Struggling has at all times been a serious theme of our podcast — with about 1,800 mentions of the phrase struggling in our podcast historical past. Yow will discover a digest of all of the methods this has been addressed within the Ask Pastor John e-book on pages 365–394. And we have now lately concentrated our consideration on the theme — greater than usually. Struggling, we noticed, distinguishes true ministry from the prosperity gospel preachers. We noticed that in APJ 2087. Then we checked out how not to answer struggling in APJ 2094, taking a look at Job’s spouse. We appeared on the ache of a lady who has been sorely mistreated, and the way she ought to reply, in APJ 2095. And final time we checked out the right way to press on in ministry, even after God takes your loved one spouse away. That was in APJ 2096.
On this heavy season, a grieving dad writes to us about his battle with doubt on this nameless e-mail: “Pricey Pastor John, my spouse and I are grateful to your ministry, for this podcast, and for the impression you will have had on our lives. In January of this 12 months, my spouse gave delivery to our firstborn child boy. He was lovely. My coronary heart grew ten occasions. I’ve by no means seen my spouse so completely happy. The Lord appeared to reply all of our prayers of hysteria and fear — normal and particular — with a regularity that frankly shocked me. These appeared to be mild indicators, for my spouse notably, of his tender care and goodness to us. I sensed from this that regardless of our fears about being pregnant and the well being of the newborn, the Lord’s hand was with us, as I do know it’s.
“Two weeks later, we awoke, and our child had suffocated. I did CPR for ten minutes because the paramedics arrived and took him. I prayed for God to make him breathe once more. I prayed on the hospital for a similar factor. However he was gone. A state of affairs that appeared too good to be true so rapidly was a state of affairs that appeared too horrible to be actual. Earlier than this, I by no means processed deeply what occurs when a toddler dies in infancy. Given our state of affairs, I’ve considered this so much over the past a number of weeks, together with APJ episodes wherein you described your reasoning by means of Romans 1. This and different assets and my very own inferences from the Bible all appear to level in the identical course: that my son is in heaven.
“However critically listening to the reasoning of others, there appears to be both a ‘best-guess’ perspective or arguments that should skip to the conclusion in the end of their logic for lack of specific biblical proof on the subject. I discover that I’m 99 p.c positive that my son is in heaven, however there’s at all times the final little little bit of questioning or doubt. This doubt holds me again from rejoicing within the security and closing safety and life that my baby has with the Lord. So, my query is that this: Can I freely rejoice in the truth that my son is in heaven? Or will this be one thing I can’t be utterly positive of till I’m with Jesus in heaven, too?”
One of many causes I wish to deal with this query is as a result of the essence of the difficulty being raised is way broader than the fast query about how we could be positive if a deceased toddler is in heaven. I don’t wish to reduce that query, and I notice it’s the most pressing one being requested at this heartbreaking second by this heartbroken dad. However I feel the way in which the query is posed actually does make the difficulty very broad and really pressing for all of us.
The Drawback of the 1 P.c
I’d name it the query of the ultimate 1 p.c. This dad says that in any case his biblical research, his considering and praying, “I discover that I’m 99 p.c positive that my son is in heaven. However there’s at all times that final little little bit of questioning or doubt. This doubt holds me again from rejoicing within the security and closing safety and life that my baby has with the Lord.” The ultimate 1 p.c prevents his pleasure. What’s it that takes this dad right through 99 p.c of certainty however not the 1 p.c?
“Religion just isn’t the alternative of understanding; it’s the alternative of distrusting, rejecting, scorning.”
Listed below are a number of the key phrases that he provides in reply to that query: “thought,” “reasoning from Romans 1,” “different assets,” “inferences from the Bible,” “important listening,” “arguments,” “logic.” In different phrases, his greatest efforts to make use of his God-given capacities for statement, and evaluation, and reasoning, and significant reflection, and logic, and argument, and Bible — these are in a position to carry him, he says, to a 99 p.c confidence, however there stays a voice in his thoughts that claims, “You may be fallacious.”
