Dealing with Doubts Transcript/Program 2
By: Dr. Gary Habermas; ©2003 |
What are some common myths about doubt? |
Contents
Introduction
Today on The John Ankerberg Show, are you a Christian who doubts? Why is it that after placing belief in Christ, you are plagued with questions about your faith? Why do you live each day wondering if you are truly a Christian and doubting whether God has really forgiven your sins? You fear going to hell, but arenāt sure you will go to Heaven. Why do you have these doubts? Is there a biblical way to conquer your depressing thoughts of unbelief? Can you really get rid of all your doubts? Today Johnās guest is Dr. Gary Habermas, chairman of the Department of Philosophy and Theology at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. He is the author of more than 21 books, including a book on doubt called The Thomas Factor. We invite you to join us.
- Ankerberg: Redefine where we were coming from last week, and then tell me, what are the common myths about doubt.
- Habermas: First of all, let me say this preface, I am not aware of a subject regarding which there are more twists and turns than this one. And what Christians commonly say to each other is not just wrong, it causes pain. Here are some of the things you hear about doubt, and all of these, in my opinion, are false: Doubt only happens to intellectual people; it always happens and follows the same course; itās always answered by the same techniques; doubt is always sin; nothing good can come out of it; perhaps doubt is even the unpardonable sin; heroes of the faith never doubt; only weak-minded people doubtā strong Christians never doubt. And on and on and on.
- Or, if youāre questioning, youāre probably going to hell. I remember a case years ago where a young lady happened to say to her seminary friends, āIām having questions about my faith.ā She was doing okay until her friend said to her, āWell, true Christians donāt doubt. If youāre doubting, you must be unsaved.ā And that just sent her into a tailspin, just the suggestion that she might not be saved. John, hereās how key it gets. Let me give a typical movie type of analogy.
- Ankerberg: Please do.
- Habermas: The woman who says to her husband, āHoney, do you love me?ā
- āYes, dear.ā
- āNo. Come on. Look at me and say this.ā
- āI love you.ā
- āNo. No. Come on. Look at me. I want to get your attention. Say it meaningfully.ā
- āDear, I love you.ā
- āThank you.ā
- Could you do that every day? Well, not really. In this little discussion, what do we say about a person, whether it is male or female? What do we say? Do we say, āShe must not be in love because she asks for it so much.ā Iām sorry. Hello! She wants assurance because sheās so much in love. Now, the Christian who says, āLord, do you love me? Please, tell me today.ā And what do we say? āHey, theyāve lost it! Theyāre not in love.ā Now thatās how counter-intuitive some of this stuff is.
- And hereās one of the most interesting, maybe the major twist and turn. The person who has emotional doubt ā which we identified last show is the most frequent and the most painful ā the person who has emotional doubt, it could be exactly the opposite of what they say. The person who loves the Lord enough to keep asking, Iād say, most of the time is deeply in love with the Lord. But, if people are hanging out there, especially people they respect saying to them, āWell, hey, if youāre asking these questions you must not be saved,ā thatās like saying your spouse was unfaithful to you. It causes this kind of dissonance. We donāt apply the same kind of good sense that we apply to the wife or the husband who wants reassurance.
- āI wandered from the Lord.ā
- āYouāre lost!ā That doesnāt make any sense at all. The average doubter, the average emotional doubter, in my opinion, is probably a person whoās deeply in love and wants the Lordās affection. Hereās the good news: they already have it. Itās there. And so the key is telling yourself something differently.
- Ankerberg: I think people are drinking this in and they want to know more. Tell me some other stories of people that youāve met across the country. I mean, youāve got to change the names, but tell me what else has happened.
