"An
Anchor for the Soul in Troublous Times"
The
Lord's Day, August 6, 2000
|
The ECF Pulpit |
If you would open your Bibles to Proverbs, chapter three, this morning, we're going to make a departure from our study in the Person and Work of Christ. And what I would like to be able to tell you is that I have enough forethought and enough wisdom to recognize that in the midst of a long series such as the one we're undertaking, every once in a while it's good to step back and take a breath. That perhaps it is good to regroup and collect our thoughts in another area. Especially after we've just finished this first part of the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, and realize that we are 52 sermons into the Person and Work of Christ, and we're no further than Matthew, chapter five! I thought maybe somebody out there is raising their hand saying, "Rescue us, rescue us!"
I'd LIKE to say that I thought that through very carefully, and that's why we're in Proverbs 3 this morning, but it isn't true. The reason why we're in Proverbs 3 this morning is because as I was studying this week, and spending some time, I was in this particular passage, and it ministered so greatly to my own heart, that I thought it would be wrong not to bring it.
I have nothing new to bring you this morning; nothing that you haven't heard before, a thousand times; but oh, how we need to remind ourselves of those basic truths that hold us.
The passage is so simple, so profoundly simple, it's almost academic. Two verses, that's all we want to focus on. Simple things that you know and you can recite by heart: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight."
As I said, the passage is so exceedingly simple that it's one of those things that in your own devotions you're likely to read and just skip over. I know I've read it so many, many times. Yet for whatever reason, this week as I sat there meditating on this portion, and perhaps needing what this portion had to say, it just started to unfold to me again what a great and extraordinary, and wonderful thing, it is for the Christian to be able to say that He can trust in the Lord with all his heart ---especially when he cannot lean on his own understanding--- and that we're counseled to put everything in the region of acknowledging Him, and then letting Him make our paths straight.
The passage divides itself up. It makes it easy for preachers. I love verses like this; I don't have to work. There are four statements, and so that's what we look at. We're going to look at a word of exhortation which is: trust in the Lord with all your heart. And then the word of warning that he gives us which is: not to lean on our own understanding. Thirdly, a word of counsel: what it means that in all our ways we are to acknowledge Him. And then fourthly, a word of promise: that He will make our paths straight.
Well, in this first portion, the word of exhortation, I want you to notice two things before we get into the sentence itself. The first is that we're being asked not just to blindly trust or have faith. The world tells us that. And sadly today, even some religion tells us that. A few years ago when Bobby McFarren came out with that great little song, "Don't Worry, Be Happy," it in fact encapsulated the theology of many in America today. Because we can have this theology of just keeping high hopes. Now I don't know about you, if you came from that generation where they sang about the ant and the rubber tree, [but] I never understood, "Oops there comes another rubber tree plant." It never made sense to me. But the ultimate message of the song made sense. It simply said, "Keep those high hopes. Keep a stiff upper lip. Keep yourself braced. Keep a positive attitude. Keep looking up." And all of it's trash! Because it's only fools that live in absolute bliss. Christians don't live in foolish bliss; we live in reality. And the Scripture never just says, "Be happy." It never just says, "Well, look up. Just keep a positive attitude. Keep your back to the wind." The Scripture says, "Trust in the LORD;" not "Trust in trust;" or "Trust in blind faith, or some empty hope;" but "Trust in the Lord." And that's the reality the writer of the Proverbs (probably Solomon in this spot) gives us. Trust in the Lord. Don't just have some dumb positive attitude that's focused on nothing. Put your focus on Him.
We kind of went through this a few years ago in the Church (and all toward a good end, or at least with a good idea in mind) when people were being counseled again to meditate on the Word of God. Now, that quickly degenerated into just "meditate." Well, you can contemplate your navel until the cows come home, and all you'll get is lint. To contemplate or to meditate on nothing is utter foolishness. And it opens the mind to whatever might be wafting around in the air out there. We're not to meditate on nothing. We're to meditate on the Word of God. Meditate in His law day and night. Go back to the counsel of God's Scripture. That's where truth anchors the soul. In fact if I had a title for this sermon (and I don't usually title them), it would be "An Anchor for the Soul in Troublous Times." This is what this passage is written for: to take the individual when we're walking through those rough times, and to reestablish our feet upon the rock that alone is capable of sustaining us, and keeping us, in the tough times.
