SPEAKER_00: Matthew chapter 11, verses 1 through 6 is our passage this morning.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he sent from there to teach and preach in their cities.
SPEAKER_00: When John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered them, Go and tell John what you hear and see.
SPEAKER_00: The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have the good news preached to them, and blessed is the one who is not offended by me.
SPEAKER_00: The Pilgrim's Progress is playing as a play right now at the Bible Museum.
SPEAKER_00: And as your attorney, I strongly recommend that you go see it.
SPEAKER_00: While it is possible to be a Christian without having read Pilgrim's Progress, I wouldn't want to chance it.
SPEAKER_00: And this play is, you know, two hours long and does a very good job of capturing the story.
SPEAKER_00: One of the most beloved scenes of the story, uh Pilgrim's Progress, of course, written in the 1600s, one of the most beloved and enduring scenes from that allegory of the Christian life, is when Christian finds himself a prisoner in Dowding Castle.
SPEAKER_00: The overall flow of the story of Pilgrim's Progress, if you're not familiar with it, is that a man named Pilgrim is overcome with burdens that he has on his back, burdens that come from reading the scriptures, burdens that come from knowing God's going to judge the world, but he's unable to get rid of them.
SPEAKER_00: So he begins a quest to figure out how to get rid of his burden.
SPEAKER_00: He tries climbing Mount Morality, and that just makes his burden heavier.
SPEAKER_00: He goes this way and that.
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, what takes away his burden is seeing that Jesus died bearing the penalty of sin and fulfilling the law in his place.
SPEAKER_00: That causes the burden to come off his back.
SPEAKER_00: He's received by the king and sent on a journey from that point to the celestial city.
SPEAKER_00: The journey has its ups and downs.
SPEAKER_00: He meets various characters in it.
SPEAKER_00: And as I mentioned, one of the most enduring scenes is when he and his companion, hopeful at this point, come across a turnstile.
SPEAKER_00: They're unable to navigate, they can't get over it, and it's too much work.
SPEAKER_00: And so they go off the path to take a nap, just a short nap.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly the Lord wouldn't mind a short nap from his believers and his followers.
SPEAKER_00: After all, the way is hard.
SPEAKER_00: And they find themselves aroused by a giant who is wandering around.
SPEAKER_00: The giant is named Despair, and the giant is upset that they're in his property, the sleeping Christians, and orders them off to his own dungeon.
SPEAKER_00: His dungeon is the basement of Dowding Castle.
SPEAKER_00: My favorite part of the story is that the giant is married to a woman named Diffidence.
SPEAKER_00: Diffidence, if you're not familiar with that old English word, just means like a lack of self-confidence.
SPEAKER_00: And diffidence takes her own lack of self-confidence out on her husband by ordering her husband to beat their prisoners.
SPEAKER_00: And the husband, who can't stand up to diffidence, does indeed beat the prisoners.
SPEAKER_00: It is an allegory of the Christian life, but there are allegories to marriage as well in there.
SPEAKER_00: Giant Despair takes out diffidence's lack of confidence on his prisoners, beating them near death.
SPEAKER_00: The prisoners, Christian at this point, renamed Christian from Pilgrim, and hopeful, grow weary of life.
SPEAKER_00: And they feel guilty because their own sin has brought them there.
SPEAKER_00: They feel guilty because they know the highway, the Lord's highway, is filled with pilgrims that don't doubt.
SPEAKER_00: It's filled with pilgrims that go about their journey like they ought.
SPEAKER_00: And they know that they're in Doubting Castle because of their own restfulness, because of their own lack of faith, because of their own sin, really.
SPEAKER_00: So they hate themselves because of their doubt.
SPEAKER_00: They contemplate suicide.
SPEAKER_00: Dowding Castle is so extreme, they contemplate suicide, they contemplate murdering each other.
SPEAKER_00: They would prefer death to a life of doubt, and yet they know God's law forbids that.
SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, the giant keeps coming down and showing them all the bones of all the other pilgrims that have died in the dungeon and gives them the means by which they can kill themselves to finally rid themselves of their doubt and leaves them there.
SPEAKER_00: We'll return to Christian and hopeful later this morning, but I want to use that illustration to launch us into Matthew 11 by reminding you that doubting is something that is endemic to Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: It is normal in the Christian experience to have or to even entertain doubts.
SPEAKER_00: And by normal, I don't mean that a Christian doubts all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody who doubts all the time is walking in darkness and not in light.
SPEAKER_00: If your life is dominated by doubt, the key to that is repentance and place your faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Receive the Word of God as true and humble yourself to that.
SPEAKER_00: But assuming you're a believer, doubt will still be a normal, an occasional part of your life.
SPEAKER_00: It is what Christians experience.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the reason Christians experience doubt is because we are saved through faith.
SPEAKER_00: We don't believe in a works righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: We don't merit our salvation by our own works.
SPEAKER_00: We have faith.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen.
SPEAKER_00: We place our faith in the work of Christ, we receive his forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: And we could be tempted to say, why does God not do away with faith and just have us saved by sight?
SPEAKER_00: Because if you were saved by sight, then you would be the judge, you would be the arbiter of what is true, and you would be saved because of your own verdict that you yourself has rendered from your own wisdom and your own evaluation of the evidence.
SPEAKER_00: You would be the judge.
SPEAKER_00: And that is not Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is God is the judge, you are condemned, and so you receive forgiveness that comes through faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's the core tenet of Christianity is that salvation comes through faith alone.
SPEAKER_00: But because we have a religion of faith, there will always be the temptation to doubt.
SPEAKER_00: And doubts can gnaw at us.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone has doubts at some period of time in their life.
