What Bible Promises or Teachings Do You Have Difficulty Believing?

Believing the Word

“That same day, Sunday, two of Jesus’ followers were walking to the village of Emmaus, seven miles out of Jerusalem. As they walked along, they were talking of Jesus’ death when suddenly Jesus himself came along and joined them and began walking beside them. But they didn’t recognize Him, for God kept them from it.

“You seem to be in a deep discussion about something,” He said. “What are you so concerned about?” They stopped short, sadness written across their faces. And one of them, Cleopas, replied, “You must be the only person in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard about the terrible things that happened there last week.”

“What things?” Jesus asked.

“The things that happened to Jesus, the Man from Nazareth,” they said. “He was a Prophet who did incredible miracles and was a mighty Teacher, highly regarded by both God and man. But the chief priests and our religious leaders arrested Him and handed Him over to the Roman government to be condemned to death, and they crucified Him. We had thought He was the glorious Messiah and that He had come to rescue Israel.

“And now, besides all this—which happened three days ago—some women from our group of His followers were at His tomb early this morning and came back with an amazing report that His body was missing and that they had seen some angels there who told them Jesus is alive! Some of our men ran out to see, and sure enough, Jesus’ body was gone, just as the women had said.”

Then Jesus said to them, “You are such foolish, foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures! Wasn’t it clearly predicted by the prophets that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering His time of glory?”

Then Jesus quoted them passage after passage from the writings of the prophets, beginning with the book of Genesis and going right on through the Scriptures, explaining what the passages meant and what they said about Himself.¹ Luke 24:13–27 (The Living Bible, Paraphrased). 

Setting the Scene

Jesus called these two disciples “foolish” because they hadn’t been able to believe what had been predicted in the Scriptures: that “the Messiah would have to suffer . . . before entering His glory.” Evidently, these men, like most of Jesus’ followers, had been caught off guard by the Crucifixion and then probably had expected God to rescue Jesus from the cross. They hadn’t expected the Messiah to suffer the way Jesus had.

So, Jesus reintroduced these disciples to the teachings of Scripture about Himself, no doubt beginning with the promised offspring in Genesis 3:15 and going through the suffering Servant in Isaiah 53:1-12, the pierced one in Zechariah 12:10, the messenger of the covenant in Malachi 3:1, and other passages in between.

The Jewish religious leaders had spent their lives studying Scripture but had ignored or disregarded the idea of a suffering Servant. Jesus showed the men how the recent events in Jerusalem had fulfilled every prophecy regarding the Messiah. Jesus may have taken the two followers through Old Testament history, pointing out the problem of sin and how it would have to be solved through the sacrificial death of God’s own Son. 

Getting Personal

• What biblical principle gleaned from a sermon, small group, class, or personal Bible study, have you been recently trying to apply in your life? 
• What Bible promises or teachings do you have difficulty believing?

Jesus told the two men they were “foolish” for not believing what the Bible clearly teaches. Today, we have an amazing array of Bible translations, study tools, commentaries, and devotionals. We certainly have no excuse for not reading, studying, and understanding Scripture. Our greater struggle is truly believing and applying what we read.

The two men leaving Jerusalem behind were so focused on their plight and what they perceived as catastrophic events that they failed to believe what they had read in Scripture—no wonder they couldn’t believe the women’s report of an empty tomb. What Scripture had predicted they had seen fulfilled, and they should have been eagerly expecting God’s next move. 

Talking to God

Actions speak louder than words, so ask your heavenly Father to help you live according to the truths you are learning from the example and teachings of Jesus. Ask Him to help your belief in the value of His Word lead to a transformed life.² 

^[1] Taylor, Kenneth Nathaniel. 1997. The Living Bible, Paraphrased. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House.

^[2] Veerman, D. R. Life Application Study Bible Devotional.

Another Perilous Way in Which We Deny The Providence Of God

Turning to Sin to Have Our Way

We deny God’s providence when we try to circumvent the will of God and use dishonest means to gain wealth or honor. 

This is to leave God and seek relief at hell’s gates, preferring the devil’s providence above God’s. When God does not answer immediately, like Saul we go to the medium of En-dor to have our way by hell if heaven refuses us (1 Sam. 28:5–8). This is striking a bargain with hell.

Surely no one will argue that when they make covenants with the Father of Lies, as witches and conjurors are reported to do, the devil follows through and delivers knowledge, wealth, or honor. But those who make such covenants acknowledge the devil to be the god of this world, because they seek to have Satan confer on them things that are only in the absolute power of God to promise or bestow.

When a person commits sin as a way to gain his ambitions and desires, he implicitly covenants with the devil, the head of sinners. He sets up his sin in the place of God, because he hopes to attain by sinful means things that are only in the hands of God, the only one we can depend on. This is the devil’s design out of an enmity to providence. He tempted Christ to go his own way in distrust of his Father’s care—“If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread,” Satan says in Matthew 4:3, as though God would not provide for his Son. Our Savior’s answer exposes the devil’s design.

