you need to look at doubt like that Komodo dragon. God shows us pictures sometimes in nature, and when I saw that, it came into my mind: that's exactly how doubt has affected my life over my 34 years of being a Christian. One little thing about this, or maybe God loves all of you but not me. Maybe God will forgive you but not me. Maybe Jesus died for your sins but not all of mine. One bite left unattended will destroy your life. Be careful what you hear; be careful who you hear it from. And then we end with this: doubt must be overcome. Yes, it must be overcome and it can be overcome because faith pushes doubt away. Faith in God. Why do you think we spend an hour Wednesday, an hour Sunday in the Bible? There is no greater weapon against doubt than this book. The Bible tells us in Romans 10:17, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. More, more Bible. A man said here at this church, "My wife, all she does is read her Bible. The church is brainwashing my wife. All she wants to do is study the Bible." Excuse me, her brain's getting washed by the Bible from all the filth that this world invades us with with every bite. But somebody who is sick and infected can't see that. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Faith pushes doubt away. Can I ask you this question? I just wrote that in my notes; can I ask it to you anyway? And I mean this right now, it's very personal, but what are you doing on a daily basis then to push doubt away? I want to challenge all of you. I'm not joking. I would love for you to join me in spirit—it's impossible in the flesh—every morning at 4:00 AM. I'd like you to join me for the rest of this year, for starters. I have the high honor and privilege of being able to stay with Jesus or hang with Jesus from 4:00 to 8:00 every morning. And I'm asking you—you can't do that, I know you've got to get on the freeway and you've got to hit the road, and even tomorrow I've got to get to LA very early in the morning. I understand that. There are exceptions. But I tell you what, even if you have to leave your house at 6:00, meet me in spirit starting tomorrow at 4:00 AM. You say, "For what?" This is how you slay doubt with faith. You get into the word of God. Here's our homework: wherever your scriptural reading is, like this morning we were in that chronological Bible and we were in Deuteronomy chapter 9 through 11—was that beautiful or what? And so listen, I got done reading that and that was my prayer time. Oh God, You're good. God, You're amazing. Your promises are wild. God, they're fantastic. Whatever you're reading, if it's John's gospel, I don't care where you're reading in the Bible, tomorrow, pray it. Read your portion. If it's five chapters, if it's five verses, if it's a verse, starting tomorrow. You say, "Do you understand what you're talking about, Jack? 4:00 AM?" Listen, you've got to get up before the drywaller gets up. You've got to get up before the plumber gets up. You've got to get up before the school teacher gets up. You've got to get up before the pastor gets up. You want to know why? Those are things we do. That's not what we are. That's not who we are. If people have to get up early to go do their vocation and trade, how much more should we get up to be in love with our God? And I want to issue this challenge to you. You meet me tomorrow at 4:00 for the rest of the year. You say, "Jack, I have to go to bed at 8:00." I understand that too. But let God do that. I humbly issue that challenge, and watch what happens to your walk within 24 hours. He will not leave you alone. And then I'll just end with this: faith puts doubt to death. You read the word of God, you worship like you were tonight. Faith things, please hear me and I'll be done. I mean it. Things of faith will absolutely transform your life. Listen to me: stop being a spectator in Christianity. Stop it now. You're dying. You've been bitten and you don't even know it. You think you escaped and you're sick. You just do religious things by coming to church, but nothing comes out of it. And really, what's happening with every bit of Bible knowledge you're getting without putting it into practice, you're actually worse off. And I'm asking you, if you can't do it here, do it some other church, but get your faith in action and watch doubt be slain. Because I am so grateful for the Lord challenging Lisa and I to step out in a home Bible study. We had a thousand reasons why we shouldn't, why we couldn't, and God began to do things that we are still in amazement of. And I pray for you that you are not content to watch the Christian life go by, but to say, "You know what? Sink or swim, man, I'm getting in that boat." If Jesus is in that boat, I'm in that boat. I am not going to be in somebody else's boat or on the shore. If Jesus is in the boat, I'm going to be in that boat. So I'll meet you tomorrow in the boat at 4:00 AM. Okay, Father, we ask in Jesus' name that we would so make a commitment tonight, Lord God, to pursue You with all of our hearts. And Lord, I'm already excited about how You do what You do, because we're going to get up tomorrow, we're going to sense it, we're going to know in our spirit there's a bunch of others with us. There's just that thing that goes on, that amazing koinonia fellowship knowing that there's brothers and sisters together. And the whole day tomorrow will be different. And this is the great thing: no matter what happens, You're in it, and the whole attitude, our whole life will be different because doubt will be conquered by faith, and faith comes by hearing the word of God. Thank You, Father God. In Jesus' name, and all God's people said, amen.
David J: Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio, and his message called "The Discipline of Doubt." Thanks for spending some time with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called Disciplines of Life. It's a series on the disciplines that God builds into the Christian life: the trials, the setbacks, and the hard seasons that He uses to shape us as believers and deepen our faith. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. As you heard from our broadcast, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And if you'd like to know what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life personally, we would love to help you out with that. Go to jackhibbs.com/knowgod. That's K-N-O-W God. And there you'll be guided through what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life and the freedom that you'll find in knowing God. Don't miss out. That's the Know God tab at jackhibbs.com. Hey, thank you again so much for listening. And if you'd like to hear or see more of what we do here, you can always go to jackhibbs.com for all the latest on what's going on with this ministry. And please, if you're ever in the Southern California area, come see us at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills; we'd love to see you there in person. It has been so good to be with you today, and I pray you find yourself in the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. See you on the next episode. This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His word. We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.