SPEAKER_00: C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis captures this really, really well with this quote.
SPEAKER_00: It's a longer quote from your Christianity, but it is worth it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, faith, Lewis writes, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods.
SPEAKER_00: And throughout the rest of this quote, Lewis is going to use the word moods, which is so good, to describe Christians who doubt.
SPEAKER_00: Because when you peel back the layers of the onion, what is behind doubt is your changing moods.
SPEAKER_00: And Lewis says, moods will change, whatever your view, reason takes.
SPEAKER_00: And I know that by experience.
SPEAKER_00: Now that I'm a Christian, I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable.
SPEAKER_00: But when I was an atheist, I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable.
SPEAKER_00: And that should make you laugh.
SPEAKER_00: It's just a good reminder that you're changing moods, your doubting is not a good description of truth.
SPEAKER_00: Your doubts cannot lead you away from the truth.
SPEAKER_00: The Christian who doubts, you might say, oh, they're doubting that Christianity must not be real because they're doubting.
SPEAKER_00: Well, flip that around.
SPEAKER_00: And Lewis reminds us that when he was an atheist, he doubted atheism.
SPEAKER_00: If you believe that doubting eliminates truth, then you find yourself in a logical impossibility.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis goes on to say, this rebellion of your moods against your real self, and here he's using real self to describe your regenerate Christianity, that you were an old person who through faith in Christ has become a new creation.
SPEAKER_00: That's your real self.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that rebellion of your moods against that will come anyway.
SPEAKER_00: That's why faith is such a necessary virtue.
SPEAKER_00: Unless you teach your moods where they get off, you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist.
SPEAKER_00: But a creature dithering to and fro with its beliefs really dependent upon the weather and the state of its digestion.
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, I had a bad burrito for lunch today.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity must not be true.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, eventually you have to have some convictions.
SPEAKER_00: You can imagine the illustration of a pilot who is circling the airport and trying to decide, land on runway 23 or 45.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a crosswind, and he lines up for 23 and then thinks, oh, maybe, you know, the wind is now blowing across.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm going to go around so I have a you know a headwind, head over to 45.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, the wind's shifting again, and you keep circling, looking for the right approach.
SPEAKER_00: Well, eventually you're going to have to land the plane.
SPEAKER_00: That's the idea here.
SPEAKER_00: You land your plane inside of Christianity, which is not just one decision among many.
SPEAKER_00: You understand that your faith is supernatural.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is a gift of God that He gives you.
SPEAKER_00: So the presence of your faith is itself evidence of the truthfulness of Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure many of you have heard illustrations about faith saying having faith in Jesus is like having faith that the chair you sit in will work.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a chair and you have faith that you're going to sit in it or that the hammock will work, or you have faith that you drive a car.
SPEAKER_00: You don't know how the combustible engine works or how brakes work, or faith that you fly an airplane, you don't know the aerodynamics of the whole thing, but you have faith the plane will work and the car will break and the chair will hold you.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what faith in Christianity is like.
SPEAKER_00: And that's I don't like those illustrations because I feel like that undercuts Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is not like the chair or the airplane or the car, because I mean I still don't understand airplanes, but I imagine like some diagrams could help or something.
SPEAKER_00: But saving faith is not like that.
SPEAKER_00: Saving faith is contramundum against the world.
SPEAKER_00: It changes the world, it turns it upside down, it is supernatural, it is a gift of God, it cannot be explained in earthly terms.
SPEAKER_00: It is something God gives you that changes your life.
SPEAKER_00: And so the presence of that faith is itself its own evidence of the truthfulness of Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: But again, because it is faith, that means there will be periods of doubt.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible doesn't say, listen, if you doubt 26% of the time, then you're walking in the darkness and you're not a Christian and you're a liar and the truth isn't in you, and you need to get saved.
SPEAKER_00: But 24% of the time, that's totally a normal Christian experience.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't give you those kind of markers.
SPEAKER_00: And so it is a subjective experience.
SPEAKER_00: But there are those in the Bible who have periods of doubt that are identified as truly having faith.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, doubting Thomas is not called doubting Thomas for nothing.
SPEAKER_00: But this morning we have even a better example than doubting Thomas.
SPEAKER_00: We have John the Baptist, who finds himself a prisoner in Doubting Castle.
SPEAKER_00: As an outline this morning, I want to take us through why Christians find themselves in Doubting Castle, and then after that, we'll go through how you get out of Doubting Castle.
SPEAKER_00: I hope we have enough time to do both halves of that, otherwise, I'll be like Pastor Billy Kim was last week.
SPEAKER_00: Half of it this service and the second half at the 11 o'clock service.
SPEAKER_00: He finished his sermon last week at the 11 o'clock service, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: Online, we just edited the two of them together.
SPEAKER_00: So there's an hour sermon online.
SPEAKER_00: So if you missed the second half of it, it's online.
SPEAKER_00: But that's neither here nor there.
SPEAKER_00: How Christians find themselves in Dowding Castle.
SPEAKER_00: First, you find yourself in Dowding Castle through suffering and persecution.
SPEAKER_00: This is where we pick up the story of John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_00: This is Matthew 11.
SPEAKER_00: Last time we were in Matthew's gospel was Matthew 3.
SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist was at the zenith of his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Massive crowds were out there to see him.
SPEAKER_00: He was one of the most well-known people in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Tens of thousands of people came to the wilderness to be under the influence of his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: He hands it off to Jesus, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: He fades in the background.
SPEAKER_00: You don't see him again in Matthew's gospel until now.
SPEAKER_00: And Matthew drops you a little note that, by the way, he's in prison.
