THE WATCHTOWER • JULY 1,2001 page 18-21
Do Not Let Doubts Destroy Your Faith
One day you think you are in good health. The next day y feel ill. Suddenly, you have no strength or vitality. Your and your body is racked with pain. What has happened? Dangerous pathogens have breached your body’s defense systems and have attacked vital organs. Left untreated, these invading organisms may destroy your health permanently—even kill you.
OF COURSE, if you are not in good health when an infec-tion strikes, you are even more vulnerable. If, for exam-ple, your body is weakened by malnutrition, your resistance “become[s] so low that the least infection may be fatal,” says medical author Peter Wingate.
That being so, who would choose to live in famine condi-tions? Very likely, you do whatever you can to eat well and stay healthy. You probably also do all you can to avoid exposing yourself to viral or bacterial infection. Do you, however, ex-ercise the same care when it comes to remaining “healthy in faith”? (Titus 2:2) Are you, for example, alert to the danger posed by insidious doubts? These can so easily invade your mind and heart, damaging your faith and your relationship with Jehovah. Some people seem oblivious to this danger. They leave themselves vulnerable to doubts by starving them-selves spiritually. Is it possible that you might be doing that?
Doubt—Is It Always Bad?
Of course, not all doubt is bad. At times, you need to sus-pend acceptance of something till you are sure of the facts. Religious exhortations to the effect that you should just believe and should doubt nothing are dangerous and deceptive. True, the Bible says that love “believes all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:7) A loving Christian is certain-ly ready to believe those who have proved trustworthy in the past. But God’s Word also warns against ‘putting faith in every word.’(Prov-erbs 14:15) Sometimes a person’s past record gives le-gitimate reason for doubt. “Although [the deceptive talker] makes his voice gra-cious,” the Bible warns, “do not believe in him.”—Prov-erbs 26:24, 25.
The apostle John also warns Christians against blind belief. “Do not believe every inspired expression,” he writes. Rather, “test the inspired expressions to see whether they originate with God.” (1 John 4:1) An “expression,” a teach-ing or opinion, might appear to emanate from God. But did it really come from him? Exercising some doubt, or suspending belief, can be a real protection because, as the apos-tie John says, “many deceivers have gone forth into the world.”—2 John 7.
Unfounded Doubts
Yes, an honest, humble examination of the facts to establish the truth is often called for. This, however, is not the same as allowing un-founded, damaging doubts to develop in our mind and heart—doubts that can wreck our firmly established beliefs and relationships. This doubt is defined as an “uncertainty of be-lief or opinion that often interferes with decision-making.” Do you remember how Sa-tan infected Eve’s mind with doubts aboutJe-hovah? “Is it really so that God said you must not eat from every tree of the garden?” he asked. (Genesis 3:1) The uncertainty creat-ed by that innocent-sounding question inter-fered with her decision-making. That is typi-cal of Satan’s methods. Like the so-called poison-pen letter writer, he is skilled at us-ing innuendo, half-truths, and lies. Satan has destroyed countless wholesome, trusting re-lationships through insidious doubts planted in that way.—Galatians 5:7-9.
The disciple James clearly understood the damaging effect of this kind of doubt. He writes about the wonderful privilege we have of freely approaching God for help in time of trial. But, James warns, when you do pray to God, “keep on asking in faith, not doubt-lug at all.” Doubts in our relationship with God make us “like a wave of the sea driv-en by the wind and blown about.” We be-come like “an indecisive man, unsteady in all his ways.” (James 1:6, 8) We develop an un-certainty of belief that leaves us floundering. Then, as happened to Eve, we become vulner-able to all sorts of demonic teachings and phi-losophies.
Maintaining Good Spiritual Health
How, then, can we protect ourselves from damaging doubts? The answer is remarkably simple: by firmly rejecting satanic propagan-da and fully availing ourselves of God’s provi-sions to make us “solid in the faith.”—l Peter 5:8-10.
Absolutely essential is good personal spir-itual feeding. Author Wingate, mentioned earlier, explains: “Even when the body is at rest it needs a continuous supply of ener-gy for chemical processes and for the work of its vital organs; and the materials of many tis-sues need constant replacement.” It is the same with our spiritual health. Without con-stant spiritual feeding, our faith, like a body deprived of food, will be progressively dam-aged and will eventually die. Jesus Christ em-phasized this when he said: “Man must live, not on bread alone, but on every utterance coming forth through Jehovah’s mouth.”—Matthew 4:4.
Think about that. How did we build a strong faith in the first place? “Faith follows the thing heard,” writes the apostle Paul. (Ro-mans 10:17) He means that we initially built our faith and confidence in Jehovah, his promises, and his organization by feeding on God’s Word. Of course, we did not just blind-ly believe all that we heard. We did what peo-pie living in the city of Beroea did. We ‘carefully examined the Scriptures daily as to whether these things were so.’ (Acts 17:
11) We ‘proved to ourselves the good and ac-ceptable and perfect will of God’ and made sure that what we had heard was true. (Ro-mans 12:2; 1 Thessalonians 5:21) Since then, we have likely reinforced our faith as we have come to see ever more clearly that God’s Word and promises never fail.—Joshua 23:14; Isaiah 55:10, 11.
