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Muskegon SDA Church

Steps to Christ

Kameron DeVasher

Repentance

Confession

Consecration

Faith and Acceptance

Royce Snyman

The Test of Discipleship

Daniel Jean-Francois

Growing Up Into Christ

The Work and the Life

A Knowledge of God

The Privilege of Prayer

What to Do With Doubt

And that's what we've been doing this quarter is exploring what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus, an ongoing daily journey with him through our Steps to Christ series.

And at this point, hopefully it's been abundantly clear that God loves us and that we need him.

He's our only hope of salvation, that when we come to him in true repentance, with confession, with sincerity of heart, that he receives us and he makes us into his own son's image.

And so we want to remain faithful to God and now as we come to the close, or towards the close of this series, assuming that everyone has at some point given their lives to Christ, is walking faithfully with him, has that active, dynamic prayer life where we open our heart as to a friend that you might ask the question, now what?

Well you have your daily devotions, you continue to study the Word of God, you continue to grow in the grace of Christ, you continue to have this active prayer life, but even with that Satan still has some very pointed temptations for those who are trying to remain faithful to God.

Now we'll cover this in just a moment, but before we study God's Word, we want to begin with an attitude of prayer.

Heavenly Father, thank you again so much, particularly for this Sabbath day and now at this part of the service this morning.

As we open the Word of God, we want to do so humbly, sincerely, and with the leading of the Holy Spirit.

So we claim your promise that you've given.

We can know the truth, and the truth will set us free.

There could perhaps be no greater way for Satan to annoy, frustrate, and potentially discourage Christians more than to bring into our religious experience, which is based on the truths of God's Word, doubts about that very word.

Doubts about God, doubts about his love for us, doubts about the things that the Bible claims, doubt.

In the middle of a good otherwise good walk.

Satan still wants to interject skepticism and discouragement.

And of all the denominations in the world, none builds their faith more directly on the Bible and a clear thus saith the Lord than does the seventh-day Adventist people.

We recognize and treasure our identity as God's remnant people who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus.

But what do we do when something in God's Word doesn't seem to make sense to us?

What do we do when part of God's Word seems to contradict another?

What happens if it looks like, at the surface reading, that something might be beyond our understanding or doesn't just add up, doesn't make sense?

Satan is waiting as you take your daily walk with Christ, as you have that dynamic prayer life, as you study the Word of God, to introduce into your mind questions about the character of God and the content of His Word.

And he's looking for any opportunity to wrest you away from that firm grip of faith that you have in God.

So today I just want to simply go through some very basic suggestions, very basic principles, practices that you can do to think, what do I do when I come to something in God's Word that seems beyond my understanding or just doesn't seem to make sense at all?

First of all, when you discover difficulties or mysteries in the Bible you can't decipher or fully grasp, know that God fully expected you not to get everything in his word.

He says so himself throughout the Word of God.

We're going to look at several of these passages.

For instance, let's go to the book of Job.

We find this written in the scripture itself.

If you get to the book of Psalms, you've gone 1 too far.

Go back to the left 1 book, Job 11, starting with verse 7.

Notice what we read here in the Scriptures.

Can you search out the deep things of God?

Can you find out the limits of the Almighty?

Their measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.

When we come to the Word of God, and we try to understand the author of this scripture, we try to understand the God who would give us such a work, we're going into a great big huge area that's far beyond our finite understanding.

Now he gives us things we can understand and have you ever think about how marvelous it is that a God of infinite knowledge and wisdom and knowing and understanding would write us a book, right?

And he expects us to read it, but we should not be surprised when a God who's that wise and that big and that smart has ideas in this book that our mortal minds can't fully get our arms around.

Isaiah 55, look what the Lord Himself says directly.

For my thoughts, declare the Lord, are not your thoughts, nor are my ways, nor are your ways, my ways, says the Lord.

Now I find that to be very appealing, that God is smarter than me.

That no matter how hard I try, no matter how much time and wisdom I can attain, he's still going to be beyond.

So don't expect to pick up the Word of God like, oh yeah, easy, got it.

God himself says, my thoughts are not your thoughts, your ways are not my ways, says the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Let's go to the New Testament, go to the book of Romans.

Look how the Apostle Paul would speak about this very issue.

And if there was anyone who could grasp a big idea or a tough concept, wouldn't it be the Apostle Paul?

I mean, he writes about these magnificent, huge themes in these incredibly long sentences.

Peter even says, Paul writes some things that are hard to understand.

He was a scholar, he was a multilingual evangelist, yet when he comes to the great themes of God's Word, he says in Romans 11 verse 33, and it's an exclamation 0 the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out!

Now that doesn't mean we can't know anything, but it certainly means we don't know everything.

Paul had a grasp on the gospel, but he even looked and he says, but if I were to look at the totality of what I could know about God and what God is and what is how big and broad his plans are and how deep his love is in a mystery.

I mean, think about this time of the year.

Why are people thinking about Jesus this time of year?

Well, we're celebrating the birth of Christ, the incarnation where God became man.

Now, we blithely just say, oh, yeah, God became man.

I praise the Lord that it's true But he's not depending on me understanding the nuts and bolts of how it operates Before I say yes, I will trust in the Lord in this matter No, and you start thinking think of the things that we talk about.

And I, when we talk about God, we're talking about such a huge concept.

And the things that he promises, raising the dead, we praise the Lord, how's he going to do that?

And I realized that there's a certain amount of things that I can grasp in my life, but compared to the infinite wisdom and mind of God, I'm nothing.

Paul says, oh, how do we even comprehend?

But notice it didn't shake his faith, it more firmly established it.

I'm standing at the foot of a giant, and I trust his heart.

Number 1, God realizes that you don't know all that he is.

And he wrote in his book, don't expect for us to be peers.

Back to Menu

Series

Steps to Christ

What to Do With Doubt

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Why We Believe: Exploring the Fundamental Beliefs of the Bible

11 The Experience of Salvation

50m

Walking with Jesus

52m

Faith Versus Feelings

43m

You’re Being Conditioned for a Lie

31m

Channels

55m

Experiencing God

Session 1: New Life in Prayer and Praise

52m

Going the Distance

6. It’s Complicated

54m

Unlock Revelation

How to Have a New Start- Part 3: Faith or Feeling

36m

Battles to Fight and Win

Doubt vs Faith. How To Stand Firm and Know the Truth?

49m

Wilderness Wandering

In The Wilderness

30m

Not So Fast

42m

Sound Doctrine