SPEAKER_00: That's in verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: John had heard in prison about the deeds of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is what is provoking John's question.
SPEAKER_00: John's question in verse 3 is, are you the one who is to come or should we look for another?
SPEAKER_00: That is a jarring question.
SPEAKER_00: John is asking Jesus Christ, are you the Messiah?
SPEAKER_00: Are you the Christ?
SPEAKER_00: That phrase, are you the one to come?
SPEAKER_00: That's from Psalm 118.
SPEAKER_00: It's a messianic phrase.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 118, one of the Halail Psalms, which Jesus sung the last night of his life.
SPEAKER_00: That's a messianic psalm that is pointing you forward to the day the Messiah comes.
SPEAKER_00: And it became a title, Psalm 118 did.
SPEAKER_00: It's 118, verse 26.
SPEAKER_00: That title became the coming one or the sent one.
SPEAKER_00: The word Messiah means the sent one or the anointed one.
SPEAKER_00: So it's a title, it's all wound up together.
SPEAKER_00: So it's the word Christ, which is Christos, which means Messiah, which means sent one.
SPEAKER_00: It's a messianic title, Psalm 118, that the Savior will come to the world.
SPEAKER_00: So here John is aware of all that and is asking Jesus, are you the Messiah, or should we look for someone else?
SPEAKER_00: John, who baptized Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: John who was Jesus' cousin.
SPEAKER_00: John who likely grew up around Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: John who knew the sinlessness of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: John who's already declared, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
SPEAKER_00: And John, by the way, who had no shortage of evidence.
SPEAKER_00: The last time John saw Jesus, the heavens opened up.
SPEAKER_00: The Heavenly Father said, This is the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove.
SPEAKER_00: He has a triune testimony.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're tempted to think, oh, people doubt because of a lack of evidence, I would like you to meet my friend John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_00: There's no more evidence he needs.
SPEAKER_00: And now, a year later, a year after that experience, he's asking Jesus, quick question, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Are you actually the Messiah?
SPEAKER_00: Because otherwise I'm about to be martyred for nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew lets you know that question doesn't exist in a vacuum in verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: It exists with John in prison.
SPEAKER_00: John is suffering.
SPEAKER_00: John had said, He must grow greater and I must grow lesser, but that lesserness now looks like John in prison.
SPEAKER_00: John was facing death.
SPEAKER_00: By the time Matthew is written, everyone who receives Matthew's gospel knows what happened to John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned in our study of Matthew 3, John was one of the most famous people in the world.
SPEAKER_00: So by the time and Jesus was unknown at this point.
SPEAKER_00: So by the time Matthew's Gospel is written, the readers in Israel throughout the Roman Empire would be familiar with John's death.
SPEAKER_00: The cliffhanger in Matthew's gospel is what happened to Jesus, not what happened to John.
SPEAKER_00: John dies.
SPEAKER_00: Why does he die?
SPEAKER_00: For opposing Herod's illegitimate marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Not Herod the Great, not the one who butchered the babies in Bethlehem, but Herod Antipas, who's now ruling over Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: He is the leader of the political area where John is, where Jesus is from.
SPEAKER_00: That Herod.
SPEAKER_00: He married his brother's wife.
SPEAKER_00: And John opposed him.
SPEAKER_00: John said, that's an ungodly marriage.
SPEAKER_00: That's no marriage at all.
SPEAKER_00: You can't marry your brother's wife.
SPEAKER_00: You might be inclined to tell John, hey, John, people love who they're gonna love, you know?
SPEAKER_00: What determines a godly wedding is if the marriage license is filled out with the county commissioner's seal on it.
SPEAKER_00: That's what determines a godly marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Not the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, after all, Herod doesn't even necessarily believe in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's just an issue of paperwork.
SPEAKER_00: And Herod is, after all, the king, so he decides what marriages are legitimate and illegitimate, not you and your religious fanatics, so just dial it down a notch, John, or you're gonna end up being persecuted over marriage rather than important things.
SPEAKER_00: Well, John was willing to be persecuted over this.
SPEAKER_00: John tells Herod, I don't care what commissioner you filed your form with, I don't care who signed off on it, I don't care what Proposition 8 or 128 says, you are in an ungodly marriage that is illegitimate by God's standard, and so Herod throws him in jail.
SPEAKER_00: And Herod's going to keep him in jail, by the way, until John agrees to authenticate and vouch for his marriage.
SPEAKER_00: After all, you can't control who you love.
SPEAKER_00: And so John finds himself in prison.
SPEAKER_00: Now, initially, John, I'm sure, understands this.
SPEAKER_00: But how long until John starts to ask him questions?
SPEAKER_00: If God is good and God is sovereign, why am I in the clink?
SPEAKER_00: If God is good and he loves me, why am I suffering?
SPEAKER_00: And we can extrapolate from John the Baptist here to, I think, every Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Although not every Christian is, of course, going to be in jail for opposing gay marriage, although some Americans have certainly gone to jail for their opposition of it, but not everyone does, obviously.
SPEAKER_00: But every Christian, I think, will experience periods of doubt when you go through periods of suffering or persecution.
SPEAKER_00: Where people lie about you for your Christianity, or where there's just suffering independent of that, where you have cancer, your parents divorce, or you get cut from the soccer team, or you lose your job, or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Your kids rebel, your neighbors get angry at you, your car breaks down, you don't get the promotion, your husband leaves you.
SPEAKER_00: And you begin to entertain doubts of if this, if God is good, why am I going through these things?
SPEAKER_00: That's the context in which John asks the question.
SPEAKER_00: And the context is important.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to over-cycleanalyze John by reading too much into him, but Matthew does drop for you the nugget of truth here that John was in prison, and that's what's behind him asking the question.
