Download audio Download sermon Psalm 4 Text Comment v.2 Now comes the complaint, the account of the problem. Some scholars have taken the problem to be a continuation of that faced in Psalm 3, viz. the rebellion of Absalom and the civil war that resulted, and take the actual statements of the psalm as simply […]
Download audio Download text Some time ago one of you, reflecting on this series of sermons on the doubts that rise in Christian minds, mentioned to me that he thought a great source of doubt was the fact that, in many modern minds, the church maintains positions that have been discredited in the culture. He […]
Download audio Download text So far in this series we have considered among the causes of Christian doubt, of a shaken faith, either teachings of the Christian faith that cause concern or offense – the doctrine of hell, for example – or facts of life that we struggle to reconcile with our Christian convictions – […]
Download audio Download text We have recently considered, as another source of Christian doubt, that is, another reason why the faith of even devout believers is sometimes shaken, either the suffering that Christians themselves must endure – sometimes almost unbearable suffering, sometimes literally unbearable in the case of suicides – or the suffering they observe […]
Download audio Download text Last week we began our consideration of the challenge to the Christian faith posed by the suffering that we find in this world, both its universality and its intensity. Would a good God, such as Christians confess, allow so much misery in a world he controls? Would he permit so many […]
Download audio Download text The world is full of woe. Who can deny it? The Christian life is full of woe. Who can deny it? The Bible certainly does not. When Job’s friend Eliphaz observes that “man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards” (5:7) or when Job himself remarks “Man who is born […]
Download audio Download text Last Lord’s Day evening we began our consideration of the doubts that rise in Christian minds because of assertions, often by learned people, that our faith is unscientific or has been disproved by science. In our first sermon, after considering what is meant by “science” so-called, we focused on attacks that […]
Download Audio Download Text There is a large number of Christians, and, in particular, a large number of Christian college and university students, who have abandoned their Christian faith because they came to believe that it was unscientific. They were persuaded that our fundamental convictions as Christians – that God created the world, that Adam […]
Download audio Download text 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 Last Lord’s Day evening we began considering unanswered prayer as a cause of Christian doubt by exploring the nature of biblical language. Much of our problem comes from our expectation, founded perhaps understandably enough, but mistakenly on what appears to us to be the unqualified promise of the […]
Download audio Download sermon Psalms 42 & 43 We are considering these Lord’s Day evenings the various reasons Christians struggle with doubts about their faith. Perhaps all along the way, perhaps at a particular point in time, perhaps because others whose opinion matters to them – university professors, college friends, a favorite author, perhaps the […]
Download audio Download sermon The Bible bears eloquent witness to the fact that doubt is a fact of Christian life. If faith is the master wheel of salvation, it should not surprise us that doubt – the opposite of faith – is a peculiarly Christian condition in a world of sin and weakness. Huge tracts […]
Download audio Download sermon Matthew 25:1-13 Text Comment v.1 We are somewhat handicapped in our interpretation of this parable by the fact that we know comparatively little about wedding customs in Judea in that day. In fact, most of what we know we know is from the Bible, but there is no complete account of […]
Download audio Download sermon Jeremiah 20:7-18 As we begin I want to read this evening a passage that does not have to do with hell, but, as we will see, helps illuminate the Bible’s language used to describe hell. This is Jeremiah’s lament in chapter 20. We’re reading verses 7-18, and I want you to […]
Download Audio Download sermon Matthew 25:31-46 It has been two weeks since my last sermon on Christian Doubts, but, as you may remember, I asked Dr. Collins to preach last Lord’s Day evening on a subject apropos our new series of sermons. His sermon on “Human Uniqueness” was, I thought, particularly helpful in addressing one […]
Download audio Download sermon We have begun a series of sermons on the doubts that rise in Christian hearts and minds that unsettle their faith in God, in Christ, and in the authority of the Bible. As we said last time, some of the causes of such doubts are doctrinal – certain teachings of the […]
Download audio Download sermon Psalm 73 For a variety of reasons I have been thinking for some time about a series of sermons devoted to the various Christian teachings and the nearly universal experiences of the Christian life that can undermine or shake a Christian’s faith. Many things may challenge a Christian’s faith at one […]