DOUBT
Christ never
failed to distinguish between doubt and unbelief. Doubt is can’t believe.
Unbelief is won’t believe. Doubt is honesty. Unbelief is obstinacy. Doubt is
looking for light. Unbelief is content with darkness.
Doubt is
natural within faith. It comes because
of our human weakness and frailty… Unbelief is the decision to live your life
as if there is no God. It is a
deliberate decision to reject Jesus Christ and all that he stands for. But
doubt is something quite different. Doubt arises within the context the faith.
It is a wistful longing to be sure of the things in which we trust. But it is
not and need not be a problem.
Alistair McGrath
When Doubt Becomes Unbelief, Tabletalk,
16, No.1, January 1992, p. 8-10.
Some of us
who have preached the Word for years, and have been the means of working faith
in others and of establishing them in the knowledge of the fundamental
doctrines of the Bible, have nevertheless been the subjects of the most fearful
and violent doubts as to the truth of the very gospel we have preached.
C.H. Spurgeon
Sermons, 11.290.
It seems to
me that doubt is worse than trial. I had sooner suffer any affliction than be
left to question the gospel or my own interest in it.
C.H. Spurgeon
Sermons, 29.79.
Doubt
discovers difficulties which it never solves; it creates hesitancy,
despondency, despair. Its progress is
the decay of comfort, the death of peace. “Believe!” is the word which speaks
life into a man, but doubt nails down his coffin.
C.H. Spurgeon
Sermons, 35.455.
I believe
that the happiest of all Christians and the truest of Christians are those who
never dare to doubt God, but take His Word simply as it stands, and believe it,
and ask no questions, just feeling assured that if God has said it, it will be
so.
C.H. Spurgeon
Sermon, A Defense of
Calvinism.
When the New
Testament talks about doubt, whether you’re talking about the gospels or the
epistles, it primarily focuses on believers. That’s very important. It’s
as if you have to believe something before you can doubt it; you have to be
committed to it before you begin to question it. So doubt is held up as
the unique problem of the believer.
John MacArthur
Solving the Problem of Doubt. Matthew 11:1-6. The
article originally appeared (www.gty.org/Resources/Sermons/2285)
at www.gty.org. © 1969-2008. Grace to You. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
For some
reason, we think of doubt and worry as “small” sins. But when a Christian displays unbelief…or an inability to cope with
life, he is saying to the world, “My God cannot be trusted,” and that kind of
disrespect makes one guilty of a fundamental error, the heinous sin of
dishonoring God. That is no small sin.
John MacArthur
The Ultimate Priority, Moody Press 1983, p.
140.
Doubts
never send anyone to hell, but deception always does.
Author Unknown
Doubting does
not prove that a man has no faith, but only that his faith is small. And even
when our faith is small, the Lord is ready to help us.
J.C.
Ryle
Commentary, Matthew 14.