Pilgrim No.2 The Problem of Doubt

We're going to read from the twenty-second verse, but let me remind you that the Lord Jesus has just engaged in the feeding of the multitude. The crowd have been with Him for some while, and after they have had their fill of things to eat, the 5,000 men and women were dismissed, and so also were the disciples, told by Jesus to cross the Sea of Galilee, but He didn't accompany them, He stayed a while in the mountainous area to engage in prayer. So it's at this point that we take up the reading, and again I remind you it's the twenty-second verse of Matthew 14, and straightway Jesus constrained His disciples to get into a ship and to go before Him unto the other side while He sent the multitudes away.

When He had sent the multitudes away, He went up into a mountain apart to pray, and when the evening was come, He was there alone, but the ship was now in the midst of the sea tossed with waves, for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a Spirit, and they cried out for fear.

But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer, it is I, be not afraid. And Peter answered Him and said, Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee on the water. And He said, Come.

And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth His hand and caught him, and said unto him, O Thou of little faith, wherefore didst Thou doubt? And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased.

Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped Him, saying, Of a truth, Thou art the Son of God. Amen. Now would you have your Bibles open at Matthew chapter 14? Let me read one or two verses again from the 28th.

And Peter answered the Lord and said, Lord Jesus, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee on the water. And Jesus said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.

But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth His hand and caught him, and said unto him, O Thou of little faith, wherefore didst Thou doubt? We are on our second study in this series on Christian problems, the difficulties, the dilemmas in which Christian people sometimes find themselves as they make their way down the pilgrimage of life. And I want to focus your attention this evening on the problem of doubt, the problem of doubt.

I've been trying to find without any success a little couplet which is attributed to that great man, Martin Luther, who on one occasion said words to this effect, that the man who has never doubted is a man who has never believed. And that statement, I think, is interesting and encouraging and also corrective. Interesting because Luther said it and he was a great man.

Encouraging to know that men like Luther have doubts, at least that encourages me because I have doubts, and instructive because, well, I think there is a tendency in some circles today to state that faith and doubt are incompatible. You cannot have the two. As though when one bows the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ, is registered as a child of God, enters into the family circle of the Lord, he or she at that moment annihilates doubt completely from their life.

Faith is absolute. Well, I want to say that that is not my experience, and I don't think it's the experience taught by the Scriptures. Neither is it the experience of the vast majority of Christian saints down church history.

If it is the case that you've never had occasion to doubt in your life, then praise God for it, but you're rather a charmed individual, rather a unique being, for the majority of us have doubts, doubts that vary in kind and vary in degree, but nonetheless they are good true doubts. Whether good is an adjective that should qualify doubt, I don't know, but what I am sure of is this, that the majority of us here recognize that in our Christian life doubts come, and it seems to me from my understanding of the doctrine of the devil, which is rather a horrific sort of doctrine, from the doctrine of the devil there must be doubts that come into my life at some time or other. After all, we're told in the New Testament that the devil is as a roaring lion who goes around the world seeking whom he might devour, and the New Testament is even more particular because it says of you and me that the devil endeavors to deceive the very elect of God, and part of his strategy is to sow doubts in the minds of God's people.

But on the other hand, it is within the purpose of God for your faith and for my faith to be tested in its quality. I think this is what Peter has to tell us in the epistles that bear his name, there is such a thing as a trial of faith, and faith must be checked, faith must be tested, faith must like a metal be put in the furnace so that the fires of experience can determine whether that faith is a good faith or not. And maybe in the very trials that come our way, faith is improved in quality because of the testings that we as Christian people have to endure.

Now the scripture that we have read together earlier this evening contains a remarkable illustration of someone who shows doubt. Let me remind you of the story, although I'm sure that it's familiar to the majority. I told you before I read this portion of scripture that our Lord Jesus had dismissed the great multitude who had received His teaching, and later on at His hands had received a meal.

And what is more, the disciples were told to get into their boat and to cross the sea. And our Lord was to spend some time in intercession during the night hours. And do you recall how a storm breaks out very typically on the Sea of Galilee? And there must have been a degree of consternation on the boat.

