Continued: OPPOSING & OVERCOMING OUR DOUBTS

 3.   ACCEPT THAT ALL THAT PERPLEXES US WILL NOT NECESSARILY BE ANSWERED IN OUR LIFE-TIME

• we must remember that there is an eternity beyond – this life is not all!
• Job certainly did not receive the answers to all his searching questions in his life-time.
• however, God is no man’s debtor – Job, Jeremiah and Habakkuk were blessed by God, way beyond their expectations
• Paul wrote some particularly helpful words to the Christians, who lived in Corinth – he probably knew more than most of his contemporaries about pressure, perplexities, persecutions etc. However, he did not allow these things to prevent him from serving Christ. Instead, he viewed them as an encouragement to press onward and upward! He sent this message to encourage the hard-pressed Christians in Corinth to persevere: ‘For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal’, 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verses 16-18.
• If we kept these truths before us each day, our doubts, perplexities, questions and fears would not arise!

 4.   NEVER ALLOW EVEN ‘HONEST DOUBT’ TO BE VIEWED AS ACCEPTABLE, DESIRABLE OR A VIRTUE

It is not the Lord’s desire that it should mark the Christian’s pathway – we must cling to the positive truth of Scripture:

• ‘The just shall live by faith’, Romans chapter 1 verse 17.
• ‘For we walk by faith, not by sight’, 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 7
• ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed’, John chapter 20 verse 29.