You hear folks say that sometimes, “I have my doubts.” And nobody says anything about it, it’s as normal as can be. But how about that? If you profess to believe in the God of three faiths, then you probably know that doubts, at least some kinds of doubts, are not just something to slough off as nothing, though mostly everyone does.
On the one hand, you’ve got “the father of faith”, the patriarch Abraham. What was the big deal about him? Well, for one, he kept hearing the voice of God telling him that he was going to have a big family when both he and his wife were like really getting up in years. And evidently the thing that pleased God about Abraham was his faith. Here are some especially poignant verses in the book of Romans that speak about the special faith of Abraham concerning this unusual promise God made to him which seemed to go unfulfilled for so long. 
“He (Abraham) staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong in the faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what He had promised He was also able to perform. And it was accounted to him for righteousness.” (Romans 4:20-22)
Did Abraham have his doubts? I don’t remember reading about them, although his wife Sara did evidently laugh once when an angel was with them and told them about their future family. And let’s be honest, do you ever sort of secretly sympathize with them? After all, there are oodles of times in the Bible where God and/or His prophets have foretold some extremely outlandish, almost impossible-to-believe things. And you and I might feel that if we’d been there, we’d be pretty challenged indeed to believe what was said at the time.
In fact, do you ever feel that way about the book of Revelation? My gosh. “The stars fall from heaven” and “the heavens departed as a scroll” (Revelation 6:13 & 14). It says during the time of the trumpets, just before the return of Jesus that “hail and fire, mingled with blood” will be cast upon the earth. “And a third part of trees was burned up, and all green grass” (Revelation 8:7). Whew. No wonder some of the big time preachers in the churches here are still telling the believers on Sunday morning that none of them will ever see any of the events spoken of in Revelation. According to the main line evangelical denominations of this day, they will all be wonderfully swept away at any moment and will experience nothing of the endtime tribulation that’s so spoken of in both Daniel and Revelation.
Maybe a thing to do with some of this is what I’ve heard before, to “wrap it up in a bundle of faith and put it away somewhere”. When the time comes, the Lord will take it, unwrap it and make it all clear and plain.
Some folks think they have to understand something to believe it. But that’s not true. It’s a real liberation to realize that even if you don’t understand something, that doesn’t have to mean you cave in to unbelief. You can still believe something, even if you don’t understand it.
But I’m going to confess that at times, when I just look at the prophecies of the future with my carnal mind and worldly reasoning, it does become easy to be tempted to doubt that the strange, mighty things of Revelation can actually happen. But that’s a precarious place to be, being tempted to doubt the stupendous things God has foretold us about the future.
Maybe it’s like the famous preacher from over 100 years ago said to the two ladies who asked him, “Dwight L. Moody, do you have dying faith?” To which he said, “No, I don’t.” When they gasped at his apparent unbelief, he went on to say, “I’m not dying yet.” That’s how things work.
“As thy days, so shall thy strength be” . (Deuteronomy 33:25) I really don’t have to worry or even totally understand some of the most awesome, intriguing mysterious of the future that Revelation tells us about. I’m not there yet. God gives us what we need for today, not before.
I do study these things and even teach about it. But as I wrote about in “Daniel First”, I really believe it helps a lot to start with an understanding of the book of Daniel, which Jesus Himself pointed us to, before we try to comprehend the book of Revelation. But what do I do with the almost incredible things found in Revelation? One thing is to simply look back at the already fulfilled prophecies of the past, many of them just as seemingly incredible but nevertheless fulfilled by the Lord. So I have every reason to believe that the stupendous things of the future that we find in Revelation will be fulfilled just the same.
And as much as I enjoy the study of these things, I do feel that my most important calling is that of a disciple, soul winner and a feeder of sheep, a teacher of babes. It can end up just being a trip off if you get so lost in the intricacies of the prophetic future and you abrogate your calling of full time Christian discipleship. Maybe this is what King David meant when he said “Lord, my heart is not haughty or my eyes lofty, neither do I exercise myself in great things or matters too high for me.” (Psalm 131:1)
I do strongly believe that more people need to have a much better understanding of the events that we’re told about in Daniel and Revelation which have not yet happened. But I think any teacher who seriously makes an attempt to teach the book of Revelation to others must have the honesty, humility and candor to say at some points, “I don’t really know what this means here or at least I don’t understand it enough to be certain about it.”