SPEAKER_00: Are you the Messiah?
SPEAKER_00: John knows he's the Messiah, but he has to ask the question now because he is being persecuted.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's wondering.
SPEAKER_00: Second way people find themselves in doubting castle is because the fear of anonymity.
SPEAKER_00: They don't want to be forgotten.
SPEAKER_00: I describe that just as anonymity here, but the idea that believers are, we're all pawns.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the Lord moves us around and disposes of us as he sees fit.
SPEAKER_00: John was once a prominent person, famous in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Now he's been in prison for a period of time, and it seems like people have forgotten.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have crowds outside his jail cell.
SPEAKER_00: His disciples have dispersed around the world for the most part.
SPEAKER_00: Some of his disciples have already caught up with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We saw that in Matthew chapter 9, where Jesus has fellowship with some of John's disciples.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see some of his disciples in Ephesus in the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: But for the most part, they've moved on.
SPEAKER_00: John, who used to have tens of thousands, now has nobody.
SPEAKER_00: He's forgotten.
SPEAKER_00: That has to produce doubt in a person's life.
SPEAKER_00: You see that in our world as well.
SPEAKER_00: We so often just want to be remembered.
SPEAKER_00: You see this in Christian ministry, where Christian pastors or leaders want to make a bigger impact in their making.
SPEAKER_00: They want a bigger congregation or bigger crowds or more readers or they just want to have a bigger influence.
SPEAKER_00: I remember somebody asking Al Muller how he stays humble in the ministry, and his response was saying, it doesn't matter how significant Al Muller's president of Southern Seminary, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: He says, It doesn't matter how important of a Christian leader you think you are.
SPEAKER_00: You can pastor the same church for 50 years.
SPEAKER_00: But one day you're gonna die.
SPEAKER_00: People will throw dirt on your face and go inside and eat potato salad and then move on.
SPEAKER_00: I heard him say it and I thought, potato salad?
SPEAKER_00: Really?
SPEAKER_00: There's a humbling effect behind that.
SPEAKER_00: John MacArthur is often asked, you know, who's gonna take over your ministries when you die?
SPEAKER_00: And he he always gives a consistent answer that serving a Christian ministry is like keeping your hand in a bucket of ice water.
SPEAKER_00: Like you, it's hard work and it hurts your hand to keep it there for a while and you think it's so important, but the truth is you take your hand out and it fills up and everything moves on as if you were never there.
SPEAKER_00: That's the reality of being a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: And that's those are two examples from ministry, but that's true in every area of life.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you just want your kids to remember you.
SPEAKER_00: You just want your company to need you, you just want your family to realize how important you are in your family.
SPEAKER_00: But then they don't.
SPEAKER_00: And you start to entertain doubts.
SPEAKER_00: You remember the time where your kids hung on every word you said and now they don't.
SPEAKER_00: You remember the time where your company needed you and now they don't.
SPEAKER_00: And you think, if God is good, why this?
SPEAKER_00: Certainly John is going through some of that.
SPEAKER_00: Because you see this here, I think in verse 2, he's in prison and he heard about the deeds of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: There's a little phrase Matthew gives you.
SPEAKER_00: He heard about the deeds of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's the deeds in Matthew eight and nine.
SPEAKER_00: He preached the Sermon on the Mount, but he doesn't say that here.
SPEAKER_00: It says the deeds of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's all the things Jesus did in Matthew eight and nine.
SPEAKER_00: He healed the leper, he healed the centurion's servant, he healed Peter's mother in law, he cast the demons into the pigs, he calmed the wind and the waves.
SPEAKER_00: Those deeds.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is growing.
SPEAKER_00: And John is forgotten.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly.
SPEAKER_00: Unmet expectations.
SPEAKER_00: There's a massive delta between what John had thought Jesus was going to do and what Jesus is doing.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember the last words we had, John speaking about Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: He said, This is the one who's going to bring fire and brimstone down.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to take this generation and bind them up and throw them into the fires of hell.
SPEAKER_00: He brings unquenchable fire, John said.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he's going to bring the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He'll baptize with water and he'll baptize with fire and judgment.
SPEAKER_00: The fire is the unquenchable torment of hell, John says.
SPEAKER_00: That's his last words about Jesus he's bringing judgment and the hell's coming with him, and you guys better get right, or you're going down.
SPEAKER_00: Now fast forward, Herod is in power.
SPEAKER_00: John is in prison.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is healing people, and there's no sign of judgment coming.
SPEAKER_00: I thought he was going to overthrow Rome.
SPEAKER_00: I thought he was going to return temple worship.
SPEAKER_00: I thought he was going to bind up the Pharisees, throw them into the fire.
SPEAKER_00: That's what John said he was going to do.
SPEAKER_00: And instead, you've got John in prison.
SPEAKER_00: Now John has some incomplete information.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't with Jesus in Nazareth, where he read half of the Messiah's prophecies and stopped and said, that's fulfilled, leaving the second coming text for next.
SPEAKER_00: John doesn't have that information.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't there.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly, John has some worldly influence on him, this idea of Jesus overthrowing the political leaders of the day.
SPEAKER_00: So certainly he has incomplete knowledge, worldly influence, but all behind all that is unmet expectations.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is doing these kinds of ministries, and he's sending his disciples into the world to heal the poor, to heal the sick, to preach the good news to the poor.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus is doing.
SPEAKER_00: That's Matthew 10.
SPEAKER_00: So Matthew 8 and 9 was the deeds of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 10 was Jesus sending his disciples out to do more of those deeds.