Now, my level is that there’s maybe no doctrine, no reality declare for which the identical factor couldn’t be stated. Does God exist? Is Christ divine? Was Jesus raised from the useless? Is the loss of life of Jesus the motion of God to forgive sins? Is there a heaven? A hell? Is the Bible inerrant? When our humblest, most fair-minded, most thorough, most diligent investigation of all of the proof is full, it will be trustworthy for most individuals to say, “These efforts carry me to 80 p.c, 90 p.c, 99 p.c certainty. However there stays, in my thoughts, a voice that claims, ‘It’s attainable you would be mistaken on all of that.’” And so, the 1 p.c hole stays the issue of the 1 p.c.
I ought to clarify that the 1 p.c hole exists for the atheist and the agnostic in addition to the Christian. The assertion that there’s no God, that Jesus Christ just isn’t God, that the gospel of Jesus just isn’t wanted for salvation, that the Bible just isn’t true — these assertions, when all is alleged and finished, depart a voice in your head, a niche, a voice saying, “You could be fallacious.” So, for the Christian, how does God shut the 1 p.c? Or does he?
Our Full Assurance
Some would quote Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:7 — “We stroll by religion, not by sight” — and conclude that religion leaps throughout the 1 p.c with out sight. I don’t suppose that’s what Paul meant. I don’t suppose “stroll by religion, not by sight” means “stroll by uncertainty, not certainty.” Within the New Testomony, religion just isn’t the alternative of understanding; it’s the alternative of distrusting, rejecting, scorning.
In 2 Corinthians 4:13–14, Paul says, “We additionally consider, and so we additionally converse, understanding that he who raised the Lord Jesus will elevate us additionally with Jesus.” We consider, understanding — understanding results in perception. It’s not that the absence of understanding requires you to blindly consider. That’s simply not the way in which the New Testomony thinks about religion. When Paul was making an attempt to awaken religion, he gave arguments and causes and evidences. And when he was arguing for the resurrection, he stated, “Then [Jesus] appeared to greater than 5 hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are nonetheless alive” (1 Corinthians 15:6), that means, “You possibly can go discuss to them and enhance your sense of evidential confidence by taking a look at evidences.”
“God needs his kids to be absolutely assured that he’s actual, Christ is actual, salvation is actual.”
The Bible intends for Christians to have assurance. Paul describes his ministry like this: “I would like you to know the way nice a battle I’ve for you . . . that [your] hearts could . . . attain . . . the . . . full assurance of . . . the data of God’s thriller, which is Christ” (Colossians 2:1–2). He needs full assurance for his folks. Hebrews 6:11: “We want every considered one of you to indicate the identical earnestness to have the total assurance of hope till the top.” First John 5:13: “I write these items to you who consider within the title of the Son of God, that you could be know that you’ve got everlasting life.” Paul prays in Ephesians 1:18 that “the eyes of [our] hearts [be] enlightened, that [we] could know what’s the hope to which he has referred to as [us].”
How God Addresses Our Doubts
The query is that this: How does the Bible describe the closing of the 1 p.c? It doesn’t describe that closing as a leap at midnight. It doesn’t describe it as a wager. It doesn’t describe it as a crossing of our fingers for the final 1 p.c.
As an alternative, the New Testomony describes the closing of the final 1 p.c because the supernatural shining in our hearts of a divine, religious mild by means of the gospel: “God . . . has shone in our hearts to provide the sunshine of the data of the glory of God within the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). It describes it because the witness of God’s Spirit himself: “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we’re kids of God” (Romans 8:16). It describes it as a divine sealing by the Spirit as a down fee of our inheritance (Ephesians 1:13–14). It describes it because the love of God poured into our hearts by the Spirit: “Hope doesn’t put us to disgrace, as a result of God’s love has been poured into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5).
So, the purpose just isn’t that each doctrinal query has the identical degree of significance or is granted the identical fullness of assurance. The purpose is that God needs his kids to be absolutely assured that he’s actual, Christ is actual, salvation is actual — and that we’re actually saved and actually destined for glory. The best way this pertains to doctrinal questions that won’t rise to the identical degree of certainty is that the profound expertise of God-given religious sight and confidence and pleasure in regards to the central actuality of our salvation will allow us to peacefully, joyfully depart in God’s arms all of the unanswered questions that stay.