Sometimes it’s the Lord’s wisdom for us to just stay simple, to admit it when we don’t exactly know what some things are and to not get spooked out about some seemingly foreboding future event foretold in God’s Word. Maybe that’s the correct time and place to apply what Jesus said, “Take no thought for the morrow for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.” (Matthew 6:34)
“Clowning” might not sound like a great idea to some. You may think we have too many clowns around already when we look at the politicians and so many other sources of light, frivolous froth that seems so prevalent nowadays. But this is Ukraine, not the “rich-and-increased-with-goods” West. Here I find that the clowning my friends do in orphanages and detention homes is closer to being like what Solomon said about these things, “
If this still seems strange to you, perhaps you’ve heard of the movie starring Robin Williams, “
OK, that’s the good part; now let’s talk about the bad, ha! It’s the economics. And you could think, “Oh, Mark, at least it’s not violence, crime or diseases.” Hmm. Let me give you some statistics and you can see how this would work for you. You’re retired and draw a pension from your government? Millions here do and they receive… $45 a month. That’s $ 1.50 per day. An average wage in Guatemala is about twice that, I’m told. Are you going to buy medicine on $1.50 a day? No. You’re just barely going to avoid starvation if you somehow have some place you can grow some potatoes, have an apple tree and a few chickens you feed.
You’re a teacher in your prime, not retired? Let’s see. You’ll receive… about $55 a month. At 40 hours a week that would be about $.25 an hour for your efforts. Your tops in your field, medicine, and are #2 at a large city hospital? You’ll be getting less than $200 per month. So it’s all kind of indescribable. Almost like a sci-fi movie where all that you’ve taken for normal is deeply distorted so that things are surreal, Kafkaesque.
I was out witnessing after some time of not being able to go out much and at first it was such a battle; but that always happens. I’d copied some tracts to pass out and it had become late already. I was starting to get tired but was dissatisfied because I’d taken 10 Arabic Gospels of Luke with me, with the determination to give them out. But I was by that time just tired and wanting to go home. 
In all I was able to give out 8 Gospels of Luke in Arabic and a bunch of German and English tracts, thank you Jesus! I was all poured out when I arrived at the train station but very happy.
I don’t know about you but this just made my day. It’s exactly what I’ve written about in blog posts like “
“
Maybe that’s another thing about witnessing that most people just don’t want to experience. You just might meet your match, ha! The only thing is, it may be your match but not the Lord’s. Like anything, you have to hone your skills or, better yet, let the Lord teach you how to witness and share your faith. You may have your stumbles or bumps in the road but you keep taking it back to the Lord, learn your lessons, 
and do better next time. A little like what happened to me years later in New Delhi, India when I was witnessing door to door there and a woman almost immediately, upon opening her door, yelled at me, “
But it was the faithfulness of that young Christian student at my university to share God’s message with me, even though I rejected it, that was part of God’s plan in bringing me to Him. And I share this here to show how that, even if you have a “negative” witnessing experience, as that dear brother had with me that day back then, “
the idea being that when the first solder was shot, the second one was to pick up the gun and keep going. But the hero of the movie, played by Jude Law, grew up as a hunter with his grandfather and was a crack shot with a rifle. Lying motionless among his dead comrades in the battle of Stalingrad, Law uses his rifle skills to pick off Nazi officers at a distance during the battle. He actually gets pretty good at it.
It’s not meant to be a parable but today it became like a parable to me. “The enemy at the gate.” How many times have we heard something like that in reference to the current refugee crisis in Europe? “
But right or wrong, many millions of people are very afraid, just as the Russians were over 70 years ago. Back then, just a tiny handful of sharp shooters had a major hand in turning a loosing battle into a victory, rather like the British aviators did in 
We’re talking about millions of poor souls who’ve had it so bad in their home countries that they’ve risked their lives to cross land and sea, hoping to find refuge in Europe. What can any of us do? I’ve been with these people personally several times recently; here’s a post about when I was on the Macedonian border with them a few weeks ago, called “
And some are doing that, I met and worked with them last month; this is what I wrote about in “
Then the next verse in Daniel 11 says, “
The vast majority of Christians today are spectators, at best. They’ve left the arena and are watching from the grandstands. But Scripture says that the bride of Christ in the endtime will be in the arena again, literally or otherwise, like the believers of the Early Church.
But overall and for the most part, right now things look bleak. So many want to tell us who our enemies are, those who we’re to fear and even prepare to kill. But where are the noble souls who are preparing His people to be the mighty witnessers and disciples of the endtime that we read about in Scripture? Oh, dear Lord, please raise up the believers You spoke of who will be those that will turn many to righteousness, do great exploits, and instruct many before You return.
