Doubted God’s Word and Sincerity

Jun P. Espina         10 min read

Updated on July 6th, 2022

Lot Doubted God’s Word

The experience of Lot (Abraham’s nephew) was not uncommon: he doubted God’s Word like everyone else in this domain. The Bible said Lot was a righteous man who was just living with the unbelievers and among those who were engaging in gay or lesbian acts. Lot lived in Sodom, from which the word “sodomy” comes. God, in His anger against homosexuality and gender perversion, wanted to burn the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring towns. So, He sent two Angels to rescue Lot and his family from the fire of judgment. They ordered him and his entire family to move fast, but Lot “lingered.” He doubted God’s Word.

The Gays of Sodom Wanted to Rape God’s Angels Visiting Lot

We know the story in Genesis 19:5 “[A]nd they called to Lot and said to him, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have relations with them.'” But the angels blinded the sodomites who forced their way toward the door of Lot’s house. Can you imagine how Lot doubted God’s word after witnessing the miracle performed by the angels of God?

Observe Genesis 19:15-16 (KJV):

Judas Iscariot Also Doubted God’s Word

When Jesus Christ invited the Jews to come to Him by faith, they were furious, treated Him like a criminal; nailed Him to the cross. They were one with Judas Iscariot—they doubted God’s Word!

During a Bible study or church service, our tendency is to be like Lot, who lingered—when the Angels held his hand to safety! Lot hesitated; he questioned God’s Word in silence. As the Angels ushered Lot and his family to leave the city quickly, they gave an order not to look back, but Lot’s wife disobeyed and became a pillar of salt. (Gen. 19:26.) Adam and Eve committed the same sin: they rejected God’s Word. It is the severe spiritual cancer that is dwelling in every person’s soul today: unbelief in God’s blessed Word.

As a result of doubting God’s word, Judas hanged himself. A person who doubted God’s Word gets God’s fury, and it is the problem. Christ said: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”

The Bible shamers in the world are shamed themselves. Observe the so-called “Gay Pride Parade” how low in morals these gays have become. “The wise men are put to shame,” wrote Prophet Jeremiah. “They are dismayed and caught; Behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, And what kind of wisdom do they have?” (Jer. 8:9)

READ MORE: God’s Word Proves Faith in Christ Versus Bible Ignorance

The Qur’an or Bhagavad Gita (of the Hindus) is Not Fiercely Doubted

Talk about Harry Potter or Pokémon GO, Qur’an, Bhagavad Gita (the Bible of Hinduism), or the Book of Mormons, and people would listen with the high sign of rabbit ears. Speak of the quotations of Buddha or the sayings of Mahatma Gandhi and there would be no tension at all in any type of gathering or discussion.

But even the unschooled ones know of people’s mockery of the Holy Bible. They heard from TV personalities, the rich and famous, the politicians, the scientists, you name them, how false and untrustworthy the Bible is to them. The lie of the devil in Paradise persisted to this day. People doubted the Word of our risen Jesus, but not the word of their dead religious founders, like Muhammad or Buddha.

Why it happens this way—the Bible is doubted while the other uninspired religious books are treasured as something of spiritual worth. The answer may recoil to people’s enormous appetite for what is false. They see the Bible as mythical, and the socmed fake news as reliable as a doctor’s prescription.

A Deluding Influence Sent by God

Wrote the apostle Paul:

Without a love for the truth, a person will never trust the Holy Word of God, which is the Truth. And God will help him believe what is false. God sends to him a deluding influence like Facebook, and all sorts of false teachers.

Christ said: “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” (John 17:17) Those who go astray are people who doubted God’s Word, which is the truth.

“The truth is something that burns,” said Jordan Peterson. “It burns off deadwood. And people don’t like having the deadwood burnt off, often because they’re 95 percent deadwood.”

The so-called “Church” Burned our Bible—Is It Not Strange?

Of the Qur’an, the volume revered by millions of people like a book of divine origin, Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) said:

Qur’an (or Koran) is “toilsome reading” like “masses of lumber,” to Carlyle but to the millions of people who believe it, they memorize the verses of it, and love it to the point of destroying some lives if necessary to preserve its value.

In contrast, most of us find the promises of the God of the Holy Bible, the book of Christ, very demanding and stressful! We doubted God’s Word. We are just like Lot; we linger . . ..

There was a time was when the Catholic church banned and burned the Bible.

I remember asking a man to receive Christ by faith, for which he said: “I’ll consult first my wife.” It was a way of saying, “I don’t receive your Christ in my heart as my Lord and Savior, because I don’t know Him.”

“Why don’t you know Jesus?” I asked myself.

“Well, because you doubted God’s Word, the Holy Scriptures,” I answered my own question.

What about Thomas, the Man Who Doubted the Word of God?

Thomas was a chronic doubter. He heard all sermons of Christ and also witnessed our Lord’s miracles. Our Lord plainly told them He would rise from the dead, but Thomas cannot process the word of our Lord. All the information he gathered from the other disciples about Christ’s resurrection meant nothing to him.

A doubter is one who is “unable to decide upon the truth.” I had been a doubter, too, even to the point of criticizing Christianity as a system weaponized by the government to control and colonize a nation.

It happened when the Spaniards colonized our country, the Philippines, for 333 years in the name of religion.

But the Bible took over me as with a divine authority when I first heard the preaching of the Gospel of Christ. I decided it was the truth: Christ died for my sins, rose on the third day, and reconciled me to our Father God after I trusted Him as my Savior from hell.

