Pastor Ralph Douglas West - Eyewitness to the Evidence: The Story of Doubting Thomas

1:40 Amen. So while you're standing, open the word to John chapter 20. For those of you worshiping with us for the first time, we're journeying with Jesus. He's always appearing somewhere. And today is the third Sunday of Easter. For those of you who grew up in high church,

2:18 and I say that reverently, then you understand and remember every year when the pastor would wear you out, say, well, here we go again. Those of us at Low Church, just all over the place. But this is the third Sunday of Easter. And we've been following the footsteps of Jesus as he's moving along the way.

2:54 We return now to John 20. A week later from the week that we read and beginning at verse 24, we have a character. who appears in this story. Let me read it to you. Now, Thomas, also known as Didymus, one of the twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.

3:34 So the other disciples told him, we've seen the Lord. But Thomas said to them Unless I see the nail marks in his hands And put my finger where his nails were And put my hand into his side I will not believe A week later Jesus' disciples were in the house again And Thomas was with them Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here See my hands, reach out your hand and put it into my side, stop doubting and believe Thomas said My Lord and my God And then Jesus told him Because you have seen me You have believed Blessed Are those who have not seen And yet believe This is the word of God You may be seated I witness to the evidence.

5:25 This morning at 8 o'clock We established a new rule Beginning next Sunday Dear Gilmore, our leader of our deacon's ministry, for those of you who don't know him, he's seated here on the front row at the edge. If you'll just hold your hand up, Brother Gilmore, let him know who you are. Starting next Sunday, he'll be standing up taking names, calling the church roll. and he's going to call each of your names, and you're going to respond present. You don't need to respond If you are Absence.

6:26 I see I've lost quite a few members already that don't want their name called next Sunday. It was that kind of intensity that was in the air a week later in the same place where the disciples met a week earlier. the role had been called. The 12 was supposed to be there if nobody else,

7:06 and yet when the role is called, Peter, present, James, present, John, present, Judas Judas He moved his membership and went somewhere else. But didn't he go to new members class? Isn't he a graduate of 27 weeks of master life?

7:50 Yeah, he was. You can do all of that. And what you believe never moves from your head down to your heart. Nathaniel, present. Betholomew, present Thomas Thomas Now I know we lost one But two or twelve We done lost ten percent Of the apostolic council Peter, James and John said to Derek Apparently you haven't been keeping up with The disposition of Thomas Thomas is an interesting person.

8:51 Thomas was negative, Thomas was pessimistic, Thomas was always the one that had a dark cloud hanging over his head. Peter, present James, present John, present Thomas Thomas Thomas His name is Didymus means twin I grew up and some of you who grew up around Sunday school, we learned his name meant, and we called him by this nickname, Doubting Thomas, which is really a misnomer because that's not what his name means.

9:50 It's really disbelieving Thomas. When I was an undergraduate and studying religion, John D. Mangrum taught me, and there were times Dr. Mangrum would say these words, don't be a Christian atheist. Later in my reading, I read the writings of Jacques Marantain, the French Catholic philosopher and theologian.

10:34 And in his book, The Range of Reason or The Edge of Reason, he said there are two kinds of atheists. There are negative atheists and then there are positive atheists. The negative atheists are the obvious ones. These are the people that reject God flatly and they live vacuously as there is no objective reality or ultimate concern in the world. they live empty without purpose or devoid of purpose but then there are positive activists atheists these are the people who willfully willfully reject any evidence of truth these are the people who are assertive these are aggressive willful people that intellectually push back against anything supernatural or that can be defined by faith.

11:51 It's what many of us were trained to be in college and university. How can you believe as a talented 10th, as an intellectual, of some supernatural, invisible intervention of a cosmic reality that breaks in on your world. Thomas if you're looking at a category to put it in He's a positive atheist disbelieving Thomas had been around as much evidence as one need in life to build his life on a foundation to always face the uncertainty with a conquering confidence that in God all things are possible preach Pastor Wett Thomas.

