Series Outline What is it? What does it do to me? How do I kill it?

Secret Weapon Recap Fear – Love Discouragement – Humility Loneliness – Introspection Guilt – Acceptance Worry – Shame Temptation – Cowardice Anger – Burning Resentment – Mortality Doubt – Testing

Testing the Null H0: The Ford Mustang has replaced the Volkswagen Rabbit as the pinnacle chick car. Sampling 1,000 via phone: – Do you own a Ford Mustang? – Are you a chick? The 95% certainty threshold. – Type I Error – Type II Error

Warm Up What is doubt? What do we doubt? Is doubt ever healthy or productive?

What is it? Doubt is seen in our modern world as a trait of weakness. “He who hesitates is lost.” We build game shows and entertainment around inflicting it. Two flavors of doubt: – “I choose not to believe.” (unbelief) – “I don’t understand.” (uncertainty)

What does it do to me? Christian translation of two flavors: – “I question the existence, qualities, and/or consistency of God.” – “I don’t question God’s attributes, but I don’t understand what He’s doing.” The first seeks to derail your experience, trust, and maturity in Christ. The second seeks to verify what you know about God through better understanding.

How do I kill it? Understand that doubt develops in isolation. – Thomas was the only one not present when Jesus first appeared to the disciples. – His isolation led to a lack of experience which led to doubt. – His isolation denied him an affirming experience that the others had enjoyed.

How do I kill it? Understand doubt’s source. – Articulate your doubt clearly. What exactly are you struggling with? – Evaluate yourself on the origin of your doubt. Conversation? Book? Movie? Personal setback? – Instead of declaring yourself a failure, take your doubt to God in deliberate prayer.

How do I kill it? Earnest doubt demands a span of time. – Drawing conclusions on the conditions of the day, or on fragments of evidence before it all comes in can lead to the wrong mindset. – Jesus made Thomas wait a week before getting the evidence he desired. – Looking back over long spans in your own life, do you see the immutable qualities of God at work?

How do I kill it? Force doubt into its proper perspective. – “Believe your beliefs and doubt your doubts.” – Doubt should be a searching minority of your mindset, not the tumultuous majority. – Don’t let minor questions confuse your foundational doctrine: “Do dogs go to heaven?” “At what age would God let a child get into heaven without them praying the sinner’s prayer?”

How do I kill it? Pursue doubt through to its conclusion. – Thomas stuck around until the evidence to his question was presented. – Failing to do so leaves pocks of unanswered questions that could ravage your spiritual strength as Alzheimer's attacks the mind. – Don’t ask a question you don’t want the answer to. – Pursue it until you find yourself facing the conclusion of “My Lord and my God!”

How do I kill it? Accept your limitations. – The more you study, the more will come to your attention in the way of doubt. – The more you study, the more you’ll learn that you just can’t understand everything. – The Bible has all truth, but not all the answers. The Bible does not attack all of our modern quandaries with specificity. These require the APPLICATION of the TRUTH we find in the Bible about God’s will and character.

Kill Shot “You must not put The Lord your God to the test.” Yet… – Abraham and the fate of Sodom & Gomorrah. – Gideon and the dew point fleeces. – John the Baptist – Doubting Thomas

Kill Shot DO NOT test God by imposing your will ahead of His. DO NOT test God by the assumption that His power is somehow at your whim. DO test His promises to discover their unwavering validity. DO test, probe, and prove the perfection of God’s plan and will for your life.

Testing the Infinite We take 95% confidence samples because it’s too expensive to learn the “true” truth of our greatest questions. With God, truth is always %. There is no possibility of a Type II error. With God, the greatest tragedy is a Type 1 error…having the evidence to proceed but holding back because we do not believe it.