SPEAKER_00: They're going out in the world, not John.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to go heal people, not overthrow Rome.
SPEAKER_00: So John is going through the experience that Judas is going to have in a couple years, the experience that many of the followers of Jesus, including Peter, is going to have.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, in a couple years, they're going to go through this whole, you can't go to the cross because we're supposed to launch the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: That's two years from now.
SPEAKER_00: John's going through that first.
SPEAKER_00: And he's having to reckon with what he expected Jesus to do and what he's doing, and they're not the same thing, and so he has some questions.
SPEAKER_00: We should learn a lesson from this.
SPEAKER_00: Our expectations of what God should be doing with our lives are very poor markers of the truth.
SPEAKER_00: We have a certain expectation for what God should do.
SPEAKER_00: He's not doing it.
SPEAKER_00: We entertain doubts.
SPEAKER_00: John heard the voice from heaven say, This is the Savior, but now the Savior isn't doing things the way John expected him to be doing them.
SPEAKER_00: And so now he's saying, Ah, are we sure about this, Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: We got the right guy here.
SPEAKER_00: If you have an idea for how God should be conducting himself specifically with you in this world, and God's not matching that, that can produce doubts.
SPEAKER_00: But really, what that's doing is exposing the idolatry of your own desires.
SPEAKER_00: You have an idea of what God should be doing.
SPEAKER_00: He's not doing it.
SPEAKER_00: That's you becoming aware of the ever-increasing reality in your own life that you're not God.
SPEAKER_00: The ever-increasing reality in your own life that God might have a different plan than you do.
SPEAKER_00: At your conversion, this isn't that big of a deal.
SPEAKER_00: Because your conversion, you're burdened by sin.
SPEAKER_00: You have the burden of sin on your back.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord takes it off, nails it to the cross, forgives you, it regenerates you, gives you faith and a new heart, and you're excited because your sins are forgiven and you love prayer and you love worship and everything's going well, and you're sharing the gospel with the fire hydrant.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you'll witness to anybody out there.
SPEAKER_00: That's the initial time.
SPEAKER_00: But as you're a Christian longer, you start to game this thing out, and you start to realize you have a life in front of you, and you would like it to go a certain way, and God doesn't have it planned that way, and so then you forget about the joy of your salvation, and you're back to like, why is God doing it this way?
SPEAKER_00: That's John.
SPEAKER_00: Unmet expectations.
SPEAKER_00: Forth.
SPEAKER_00: Seeing a lack of gospel progress.
SPEAKER_00: A lack of gospel progress.
SPEAKER_00: Disciples are going out in the world, but not John.
SPEAKER_00: Rome's not being overturned.
SPEAKER_00: John had big designs on what Jesus would do and said he's in jail.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes our doubt comes from the sense that the gospel is not making adequate inroads.
SPEAKER_00: I could have subsumed this point under unmet expectations, but I think for our culture, I think for Americans today, likely you all, I have more conversations about doubt coming from this one than even the others.
SPEAKER_00: Like people just doubting.
SPEAKER_00: Like, is God really doing work in our world?
SPEAKER_00: Is God really, is the gospel really going forward?
SPEAKER_00: If we hear language like, you know, we put so much hope in politics, and if the next election doesn't go this way, which you hear every four years, and you have since 1782, okay?
SPEAKER_00: You know, if Jefferson wins, this whole country is over.
SPEAKER_00: We have a monument to him in everything, you know?
SPEAKER_00: You can go see it.
SPEAKER_00: But we entertain that idea, and we think just all the gospel work in our world is for naught.
SPEAKER_00: It's contingent on some election, or it's contingent upon whether my kids follow the Lord, or it's contingent upon the fruitfulness of this one church plan or this one missionary.
SPEAKER_00: And those things are all important.
SPEAKER_00: I'm really not trying to dilute the importance of the election or the church plan or the missionary or your kids.
SPEAKER_00: I'm really not.
SPEAKER_00: But when those things start to sputter out and not get traction, doubt comes in because we think the gospel's not actually pulling the weight it should around here.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes our doubt comes from a sense that the gospel is not making adequate progress.
SPEAKER_00: And then finally, sometimes doubt comes from self-pity.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it just doesn't seem fair.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 10, Jesus sends out the twelve disciples in the army, the 72 and all that.
SPEAKER_00: But John's doing some math here.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is 12 apostles.
SPEAKER_00: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.
SPEAKER_00: And John's not one of the twelve.
SPEAKER_00: And the twelfth guy is a loser from Jerusalem, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: Not John.
SPEAKER_00: John didn't get drafted.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe John even entertained this idea that he would be out doing ministry with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: After all, Jesus said he's the greatest prophet who ever lived.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly that would get him a spot on the podium, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly he would be part of the entourage.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly he would get to go see the Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly him.
SPEAKER_00: If Peter is there, if Thaddeus is there.
SPEAKER_00: If Judas is there.
SPEAKER_00: Where's John?
SPEAKER_00: Poor John.
SPEAKER_00: I think of people I knew in seminary.
SPEAKER_00: Really godly guy I knew in seminary.
SPEAKER_00: Devoted to the Lord, knew the Word of God, a powerful evangelist, an exceptional preacher.
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite preachers to listen to.
SPEAKER_00: I used to go preach at drug rehab centers with him every weekend, and man, I loved it.
SPEAKER_00: The guy could bring the thunder.
SPEAKER_00: And today he's pastoring a small, tiny church in a rural part of the country.
SPEAKER_00: He has a lot of kids, but it barely makes ends meet.
SPEAKER_00: His congregation can't really pay him.
SPEAKER_00: He's dependent upon generosity from people in the congregation to have one car.
