Losing Faith - CA-018

Some of these gaps are intellectual, and they're the easy ones. Christians really get worried when they start to think about being a Christian apologist, because they think of all these big, heavy, intellectual questions that they think people are going to ask them. Well, these, by and large, are simple because the big problems (and no one will admit this at first) are not intellectual, but moral. They're intellectual problems in disguise.

So the Christian apologist tries to bring people over these gaps, and to help them to understand that the problem is not intellectual, but spiritual and moral. It's not a matter of understanding everything intellectually at first, but it's a matter of building a relationship. As you know, Christianity is not a religion. It is a real relationship with a real person.

Let's just suppose there were a mansion in town, and in this mansion, the mayor of the city lived. It just happened that the flowers out in front of the mansion said, "Come in and build a relationship with the mayor." Let's just say, to strengthen this illustration some, that sometimes ducks would fly out of the sky and set on the lawn. They would set it in such a way that you could read, "Come in and meet the mayor." So you have these wild birds flying, spelling out, "Come in and meet the mayor." Flowers are growing out in front that say, "Come in and meet the mayor." But of course, there are people who say it just happened that way. This is not a real invitation to come in and meet the mayor. It just appears to be. So you have a relationship with the mayor. You've gone in, and you've met the mayor, and you have a friendship with him. You've taken him at his word. So you have this relationship, and your job is to encourage people, "Yes, it's a real genuine offer. It doesn't just happen. It's been planned. Come on in and meet the mayor."

A relationship makes a difference in the way you view things. It makes a difference in your world view. Because you know the mayor, you can go in and ask him, "Why did you make this decision that affected the city? Why did you do this? Why did you make certain policies?" You have a give-and-take relationship with the mayor, and your job is to convince other people that, "Yes, it is a legitimate offer. You go in; you meet the mayor; and, you build a relationship with him. Then you can have some insight and understanding about what's going on in the city, because you have a relationship with the mayor."

Some of you might have been to Hyde Park in London. I've never been there, but I've heard about it. This is a place the British government has set aside in which people can exercise freedom of speech almost unlimitedly. Anyone can go make a speech about anything. I heard a story about a man who stood on the soapbox in Hyde Park, and he made a speech in favor of atheism. He said, "There is supposed to be a God, but I've never seen Him. There are supposed to be angels, but I've never seen one. Heaven is supposed to exist, but I've never seen it. I've never seen these things, so I don't believe in them." As soon as he finished, people were nodding, "Well, yeah, he makes sense. He makes atheism make sense."

Someone else takes the stand and says, "Someone has told me there's a sky, but I've never seen it. Someone has told me that grass is green, but I've never seen any green grass. Somebody has told me that there are trees. In the autumn, they turn beautiful colors of gold and brown. In the spring, they're green and gold. But I've never seen these because, you see, I'm blind." It makes a difference. A relationship is what makes the difference. Our job as apologists is to help people get over the gaps from making the relationship. Remember that you enter a relationship on the basis of an act of the will. You enter a marriage by saying, "I do. I will." It's an act of the will. You become a child of God, and you build a relationship with God by saying, "Yes, I choose to believe. The hindrances are removed. I may not understand it all. There may be a lot that I don't understand, but the evidence is there, and I believe it. I choose to believe. Choosing to believe is believing.

The first thing that we Christian apologists need to understand and to remember is that this is not an intellectual battle. It's a spiritual battle. The intellect is involved. The more you know, the better you'll be able to help people, but ultimately, it is a spiritual battle, and it's not something artificial that you need to get yourself psyched up to do. Doing the work of a Christian apologist is the most natural thing in the world for a believer in fellowship.

1 Peter 3:15 is one of our mandates for Christian apologetics. It says, "But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts." The word "sanctify" means "to set apart" – reserve a seat for the Lord Jesus Christ in your life. That seat should be the throne in the center of your life, because someone will occupy that throne – either the old sin nature, or the Lord Jesus Christ. So Peter is implying 1 John 1:9 here. Keep your sins confessed; keep Jesus on the throne of your heart; and, "Always be ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you, and to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence." So you make Jesus Lord of your life. You exercise 1 John 1:9. You see to it that He's on the throne of your life. Your will, intellect, and emotions are under the control of God the Holy Spirit. Then it follows that the most natural thing for you to do is being ready to give a defense to anyone that asks you.

