Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3247
“O you oflittle faith, why did you doubt?” Matthew 14:31.
OUR Savior did not ask Peter that question for His own information. He could have told Peter much more about his unbelieving heart than Peter knew! The Savior was well acquainted with those springs from which the unbelief of Peter arose. He asked it, therefore, rather that Peter might make the enquiry of himself—that he might look into the matter and see how groundless his unbelief was—so that on the next occasion he might not fall into the same error. I believe it is sometimes a very great cure for unbelief to look it in the face even while we are under it—and after we have escaped from it, it is still a preventive for the future if we look back upon it and reason concerning it. Remember how David, in the 42nd Psalm, twice asked himself, “Why are you cast down, O my Soul? And why are you disquieted within me?” He was persuaded that the questioning of his unbelief would convict him of its folly. It only needs to be looked at closely to lose all its terror, to be robbed of its seeming foundation and to be overcome!
I am afraid that most of us have, some time or other in our lives, been like sinking Peter and have cried, “Lord, save me,” not in tones of faith, but in the language of unbelief. And if so, it will be as good a thing for us as for Peter to hear the Master say to us, tonight, “Why did you doubt? Why did you doubt? Was there any good reason for it? Was there any excuse for it? Did any good come of it? Why did you doubt?”And I hope, too, that after I have spoken to Believers in that way, I may have a word for sinners—only for them I shall have to take liberties with the text and alter it into the present tense, saying to anyone who is desirous of peace in Christ, but who trembles and is afraid, “Why do you doubt? Why do you doubt? Why do you continue in this state of hesitancy and unbelief?”
I. First, then, I have to say TO THE CHILD OF GOD, “Why did you doubt?”
Some Christians appear to go from one form of doubt to another. Fears are with them perennial. They are plants that affect the shade—they seldom open their golden cups to drink in the blessed Light of the Divine sun! Even the strongest Believers are, I fear, at times overcome with this disease. As King David, that matchless warrior, once waxed faint—the bravest servants of God sometimes faint even in the day of battle—I will ask them, each one, to look back upon any seasons of doubts or faintings, whether they are numerous or few, and I will then say to each one, “Why did
you doubt?”
Did you doubt the promise thinking it was not firm enough? It was a promise to meet your trial—did you distrust it? It was the promise of God—did you think, perhaps, that it was fallible and might be broken? It was a promise sent to you by Inspired Apostles or Prophets, as the case might be—did you still think it was no better than the word of a man and might fall to the ground? You have often placed great reliance upon the promises of those you love—could you not rely upon the promise of God? You have found man’s promise sometimes true when you have trusted it—were you afraid that God’s promise would not be true? Or was it that you had met with so many disappointments trusting in an arm of flesh that you thought the Lord to be altogether such as man is? Did you think that He was a man that He would lie, or the son of man that He would change His mind? Did you forget that Jesus Christ made the promises, Yes and Amen, in Himself to the Glory of God? Was that the reason? If so, how wicked it was to doubt the promise of God! How could you
do it?
Did your unbelief assail the promise in itself? Did you think your deliverance a matter of such difficulty that Omnipotence could not accomplish it? Were you in such need that you supposed the stores of Heaven could not supply you? Were you of their mind who said, “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?” Or of his who exclaimed, “If the Lord would make windows in Heaven, might this thing be?” Did you conceive that anything was too hard for the Lord? That His arm was shortened, that He could not save, that His granaries were empty, that He could not feed you? Did you think that the river of God, which is full of water, was dried up? Did you conceive that the foundations wherein you dwelt were no longer of rock, but of crumbling sand? That your bread would not be given you and that your water would not be sure because God had failed? Beloved, if that thought lay at the bottom of your unbelief, was it not a baseless thing, indeed? What a slander upon God and upon God’s almightiness, to think that He had promised what He could not perform! Whether it was His truthfulness or His power which your unbelief attacked, it was equally a wanton and an unpardonable thing! God will pardon it, I know, but I mean that it was unpardonable to yourself, for surely you must now feel as if you could not forgive yourself for having doubted either the power or the truthfulness of your God!