- Habermas: Well, if the person wasnāt hurting so much, youād think it was humorous. I received a call from a man one time in the northwest and he said something like this to me: āHey, I want to know, I want to know for sure that Iām saved.ā And the person said to me, āI go to a prominent church out here and if I told you my pastorās name, you would know the guy in a heartbeat. And if he knew I was calling you, he would say, āJohnās the best worker in my church. Heās not suffering doubts.ā But let me tell you something, Iām not just suffering doubts: Iām not saved.ā
- So, I started to ask the obligatory question, and the guy jumped and he said, āHey, wait a minute. Just warning, I read your book on doubt; donāt call me an emotional doubter!ā Weād already said enough and Iām thinking to myself: āEmotional.ā
- And he said, āDonāt tell me that.ā And he said, āHey, one more thing. Donāt tell me to go pray and read the Bible. Everybody tells me that. I need something specific.ā
- So, here comes my obligation. āJohn, have you ever trusted Christ as your personal Savior? Do you know who He is, what He has done?ā
- And he said, āHey, let me give you some math. I have trusted Christ as my Savior at least 5,000 times!ā And he told me how he got there. He could get to the number. But hereās the question: āHow much pain do you have to have to trust Christ as your personal Savior 5,000 times?ā
- So the guy said to me, āIāll tell you what. Can I start calling you on Friday afternoons for as long as we need to talk? Iām going to pay you.ā
- I said, āYouāre not going to pay me.ā
- He said, āIf I canāt pay you, weāre not going to talk.ā
- I said, āI guess weāre not going to talk.ā
- He said, āOkay. Weāll talk.ā And he started calling me on Fridays and we would talk for an hour or two each Friday. Now, after all his warnings: āDonāt tell me this, donāt tell me that. Iām not an easy guy to,ā as time went on he started getting a little stronger and a little stronger. We worked through some of this stuff and toward the end of the third month he said, āHey, I think Iām okay. I donāt think I have to call you next week.ā
- I said, āHey, thatās good. Thatās good progress.ā
- And then he went one week and he said, āHow about three weeks from today.ā
- āYeah. Thatās good. Three weeks from today is good.ā
- And finally he said, āI donāt need it anymore. I got it.ā He said, āI didnāt tell you this, but Iāve been leading a Bible study in my church for a long time. Iām going to go back to that study with more zeal than Iāve ever had before.ā And he said, āBy the way, hereās my business number, an 800 number. If you know any men who are going through this, please tell them my name, tell them my phone number, call and Iāll talk to them.ā
- I should tell you, too, this came just two months after my wife passed away, and so I was struggling with some of my own issues, not doubt issues, but similar emotional issues, and John wants to lay this big thing on me. Well, heās done three months later and I felt so good. But I picked up the phone and I called him back sometime later, and he didnāt return my call and I said, āOh, heās struggling again.ā Because emotional doubt is the story of lapses and relapses. When the emotions come back, you forget everything you learned. He didnāt return my call. I called again and left my name on his line.
- He called me back and said, āAh, Dr. Habermas, this is so wonderful. Iām sorry. Iāve just been so busy with my business, but I want to tell you something. Iāve not lost the joy of my salvation. Iām not saying I havenāt had any bad times, but Iāve not prayed for salvation again. Iām doing fine.ā And it was so liberating. Iāll tell you, next to seeing somebody come to the Lord, there is nothing like seeing people throw this yoke of pain off. And theyāre not doing anything differently except theyāre telling themselves different things. I think thatās the key to emotional doubt; itās changing your thought patterns.
- Ankerberg: Gary, I go to conferences all over the country, and when I preach, Iāll give an invitation. Iāll see people accept Christ as their Savior. If you go back two, three, four, five, six years in a row, you notice some guys raise their hand every year, okay? So help these people, because they want to have what that man finally found. So how do we get there? What else do we need to tell them?
- Habermas: Well, from the Old Testament to the New Testament, passages over and over again, they tell us the answer to faulty thinking, the answer to telling ourselves things that are not true is to tell ourselves what is true. And oftentimes Iām convinced that passages, particularly in the Psalms and Proverbs, throughout the New Testament ā Philippians 4 is a great passage; there are a lot of good texts ā the answer to faulty thinking is not only true thinking, but itās what we call āthe disciplines,ā practicing things in our lives.
