Crisis Of Faith 4 by Apostle Femi Lazarus: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

What Makes People Doubt the Existence of God

Nothing pushes people to doubt the idea of God's existence like discouragement. Every time doubt about God begins, it is because someone is asking: if there is a God, why is my life like this? Why is there suffering here? The question is not primarily intellectual — it is emotional. It is pain speaking.

Growing up with a father who was a pastor, attending meetings where fire was reportedly falling — and sitting in the corner watching ants follow each other on the wall, crying and asking: what kind of God gives his hand to some families and leaves me in this place? That became anger toward church. Arriving late, dressed deliberately to communicate disdain.

What that season eventually revealed is that the posture of God toward everyone is love and restoration. Always. He is not offended that you are honest with him.

Are you aware that you can tell God: I am struggling to believe in you? God is not an African parent. It does not threaten him that you are beginning to doubt.

The Afterlife Is Real — and Life Here Is Brief

Look at the same world we live in and notice: we are not the first people here. We are not even in the first hundred generations. There have been several civilisations — family trees, languages that cannot be traced anymore, cultures that have collapsed, kings and empires forgotten entirely. Those who thought they would live forever.

Genghis Khan. Lenin. Stalin. When Stalin was dying, he was so feared that his doctors could not approach him. His comrades dared not move without being summoned. And yet — he died. Nelson Mandela died. Malcolm X died. Every great person who has walked this earth has exited. New children are born who grow up without any memory of those who came before.

Hebrews 9:27 — it is appointed unto man once to die, and after that, the judgment. There is nothing as humbling as death. While you are here, love God. The duration of life in eternity is far greater than the duration of life on earth.

The Arguments for God's Existence

Some argue humanity is the product of a big bang — an explosion somewhere in the cosmos that produced the well-organised trees, mountains, rivers, and everything we see. But you cannot call something a scientific reality or a law if it cannot be replicated. Show one explosion today that generates a self-sustaining, self-reproducing biosphere.

Others argue evolution — from unicellular to multicellular organisms, amoebas to complexity. But from the days science has known what it is, amoebas have not changed form. The complexity the theory requires has not been observed in real time.

Only one person has ever stood and said: I made the heavens and the earth. No one else has made that claim. Even many of the finest scientists who have walked this earth — while they could not scientifically prove it — agreed that there is a designer behind what we see. A master architect. Someone who drew the blueprint.

Romans 1:20 — even creation testifies of the glory of God. The layout itself speaks.

Prayer Is Not What Most People Think It Is

A person once came struggling to believe that prayer worked. The counsel given was simple: after this conversation, when you get home, just talk to God. The person said: I do not have the strength.

The response: what do you think talking to God means? You can tell him, I am struggling to believe in you. You can say, God, I am not even sure you are there. Just say it. He is not a performance-based parent who needs you dressed correctly before he listens.

Prayer is communication with God. If you stay with him heart to heart, something is happening — whether or not you feel it. Many do not know how to take their afflictions to him because they have turned prayer into a formal performance rather than a genuine conversation.

• Many Christians are too full of themselves — too holy, too formal, too religious to be touched by real human experience. That same quality is what prevents God from trusting them with spectacular assignments.
• The gathering of believers will never expire. But the religious conclaves that have boxed God out of his own move will not stand the test of time.
• The church is going to need more than tongues. It needs Christians who can participate in the real conversations of the world — who know data, understand systems, and can engage with substance.

Crisis of faith is teachable only by those who have been through it. There are seasons of doubt that are real — even for apostles. The answer is not shame. The answer is returning to the text, returning to honest conversation with God, and discovering that what you find is greater than what you ever doubted.