Another example is over in Acts 19:8: "And he (Paul) entered the synagogue and continued speaking out boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God." He was exercising apologetics. The apostle Paul was working as a Christian apologist. I want you to notice the context that this is in. People spoke in tongues in verse 6, and then beginning down in verse 11, we see all kinds of supernatural miracles taking place. Demons are cast out; people are healed; and, so on. We, here at Berean Memorial Church, we don't believe that people speak in tongues anymore. We can explain what happened in verse 6. We don't believe that God heals through the gift of healing anymore – that these miraculous gifts have been phased out. But Christian apologetics is still valid. It's still something that all believers can do, and should do.

But notice that it's in the context of these great miraculous sign (supernatural) gifts, and Christian apologetics is a supernatural activity. You have to be empowered by the Holy Spirit. So when you're engaging in Christian apologetics, you are exercising your spiritual gift. There is no particular spiritual gift of an apologist, but whatever spiritual gift God has given you, it can all come together, and you can exercise Christian apologetics under the filling of the Holy Spirit like the apostle Paul, by reasoning and persuading people about the kingdom of God.

Losing Faith

Sin

The first thing you should do to guard against this is to be smart enough not to set yourself up. Tell your young people; your nieces and nephews; and, your children and grandchildren, when they go off to college, "Don't set yourself up to fall into sin." When you do this, when you set yourself up for it, you'll probably fall into it. Then it becomes a habit. Then you'll start looking for ways to justify the habit. Before long, and especially in a college atmosphere, even in so-called Christian colleges, you've come across enough reasons not to believe anyway, so you talk yourself out of being an active, believing, spiritual, growing Christian.

Let's take drinking alcohol, for example. It's so much better just to say, "I don't drink. I have convictions against it, so I just don't drink." So many people, especially young people when they go off to college, say, "Well, I don't want people to think I'm weird or something. So I'm not going to refuse to go to a party just because they're serving liquor." Or, I knew a man a few years ago who was a believer. He told me that the people that he worked with belonged to a private club. Since you couldn't serve mixed drinks legally in the city in which he lived, if you belonged to a private club, you could bring your own bottle, and keep it in the refrigerator. Then when you checked in the club, you could get your bottle of liquor, vodka, whiskey, or whatever you had, and pour yourself a drink, and have a drink with your friends.

So he said, "This is where my work companions go to relax. Of course, I don't drink, but I don't want them to think that I think I'm better than they are, so I'm going to go with them and I'm not going to drink myself, but I'm just going to sit and fellowship. I may have a soft drink with them. Well, it wasn't long before he was saying, "I don't see any problem with having a drink with them, as long as I don't get drunk. I'll just relax with him and have a few drinks." Then it wasn't long before you didn't see him around in church anymore. And I don't know what became of him, but it wouldn't surprise me if he really got into this sin, and then started looking for reasons to justify it.

So if alcohol is your temptation, if you find it attractive, don't even go around it. If gambling appeals to you, don't even go into the casinos. Don't set yourself up for failure. We need to impress this on our young people. Don't set yourself up for failure. Set yourself up for success. The next thing you know, when you start playing around with these things and being around it, you're enjoying it, and you're looking for all kinds of reasons to justify it.

Also, remember that behind every temptation to do wrong is a false doctrine. We're talking about doctrine here. When a person is tempted to do wrong, it's because there is a false doctrine behind the temptation. One problem that is thrown at people today is (especially young people again), "You don't have a right to judge it or criticize it until you've tried it." So after you've taken drugs, and after you have lived promiscuously, then you can criticize other people, because you just don't have a right to criticize it unless you've tried it.

This is a false doctrine. You don't have to experience something to know that it's bad. Doctors don't have to inject disease into their bodies before they're able to deal with people with the disease. In fact, doctors and nurses and medical professionals want to avoid disease as much as they can. They know it's bad. You don't have to experience suicide to know that people shouldn't commit suicide. You don't have to have AIDS to know that it's a bad disease and you don't want it. So forget the stuff that you have to experience something before you can criticize it. If you're smart, you'll learn by other people's bitter experience rather than your own.

