Mr. Fearing Comforted

Spurgeon takes Peter sinking on the water as the key to understanding all Christian doubt — he sank not because Christ failed but because he looked away from Christ to the winds and waves — and applies this same diagnosis to believers in temporal trouble, arguing that every form of anxiety about money, health, or overwhelming circumstances is essentially the same mistake: staring at second causes while forgetting the First Cause who planned the trial, measured it with love, has kept them through every previous difficulty, and will not abandon his own servants in the storm. He then turns to spiritual doubts and traces them through four forms — doubt from awareness of sin, doubt from a hard and feelingless heart, doubt from loss of sweet communion with Christ, and doubt that one can possibly persevere to the end — showing in each case that the error is the same: looking inward at one's own condition rather than outward to Christ crucified, risen, and interceding, whose merits are not diminished by the believer's failures and whose faithfulness is not conditional on our feelings. He closes by arguing that final apostasy is impossible precisely because it would publicly dishonor Christ, give Satan a trophy, and make the promise of eternal life a lie — and urges every doubting soul, whether troubled about their present acceptance or their ultimate safety, to stop examining themselves and simply look to Christ, who has never yet cast out anyone who came to him.Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on April 3rd, 1859.