12:57 Peter, present. James present John present Thomas Thomas Where in the world is Thomas? Positive atheism. Most of you know the name Alfred Lloyd Tennyson, the great 19th century poet. If you've ever been to any funeral in your life, you've heard at least one of his poems, Crossing the Ball. Tennyson lost a friend named Arthur Hallman and for 16 years he grappled in the darkness of pessimism stay with me now I'm trying to help you and after 16 years he finally came to this conclusion in his writing that I have discovered more faith in earnest doubt believe me than all the creeds of the church Tennyson said that I have found, I have discovered more faith in earnest doubt, believe me, than all the creeds in the church.

14:41 Now, Tennyson is brighter than I am, but I'm going to say no. I'm going to reject what he says By simply trying to elevate Thomas and the Thomases of the world As if their doubt and their disbelief Is more genuine than a faith and trust Of a living God How do you tackle something like this?

15:27 How do you move when life has offered something so challenging? And let me tell you something. With this many people in church this morning, it's a few of you thinking just like this. you came here this morning specifically to say, God, if you don't talk to me today, I'm done. I'm walking out I'm I'm through with it I I I need something just to let me know that you know where I am in life I'm dressed up I look good can't nobody look past my mascara my cologne my suit my dress but underneath the skin I am falling apart I'm about to disintegrate and I need a word from you today Lord And this story today, this Easter message.

16:37 of the living Christ in our midst reminds us something about Thomas who is a theological metaphor. That's what I want to call him. He's a theological metaphor to help us understand the world that we live in, the generation that we're in, how people think about God. Bonner in his research says that 90% of people in North America, that's you, believe that there is a God. 56% believe in the God of the Bible. That's a big gap. And so it may not be so much That people like Thomas Have lost their faith As they have lost their clarity You see the date will come in your huddles that nobody will be there to answer the question what do you believe?

17:44 I often say that to people that know me when they use the plural. I always say, no, I'm not talking about we. I want to know what you believe. And don't worry about it. You don't have to wait long. The day will come where you will be challenged to have to answer what you believe. You will have to stand up on your own convictions about life and God. You see, as a metaphor, Thomas reminds us that we live in a culture that resists the evidence.

18:24 Thomas had a disposition of darkness, a predisposition to always live in the pessimistic, on the dark side of life, negative about most things. John has a preoccupation with the words of Thomas. He's the one that records what Thomas has to say. On one occasion, Thomas speaks in John 11. For those of you who are not familiar with Thomas or how scripture works. So Thomas speaks in John 11. This is the scene where Jesus receives word that his friend Lazarus has died. When he arrives in Bethany, this disturbs Thomas because this becomes political and religio-political agitated territory. Jesus, y'all, is not this guy in the Bible that everybody likes.

19:28 I know we preach Jesus as this meek and mild, but Jesus is rather radical and revolutionary. Let me say it again. He's an insurrectionist. Jesus has come to upset structure and institution and anything that disallow a person from being a whole person, Jesus comes to kick the wall down. Jesus is a bad mother. shut your mouth I'm talking about Jesus now So all this business of Jesus being this soft guy.

20:10 Just read it sometime. Don't listen to the people. Jesus, so Jesus don't have no business going back to where he's going because people want to kill him. and Thomas Say, well, let's just go on there and die. You say, well, what's so radical and revolutionary about that? Well, you have to know the story, and I know you do, and you're learning the story, and that is that Jesus' end is not going to end in Bethany. He has to make it to Jerusalem. He has to get up on a cross. He has to be lifted up on a hill, and if that is his ultimate destiny, anywhere before then, God got that taken care of. John 14 are the second words of Thomas.

21:16 In here, Jesus is going on, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. For in my father's house are many mansions. There are rooms that we're going to, I know for three years y'all been sleeping with the foxes. Under the Palestinian sky. But I'm telling you that I'm preparing a mansion where all of us are going to have our own rooms in God's house. And people, they start clapping.