So the point is that behind every temptation to do wrong, there's a false doctrine. If Christians can just know enough doctrine, and have discernment and be in fellowship and be in the Word, they can spot the false doctrine which is behind the temptation to do wrong. It's not a temptation just to have some fun, or just to let your hair down. It's a temptation to lead you into false doctrine.

Another problem is that the average believer in the United States today practices sentimental Christianity. They live by feeling. Now, sometimes feelings are a valid part of our relationship with God, and Christians have the deepest feelings of anybody. But contemporary, sentimental Christianity is based on utterly shallow surface feelings that don't go skin deep. For example: "I prayed about it, and felt good about it, so it's got to be right." You can justify any sin in the world. I've heard people justify the most unbelievable abominations because they prayed about it, and they felt good about it. How could something bad feel so good? When the person talks himself into continuing in a sin because it feels so good, and they've even prayed about it, and it still feels good, and they experience the consequences, then they turn bitter against God: "God, why did you make me feel so good about this when the consequences would be so wrong?" They are setting themselves up for failure through superficial, shallow, sentimental Christianity based on Touched by an Angel, It's a Miracle, and so on. Theses may be interesting, entertaining TV shows with a tiny grain of truth every now and then, but they're certainly nothing to build a doctrine on.

We send young people off to college with this kind of mentality, and they're going to be impressed by the cult leaders – the leaders of false religions and false world systems. They're going to be impressed by their dedication. They're going to say, "Yeah, but it's got to be true because he's really dedicated," as though a person couldn't be dedicated to the worst thing in the world. Or, "Just look how hard they work. These people really get up early, and they work till late at night. They really must believe this." Yeah, that may be true, but they believe a lie.

Or they are going to be impressed by sincerity. And you know, you can be the most sincere person in the world and be sincerely wrong. The believer will say, "Well, I want to be fair. I want to give them a hearing. I want to be open-minded about it, because they're so dedicated, such hard workers, and so sincere." The result is, to use a phrase that we've heard many times here, they get so open-minded that their brains fall out.

The standard of truth is not sincerity, not dedication, and not hard work, but the Word of God. If people don't understand this, they're going to fall victim; they're going to get bitter; and, they're going to blame it on God. So the first problem is sin, and that needs to be dealt with even when it's rationalized away, because it will be there until it is confessed and the believer is back in fellowship with God. We need to impress on people, especially the high school kids and the college kids, that the Word of God is the standard – nothing else.

Making it on your Own

Philippians 3:20: "Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ." Our citizenship is in a nation far away in heaven, and nations are composed of people. So it involves the church, and it involves other people. Sometimes these young people (and sometimes older people – old enough to know better) will go on a trip or will start a new enterprise with people. Like one young man said, "Everything went well on my trip. Nobody even found out that I was a Christian." It's as though Christianity is something we need to hide. Our relationship with Christ is so personal that we don't want anybody else to know about it. You've got the solution to the biggest problem that anyone will ever have. You shouldn't keep it a secret. If you had the answer for starving people to be fed, or terminally ill people to be healed, you wouldn't want to keep it to yourself. You've got the answer. You need to let people know that you have the answer.

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus called believers two things: "You are the salt of the earth. As you know, salt is a preservative. Of course, back in those days, when they didn't have refrigeration, salting meat was the only way you could preserve it. So believers are the preservatives of a nation and of a people. Salt is also a vehicle to bring out the natural taste of something. Some things taste better when you put a little salt on it. It takes away the drabness and the blandness, and gives it an edge. That's what Christianity does to a society.

Just think a minute. The great music that we listen to is all inspired from a Christian world view. Many of the world's great composers were born again believers; and, those who were not, operated under a Christian world view. Consider the art of the Western world, and the novels and the literature from Christian influence. If you take away Christ, you've taken away a fantastically big segment of the spice of life – that which makes life enjoyable and interesting. So this is what Jesus compares Christians to. We're the ones who give the world its spice. We're the ones who provide a grid for people to have meaning and true enjoyment in life.