SPEAKER_00: And when that breaks, he needs people from the church to fix it.
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, and people bring him food, and they don't even mean that in a condescending way, but they bring him food, and that's kind of what he needs.
SPEAKER_00: And he's so gifted.
SPEAKER_00: I think of a godly guy I knew in seminary who's you know single still and laboring out in the the wilderness in a forgotten part of the world.
SPEAKER_00: And you think of guys I knew in seminary who were like losers.
SPEAKER_00: That just didn't seem all that godly, honestly, or that gifted.
SPEAKER_00: And yet they have big congregations and families that love them and a dog that likes them, and they seem so blessed in this world.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just comparing the two.
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's not and I could see how easy it would be to have self-pity for those first guys.
SPEAKER_00: You know, John is looking at Judas being received as an apostle.
SPEAKER_00: And John's in prison.
SPEAKER_00: That's not right.
SPEAKER_00: Now, getting out of the pastoral world and into your your own world is the same.
SPEAKER_00: Temptation is obviously still there.
SPEAKER_00: That's not unique to pastoral ministry.
SPEAKER_00: You see yourself as gifted and godly, and yet your kids rebel and bring heartache to your family.
SPEAKER_00: And how is that fair?
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're following the Lord and you're doing everything right, and yet you get cancer.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly, some of this doubt isn't even at the level of, is Jesus the Messiah?
SPEAKER_00: It's more at the level of, is God actually sovereign over all these things?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, John has one question, are you the Messiah?
SPEAKER_00: But behind that has got to be some of the sense of sovereignty.
SPEAKER_00: Like, God, are you really directing my head to be cut off by the king's daughter-in-law?
SPEAKER_00: Like, she is supporting, she supports the marriage, of course she does.
SPEAKER_00: She's saying, Oh, my mom, her marriage is legitimate.
SPEAKER_00: Of course it is.
SPEAKER_00: It's my mom.
SPEAKER_00: How dare you, preacher, condemn my mom and she's gonna cut off his head?
SPEAKER_00: Poor John.
SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, Jesus is doing all of these signs.
SPEAKER_00: He's raising dead people back to life.
SPEAKER_00: He's healing lepers.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what he's not doing?
SPEAKER_00: Freeing John from prison.
SPEAKER_00: How soon until John has a question or two about that?
SPEAKER_00: Did he forget me?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the messengers come to ask, are you the one?
SPEAKER_00: just for a little subtle reminder.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, no man left behind.
SPEAKER_00: I'm stuck up here in Tiberius in jail.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's how Christians find themselves in Dowden Castle.
SPEAKER_00: How do you escape from Dowding Castle?
SPEAKER_00: That's the rest of the text.
SPEAKER_00: The scripture is not content to leave John in Doubting Castle.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture provides some ways for him to escape.
SPEAKER_00: Now, before we get to the ways, I just want to make sure you realize Jesus is so tender towards John.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus does not rebuke John.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the question is, is it a sin to doubt?
SPEAKER_00: Well, doubting, I mean, everything is sin.
SPEAKER_00: We have sinful motives in the best actions.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we have sinful motives when we give to church, when we read the Bible, when we pray.
SPEAKER_00: The best things we do sometimes have sinful motives in it.
SPEAKER_00: So, yes, is doubting sin?
SPEAKER_00: Of course it's sin.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, Jesus responds so tenderly to John.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to respond to the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: We'll look at that in a couple weeks.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus distinguishes between doubting and unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: To the Pharisees, he mocks them up and down.
SPEAKER_00: He's about to call them a bunch of spoiled brats.
SPEAKER_00: That's coming.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't call John a spoiled brat.
SPEAKER_00: He's so kind to John.
SPEAKER_00: So I hope it encourages you in your seasons of doubt to know that the Lord can distinguish between those who doubt and those who lack faith, those who have unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: Doubting means I can't believe.
SPEAKER_00: Unbelief is saying I won't believe.
SPEAKER_00: Doubting is honest, and unbelief is obstinate.
SPEAKER_00: Doubting is saying, Lord, help me see more light, and unbelief is putting a blindfold around your face and then complaining about the darkness.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord sees the difference between the two.
SPEAKER_00: So as it relates to doubting, look how Jesus responds.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered them, first of all.
SPEAKER_00: Go and tell John what you hear and see.
SPEAKER_00: So let's look at how to get out of doubt in Castle.
SPEAKER_00: First, you go to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: John does step one, 100% correct.
SPEAKER_00: John has doubts, and so he brings his doubts to Jesus, which makes sense.
SPEAKER_00: If you're doubting Jesus, it makes sense to go to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And the same is true for us.
SPEAKER_00: You're going through periods of doubt, go to the Lord in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: If you're going through periods of doubt, seek out the face of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He hears your prayers.
SPEAKER_00: If he is the object of your doubt, make him the object of your prayers.
SPEAKER_00: When you're doubting, go to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, this is one of the main reasons that the Lord allows periods of doubt into our lives, because it drives us to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We would be content to stay at the wedding feast and never go to the funeral.
SPEAKER_00: We would be content to, you know, have just a life of Christian fellowship and let the good things of fellowship obscure the reality of the cross and the grave.
SPEAKER_00: And so the Lord allows a period of doubt in our life to drive us to the cross and to drive us to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We'd be content to live on mountaintops, but the Lord wants us to go through the valley of the shadow of death because Jesus is found there.
SPEAKER_00: So first go to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Second, the teaching of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Turn to the teaching of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Jesus does in verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: Go and tell John what you hear.
SPEAKER_00: And it's going to be an exposition on Isaiah 35 and Isaiah 61.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the two passages Jesus teaches on.