21:49 Except for Thomas. And Thomas said this. Well, I know you're not going to ask him nothing. But how are we supposed to know The direction that we're going And what's our ultimate destiny You know you're talking about Going to prepare a way In fact how we know This is the way And here's another thing Jesus is not only revolutionizing and radical but Jesus can be rather rhetorically sharp. He looked at Tom and says, I am the way. In a direction other than me, you in the wrong direction. I am the way.

22:44 And how do I know that? Because I am the truth. And if you're looking for life in anything else, in somebody else, you ain't going to get it. Because I am the life. In me is abundance. And there is a flow of abundance in my life. Diva was snapping back at that. And so Thomas now is missing. That's just his disposition. So for those of you who have visited him, when I say this, the church knows that. Now you know he ain't gonna finish this sermon. I'm just saying you know that so I'm gonna give you this last part then I'm gonna run across the second one but I give you enough content where you can work with it and then the last thing okay So he's not present.

23:56 He's in isolation. Because a predisposition toward the negative has a way of causing you to isolate from where you need to be. The 12 were in the upper room. Thomas was not there. Where was he? I don't know. I mean, I really don't. nursing his pessimism possibly, nourishing his disbelief, wallowing in his doubt,

24:31 grappling with his deliberate intellectual uncertainty. I don't know where he is, but he's a metaphor for you and me, for the culture we live in that when we have a disposition to distrust God, we have a way of crawling into our silos of isolation. And isolation is a dangerous place. Let me say this to you. Those of you that's grappling with disappointment and frustration and hurt, the worst place you can be is in isolation. Let me give you another way of saying it. The worst place you can be is by yourself. And worse than that is to keep company with people just like you in your isolation. Thank you.

25:26 Thomas wasn't there. He was in his isolation. One of the greatest Christians of the 20th century we can point out to was a guy by the name of Clive Staple Lewis. We know him as C.S. Lewis. You know him too. Chronicles of Narnia. He was a brilliant apologist. after he had come to know Jesus. His autobiography is Surprised by Joy. Surprised by Joy begins with Lewis observing the death of his mother dying to cancer. And this leads him to disbelief in God who he had prayed to. He would rise to be a world-renowned medieval literary scholar in Oxford.

26:26 This is in the 20th century He's there in the mid 60's Or in the early 60's Throughout the 50's and 40's he was soaking in his negativism, in his positive atheism. He wasn't designed this way, but he would become friends with a fellow named J.R.R. Tolkien. You know him too. Lord of the Rings. Who was a devout Christian. Charles Williams and some others. And they made themselves into a group called the Inklings. I-N-K. Inklings. Because they were writers.

27:18 He was an atheist. They were believers. And he said later, the most dangerous thing that can happen to your atheism is to be in a room with positive, joyful people who believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

27:42 Now I know y'all like happy hour. They ain't fighting against your happy hour. You gonna do it, but you sometime need to have another kind of hour, a joyful hour with some people that believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and some people that believe other than just on Sunday morning. You need to have some faith friends on Monday through Saturday. Sometimes. and Lewis turns his life toward God and some of you probably have it on your shelf and through his BBC he interviews rights mere Christianity isolation is death to you when you're going through your struggles and then something happened in that upper room there was something proclamatory there was a proclamation that was going on read what they said and it says one line when they were up there they were just proclaiming that we have seen him that's it we have seen him.

29:10 Continuously, they were saying, we've seen him. Comprehensibly, all of them were saying, we've seen him. Convincingly, they were saying, we have seen him. Oh, bring it this way. I have seen him.

29:30 And who's in that upper room? We know the twelve, but I'm sure Mary was there. Magdalene, she said, I got up early. And I went to the tomb. It was empty, but I saw him. Salome was there, Joannes was there. And they said, we have seen him. And then Cleopas on the road, seven miles northwest of Jerusalem, said, I saw him. He was in my house. We started eating bread together and he vanished, but he left my heart burning because it's hard to be around the living Savior and not feel something.