To turn to sin is to prostitute providence to sate our own desires, pulling it down from its heights of governing the world to make it a lackey to our sinful pleasure. To use means that God prohibits is to set up hell to govern us since God will not govern our affairs in answer to our greedy desires. It is to endeavor to gain by God’s curse that which we should only expect to receive by God’s blessing. God has forbidden—even severely threatened—sinful ways, yet many would rather believe that God’s curse will further us more than his blessing. This is to disparage his blessing and prefer his curse, to slight his wisdom and adore our folly.

When we depart from God’s way, we depart from God’s protection. We have no recourse for the blessing of providence without this condition: “Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness” (Ps. 37:3). To do evil, then, is not to trust in God or regard his providential care.

Charnock, Stephen. 2022. Pg. 99. Divine Providence: A Classic Work for Modern Readers. Edited by Carolyn B. Whiting. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing. 

The Perilous Ways in Which People Deny Providence

Walking Contrary to the Checks of Providence

When we walk in a way contrary to the checks of providence, when we run against the will of God that is manifested in his providence, or when we deny his government and refuse to be subject to him, we are abusing or denying providence.¹

Omitting to Pray

When we do not pray, we deny providence. The fool denies God’s government of the world, and the proof is that he does not call on the Lord. ²

Looking to Other People Rather than God

We deny providence when we make every effort to gain the favorable assistance of men and women concerning our plans but never ask God for his direction or blessing.³

  

Giving Glory to Others Instead of God

We deny providence when we receive something good and then attribute our grateful acknowledgment to the instrument God has used rather than to its principal author. It is as if God were not involved in bestowing the blessing, and the instrument he has used is operating on its own. Men and women are guilty of this when they ascribe their wealth to their own wit and fortune, their health to their own regimen or a physician’s skill, their learning to their hard work and intellect, or their prosperity to their accomplishments or friends. When people give thanks to second causes and ascribe to them what is due to God, they are giving the glory of his providence to a miserable creature. Thus was the foolish boasting of the Assyrian: “By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding; I remove the boundaries of peoples” (Isa. 10:13).

In the book of Daniel, we read of Belshazzar’s offense: “You have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven. And the vessels of his house have been brought in before you, and you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines have drunk wine from them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know, but the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways, you have not honored” (Dan. 5:23). The foolish king credited material things and man-made idols as the authors of his greatness and not God his Creator.

Similarly, we read in Habakkuk, “Therefore [the wicked foe] sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his dragnet; for by them he lives in luxury, and his food is rich” (Hab. 1:16). The prophet is referring to those who worship their warlike weapons, and the tools they use to obtain their wealth, instead of worshiping God.⁴ This is such a sinful, base use of God—to ransack him of all his glory and bestow it on the most unworthy instruments: inanimate creatures! To do so is idolatry as great as that of the heathens, inasmuch as it strips God of the glory of his providential care, even though the object to which we direct our acknowledgment is flesh and not stone.

A person is violated just as much whether his goods are taken from him and given to a beggar or taken from him and given to a prince. It is still depriving a person of his right. Yet it is common for a person to ascribe more to the physician who saves his eye from being lost than to God, who has given him both the eye and the physician, not to mention the ability to enjoy the light of the sun. Yes, we ascribe more to medicine than to God, although the existence of every drug is a witness to his deity. It is as if the kindness a king has shown to his subjects were attributed to a worker in his kitchen rather than to the king. This is to belie God: “They have spoken falsely of the Lord and have said, ‘He will do nothing; no disaster will come upon us’ ” (Jer. 5:12). This applies to God’s mercies as well as his afflictions and judgments.

To falsely accuse providence or hold it in contempt is a sin that grows greater in degree according to the degree of mercy we have received by God’s providence: “She did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal” (Hos. 2:8). Israel had every reason to know and acknowledge her provider because she had enjoyed so much! She knew from experience that by a strong and mighty hand, the Lord had brought her out of Egypt into the land of promise. Yet she denied that God had given her the good things that she then turned around and prepared for Baal.

Those who lavish the good things they enjoy on their lusts deny the providential goodness of God as the way they came to possess them. They distort God’s goodness for their own sinful pleasures as though their own lusts had made them. Also, their instruments are showered with flattery and recognition for their achievements. They are much like Herod, who was pleased with himself when his people praised him and said that his voice was the voice of God and not of a man (Acts 12:22).⁵

^{1, 2, 3} Charnock, Stephen. 2022. Pgs. 97-98. Divine Providence: A Classic Work for Modern Readers. Edited by Carolyn B. Whiting. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.

⁴ John Doughtie, Analecta sacra, sive Excursus Philologici (London: Guil. Godbid, 1658), 182.

⁵ Charnock, Stephen. 2022. Pgs. 97-98. Divine Providence: A Classic Work for Modern Readers. Edited by Carolyn B. Whiting. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.