The second thing that I think comes out of this then is: that we need to know this Lord in whom it is we're being asked to trust. We aren't just again to blindly trust in a person. I sit here during the week, often napping, and then people have the nerve to interrupt me by knocking on the front door. (I have yet to figure that out. We need to install a bell or something that rings in some other building.) But, they'll knock on the door, and they'll come and they'll tell me a sob story. And then they cap it with these words: "Trust me." Well that's a sheer give-away. You know they're lying to you the minute they've got to tell you, "Trust me, I'm telling you the truth." They aren't telling you the truth! They're giving you a load of hooey. We had a guy come in the door just a couple weeks ago, and he told me this sad tale about all his difficulty, his woes, his trials: "I don't have food to feed my kids." So I said, "Well, here's some food. I'll bag it up for you, and you can take it home." And he says, "Well, I kinda like that stereo you've got sittin' up there on the coat rack." I said, "The stereo?" He says, "Yeah, that's a real nice stereo." I said, "I thought your kids were hungry. They can't eat the stereo." (Unless they're very strange children. I mean I've seen some try.) "But I thought you needed food." Well the bottom line was, he didn't want food. He wanted something he could get money for so that he could support what he really wanted to do. When somebody just comes and says, "Trust me," put your hand on your wallet. I used to work for a man who said that, as sales people, we're all Siamese twins joined together at the wallet. I begin to think that's true, even in the church. We need to know the One we're being asked to trust here. He doesn't ask us to trust Him blindly. And so the first thing that we need to do, when we hear this word of exhortation to trust in the Lord with all our hearts, is to go back and reacquaint ourselves with Him again.
I don't know that we could have sat down and in concert picked better hymns for us to sing this morning than the three we did, especially the last one. There is the need in our lives to consistently and systematically crown Christ King of everything. Because the place where we tremble is the place where we have thought someone else rules other than Him.
We need to remind ourselves of His great sovereignty. You all know (the past number of weeks we've mentioned it a number of times) that when you come to the end of that great book of Job, and after he has been wrestling with the terrible difficulties in his life, that God doesn't suddenly come down and open a card to him and say, "Well Job, this is exactly why I was doing this." He doesn't do that for him. Instead, He simply reveals a greater reality of Himself. "Job, the issue itself isn't what's central. Seeing Me in it is! See Me again. Fix your eyes on My glory, on My majesty, on My sovereignty, on My power, on My grace!" That's where the soul has to be anchored, focusing once again on the God who owns us. Why is it that we're so easily turned and tossed about in every situation and circumstance? Isn't it because we've lost sight of the God we serve and the God who holds us? Isn't it because we're trying to hold onto something, instead of reminding ourselves that He's the One who holds onto us? Isn't it because we're putting our minds all off into other directions instead of reminding ourselves that this is the God of Israel, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; the One who came to earth in human flesh; the One who gave Himself that He might purchase us to Himself. How then can we doubt that He'll make sure that His promises come true? Look to Him! Set your heart and your mind again with great thoughts of the majesty and the power and the glory of the Living God! Don't allow your mind to wander.
As we read this morning Psalm 29, I just couldn't help but my heart was so rejoiced as I heard Jeff read it once again. But look at the beginning of this Psalm, because there's a tremendous three-fold call to do something, as the Psalmist addresses the people here. He begins by saying, "Ascribe to the Lord, O sons of the mighty, Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength." When is the last time you sat down and [not only] reminded yourself of the glory and the strength of God, but [also] ascribed it to Him. You see, that's what true worship is: ascribing to God who He is and what He is. That's exactly what he does, and then he strengthens it: "Ascribe to the Lord the glory due to His name; Worship the Lord in holy array." Ascribing to Him... Isn't the truth that more often than not, we're ascribing more power to our trials and our tribulations than to God? Isn't it the truth that we're often ascribing more power and more ability to the enemy, than we are to God? ---to our neighbor who's giving us trouble, than to God? ---to that work mate we'd rather see not come back on Monday, than to God? ---to our kids, or to our wife, or to our husband, or to someone else? No, we look to Him.