Thomas Doubted God’s Word as He Doubted Christ’s Teachings

Thomas seemed to be not just a chronic, but a hardened doubter, too. In John 11:16, he said: “Let us also go, so that we may die with Him.” Christ wanted to visit Lazarus, but Thomas felt it was a huge risk since in chapter 10, the Jews attempted to stone our Lord after He claimed that “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30-31)

Thomas was a loyal follower (who was willing to die with Christ), but he doubted God’s word. Christ said about His oneness with our Father God in the preceding chapter, and He also taught Thomas and the rest of the disciples that they should go back to Judea (John 11:7) so He could awaken Lazarus out of sleep (John 11:11).

In John 10, Christ also taught Thomas (and the others) about His power over death, but Thomas doubted God’s word just the same as an incorrigible doubter. Observe the following Scriptures:

From Christ’s lips, Thomas heard about our Lord’s deity. In John 8:58, Jesus said, “before Abraham was born, I am.” But Thomas doubted God’s Word like all the others since time began.

When Those Who Doubted God’s Word Repented and Believed

I told you I was a doubter who became a believer of the Holy Bible as the Word God. How did it happen?

My story was like that of a truth seeker who was lost in the space of lies and half-truths. As a high school student, somebody secretly subscribed to me a free religious magazine produced by a Christian cult, and distributed worldwide. It was my kind of foundation in the area of what is called “biblical.” I read it regularly, and thank God, I was not drawn to it as it was so churchy in the prophetic circle. At that time, I loved politics (became a graduate of Political Science later) and disliked church matters.

After college, I listened to a preaching one Sunday morning and got convinced that sin bars life’s connection to God. I was sinful and lost and that the Bible confirmed that finding about my soul, which I heard from the preacher. “[F]or all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” said the pastor, who looked like he was praying hard for my salvation that day. As I trusted the Bible, so I trusted every word that came out of Christ, as recorded in the Scriptures, as the very word of God.

Some Who Doubted God’s Word Have also Doubted the One Preaching the Bible

I remember the words of the apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 2:13:

It was exactly how I changed my belief system, as I doubted God’s word for decades. The pastor shared with me the cross of Christ (the Gospel), and I trusted it as the Word of God for my forgiveness. Paul gave the preaching, the Scriptures said, and the Thessalonians “accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God.”

First, I accepted the gospeller as God’s ambassador for my soul. Then, I trusted the Holy Bible as an inspired authority for my soul’s salvation. That’s how I traced my conversion and reliance on the Scriptures as the Word of God.

Of the Worthy Gospeller

I attended a seminar whom the speaker was introduced as one of the greatest church planters of the Christian denomination that had performed the service for my water baptism.

As a careful observer, I noticed the pastor talking with us in a formulaic fashion like we were his algebra class. What I like most for a Christian speaker (aside from sense of humor) is one ablaze with God’s Spirit. But that guy was cold as if he didn’t care about us, his audience.

Then, he said: “There was a beautiful woman whose basket was filled with cupcakes, but couldn’t sell one piece after hours of peddling her product. ‘Perhaps, her cupcake was tasteless,’ commented a friend. But I said, ‘No.’ That woman was the wife of the governor; how could she produce something poorly baked?

“Did you know the answer?” the pastor asked us. Then he hastily said: “Because that woman had white specks in her eyes.

“That’s how soulwinning should be done. The clean life of the gospeller matters,” he said.

Thomas’s Doubt Seemed Shaped on a Different Condition

The case of Thomas was different. He doubted Christ, whom the Jewish officers said: “Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks.” (see John 7:45-47) Hence, a Christian who never doubted God’s word before or even after his conversion can be doubted himself. For “The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!'” (Luke 17:5) Even Abraham laughed after hearing Sarah’s pregnancy “at the age of ninety.” (Gen. 17:17)

Haven’t you doubted God’s Word yet? My piece of advice is to try to pray for a Christian husband if you are Christian and single. It’s like praying for lesser pain in your waistline if you are a senior citizen.

C. H. Spurgeon on Doubting God’s Word

C. H. Spurgeon once said,

Spurgeon said about God’s Word as being “too good to be true” or, we may add, “too scary to be true.”

Tradition says that Saint Thomas died in India as a Christian martyr. Why did it happen? Because of Thomas’s doubts. One of his doubts led Christ to say, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (see John 14:5-6) Is it not one of the most-quoted verses, courtesy of Doubting Thomas? And in John 20:28, “Thomas answered and said to Him [Christ], ‘My Lord and my God!'” Thomas proclaimed Christ’s deity as a result of the doubting phase of his faith. These two passages of Scriptures once trusted and embraced as the Word of God is enough firewood to keep Saint Thomas—and all of us as well—burning for the Gospel anywhere in the world.

Have You Doubted God’s Word Today?

If you have doubted God’s Word today, it’s a good symptom, but you must work to figure out that hesitation or distrust for the Word of God.

There was a prominent but dying man whom his visiting doctor said, “Look at you, you’ve pinkish cheeks today.” The sick man answered, “Here I am, dying with good symptoms.” It could happen to a type of Doubting Thomas who will never find the truth, settle his doubts, and tell Jesus Christ in his heart: “My Lord and my God!”

It’s okay to doubt, but figure out the truth by faith, since endless doubting can send us to hell to die there forever “with good symptoms.”

I remember a junk shop operator who hired a mining engineer to check an abandoned gold tunnel. He did it after buying the owner’s digging tools. After checking, the engineer said, “Three feet from gold.” That is the problem if you doubted God’s Word, and then gave up in the end. (Thomas did not do that.) With that attitude, you will mourn in hell one day. “Soul,” you may babble, “I was three feet from heaven—my good symptom—but I gave up.”