The disciples were skilled sailors, at least the majority of them, but I suggest that it was a case of all hands on deck as they were trying to keep the boat safe during the time of the storm. And then to add to the problems, to distract them from their craft as sailors, suddenly the Lord Jesus Christ is spotted walking towards them. They don't appreciate immediately who it is.

They recognize that there is a ghost or a phantom or an apparition, and this must have been most alarming for them. Indeed, in the 26th verse of the chapter, we read of their reaction. They were troubled.

It is a spirit, and they cried out for fear. But Jesus identifies Himself to them, Himself to the disciples, and Peter determines that if it is the Lord, well, he should get out of the boat and start to move towards Jesus Christ. So Peter has the invitation to come along, to put his faith to the test.

It is indeed the Nazarene, and Peter is to move out from the boat and make towards the Savior. And you recall how after commencing that faith walk so wonderfully, Peter's faith in the Lord Jesus begins to fail, and he starts to sink. So he cries out, Lord, save me, and Jesus extends a helping hand and preserves the life of his friend, Peter.

Now I say that's a good example of a man who's going through a crisis of faith. Or to express it another way, it is an example of a man who is enduring intense doubt. Mr. Spurgeon, commenting on this passage of Scripture, says, do you not know that all our lives we have to walk on that sea towards Christ? And he goes on to compliment Peter for ever getting out of the boat in the first place.

Says Charles Spurgeon, my, that was a magnificent walk when Peter first set off. How I admire him, continues Spurgeon. Had he gone along in this way, he could have walked all the way across the Sea of Galilee to America, which says a lot for Spurgeon's theology, but little for his geography.

At one stage, Peter, having commenced well, flounders. Why? Well, back to Spurgeon again, and this incidentally isn't Spurgeon's sermon. I'm only quoting from memory of a sermon that I read three or four years ago of Spurgeon.

Why did Peter flounder? Well, says Spurgeon, faith was Peter's life-boy. It was his charm. Faith kept him up.

Doubt and unbelief sent him down. And this, therefore, I say, is an illustration of a man walking on the seas of life. A man engaged in the faith walk who is confronted with a crisis.

Magnificently, he starts out, and then quite pathetically, he flounders. And I say, within the experience of Peter, there is an illustration often of my life and also of yours. So let's examine this incident closely and see what we can learn from it about doubt.

And then go on and see what principles we can deduce that will help us in a crisis of faith when such a crisis comes in our life. Or it may be that some here this evening have come along to this Bible study because you're going through such a period of doubting. Well, it is my prayer before the Lord that the principles we deduce from His Word shall be of great practical benefit to you tonight and indeed during the whole of your Christian pilgrimage.

Let's make this observation regarding Peter's test, regarding his faith crisis, that it occurred when he had responded to the instructions of the Savior. Peter had volunteered to get out of the boat, but he didn't go without the express permission of the Lord Jesus. Yes, Peter, you can get out of the boat and start to walk towards me.

The crisis came when he was obeying the Lord. And do you know, if I can be personal in this series, as really I must do because I have to illustrate from something, and the best way I can illustrate, if you will pardon, is from my own life. Do you know, I find that the great crises of faith that come my way often arise because I'm sure at the outset that I was doing what the Lord would have had me to do.

And then the difficulty comes. And if you're anything like me, you get a little bit grieved as to why difficulty should come your way when you are endeavoring as best you can through the power of the Spirit to obey the will of the Lord. Well, if that is your experience, it coincides with mine.

Let's say this, that it's not unusual because Peter the fisherman had exactly the same thing to go through. His faith was tried as he endeavored to obey the Lord's instructions. Listen at this point to what Martin Lloyd-Jones has to say about the crisis of faith.

He said, I would go so far as to say that if anyone has never been troubled by doubts, such a person would do well to examine their foundations again and make certain they are not resting in a false peace or an easy believism. In other words, we can expect, even if we don't always appreciate the reason why, we can expect that in endeavoring to obey the Lord's instructions, trials come our way. Our faith is tested.

