Luke 7:18-35

When we take our eyes off of Jesus, doubt will creep in to take charge of our thoughts. But, we weren’t designed to doubt. We were created for fellowship with God. To walk with Him, and be strengthened and supported by Him.

I’m going to say something. I have no agenda. I’m not grinding some a on some wheel.
I’m just going to say it because it’s true in my life and because it’s true in my life, I’m going to share it with you and maybe it’s true in your life.
God is constantly and has for the last 30 years, almost 30 years in my life as a Christian constantly telling me, Jack put down that book and pick up my Bible.
I can be reading a great Christian book and God will say put it down when I’m going, oh my God.
Oh oh great. Oh wow. This is a, I love this book, you know, by John Wolford or by whoever who I when I get too excited about the book, man.
This is great stuff. Where’s my highlighter?
Oh boy God will always say Jack put down that book and pick up my book.
You said, are you kidding me? I’m not kidding you. I’ll be listening to a great Christian CD.
I’ll be singing in my car alone at the top of my lungs. OK?
And I’ll hear the Lord say, turn it off and talk to me, I’ll take a walk in the morning and I’m walking through where I live on a walk and the Lord will say, think about me.
No, I don’t mean he says that and I hear the tree, the tree start shaking goes.
I don’t hear that. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a pulse in my heart.
It’s in my head. Jack, think of me. Yes, Lord.
And I have to fight to not wander back to what I want to do and what I want to do can even be a good thing to do, but it’s not the important thing to do.
We wander from God, sadly, tragically it’s natural.
But listen, don’t tell me you have a temper because you’re Irish.
Irish are sinners just like I have a lot of Portuguese blood in me and we have tempers.
We have tempers. Ok? Well, you know, uh that’s you guys, I’m this way, I’m stubborn. I’m German.
I have some German blood in me too. You think God says? You know what?
You guys, I really want you guys to stop being stubborn and be soft and tender toward me.
But these guys over here they don’t have to because they’re Germans.
God doesn’t think like that. That doesn’t count.
He doesn’t say well, you know, you got to pass because you’re Puerto Rican and you’re hot blooded and you, you know, no, these things that we have going on in our lives, we can say Well, you know, everybody doubts.
Yes, everybody doubts but listen to doubt God is a sin. It’s not trust Him.
It’s to accuse him of something that’s not true.
Listen to this verse 22 Jesus answered and said to these two men that are making an inquiry for John, go tell John the things that you’ve seen and heard.
Why did he say that? Because when these two inquirers came, it, it, it appears in the scripture here in Luke seven that Jesus did this flurry of miracles.
It’s almost like a tornado happened.
It formed right over where he was standing and he’s just raising the dead, healing the sick, opening the eyes of the blind.
And wham now look you two guys go tell John the things that you and this is code talk.
This is, this is insider information.
Jesus says, go tell John the things that you see in here that’s supposed to mean something to John.
If we were doing a a deep Bible study here, we would ask the question, why would that be significant?
Why would it be important? Why? Why is that the answer to John’s question?
Because John’s asking a very important question, Jesus, are you the Messiah of the world?
Are you he or do we look for someone else? Are you like a forerunner of the Messiah Jesus?
I’m having doubts you guys have to remember was not John, the Baptist filled with the Holy Spirit inside the womb before he was even born.
Was he not a prophet of God from birth? Is not Jesus himself.
He even saying there’s been none greater in all the history of man born of women than John.
He’s the greatest of all prophets. That’s a tall statement. Jesus says John is greater than Jeremiah.
What made him greater? His character? It certainly wasn’t his clothes or his hair do what made him greater.
It was his ministry. The others not to put them down at all by no means they’re holy, wonderful men used by God.
They announced certain things, but it was given to John to introduce the Messiah to the world, literally by his office.
He was the greatest by his office. Bible students. He was the last prophet on earth of the Old Testament.
John was the final one. The New Testament was about to be born.
So Jesus says, go tell him the things that you’ve seen and heard and here it is the blind.
See the lame walk, the leopards are cleansed, the deaf, hear the dead are raised and the poor of the gospel preached to them.
This is the code. There’s by the way, listen, there’s over 300 verses. So it’s right small. Ok.
We’re going to No, I’m kidding. I’ll give you three out of the 300.
This is what the Bible says and this is what you can or how you can know that Jesus is the one Jesus is saying to John judge me according to what the scriptures say.
So church, here you go. How will we recognize the Messiah? Number one, Isaiah 35 verses five and six.
When he comes, he will open the eyes of the blind, unstop or unplug the ears of the deaf and the lame will leap like a deer and those who cannot speak will shout and sing.
