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"IS THAT REALLY YOU, ALEX?"

There's a four-handkerchief scene in the Christian play, Shadowlands, which has twice been made into films. You might have seen the BBC television production, or the one starring Debra Winger and Anthony Hopkins. And I guess, with some of the quotes we've shared already this week from C. S. Lewis, we may as well stay with that motif.

But right at the close of the story, Joy Gresham has just died, succumbing at last to bone cancer. After so many prayers and candles lit and all the rest, she's gone. And where is God when the pain is so great? C. S. Lewis, who has delivered many powerful but impersonal sermons about his THEORY of how God uses pain as a megaphone to rouse a deaf world, now feels the hollowness of his own words mocking him.

But there's also Douglas Gresham, just a 14-year-old boy. His parents were already divorced, and now his mother is dead. And there's an unforgettable Oscar scene where C. S. Lewis, "Jack," and this young boy sit up in the attic where the cupboard filled with coats leads to the imaginary Kingdom of Narnia. And now Douglas, his face filled with grief, wonders aloud if maybe the whole business of God is just all imaginary too. Where in the world is God now?

And it's a moment filled with such doubt. "Jack," the kid says at last, "do you believe in heaven?" The question just hangs there in the air. Because for Lewis as well, if there's no heaven, then he has lost his Joy forever. If there's no heaven, then everything he has written for huge worldwide audiences is a lie. And in his own anguish, he considers the question. "Do you believe in heaven, Jack?"

Finally he answers: "Yes, Douglas, I do."

And Douglas just shakes his head slowly. "I don't believe in heaven," he says at last, his voice a mixture of heartache and doubt and maybe a bit of anger. Because where in the HELL had God been when he prayed so hard? His mom is probably gone forever now. "I don't believe in heaven," he says, his eyes wet.

And C. S. Lewis just considers this statement, and the pain and the doubt it represents. Finally he gives a little nod. "That's all right," he whispers. . . . and then they both dissolve into tears as the first tiny seeds of faith have to bloom again from scratch.

Now, friend, I would never say that such a celluloid moment speaks for God. But the plain truth is that you and I are sometimes rocked by doubts . . . and rocked HARD by them. And we may think the word "hell" even while wondering if heaven and hell are just a tandem pair of cruel jokes. Where IS God when it hurts? People even in the Bible have cried over lost loved ones many centuries before this one tiny flicker of doubt on July 13, 1960.

It wouldn't be very scholarly to spend this entire week on the topic of doubt, and never once mention the famous doubting disciple, Thomas. I guess the expression "doubting Thomas" has actually made it right into the lexicon of our speech, hasn't it? It's in your dictionary. And we're planning to think more about Thomas tomorrow. But I can't help but notice — and you find this story in John chapter 20 — that Christ is very tender toward this man who earlier, in his bitterness, had cried out: "Aaah, I don't believe it! He's dead! He's gone! Leave me alone!" Jesus doesn't yell at this doubting man; He doesn't condemn him. In fact, He almost gives that same quiet line: "It's all right. I understand. I know how filled with grief you were. But Thomas, now look. Here I am. Feel and see for yourself."

It was the same with Elijah — we mentioned him yesterday — and with Peter, whose doubts caused him to take a real bath. John the Baptist went so far as to wonder aloud about his own Cousin: "Is He the chosen Messiah or isn't He?" Read the gentle response from Jesus for yourself, right there in Matthew 11. And friend, in those moments when doubt creeps into our minds, and we wonder if Jesus is really there, I believe we can count on that same patience, that same graciousness. "I'm still here," He promises . . . even though we might not hear that wonderful voice. "I'm still here. True, in the current shadows, maybe you can't sense My presence. The break of dawn is still a little ways off. But I'm here, and I understand your doubts and fears."