Our obedience is brought under question. So then, doubt often occurs when we endeavor to obey the Lord. But there's something else that I think is important for us to recognize from this incident concerning the general issue of doubt, and it's a point that I had to bring to your attention last week when we were occupied in studying worry and what causes worry.

And it is this, that temperament can affect our doubts, as temperament can affect our worries. We made the observation, and obviously no one would disagree, last week, that we're all different. We've all got different temperaments.

And here is an example of a man with a temperament that stands out from the rest of the disciples. When you think of Thomas, you usually also pluck from your vocabulary the word doubting, and you describe Thomas as doubting Thomas, do you not? And similarly, there's a word that describes Peter, impetuous, impetuous Peter, the man who moves first, the man who's always got some idea, the activist, the one who's never really stuck in any situation. He'll do something while the rest of us are still absorbing what is happening.

And here is Peter, the impetuous man, showing his impetuousness as he says to the Lord, Jesus, if it be thou, let me get out of the boat and walk towards you. And you know, when he started to walk towards the Lord Jesus Christ, not only was he showing his impetuous nature, he was showing the high quality of faith that a man with Peter's temperament can sometimes command. Another illustration of this, of Peter's temperament helping him to scale heights of faith that the average person never gets to, is when Peter declares the identity of the Lord Jesus, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And one could go on giving illustrations from the experience of Peter, where his very temperament, charged no doubt by the power of the Spirit, soars him up to a pinnacle that many people never attain to spiritually. But that impetuous temperament also can swing back the other way. And as Peter one moment is in the heights, so the next moment almost literally, in this case, he's in the depths.

Peter, who can exercise tremendous faith later on, as described in the Acts of the Apostles, and open the kingdom of God under the instruction of the Holy Spirit to the Gentiles, will soon be groveling to the Judaizing party, who come down, you remember, to a certain area where Gentiles are, and Peter will no longer eat with the Gentiles, because the Jews are there and say that it's wrong for Peter to do this. Illustrations which one could duplicate with many more examples, to show the extremes of temperament that there were within this one man Peter. And I say that temperament can affect our doubts.

It can affect the extremes of doubts. Temperament affects us as Christians. We're not all the same, thank God for that.

Some of us are more up and down, others are more on a straight line. And it's good for you to recognize, without becoming introspective, what sort of person you are. There are some, I was mentioning last week, who are terribly activists at times.

You know, you see them at every meeting, the prayer meeting, the Bible study, engaged in evangelism. All of a sudden they're charged with an activism that makes the rest of us look upon them with wide eyes and with bated breath, and we feel that we're doing absolutely nothing. And then, after a month or so, they're not around any longer, sort of picking up steam for the next bout of activity.

Well, I say temperament is something that differs and we have to recognize what category we're in. And if we tend to swing between extremes, then let's endeavor where we can to discipline ourselves so the extremes are not so obvious. Temperament affects doubt, and it's good for us to appreciate this, that there might be some psychological reason for the doubts that I'm entertaining at a specific point.

But let me make another observation from this incident, and it is that a tendency to rationalize provokes doubt amongst Christian people. Now, I've got to be careful here because it may seem as though I'm suggesting that Christians shouldn't think, and I have always warred against the concept, always waged war against the concept of obscurantism, as though a Christian has a right to say, I believe the Bible because I believe the Bible and you can't ask me any questions at all because I'm not open to inquiry. I repudiate that.

I think that that is unbiblical. I feel that we have a right to answer the questions of other people, to give a reason for the hope that there is within us. But there are occasions when rationalizing in itself produces doubt and that rationalizing is unwarranted.

What am I talking about? Well, look into this incident again. Peter has commenced his faith walk, and that's magnificent. We applaud him.

We congratulate him. He started to move towards Jesus, and the majority of us would have to say that we've never got an inch out of the boat that Peter does. And then he engages in a rationalism, in rationalizing, and I say that this rationalizing was unwarranted.

Why? Because as he's walking towards Jesus, he then stops to think about what he's doing. Now nothing's changed between Peter's descent down into the water from when he got out of the boat in the first instant. The storm was blowing on the sea when Peter saw the Savior.