Avoid Spiritual Starvation
Now the challenge is to maintain our faith and to avoid any uncertainty of belief that can weaken our confidence in Jehovah and his organization. To do this we must contin-ue to examine the Scriptures daily. The apos-tle Paul warns that “in later periods of time some [who may initially seem to have a strong faith] will fall away from the faith, paying attention to misleading inspired ut-terances and teachings of demons.” (1 Timo-thy 4:1) These misleading utterances and teachings create doubts in the minds of some and alienate them from God. What is our protection? To continue being “nourished with the words of the faith and of the fine teaching which [we] have followed closely.” —1 Timothy 4:6.
Sadly, though, some today choose not to be “nourished with the words of the faith”
—even when such nourishment is freely available. As one of the writers of the book of Proverbs indicates, it is possible to be sur-rounded by good spiritual food, a spiritual banquet, as it were, and still not actually eat and digest the food.—Proverbs 19:24; 26:15.
This is dangerous. Author Wingate says:
“As soon as the body begins to consume its own protein its health begins to suffer.” When you are starved of food, your body be-gins to use up fuel reserves stored throughout the body. When these sources are exhausted, the body begins to consume protein that is essential for continued growth and repair of tissue. Vital organs begin to break down. Your health then quickly deteriorates.
That is what happened in a spiritual sense to some in the early Christian congregation. They tried to live off their spiritual reserves. Likely, they neglected personal study, and they became spiritually weak. (Hebrews 5:12) The apostle Paul explained the danger in do-ing this when he wrote to Hebrew Christians:
“It is necessary for us to pay more than the usual attention to the things heard by us, that we may never drift away.” He knew how easy it would be to drift into bad habits if we “ne-glected a salvation of such greatness.”—He-brews 2:1, 3.
Interestingly, a person suffering from mal-nutrition does not necessarily look sickly or thin. Similarly, it may not be immediately obvious that someone is suffering from spir-itual starvation. You can have an appearance of spiritual well-being even when you are not being nourished properly—but only for a short time! You will inevitably become weak-ened spiritually, susceptible to unfounded doubts, and unable to put up a hard fight for the faith. (Jude 3) You know—even if no one else does—the true extent of your personal spiritual feeding.
Hence, keep up your personal study. Fight doubts vigorously. To ignore what ap-pears to be a trivial infection, to do noth-ing about nagging doubts, may have disas-trous consequences. (2 Corinthians 11:3) ‘Are we really living in the last days? Can you be-lieve everything the Bible says? Is this truly Jehovah’s organization?’ Satan would love to plant doubts like these in your mind. Do not let a negligent attitude toward spiritual feed-ing leave you easy prey to his deceptive teach-ings. (Colossians 2:4-7) Follow the advice giv-en to Timothy. Be a good student of “the holy writings” so that you can “continue in the things that you learned and were persuaded to believe.”—2 Timothy 3:13-15.
You may need help to do this. The writ-er quoted earlier goes on to say: “With severe starvation the digestive organs may be so in-jured by lack of vitamins and other necessi-ties that they can no longer take up ordi-nary foods if they are provided. People in this state may need food that requires little di-gestion for some time.” Special care is need-ed to remedy the effects of starvation on the body. Similarly, someone who has grossly ne-glected his personal study of the Bible may need much help and encouragement to re-gain his spiritual appetite. If that is your sit-uation, seek help and gladly accept any assis-tance offered to rebuild your spiritual health and strength.—James 5:14, 15.
Do Not “Waver in a Lack of Faith”
Considering the circumstances of the pa-triarch Abraham, some may feel that he had legitimate grounds for doubt. It may appear quite reasonable to conclude that he was ‘beyond hope of becoming the father of many nations’—despite God’s promise. Why? Well, from a purely human point of view, things did not look promising. ‘He considered his own body, now al-ready deadened, and also the deadness of the womb of Sarah,’ the Bible record says. Still, he resolutely refused to allow doubts about God and his promises to take root in his mind and heart. The apostle Paul writes: “He did not grow weak in faith,” or waver in a lack of faith.” Abraham remained “fully convinced that what [Godj had prom-ised he was also able to do.” (Romans 4:18-21) He had built a strong, personal, trusting relationship with Jehovah over many years. He rejected any doubts that might have weak-ened that relationship.
You can do the same if you “keep hold-ing the pattern of healthful words”—if you feed yourself well spiritually. (2 Timothy 1:13) Take the danger of doubts seriously. Sa-tan engages in what might be called spiritu-al bacteriologic warfare. If you neglect to take in good spiritual food through person-al study of the Bible and through attendance at Christian meetings, you lay yourself wide open to such attacks. Make good use of the generous and timely sup-ply of spiritual food provided by “the faithful and discreet slave.” (Matthew 24:45) Contin-ue to “assent to healthful words” and re-main “healthy in faith.” (1 Timothy 6:3; Ti-tus 2:2) Do not allow doubts to destroy your faith.