Then in verse 14, he says, "You are the light of the world." So people know something about the truth because of us believers acting as lights, and reflecting the light of God in life. So what do you do? When you want someone to have salt on their food so it will taste better, do you just take the lid off the salt shaker and dump the whole thing in? No. When someone asks you for a flashlight, do you get your 20,000 halogen light and shine it in their eyes? No. You don't go around banging people over the head with your superior spirituality. You do it by living your life. When you sense that a door is open, you do it. You do it in season and out of season. But we are the salt and the light of the world, and we do it according to our temperament. Some people are naturally aggressive. Some people are more laid back. But we don't hide it. So we need to let our light shine before other people. Once a person makes up his or her mind that they don't want anybody to know that they're a Christian, the next thing you know, they're acting like an unbeliever. Then they're out of fellowship, and they're enjoying acting like an unbeliever. Then they're finding all kinds of ways to try to justify it.

Hebrews 10:25 says, "Don't forsake your own assembling together." This means even if you've gone off to college, or even if you get transferred to another city in your job. Whatever you're doing, don't forsake your church. Find a local church where you can receive good, solid, biblical instruction (encouraging instruction) and fellowship with other believers.

There's one other thing that if you find it, it's probably going to be in the local church, and that is help in bearing your burden. Read Galatians 6 sometime about how we believers are to help one another in bearing our burdens. So the solitary Christian usually becomes a believer who says, "Well, I used to be a Christian, but I lost my faith."

Remember what Boris Pasternak said. I quoted this a few weeks ago. When asked about his religious beliefs, he said, "I am a lapsed atheist. I have lost my faith in atheism." So don't be afraid to challenge the faith of unbelievers: "Oh, you know beyond a doubt that evolution took place? How interesting! Will you explain it to me?" Then be informed enough to ask them intelligent questions and plant doubts in their mind? "Oh, the Bible is full of contradictions? Wow! Would you please show me one? Please show me one of the contradictions."

The chances are that no one will take you up on that. They'll say, "Well, I know there are contradictions in the Bible. I just can't show you one right now," and they won't bring the subject up again. But every once in a while, someone will show you something. If you don't know the answer, just say, "Well, how interesting! Would you give me a while? Let me do some research on this." There are answers, and you can find them. So the local church needs to teach people, "Don't be afraid to go on the offensive. You don't have to be obnoxious. You just have to be stable and go on the offensive against people who want to challenge your faith."

Being Judgmental

You're dealing with relative righteousness there. When you're judgmental toward someone else in self-interest (in wanting to make yourself look good because at least you're better than they are), then that's a sin. But to make judgments (this is wrong, and this is right) on the basis of the righteous standard of the Word of God, is not only desirable and commendable, but we are commanded to do so. So it is right to judge, to discern, and to discriminate religious beliefs and religious systems. You should do it. We need to teach people, especially before we send them off to college, "Yes. Thou shalt judge righteously."

Living in the Word of God

Doubts

Now, if you know someone who's experiencing doubts, and this person is a believer, you need to tell them that the first thing they need to do is to ask God, "What is the truth?" I mean, go to the source. The Bible tells us that. This works even for unbelievers. You may have an unbeliever who says, "I would really like to know if this is true or not. I'm not even sure there is a God, but I'd really like to know." Tell the unbeliever to pray, "God. If you're there, if you really reveal yourself in the Bible, then I want to know more about you. I want to learn about you. Please help me to know you and to understand you." If an unbeliever sincerely prays that, this is a dangerous prayer. I've known people who have prayed this prayer, and they have become believers. They've been led into the truth of the gospel.

James 1:5: "If any of you lacks wisdom (and wisdom means practical sense about living the way you should live, and the way God wants you to in this life), if you don't know what to do, let him ask of God who gives to all men generously, and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting." Well, that's what you're praying about anyway – doubt. But you can't doubt, or God's not going to answer your prayer. So it sounds like a vicious circle, doesn't it? Well, no: "Let him ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind."