Ok? Whoever listen, whoever the Messiah is, who listen, who’s whoever’s right, whoever has the right message.
This is one of the fulfillment that he must perform.
He’s got to do these miracles recorded in Isaiah 35 question. Did Jesus do that? Yes, he did.
And he’s telling these guys go tell John, thank John. Listen, church, grab this, grab this regarding doubt.
Use your head. Don’t use your emotions because they’re gonna rip you off every time John was feeling lost and abandoned because things weren’t happening his way.
He didn’t understand. He didn’t have 2000 years of Bible study like you and I have.
Where are you, Jesus? Come on, set the liberty, set at liberty, those that are captive.
Um I’m in prison. The code answer is what do you hear?
And what you see the gospel is preached, the blind are seen, the lame are walking. John.
What does your Bible say? Church? Listen, Susie, Betty, Karen Mike. What does your Bible say?
What does your Bible answer? The situation you’re in right now? What does it say that’s what you go with.
Yeah, but Jack, I just feel totally alone. You’re not alone. Yeah. But you know what stop saying? Yeah.
But what does the word say?
Number two under this point, Isaiah 29 18 says in that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book.
That is the Bible in the eyes of the blind shall see and out of obscurity and out of darkness they shall behold that was happening.
John, what’s going on? You know your Bible, John judge me according to the Bible church, Judge Jesus, according to the Bible, Judge Joseph Smith, according to the Bible judge, Pastor Jack, according to the Bible judge, you name them according to the Bible judge so young moon, according to the Bible, let the word of Paul the Apostle said in acts chapter 11.
Don’t, don’t judge me based upon what I might do.
Judge what I say against the Bible to see if it’s true. Acts 17 11.
This is very critical to slain doubt in our lives.
And then Isaiah 61 which was the actually opening verse of Jesus’s ministry.
Isaiah 61 is another proof of the Messiah ship. Whoever it is the spirit of the Lord.
God has to be upon him because it says the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor Jesus did that.
He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted.
He’s still doing that to proclaim the liberty to the captives and opening the prison of those who are bound the gospel message.
What does the evidence say, John about me? Number two in our study.
How do we or why do we struggle with doubt? Because doubt won’t disappoint. Now, can you write that down?
I should have put a little asterisk up there or something because doubt won’t disappoint. That’s a sarcasm.
I’m being sarcastic with you right now. See doubt.
In fact, the other day I had to go make uh go get new house keys made for the house keys and I haven’t had keys made for a house in a long time.
And uh when you go, now you, you can pick, you can have a gold key, you can have a silver key or whatever.
You know, you can have a black key, you can have a green key.
Well, they, now they have Disney keys and so I looked at that and I thought, well, my girls, they love Disneyland and Rebecca loves wind of the poo and they got a win of the key.
So I got her a win of the Pookie and uh Ashley likes Minnie Mouse.
So she got a mini Minnie mouse key and Lisa likes the Minnie Mouse. She got a Minnie mouse key.
Uh and I got my own key and I thought, you know what, what I mean?
I’m not, I mean, poo is really cool but they didn’t have a Tigger key.
I would have gotten a Tigger key.
Uh, but I thought if you know what, on, on, on Sunday, I’m one way and on Monday I’m another way on Monday.
I’m more like Tigger. It’s my day off and I’m very bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy.
Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. But on Sundays I can be very, or like, and they had an, er, key and so when I look at that it kind of makes me laugh because I shouldn’t be like an, er, from time to time.
But then I thought all of us struggle would be in like an, er, from time to time.
And the reason why it hit me because Dell won’t disappoint.
You know what if we’re doubting how many of you have seen the adventures of Winnie the pooh, raise your hand, the rest of you need to get saved and watch it.
Christopher Robin and Winnie the pooh and Piglet and all those guys, they’re trying to say, oh boy, let’s go.
We’re going to have fun today and there is, I doubt it. It’s going to rain.
There’s no hope for us. We’re probably going to die. He’s just a bummer.
Nobody wants to be around him. Everybody puts up with him. Why do we put up with doubt?
You know what? Doubt has a very sick, twisted, perverse comfort to it.
But the comfort is empty in vain doubt. Never disappoints you want to know why?
Because doubt doesn’t expect anything to happen. Christian with your argument and struggle with doubt.
You need to get it out of your life with the word of God because you know what, you’ll start to comfort doubt in your life and let it reside there.
And this is what will happen because doubt will never disappoint.
Here’s the reason why, what it does is it justifies everything. Doubt just justifies everything.
Well, a lot of people do it, I’ll never be different.