The waves were high when Peter started to move towards Jesus. Nothing had changed at all, and yet Peter started to doubt. Why? Because he allowed himself to engage in what I would call second thoughts, and it's this sort of rationalizing that I'm saying can be most damaging to a Christian person.

To engage in second thoughts when you have already determined what the will of God is in a specific situation. Now it's most important that you understand this, so let me try to repeat it. Oh, let me try and give you a personal illustration.

Coming here to Worthing five years ago was not the easiest thing that I've ever done in my life. I very much enjoyed the ministering opportunities that were presented to me at Enfield, very much enjoyed my dual role as a pastor and as a schoolmaster. And during the time when I was commuting between London and Worthing, having accepted the call to the church here, there was a tremendous temptation to engage in second thoughts, to know that the will of the Lord was for me to come, but to start rationalizing upon the whole thing again.

Here was my school. I really enjoyed teaching in downtown London. I enjoyed mixing with my colleagues, even though there were very few Christians, perhaps two or three on a staff of 60 or 70.

Really enjoyed my time with the boys and girls, and really enjoyed being at Enfield. So easy to have engaged in second thoughts, but one had to put the shutters up, or else ere long I would have been dragged down and have done what was not in accordance with the will of God. Now when I say that Peter's doubts here were provoked by second thoughts, I'm referring to the fact that he knew what the will of God was at that time.

Nothing else in his experience had changed. The wind was still blowing, the waves were still billowing before he ever got out of the boat. But he stops, and he thinks, and he looks at the waves, and he listens to the wind, and maybe he turns back, and he's got his eyes on the disciples in the boat.

Maybe they tried to steady him in the first instance. Watch it, Peter. Don't be so impetuous.

You know what you're like. Don't just jump out of this boat and behave like a fool. Listening to what other people have to say, rationalizing upon what he's doing, and all of a sudden he gets so involved with the problem, he takes his eyes off the solution, and he starts to sink.

Faith has been abandoned. His life belt has been thrown away. Well, rationalism breeds doubts when we indulge in second thoughts, and we should not allow ourselves the luxury of so doing.

But let me move on now to trying to deal with doubt, or bringing principles from this particular incident that will help us in dealing with a faith crisis when it comes, because sooner or later it will. And the Boy Scouts motto, Be Prepared, is good not only for the Scouts, it's also appropriate for Christians who meet at the Worthing Tabernacle. Well, what can we do about doubts when they come? Well, let me suggest that we should always engage before doubts and during doubts in disciplining the self, in disciplining ourselves.

Now, we may not find that easy. I don't find it easy to discipline the self. Sometimes I feel I've got a veritable lion inside of me that just wants to spring out, and I've got to hold things in check.

Well, it's necessary. If we're going to continue successfully to live the Christian life, to discipline ourselves, and not to look at the problems so much that we forget to look also towards the solution. Let me give you an illustration, and embarrass Mike Jenkins here for a moment.

You know, Mike and I had some great fellowship the other Friday, about 30 foot up, just at the back of the hall there, sloshing emulsion paint up by the apex. And everything was going fine. We weren't at all busy, provided that we kept looking either at one another or at the wall.

In fact, we were so preoccupied with talking to one another and sloshing the paint that I think quite a lot of the paint landed up on our bodies. But nonetheless, we were really having good fellowship and we weren't in any danger. But it needed discipline not to look down.

Now, if I don't look down, my tummy is terrible for heights. And to look down here, this hall seems absolutely massive from 30 foot up. One needed to discipline oneself, and then one was safe.

Similarly, in the walk of faith, one needs to discipline oneself to keep one's eye or one's eyes upon Jesus. But you see, so often we're like Peter. If I can come back to the observation I've made twice already, we get so preoccupied with the problem, we take our eyes off the solution.

Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blessed. When my eyes were fixed on Jesus, I lost sight of all beside. Well, this is what we need to do, and this is what I mean by disciplining the self, keeping our eyes, our minds, stayed upon the one who has told us to get out of the boat and walk towards him on the seas of life.