30:17 We have seen him. Oh, I hear what you're saying. You mean to tell me you ain't seeing Jesus lately? How dare you come in here and you ain't seeing Jesus? I see him every day. When I wake up in the morning and I see the sunrise, it is a demonstration of a resurrection and a perpetual giving of God's life to my life.

30:48 You're looking for the wrong stuff. You're looking for something else. You got to look at what's obvious in front of you when you see a flower budding and a bee landing and you see a butterfly lightning. You got to know this is God in creation reminding me that I'm all around you. So when you come in this room You got your head down Somebody walks by you You don't want to be bothered with them And they look at you and they say be strong I've been praying for you You don't even know these people And they got the nerve to say to you Exactly what you need to hear At the right time You come in with your arms folded They're mad.

31:44 Mad from home, mad from job, mad with the doctor's report, mad. And the choir got the nerve to talk about deeper, deeper. And God is saying, my spirit is moving deeper in you. Yeah. You come in here mad, you don't want to be bossy. And the last thing I need is to hear him up there yelling at me. And the children stand up there and say, Christ is the center of my life. And you say, that was good enough for me. I can go home now to be reminded that Christ is at the center of my life. Let me wrap it up now. And so they're upstairs. And finally, guess who come to church? Thomas finally showed up Peter present James present John present well I guess I call the name Thomas present present present But he came with a bad attitude.

33:12 And his attitude to the proclamation of the resurrection, the continual and convincing testimony of those in the room was, unless I see. Now some of us say, when we read it, when I see, if that's what he said, that's a statement of hope. When I see. But that ain't what he said. He said unless. And that's despair. And I want to say to you, when you are in despair and y'all at home, when you are in despair, home ain't the place where you need to be. When you are grappling with the political, social, cultural, education discrepancies in America, home ain't where you need to be. You need to be in the upper room with brothers and sisters who are there convincingly saying Christ is among us.

34:16 Yeah, that's what he said. He said, come on, he said, I'm here. But unless I can see these things, I'm not going to believe it. And by this time, Thomas shows up and somebody else shows up. Jesus shows up. Now his spiritual presence is there, but I mean he shows up. And makes a cameo appearance while he's walking the streets, on the seashores, and over on mountains. and revealing himself to one person and two and 500 and indoors and outdoors, he stops in. Thomas, he said, I heard that you had some disbeliefs.

35:13 Now, Thomas, I need to know that. Now, you are the one that when I had the outdoor picnic with two fish and five loaves, you did eat a fish sandwich didn't you i just want to make sure that i'm talking to the right person uh you you you are the thomas that when we were on a ship crossing the galilee and suddenly a storm broke out and y'all thought the boat was gonna sink Tell my Lord save me. You were on the boat when y'all woke me up, right? From my nap and I just got up and said, peace. Be still.

36:03 I mean, you were there with me in Bethany when I told Lazarus, get up. You mean to tell me after all of those evidences, you need to see something? In order for you to believe, you mean to tell me, unless you give me a job, unless you fix my family, unless you heal my body, unless I win the lottery, unless you mean to tell me that me waking you up this morning and dying on Calvary and getting up on Sunday morning ain't evidence enough? Let me tell all of you something. You have more evidence than what all the world history has provided for us.

37:00 When you read the works of Thucydides and Polypolisian or you read Xenophon and his writing of Alexander the Great following him all the way to the river, you read Caesar and writing about the wars of the galaxy. If you got all of that, just remember this, that those wars put together is not more evidence than you have not just in the Bible, but every other eyewitness that has been writing about Jesus for the last 2,000 years. What more do you want God to do for you than when he saved you on Calvary. So Jesus, Jesus said, now, now I heard what you said. I got to sit down.