It's been a clear Bible principle this week that our understanding is finite. I mean, right here at this moment, what do you know for sure? Well, you know that it's Wednesday. You know you're listening to the radio. And you're reasonably sure that it's me, Lonnie Melashenko, and not some gifted mimic or impersonator. Or that Armando has taken this new digital computer program, ProTools, and spliced together a Wave File here and a few words and created a phantom radio sermon. But just the possibility of that kind of sleight-of-hand makes you wonder what you really do KNOW. It was back on this date in history, March 10, 1876, that a guy named Watson heard a disembodied voice coming through the speaker: "Mr. Watson, come here, I want you." But how could he know that was Alexander Graham Bell there on Line One? How could he know that exactly 123 years later we'd have cellular phones and satellite transponders and the ability to call from America to Beijing, China, for 25 cents a minute if you dial 10-10-something-something-something first? We all have the things that we know, and the things that we don't know, either because we're not smart enough or because we can't see 123 years into the future or even 123 minutes.

I mentioned yesterday a terrific essay, or book chapter, entitled "What to Do With Doubt," from the classic book, Steps to Christ. And the writer, Ellen White, acknowledges the limits of our knowledge.

"We can understand as much of [God's] purposes as it is for our good to know," she writes; "and beyond this we must still trust the hand that is omnipotent, the heart that is full of love."

And it is ALL RIGHT, she observes, for us to not know everything. Even Jesus told Peter once that there were things he simply did not have to know. Not then, and maybe not ever. "You just keep following Me," He quietly reminded. Here's a bit more from same essay on faith and doubt:

"In the natural world," she continues, "we are constantly surrounded with mysteries that we cannot fathom. The very humblest forms of life present a problem that the wisest of philosophers is powerless to explain." That's true, isn't it? Just watch the Discovery Channel! She goes on: "Everywhere are wonders beyond our ken. Should we then be surprised that in the spiritual world also there are mysteries that we cannot fathom? The difficulty lies solely in the weakness and narrowness of the human mind. God has given us in the Scriptures sufficient evidence of their divine character, and we are not to doubt His word because we cannot understand all the mysteries of His providence."

This says two things, really. First of all, it's all right if we don't know some things. Secondly, it's possible to know ENOUGH to be assured of salvation! That's good news, isn't it? There's enough in the Bible that we CAN be saved. We can know John 3:16 and its promise about Calvary and eternal life, and really, that's ENOUGH.

We shared once here on this program the old Billy Graham story from his autobiography, Just As I Am. And even the great Dr. Graham has to stand before God "just as I am," with fears and worries. But early in his ministry, he was assailed with huge theological doubts. His minister buddies, his peers, were all going liberal — doubting the Bible, discarding the virgin birth, chucking the cross. Were the words in these 66 books true or not true? He couldn't explain the mysteries, the dichotomies, the apparent contradictions. And here, summer of 1949, he was about to take on the huge L.A. evangelist meeting. How could he conscientiously do that if he was filled with doubts? One moonlit night up in the San Bernardino Mountains, he almost left the faith, wrestling in the darkness with this unseen God who had sent down this mysterious Book.

And finally Billy Graham just decided: "I'm going to hang onto the things I know, and by faith trust You, Father, regarding the things I don't know!" He got up from his knees and never again allowed the doubts created by his limited mind to shake his faith in God.

One of the preachers I most admire is our own John McLarty, who recently left the Voice of Prophecy program to return to pastoral ministry. He's a keen thinker, a reader, a man who enjoys wrestling with hard theology and the mysteries that often confound preachers. And once he and David were animatedly discussing some very difficult, unsolvable topic. And after spinning their wheels, David asked him: "John, what do you do with this? There doesn't seem to be an answer! I certainly don't have one, and neither do you."

And John's answer speaks volumes. "God has called me to preach the things I DO know," he answered simply. And in pulpits across the country and here on the radio, his wonderful, Christ-centered scripts expressed the realities of the truths he DID know: Calvary, the power of God, the Second Coming, the life-changing properties of the Bible. True, he still loved to dig into the hard things, the unanswerables. He wrote lively treatises that humbly fleshed out POSSIBILITIES for some of those things. But friend, the murky horizons beyond which we don't know should never shake our faith in the things we DO know!