Another thing I think we must do in crises of faith and before these crises come is to cultivate our own faith, to cultivate our own faith. It is a way of faith, according to biblical teaching, to grow. Faith is not a static thing.

In fact, here you can criticize Peter, but in so doing we have to criticize ourselves. Peter tried to get through on an initial faith, the immediate faith he had when he saw the Lord Jesus and when he heard Jesus say, come out of the boat and walk towards me. But, you know, an initial faith won't carry you through.

May I be very loving and tender in the comment that I make now, but I think that some of my older friends err along this line, that they're trying to get through life in their later years on a faith that was vibrant decades ago. An initial faith will not take you through your Christian life. It is the way with faith to grow.

The Bible speaks of little faith. It talks of much faith. It talks of full faith.

It is necessary for faith to grow. Ah, but you say, it's all right for you to say these things. How does faith grow? How do you cultivate it? Well, I wish I could tell you that boots have a variety of baby bio that you sort of pour on your heart and up comes the faith in much stronger crops.

But there's no easy way. There's no easy solution. There's no easy formula.

At least if there is, I haven't come across it and I'd be glad if you have to let me know. All I can say is this from my study of the Word of God and from my own experience, that for faith to grow you have to work at it. There are spiritual disciplines that you neglect at your peril and one of the greatest of disciplines which encourages growth in faith is the study of the Word of God.

The Reformers used to talk about the means of grace and by the means of grace they meant those means which were available to the Christian through the grace of God whereby the Christian could grow to maturity in his Christian life. What are the means of grace? The Bible, prayer, the Lord's Table, fellowship with other Christians, spending time with God in prayer. You say, I don't find that my faith is growing very much.

Let me ask you about your private quiet times with the Lord. Do you really keep them? Do you have those moments whether it's at the beginning of the day or at the end of the day or interspersed during the day when you are alone with God? And by being alone I'm not speaking geographically but spiritually. You can be alone with God on a bus.

You can be alone with God driving your car. Do you cultivate those moments of communion with the Lord? You see, if you bypass those, then you're neglecting one of the best means of grace that there is that cultivates faith. Do you read the Bible yourself? Isn't it tragic that sometimes these points that one has to make as one is expounding Scripture, you're making as a pastor to the wrong people.

I should be preaching on a Sunday night to some folks who never apparently opened the Bible but once a week on a Sunday evening. I'm sure you folks have an interest in Bible study or you wouldn't be here, but let's remind ourselves together that this book is a veritable means of grace and when I feed upon this word so I grow in grace and in my knowledge of God. I was reading during the week and indeed have been dipping into this book by Dr. Packer, who has been knowing God for quite a few months now.

And Dr. Packer, a great Anglican theologian, referring to this very point of the value of reading the Bible, says this, What fools we are and we remain fools all our lives simply because we do not take the trouble to do what has to be done to receive the wisdom or to receive the faith which is God's free gift. Says Packer, what fools we are when we spend longer each day with our newspaper than what we spend reading the Word of God. I make the point again then that an initial faith is insufficient.

You can't walk across the seas of life on the experience of yesteryear. You need a present faith, a growing faith, in God and the means whereby faith is cultivated are available to the Christian. But what is more, let me make another observation from this incident, and that is that in times of crises, of crises of doubt, let us recognize the nearness of God, the nearness of God.

Thank God, Jesus wasn't very far away when Peter went through his crises. And the Bible tells me that this is always the case. Oh, the devil may fool me, that the Lord is far distant from me, that God has gone on a vacation and has forgotten all about me.

But the Bible confronts the devil and says that he's a liar if he puts such thoughts into my mind. Scripture declares that God is a very present help in time of trouble. And you know, there have been many, many times when I have thanked God for that word, very.

Not just a present help in time of trouble, but a very present help. He's always at hand, the lifeguard of the soul, ready to offer the assistance that we need during great crises, when it looks as though we're not going to come through safely. Let's never forget the doctrine of the imminence of God, that God is a real person who is near us at times when we need Him particularly.