38:00 My clock ran out. Said, said, now, now, now, now. Come on in, Tom. Come on, come on over here. And this is, this is what I could have wrapped this up 30 minutes ago. How do you dispel disbelief? through an encounter with the living Christ. This is why I keep on telling you, I'm not telling you that show up at church just to try to fill up no seats. I'm saying that when you're isolated and disappointed and discouraged, God has built in the church living witnesses who will encourage you along the way. And Jesus said to Thomas, he said, come here Thomas I want to put this to rest before I take my cloud and go back to glory he said uh here here are my hands and then he pulled his cloak back he said here's my side because I heard you said unless I see unless I feel and Thomas knew at that moment Lord he's been eavesdropping on my pessimism. He said, you came up with the criterion. You said, unless I see, unless I feel, I'm not going to believe. When Jesus confronted him on that, here's what Tom said, my Lord and my God. Have a good day. May God bless you real good.

39:36 my lord and my god my king the king and my lord of law that that that what he was saying he said my everything now let me tell you something i didn't mean to go that far let me let me sit myself down but it's hard to talk about a living savior and not get excited about it I mean, when you think about how much darkness and how much peasantism we live with, it's just good to be in God's house along with God's people just to hear somebody say he lives. I'm glad this morning Be able to say Not just on Easter morning But to say He lived Have I got a witness in here When somebody Approach you today and they say What did the preacher Preach about telling me been telling the same Story for 38 Years and that is That Jesus That he lives I'm trying to leave you alone, but my soul is happy.

40:55 And so when Jesus said, put your finger in my hand and put your hand in my side. Some said, my Lord and my God. But Jesus said, I'm not all that excited about what you said. because the truth is blessed are those who have not seen and yet they believe. Have a good day, not children. Think about that. Blessed are you who show up every week and you still got problems. Blessed are you and your body is still sick. Blessed are you and you're still fighting in the saving of your family. Blessed are you when you don't know how things are going to work out.

41:56 Blessed are they who believe and have not seen. Have I got company in here? But aren't you glad that God will make special promises and special appearances for somebody in need. Yes, he will. Somebody in here this morning, the Lord set you by somebody just to remind you that you're not in this thing by yourself. You're not in this battle alone. You're not in this struggle singularly. But I have somebody who can help you along the way. Have a good day now, children.

42:51 May God bless you real good. But why don't you help me help somebody in the room? Only in the morning, if you don't mind doing it, I hate to disturb you. But you don't know who might be like Thomas. They're in that silo. They're disappointed. They're discouraged. Their head is hanging low. Why don't you just turn in some direction? You ain't got to touch nobody. You ain't got to slap nobody. Just look around and let somebody know. He lives. I said he lives. Christ Jesus lives today. Have I got a witness here? He walked He talks with me. I, I, I am his child.

43:57 Yeah, I belong to him. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Evidence. Evidence enough to convince you that Jesus lives. That he lives. He lives. He lives. In fact, you can close the door on your heart. But thank goodness, Jesus comes to the heart's door. Revelation 3.20 and he starts knocking. And he says, if you open the door, I'll come in. And I'll fellowship with you. And you can fellowship with me. Glory to God today. The door to church is open for somebody. But Jesus is knocking at the door.

44:50 Just simply saying, let me in. and if you're already in this is a time for you to say lord i open the door even wider for you to take over every space in my life in my heart pastor west i know jesus has been knocking at my door i've been surrounded by negative people bad negative influences but i'm coming out of my isolation i'm coming out of my silo i'm coming out so that the lord can come in open the door and let him in. Come on, get up from that seat. Receive the grace gift that God has for you in the person of Jesus Christ and let today be your day that you begin brand new with him. We're waiting on you.

45:38 Hallelujah. We're going to shout when you get down here. And don't you miss what God has for you. I see you coming back there Help me one time Really put your hands together I know you may be a little tired But encourage somebody On their way here today God bless you Love to Jesus Yeah, God bless