John the Baptist doubted. And the reason he doubted was because some things weren’t clear to him; some things didn’t seem complete. And I think it’s important to understand that we have doubts as well, and there are reasons why we have doubts. Let me just give you two reasons.
Think about John. He is in a dungeon. Humanly speaking, this is his reward for a life of faithfulness. He is a thread-width from death, and that’s what he gets for being the forerunner of the Messiah, the most exalted prophet of all prophets. His personal tragedy didn’t seem consistent with his faithfulness. Where was the blessing that’s supposed to come?
You see, doubt comes from our inability to deal with negative circumstances when we perceive ourselves as being faithful people. Now, that doesn’t happen to people who are not faithful. If you’re a Christian and you’re living in the shallows, playing around with sin, and dishonoring God, when things go bad you know why they go bad. You say, “That’s exactly what I should be getting.”
People who are aware of their sin and weakness see it as consistent when life goes bad. The people who may struggle are those who live very sacrificial and devout lives, and so they can’t see how the circumstances connect with their faithfulness.
That was John the Baptist. He didn’t get it. He’s wondering, “Why am I here? Why doesn’t the Messiah come and set me free?”
Our doubts come when we’ve convinced ourselves that we’re faithful to the Lord, and so He ought to take special care of us. And if everything doesn’t go the way it should, we begin to wonder if He cares or if He’s really our Savior. But we fail, in our selfishness and our ignorance, to see the whole picture.
We have to understand that all of our circumstances, no matter how negative they might be, are subject to the ultimate divine purpose of God and His kingdom.
John was, in part, a victim of the current misconceptions about the Messiah. The suffering of the Messiah, such as in Isaiah 53, was pushed aside, and the Jewish community had created an image of Messiah — what He would be and what He would do. And John had been, just as the disciples were, influenced by that.
The Messiah wasn’t doing what everybody thought He would do, which was knock off the Romans. First there would be a military movement on the Messiah’s part, in which He would massacre the Romans. It would set Israel free from Roman occupation. Then Abrahamic blessing would flood the land.
It was because of these popular conceptions that they had so much doubt when Jesus didn’t do that. John is wondering, “What about knocking off the Romans? What about the health, wealth, and happiness? What about setting the world right, establishing the throne, and ruling?”
Even in Acts 1, just before Jesus ascended into heaven after His resurrection, the disciples were saying, “Are You at this time going to bring the kingdom?” They still couldn’t figure out why there wasn’t a kingdom. Their expectation for what the Messiah would do was not right.
If you believe the lies that are being told today about the health, wealth, prosperity, and success gospel, you’re in trouble. People who preach that sentence their hearers to a life of crippling doubt that dishonors God.
There is no promise that you’re going to be healthy. There’s no promise that you’re going to be rich. There’s no promise that your career is going to be successful. There is no such promise in the gospel until you get translated into the next life. And when you tell people that over and over, you are programming them to reject the God of the Bible and the gospel of the Bible and to live in a life of confusion, perplexity, and doubt. It is a terrible thing to do to people.
Evangelical churches are strewn with the wreckage of people who believed that and shattered whatever faith they may have had.
When you have illegitimate expectations — when you’ve bought into a false system and God doesn’t deliver on those promises — you have a problem with faith. Don’t sit under that kind of teaching. It will sentence you to a life of debilitating, discouraging doubt that will rob you of your joy and usefulness.
This post is based on a sermon Dr. MacArthur preached in 2001, titled “Why the Believer Doubts, Part 1.” In addition to serving as the pastor of Grace Community Church and the voice of Grace to You, Dr. MacArthur is the chancellor of The Master’s University in Santa Clarita, Calif. You can learn more about TMU at masters.edu.