- And Scripture says things like this: The antidote to being downcast ā Psalm 42:43. The antidote to being anxious is, we find all the following: Pray (1 Peter 5:7: āCasting all your cares [the word for āanxietyā] upon Him, for He cares for you.ā
- Another is to praise. I will say to groups, āHow many of you have ever praised God during a time of doubt?ā Hands go up all over. āGive me some testimonies. Tell me what happens.ā And from all different perspectives, this is the only answer Iāve ever heard: Praising God during emotional turmoil causes me to look at life from a new perspective. It causes me to look at life from Godās perspective. By thinking different thoughts, I quit feeling the pain. And person after person, hereās what they say, āWhen I pray, praise, and thank, the mood goes away; the mood changes.ā
- āSo, why donāt you do it more often?ā
- āWell, it takes time to think like that.ā
- āYes, it does. But what do you want to do? Do you want to have this pain, or do you want to change your thoughts? You can pray. You can praise.ā
- Philippians 4:8 says change your thoughts. It says, āBe anxious for nothing,ā verse 6, and then he says, āby prayer, by thanksgiving.ā And thirdly, in verse 8 he says, āWhatever is good, whatever is truthful, meditate on these thingsā ā to think deeply. In verse 9 he says (the fourth point): āWhatever you have seen in me, do these things.ā
- Hereās the good news. A scriptural remedy is varied. You can mix and match. I think you can do what works for you. You can pray. You can praise. You can journal. You can call a friend. You can tell yourself ātruthfulā things instead of the other things ā and hereās a lie, for example: āWhat if Jesus sends Christians to hell?ā Thatās a lie, but if you think that, especially at night, shades drawn, dark room, you can feel the flames licking at your toes. I mean, you could imagine that itās going down right there! āOh, no! Iām thinking like this! I must be going to hell.ā It gets worse, the feeling gets worse. You change your thoughts.
- And hereās the most incredible truth, in my estimation. Christians think that what happens to them ā theyāve got a lousy boss; theyāve got a child thatās disobedient; a spouse who doesnāt love them, whatever ā we think that what happens to us determines where we are emotionally. I donāt think thatās true. I think the biggest thing that costs us our peace is not what happens to us, itās what we tell ourselves about what happens to us. Itās an incredible truth. In fact, reflections on pain and suffering, which you mentioned earlier, maybe pain and suffering is not so much the life in which I find myself, maybe itās the pain I put on myself by the way I talk to myself about this: āOh, God must not love me. I must not be saved.ā
- Now, there are secular examples, too.
- Ankerberg: Before you go further, slow it down. Give me a piece of yourself. Make it personal. How did you work this out in your own doubts?
- Habermas: Well, very slowly, because I was barking up the wrong tree. Loving apologetics, I thought, āThe answer to emotional doubt is more facts. Read one more book, six more evidencesā¦.ā The way the philosopher says it is this: āFacts are necessary but theyāre not sufficient.ā You need something besides facts. Hereās what you need. You need a truthful basis rightly applied.ā How do you rightly apply it? Weāre back to square one again. You pray and give your issues to the Lord. You thank Him for what Heās done. You praise Him for who He is. All these other things are taught in Scripture. You can journal, you can talk, you can think about Godās miracles. You can concentrate on His creation. All these things. Hereās what happens. When you change the channel and youāre not concentrating on the pain-creating thoughts, you change the channel, thatās that āMonday afternoon footballās on, Yes! I can handle anything with football.ā Well, speaking as a Christian, I can handle anything if Iām saved, too.
- Ankerberg: Yeah, but let me get to it, because I know you better than a lot of other people. Youāre sitting there and with your first wife, you love her to pieces, and youāre going through a series of things. You think maybe sheās going to get better. Boom! You get bad news. Then you get another layer of bad news. You get another layer of bad news. And finally she dies. Now, tell me, how do you praise God ā third layer, thereās no more hope; sheās going to die; sheās laying there dying; youāre going to go to the funeral. Youāre telling me this thingās working?
- Habermas: Yes. Let me tell you a little story. While my wife was sick, she was sleeping 15 to 18 hours a day. I would go downstairs and I would sit there and I would think I was beat. I was feeding her through a tube in her stomach, giving her medicine, cleaning the tubes with vinegar and water. Hard day. Took the phone of the hook. Didnāt want to talk to anybody. Sat there feeling the exact kind of pain youāre talking about. Job and I got to be friends during those days. I did a book on grief and I have a chapter in there called āJob and Me.ā I donāt say I suffered as much as Job did, but Job was my buddy. Job got to be my friend. And hereās the thing I learned during that time that I try to apply to my thoughts. Job only wants to know one thing: āLord, youāre taking my kids from me, my health, my friends, everything. Why am I suffering?ā God never tells him. For 37 chapters he struggles with this.