That won’t happen in my life.
And you begin to think like that until you begin to live like that.
You say things like someone else can do this better when the church has a need like family fest coming up.
You’re thinking, well, the person next to me, they’ll probably buy all the candy, they’ll, they’ll buy the four tons of candy that we need.
Did you know the person sitting next to you that you think is thinking, that thought is thinking about the person next to them thinking that thought until the thought starts over here and goes all the way over here and we have no candy on October 30th.
Did you know that’s what happens? It’s absolutely true.
We say sign up and show up or come to this or do that and you’re thinking, don’t tell me you’re not thinking this because I think the same thing, you know what they, they don’t need me.
Did you hear that? You hear how common that is. You know what?
I bet so many people are going to show up for that. I don’t need to come.
You have begun to let doubt reside in your life. You’ve justified it.
And now it’s just part of your living. He knew he recognized it.
This is a dangerous thing because if you leave that alone, it will lead eventually the unbelief.
That’s a very serious issue. Now, why do we struggle with doubt?
Because doubt won’t disappoint. And the truth of the matter is, boy, I don’t know how to say this gently.
I’ve known too many Christians, Lisa and I have known too many Christians in our lives.
When I say Christians, I have to say quote Christians, they look just like you and I, for years you guys and because something came into their life and they got disappointed, you know what they did, they threw down their toys, it didn’t go their way.
They threw it down, they stuck out their chin and they said, you know what, I’m out of here.
Oh, I don’t mean here and I don’t mean there. I don’t mean anywhere they say to God.
You know what? I really thought that she was the one. I thought we were gonna get married.
I even told my friends I wanted her and now she’s gone. We’re not gonna get married.
I’m out of here. You know what?
When difficulties arise, Jesus said, beware, when difficulties come and trials come watch out because when Jesus talked about the sower and the seed casting the word out into the hearts of people.
The Bible tells us, by the way, in Matthew 13, you can read it later. I’ll paraphrase it.
Verses 18 to 23. Jesus warned about that.
He said that there will be those who receive the word, but it doesn’t do anything.
And then there are those who receive the word and they continue for a while.
We don’t know what that means.
By the way, the word a while did you know that there’s theologian still sitting right now in towers trying to figure out what does that word mean?
We don’t know what it means. Nobody knows.
Does it mean three weeks, they’ll hear the Bible, they’ll come forward, they, they’ll come at the crusade or they’ll come at the outreach or they’ll come to church, they’ll make a profession of faith and they continue for a while.
The thing is, we don’t know how long that means. Does it mean three weeks?
Three years, 30 years, does it mean 100 years? What we don’t know?
But whatever happens, we know it says, but in time they become disappointed or discouraged when persecution or difficulties arise and they turn away from God.
And what they wind up saying is Santa, I mean, Jesus, you didn’t do it the way I wanted and you give up on God, you walk out on God.
It didn’t happen the way I thought it was going to happen.
And you get disappointed and then listen, you start thinking, well, that’s it. And you’ll claim to know God.
But you’re, listen, you’re living your life, punishing God and I got news for you.
You’re not punishing him, you’re ruining your life.
And if you let that doubt continue on in that bitterness, you will wind up being filled with unbelief and you will wind up being a statistic one who was around the things of God, but you were never born again.
You were religious, but in the end, you had no relationship with God. Watch out.
I’ve seen this happen too many times. Church. Listen, wake up.
That’s why you and I have trials and difficulties in life. Listen, isn’t God good.
You say, well, that’s why I’m not a Christian. I don’t want trials and difficulties. No, no, no, no.
Read the fine print. First of all, everyone, everyone has difficulties, trials in life. Here’s the thing.
If you’re a non Christian, those difficulties, God is trying to use them to draw you to God. Ok.
Did your house burn down this week? God’s trying to get you to come to Christ.
Well, what did he do that for? He didn’t do it but he’ll use it.
Is something going on in your life as a non Christian.
God is trying to get you to know Jesus. But what if you are a Christian?
Then why did this happen and why did that happen?
Well, wait a minute, when, when I ask, I can’t speak for you.
But when I ask God, why, when I say things like this, why God, I mean, come on, if I were you, I wouldn’t have done that.
Do you think he goes? You know what? You got a good point there, Jack.
I’m sorry, let’s rewind and we’ll do it your way.
Do you know that would be utter destruction, complete disaster.
But when I say, oh, why I say that? Because I’m disappointed it’s not going my way.
You guys, it’s not about me. Oh, don’t look at me like that. It’s not about you either.
It’s about him.
It’s all about him and we cannot be the people who say I will pick and choose this type of living, this type of scripture.