SPEAKER_00: Here in Matthew's version of this, you just get what you hear and see.
SPEAKER_00: But the teaching saturates this, of course.
SPEAKER_00: In Luke's Gospel, Luke 7, which is the parallel account of this, John the Baptist's disciples come, and Jesus says, Hold on, and then proceeds to teach for an hour, it says, and then tells the disciples, Go tell John what you heard.
SPEAKER_00: So this is a very teaching-saturated environment.
SPEAKER_00: His teaching is paired with the miracles.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 35 says the reign of the Messiah is marked by the vanquishing of sickness, the blind receiving their sight, the lame walking, the lepers being healed.
SPEAKER_00: That's Isaiah 35.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus teaches on that and then does it.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 61 says the reign of the Messiah is marked by the poor having the good news preached to them.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus does that as well.
SPEAKER_00: But the point is, Jesus teaches for an hour and tells the disciples to go tell John what they heard.
SPEAKER_00: And that all those details aren't in Matthew 11, they're from Luke 7, but in Matthew 11, they're still kind of there.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus starts with, go and tell what you hear.
SPEAKER_00: The context is teaching in chapter 11, verse 1, just a few verses earlier.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus went on from there to teach and preach in their cities.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is teaching and preaching, and that is what combats the doubt.
SPEAKER_00: I say this because it is so tempting for some to diminish the role of teaching and preaching in dealing with doubt, to try to make doubt an issue of evidence or experience.
SPEAKER_00: And teaching is the ordinary means of grace.
SPEAKER_00: Preaching is the ordinary means of grace that sustains Christians through periods of doubt.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where Jesus goes first as well.
SPEAKER_00: He turns to the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, or thirdly, the miracles of Christ, the actual works of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus pairs his teaching with the healings that validate his teaching.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just words, it's words of scripture that are real and living and actually doing things in the world.
SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned, doubt is not so much evidence-based, and yet Jesus does offer evidence to help.
SPEAKER_00: Gideon in the Old Testament asked to make the fleece wet, of course, and it was, and he still didn't believe, and he wanted to dry again.
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that's just how evidence is.
SPEAKER_00: You try to fight doubt with evidence, and you ultimately never get enough.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Thomas says, that's one of the nail holes.
SPEAKER_00: Where's the other?
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, it's worth reminding when dealing with periods of doubt that God does work miracles in the world.
SPEAKER_00: He does save people, he brings them from darkness to light.
SPEAKER_00: You've experienced that.
SPEAKER_00: So recall your own transformation.
SPEAKER_00: Recall how the Lord radically changed your life.
SPEAKER_00: Recall answered prayers in your own life so that when you're going through periods of doubt, remember those prayers.
SPEAKER_00: You're going through periods of doubt, remember how 10 years ago you prayed for this and it happened.
SPEAKER_00: Remember how 10 years ago you prayed for somebody that you hadn't seen or heard of in a long time, and you ran into him the next day and he talked about how the Lord answered your prayer and he'd even know you prayed.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you have stories like that.
SPEAKER_00: Remember those stories through periods of doubt.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus brings John.
SPEAKER_00: He says in verse 5, the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up.
SPEAKER_00: That's all from Isaiah 35.
SPEAKER_00: It's a reference to Isaiah 35.
SPEAKER_00: Some of your translations might even bracket it that way.
SPEAKER_00: And then the poor have the good news preached to them.
SPEAKER_00: That's the reference to Isaiah 61.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't just read it and preach it, but he does it.
SPEAKER_00: He does it.
SPEAKER_00: It's helpful to remember that others have escaped Dowding Castle.
SPEAKER_00: You know, in Pilgrim's Progress, Dowding Castle is filled with bones, and Christian and hopeful think nobody could have escaped.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody dies here.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's just the bones that have been left there throughout all of church history.
SPEAKER_00: Most who are imprisoned there have figured out how to get out.
SPEAKER_00: See you in Downing Castle.
SPEAKER_00: You think, oh, it's better to die.
SPEAKER_00: Would you murder me?
SPEAKER_00: Would I murder you?
SPEAKER_00: No, man.
SPEAKER_00: It's just Friday.
SPEAKER_00: Sunday's coming.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord let you out.
SPEAKER_00: Don't despair.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the Lord knows how to rescue people.
SPEAKER_00: Fourth, remember Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And when I say remember Christ, I mean remember what happened to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: John is in prison and he thinks Jesus' crowds are growing and mine have are none.
SPEAKER_00: How's this right?
SPEAKER_00: Well, what happens to Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: He too will be thrown into the dungeon.
SPEAKER_00: He too will spend a night in the pit.
SPEAKER_00: He too will be executed by the Roman government.
SPEAKER_00: What's happening to John is not unique to him.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus will also go through it.
SPEAKER_00: So if your doubting is based on if God is true and God is loving and God is providentially sovereign over all things, those who love him shouldn't be suffering.
SPEAKER_00: Remember Jesus who died.
SPEAKER_00: He was murdered.
SPEAKER_00: That's how his story went.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be on guard against unmet expectations, and we do that by remembering that they killed Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: God is still God if your parents get divorced, you don't make the soccer team, you don't get in the right college.
SPEAKER_00: God is still God if you get unjustly fired from your job, if your kids rebel, if cancer comes to your family.
SPEAKER_00: God is still God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus went through not every one of those things, but he experienced those that others that did go through all of those things.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus went to a funeral.
SPEAKER_00: He buried a loved one.
SPEAKER_00: He experienced conflict in his family.
SPEAKER_00: He experienced friends that betrayed him.
SPEAKER_00: He experienced all that.
SPEAKER_00: And they killed him.