The word for "doubting" here means "wavering." It's a good word picture. You go one way, and then the other way. The English word for "doubt" is from the Latin "dubitare." Have you ever wondered why doubt is spelled with a "b" in it, but you don't pronounce the "b?" It's because of its root word in Latin, which was "dubitare" starting with "du." "Du" in Latin means two. You may have heard the term "duo." When two people sing a song, we call it a duo because two are involved. So the word "doubt" in English actually comes from a word that means two. You're going between two different propositions – two different truth claims. You go to one for a while, and then you go to the other, and then you go over to one, and then you go over to the other. But when you are a believer, and you find yourself doubting the truth of the Word of God, then you need to do two things. One, you need to look at the evidence. If you're a believer, the evidence is already in your own life – that you are a believer, and you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. You just open up the book called The Gospel According to You, and you look back at God's faithfulness, and you know that He is faithful, and He will continue to be faithful. So you reject disbelief, and you go to belief. If you're not a believer, then you look at the evidence (and the evidence is there, as we've been talking about it for the last several months). You choose to go with the evidence, with the truth.

In John 20:27, one of the disciples was such a doubter that he has come to be known as "doubting Thomas." You remember Thomas. He's the one back in verse 25 who said, "Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe." So then Jesus appeared to him. In verse 27, Jesus said, "Thomas, just put your finger here and in my side, and just look at these scars." Then he commands Thomas in the last part of verse 27, "Do not be unbelieving, but believing." So this reveals to us that belief is an act of will, because Thomas had said in verse 25, "I will not believe unless I can see the evidence." So Jesus showed him the evidence, and then He exhorted him: "Don't choose to be unbelieving, but choose to believe." Thomas answered, "My Lord and my God." So Thomas believed. He chose to believe.

If Thomas had said, "Well, I see the evidence, but this has got to be some kind of trick, so I still will not believe," he would have chosen not to believe. So the evidence is there. A relationship is entered into by a choice. When you become married, you enter into a marriage relationship by saying, "I will. I do." It's the same thing with becoming a child of God. You say, "Yes, the evidence is there. I can't understand it all. I don't try to understand it all. But I choose to believe. I choose not to doubt – not to have two opinions going back and forth. I choose to believe." Sometimes it would seem that Christians shouldn't be called believers, but doubters. But after you're a believer, you have to remind yourself, "I choose to believe," because the forces of evil are always there trying to confuse your mind, and trying to get you to vacillate – to think with two minds, to be double-minded, and you choose to believe the truth because it is the truth.

Trials

Trials are designed and allowed to come into our lives to test us. They're not sent by God to destroy our faith, but to test our faith, and to make it stronger. Everything has to be tested. Ships have to be tested. Cars and fire alarms have to be tested before they can be approved. And believers need to be tested. The purpose of testing is, number one, to reveal weak spots. If you keep being tested in a certain area, and you keep saying that this is really a problem with you, then guess what? God's trying to tell you something. You've got a weak spot there. You need to deal with it. The other purpose of testing is to build strength; to make you stronger; to make you more mature; and, to give you the opportunity to apply some of that doctrine that you've been learning right where the rubber meets the road.

There are a couple of questions that are good to ask people who are going through trials and having doubts about the reality or the goodness of God because of their trials. These are good questions to ask yourself when you're going through a trial. First of all, do you believe that God loves you and wants the best for you? Just stop and think about it for a moment, and if you say, "Yes," then you're ready for the next question. That is that, since God does love you and want the best for you, assuming that you do come through this trial OK, are you willing to use the knowledge, the experience, the maturity, and the wisdom that you will gain through this to honor God by strengthening others? There is no answer but "Yes" to both of these questions for true believers. Then the third question is, do you choose to believe these principles and to remind yourself of them? Any believer can come through trials without losing their faith, but on the contrary, having their faith strengthened and matured by trials.

So your work may be, when you're talking to someone who says that they've lost their faith, sharing principles with a believer to restore that believer to fellowship. Or it may be leading someone to the gospel, someone who only thought they were a believer to begin with. But at any rate, no one can really say, "I used to be a believer, but I lost my faith."

Leon Adkins, 2003

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