I’ll, I’ll believe in this book of the Bible, but not the other book of the Bible.
I’ll, I’ll love Isaiah, but I’m not gonna read that Joel book we’re doing on Wednesday nights. Too much.
That’s scary. You can’t do that.
I mean, you can do it, but you’ll just be filled with doubt and then unbelief.
This is a serious issue. When difficulties come in the life of a believer, we see the power of God, comfort our hearts, the word of God, comfort our soul and faith is expelled.
Or I should say faith is infused and doubt is pushed away.
It’s vital see, doubt is never disappointed because it never ventures out. It never expects anything.
It can never think big. It can never think beyond itself. Doubt ventures nowhere.
It draws the shade, so to speak. It keeps the door locked.
It’s a tragedy Jesus said in verse 23. Look at it carefully. Blessed.
Is he who is not offended because of me? You know what that word in Greek is?
You know, it, scandal, scandal, scandal in English to be scandalized.
The word scandalized in the Greek means one who gets tripped up, one who falls away because of me.
Jesus is happy is the man that doesn’t fall away because of me. Do you know what he’s saying?
This is a massive statement of authority.
Happy in the end is going to be the one who follows me regardless of how they feel and what they think about themselves, but they follow me.
Still church. Listen. Will you make it to the end? That’s my job to plead with you. Point.
You give you the bible pray for you that you make it to the end.
That’s what I’m living for to get you to the end.
Jesus said, happy is the guy that makes it to the end who’s not scandalized because of me?
I said this last service and a young man about 25 years of age came up into the foyer, shook my hand and just started crying and he said, thank you for today because tomorrow I go back to my job where they eat me alive for being a Christian Friday night, I met with your junior highers in a home bible study.
And I had a blast with those kids because you know what I talked to them, like the world is going to talk to them in a few years.
I talked to them and I said, listen, let’s pretend for a moment.
And I mean, I set him up royally. I said, you remember this word? You remember that word?
Do you remember this word? Now? Here we go guys.
And I got into the center of the room and I talked to them like a junior college or a university professor is gonna talk to them someday.
You see? Well, Jack, they’re only junior high. You know what?
They are unbelieving, unbelieving high school teachers that are looking for Christians in their class and men and first day don’t listen, don’t write me later.
You’re wrong. I’m telling you right now. I hear it too often.
I know that there are teachers that are so anti God that they can’t wait for the first day of school for them to and they do it very sneaky.
Hey, I want to hear about you. Welcome to the first day of school. And what’s your name? Mike? Mike.
And what are you into? Uh oh, that’s great. Water skiing. That’s great, Susie. And you are? Yeah.
And you, ok. That’s great gymnastics. Wonderful, Bill. How about you? Yeah. Oh, and you’re a Christian?
No, that isn’t that great. We have a Christian in the class. That’s great.
Well, before we go any further, have you seen what’s going on in the news today?
Well, I’m wondering how you, you, you believe that God your God loves, can you explain that about your God of love?
You guys, universities eat Christians alive because they go tiptoeing into school like they’re going to rule open a red carpet.
They eat Christians alive who don’t know the word and they begin to put doubt into their heads.
And then you’ve got kids sitting in the corner in the fetal position, sucking their thumb wondering what happened in the years that I went to church.
They were not prepared and I told those kids, you know what you need to be able to answer and we got down to answers.
I played the bad guy and I gotta tell you your junior high kids are taught. Well, thank God.
Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio with his message called, why do we struggle with doubt?
Part one. Thanks for being with us today.
You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack’s new series called The Gospel of Luke.
It’s a series on the book of Luke and the unveiling of Jesus Christ to this world.
And we’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life radio and my friends as we are now, just as it were our days into the new year.
Let’s just make sure we do what I’m about to do with you for the entire year ahead. Ok.
And it’s this Lord, your Bible tells us in Psalm 65 11 that you crown the year with your goodness and all of your paths drip with abundance.
So father, we ask you now that you would bless every husband, every wife in their relationship, together, every son and daughter.
We pray that you’d bless grandparents, extended family, God, that you might pour out upon this nation, a revival in the word of God among your people.
And if that happens, there will be an awakening among the lost in this world and in this country.
So God, we pray, we ask you to use us this year as we dedicate ourselves to you in every way.
Lord, we wanna leave certain things behind us, never to have them picked up again.
And we want to grab on to certain things Lord that we never want to let go of as we move forward in you this new year in Jesus name and all of God’s people out there said amen.
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Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio.
Wish for you Solid and steady growth in Christ and in his word, we’ll see you next time here on real life radio.