- Ankerberg: Yes.
- Habermas: And he demands his day in court. God talks to him in chapter 38. Now, at the end of the book, before he is blessed, Job no longer asked the question. Job says he is satisfied. Now, here is my question. Why is Job satisfied without getting his question answered? Hereās what I decided, one-liner, one sentence from the book of Job. Job realized that he knew enough about God to trust Him in those things he didnāt know. Now, hereās Gary Habermas, 1995. I pictured my Job 38. I think weād all have a different Job 38. I pictured God coming to me and Iām saying, āLord, why is Debbie up there dying at 43 years old. Iāve got these children; helpless husband who doesnāt do a very good job in the kitchen or anything else, and theyāve all got to be dressed and cleaned and in school the next day.ā
- And I picture God saying, āGary, Iāve got one question for you. Did I raise My Son from the dead?ā
- And Iād say, āLord, Iāve done all kinds of books on this. I mean, sure. Youāve raised Your Son from the dead. But thatās 30 AD. I want to know about 1995. Sheās up there and sheās suffering. What can I do?ā
- āGary, you obviously didnāt get the point. Did I raise My Son from the dead?ā
- āYes, Lord. But can we talk about 1995?ā
- āGary,ā¦ā And He gets more insistent; His voice gets a little bit louder, and finally, when I keeping saying, āLord, why?ā He grabs me by the shirt, He pulls me close and He says, āYou only have a Ph.D. Youāre not real swift. I want to say this real slowly and I want you to read my lips. Okay? Weāll go slowly: Did⦠I⦠raise⦠My⦠Son⦠from⦠the⦠dead?ā
- Now, Iām thinking, how does this fit in with Job? And hereās the bottom line. I think the Lord would try to impress upon me, if this is a world in which He raised His Son from the dead, 30 AD, 1995, whatever, 2003, if this is a world in which He raised His Son from the dead, this is a world in which there is an answer to suffering, even if I donāt know what the answer is. Now, notice, nothingās happened. Sheās still up there and sheās still suffering, but I changed what I was saying to myself. Because this is no cop out; itās only a cop out if thereās no resurrection. If thereās a resurrection, then God has a reason. The only thing thatās missing is this: I donāt know why sheās sick, but what will that change if I know and sheās still dying?
- So I started changing my thinking and I thought this: I donāt like this. Sheās very, very close to me. But given the fact that sheās dying, I reiterated with myself daily that this is Godās world; His Son has been raised from the dead, and thereās an answering to suffering, even though I donāt know what it is. And, answer of answers ā at the end of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul taunts death: āDeath, where is your sting? Grave, where is your victory?ā [1 Cor. 15:55] I realized if thereās a good side to this it is this: sheās going to Heaven. This is the sentence that helped my children the most, āWeep for yourself, kids, but donāt weep for Mom. She wouldnāt come back, even if she could. Sheās doing fine.ā But I realized sheās not suffering anymore. Whatās lacking is my being with her. Sheās in a safe place. Iāll be with her for eternity. She canāt be touched. āMoth and rust donāt corrupt⦠thieves canāt break in and steal.ā [Matt. 16:20] Itās not the way I want it, but hereās the key: if itās a world in which God has raised His Son from the dead, thereās an answer to suffering, even though I donāt know what it is. And I related that to Job: I know enough about God to trust Him with those things I donāt know. I have not changed anything in the world. Iāve not answered any questions. All Iāve done is change the way I think about it. And all of a sudden, Iām not mad at God anymore.
- One of my grad students called me during this time and he said, āWhere would you be if it werenāt for the resurrection of Jesus?ā Insightful thought. And I thought, āOh, my. Thatās what Paul means when he says, āWe suffer, but not as those without hope.ā [1 Thess. 4:13] Thereās a difference between suffering with hope and without hope. Iām still suffering, but with hope. It makes all the difference in the world. So, again, I change what I say to myself and my feeling change.
- Ankerberg: Great stuff, great stuff. And Iām sure itās helped a lot of people, what youāve said. I want to move on next week to the guy that says, āI want to believe. I canāt believe.ā Okay? So join us then.