And you know, it didn't really matter for Peter how boisterous that wind was as it whipped down the Syrian hills and caused the sea to become like a cauldron. It didn't really matter how much those waves were billowing and gushing and breaking down at his feet, because all the noise of the waves and the wind combined could not cancel out the voice of Jesus speaking to Peter, telling him to come, and reaching out eventually His own arms and telling Peter not to be afraid as He embraces him and saves him. So in our moments of doubt, let us not allow the devil to fool us that God has gone on holiday, He's still with us.

And therefore, something else needs to be underlined at this stage concerning Peter's crisis of doubt and our own, and that is that when the worst comes to the worst, we can cry out for help. Peter realized that the situation had got too big, he couldn't deal with it himself, so what does he do? He shouts out, Lord, save me. Full marks to Peter.

That was the essence of wisdom, to cry for help when you realize that you can't in any way remedy the situation on your own. Peter realized that Jesus could do what he couldn't do for himself. He cried out that the Lord Jesus would come to his aid.

Remember that story told in the New Testament about the father who had a child, and the child was ill, and the father wanted his offspring to be healed. And the Savior questions him, and he says, well, do you believe that I can do it? Have you got the faith whereby your child can be healed? And the father said to the Lord Jesus, Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief.

I thank God for that statement in his word. Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief.

Lord, I've got faith, but will you top it up to the level whereby my lad shall be healed? And it's necessary for us sometimes to use the same words as we go through our own particular dilemma, our own crisis. Lord, we believe that we could get through, but our knees are starting to shake, and we're looking down at the waves, and we're listening to the wind. Lord, we believe we can get through, but Lord, help our unbelief.

And at that moment, Jesus extends his hands, and as he caught Peter and chided him lovingly, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? So he lovingly catches us and rebukes us. Have you noticed in verse 31 that my contention that faith is not incompatible with doubt is testified to by Scripture? Jesus didn't say to Peter, you have no faith at all. Rather, he said, you've only got a little faith.

But as Peter continues with the Lord Jesus over the years and on into the time of ministry, when Peter with the disciples in the period after the ascension engage in preaching the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus, so his faith then increases and becomes a mighty one indeed. Well then, here I say, the ways in which we are to prepare to deal with doubt, here are methods which can be of help to us, disciplining the self, realizing the need that faith has to be cultivated, recognizing that God is with us, and crying out for help when all seems to be lost. But I must conclude on one note to round off the whole of our meditation, which I've enjoyed bringing this evening, and I trust it has been of help to you.

And it is to underline the fact that Jesus Christ promises us that eventually He will bring us through into His eternal kingdom faultless, and He will present us before His Father with exceeding great joy. There are scriptures that refer to this, and particularly one I've noted in the notes that were handed to you from the epistle to Jude, where the apostle Paul, writing to Jude, says, I'm sorry, where Jude, writing himself, says, Now unto Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

Did you notice the reason why I've included this scripture in our study this evening? Unto Him that is able to keep you from falling. You'll never sink in the seas of life. Peter would never drown.

It seemed as though he would, but Jesus was there ready to lend the hand of assistance when it was necessary. And Jesus gives to us this guarantee that He will one day present us faultless before His Father with exceeding joy. And as we walk across the seas of life, He is able to keep us from falling.

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose, He will not, He cannot desert to its foes. Thank God that even when doubt comes at its most intense moment, there is always the Lord Jesus Christ ready to give assistance. Well, may you know that abundantly in your lives in the near future and until the Lord Jesus Christ calls you into His immediate presence.

Amen. Father and our God, we do lovingly commend one another to you and to your grace. You're aware of all the problems and difficulties that are represented in such a congregation of people as this.

And we're asking that whatever our anxieties may be, whatever obstacles may seem to impede our progress as Christian pilgrims, that what we have learned from your word this evening shall be of great benefit and of help to us. And most of all, may we at every end and turn of life's journey know that our God is a very present help at times of trouble. So, Lord, may we not make the same mistake as Peter.

May we not get so preoccupied with the problem that we forget the solution. Keep our eyes fixed upon your Son. And now as we take our leave from one another and from this church, we ask for your blessing, the blessing of the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and until our Lord calls us into His presence.

Amen.