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is one of the reasons the Lord allows doubt into your life because it drives you to be more like Jesus and remembering Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: If we lived our whole life in the good times, we would be unfamiliar with the valley of the shadow of death.
SPEAKER_00: We'd be unfamiliar with the sufferings of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Fifth, remember there is actual gospel progress in the world.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord does actually save people.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is making inroads in the world.
SPEAKER_00: It really is.
SPEAKER_00: You think, not on my street, well, just go to your zip code then, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Your church is growing.
SPEAKER_00: People are being saved.
SPEAKER_00: You are experiencing gospel progress in your life.
SPEAKER_00: I was so jarring to hear Pastor Kim last Sunday talk about how, what, 140 years ago, zero Christians in South Korea, now a third of their population, or whatever the exact numbers were.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the gospel is actually making growth in the world.
SPEAKER_00: That's got to frame you around this.
SPEAKER_00: And as you realize the gospel is going forward in the world, that helps your expectations.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Paul, Paul's in prison.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's John the Baptist part three here.
SPEAKER_00: You know, John, Jesus, Paul.
SPEAKER_00: John's in prison.
SPEAKER_00: He's good.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Paul's in prison, he's gonna die.
SPEAKER_00: He says to live is Christ, to die is gained.
SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, there's all these treacherous, false teachers out there that are preaching the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And what's Paul supposed to think of that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he's in prison.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I just rejoice that they're preaching the gospel at least.
SPEAKER_00: Whether by pretense or by truth, Christ is proclaimed, and so I'll rejoice.
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is going forward, even if it's wicked people that are doing it.
SPEAKER_00: But the main encouragement to get out of doubting castle, Jesus leaves John with this.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed is the one who's not offended by me.
SPEAKER_00: This is his most direct correction to John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_00: The rest was passive, right?
SPEAKER_00: Tell through the disciples, tell John what you heard and saw also, P.S.
SPEAKER_00: John, don't be offended by me.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be offended if I leave you in the castle.
SPEAKER_00: The word offended has taken on a new meaning in American English, like it means to, oh, you said something I didn't like and I'm triggered.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what the word means in the Greek.
SPEAKER_00: The word offended in Greek, it literally means a stumbling stone, like you're walking and you trip on something.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, Blessed is The one who does.
SPEAKER_00: He's not tripping over me.
SPEAKER_00: Don't stumble on me.
SPEAKER_00: You step on a Lego in the middle of the night, you get offended at your kids.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is telling John, don't stumble over me.
SPEAKER_00: John thinks, man, I just want to be vindicated.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, Don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_00: And people today will be get refrained from evangelism because the last time they evangelized, nobody listened.
SPEAKER_00: They'll refrain from ministry because they don't like those that are around and they feel like they're being wronged or they're being lied about.
SPEAKER_00: And if only I was vindicated, then I could be back engaged in ministry.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus is talking about here.
SPEAKER_00: You're offended by him.
SPEAKER_00: You're offended by the providence of God, and you want to be vindicated.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to say that.
SPEAKER_00: My favorite verse in this chapter is coming up where Jesus says, listen, wisdom is vindicated by her children, not by you.
SPEAKER_00: Calvin says this is one of the main drivers that keeps people on the sidelines of ministry.
SPEAKER_00: They're so frozen by people lying about them or misrepresenting them, and they so much want to be vindicated, they're in their own prison.
SPEAKER_00: To those people, Jesus says, listen, don't be offended by his providences.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be offended by his will or by his timing.
SPEAKER_00: Well, how did Christian escape down in castle?
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember?
SPEAKER_00: Saturday night.
SPEAKER_00: And don't skip that detail.
SPEAKER_00: It was Saturday night.
SPEAKER_00: They'd been there four days.
SPEAKER_00: Saturday night, he feels his pocket and finds a key, and he remembers when the king took my burden away, he gave me a key that would open any door in the world.
SPEAKER_00: I had it here the whole time.
SPEAKER_00: Hopeful recognizes the key and says, Well, that's the key of promise.
SPEAKER_00: And she starts, or he starts, hopeful starts quoting the play, it's a girl, but in the book, the guy, he starts quoting scripture to him and says, The Lord's never going to leave you, the Lord won't forget you.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord numbers those who are his.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord will always be with you.
SPEAKER_00: With every temptation, he'll give a way of escape, all the promises of God.
SPEAKER_00: And Christian takes the key out, and with the promises of God, they open any doubting castle and let you free.
SPEAKER_00: You have, and it's Saturday night, it's so important.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord puts Sunday in your life every week.
SPEAKER_00: Sunday comes, every week.
SPEAKER_00: You can doubt Monday through Saturday.
SPEAKER_00: But Saturday night, the Lord says through your heart, get yourself to church, open the Bible, surround yourself with people that have been freed from doubt in castle, and take courage.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be offended at Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You have the key in your pocket right now.
SPEAKER_00: God, we're grateful that you allow us escape from doubt.
SPEAKER_00: With every temptation, you've made a way of escape.
SPEAKER_00: You've allowed escape from doubt by directing us to the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's Him we love, it's Him we worship, we want to be more like Him.
SPEAKER_00: We want to take confidence in Him.
SPEAKER_00: Help us trust Him with full hearts.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for anyone in this congregation that is going through periods of doubt now.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that they would turn their eyes to Christ, consider His end, consider His death, consider His empty grave.
SPEAKER_00: They'd find their perspective there.
SPEAKER_00: How wonderful it is to have assurance.
SPEAKER_00: How wonderful it is to not take offense at Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We know that comes from considering his life.
SPEAKER_00: And we pray that you would do that in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: We ask this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.