Again, that great portion of Scripture that we looked at in Isaiah, chapter forty, this morning...calculated to do nothing but to stimulate the heart to remind us of who God is. I love these words in verse 9 as Isaiah begins to prophesy, and he's told, "Get yourself up on a high mountain, O Zion, bearer of good news, Lift up your voice mightily, O Jerusalem, bearer of good news; Lift it up, do not fear. Say to the cities of Judah,..." "Don't worry, be happy." (Boy, if that's in mine, I'm going to erase it! If it's in yours, cut it out!) No! "Say to the cities of Judah, 'Here is your God!'" That's where the soul is anchored, when we're once again presented with the image of the glorious God upon His throne ---high and lifted up; and full of splendor and majesty; and full of all the love and compassion for those that are His own (so much so that He'll never lose a one of them). "Here is your God!" That's the anchor for the soul. That's the only place where we can be. We need to dwell often on the glories of His divine nature. I don't know about you, but I think that is a lost art in our generation. One of the things that I love about the Puritans (and sometimes they can get on your nerves, I know... when you're reading one of those long sermons and all of a sudden, you've come down to "and sixty-fifthly..." and you're saying, "Okay, we've kind of covered the material here...") [is that] there was such a sense of the God that they were preaching. I think that's why our evangelism has gotten so weak in this day: because we don't preach a great God any more, or a great salvation any more. We just preach an open gate, and whoever is stupid enough to fall through it, comes in. What a slight upon Him and upon His majesty! We need to preach a great Savior because men are great sinners. And we need to preach a great God because we're in great trouble. We need to preach Him as glorious and wondrous because that's who and what He is, and we need to remind ourselves of it over and over again. We need to meditate on the reality of who this God is that has given Himself to us.
But secondly, we need to think in terms of the types of things that we can trust Him with.
Now that's easy for us to ascertain, if we just go back to the Word and begin to investigate the types of things that He has promised. When we know what He's promised, then we know what types of things He intends to do. Let me run through these quickly. We couldn't possibly go through them from beginning to end if we were to turn back and forth. But starting in Psalm 121, in verse 3, he says, "He will not allow your foot to slip; He who keeps you will not slumber." Tonight when you can't sleep, you need to remember that it's Him that's not sleeping so that you can. He never slumbers. He never sleeps. He never blinks the eye, so that you and I might rest on our beds at night and know that He is the One who keeps us. And in Hebrews 13, He says, "For He Himself has said, 'I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you,'" [v. 5b]. I don't care what it feels like. The truth is, He said He won't, and He won't. That's His promise. And in Matthew 28:20, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." What did He tell the disciples just as He was about to disappear from their sight? "I'm going, but I'm not gone. I'm with you all the way to the end." And in 1 Corinthians 10 [v. 13], how we need to know that the temptations that overtake us at times are not those but such as are common to every man.
How falling into temptation isolates us from one another! When you've gone through a season of falling into sin or of being tempted greatly, don't you tend to think of yourself as all alone? Aren't you ashamed to let another human being know that those types of thoughts are going through your mind? And you say to yourself as you sit in the pew on a Sunday, "I can't be a Christian. I'm the only one who's ever felt this way. I'm the only one who's ever wrestled with these problems. I'm the only one who's had these terrible feelings when I'm supposed to be in the presence of God." There is no temptation that has taken you but such as is common to man. But there's a promise with that. But with each one He will make a "way of escape," not so that it will disappear, but "that you will be able to endure it." You see, those are the types of promises that He affixes to Himself.
Look in Psalm 18 [v. 30], "As for God, His way is blameless; The Word of the Lord is tried; He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him." Or Psalm 34 [v. 22], "The Lord redeems the soul of His servants, And none of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned." Or Psalm 25 [v. 3], "Indeed, none of those who wait for You will be ashamed." Or Psalm 115 [v. 9-11], "O Israel, trust in the Lord; He is their help and their shield. O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord; He is their help and their shield. You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord; He is their help and their shield." Oh, what a joy to know again that in every thing we can trust the Lord, for He is our help and our shield. And that's what He promises. We need to fasten our minds again on those things that He promises.
I might add thirdly too, though, we need to rehearse the history of His having been a promise keeper throughout the centuries. There's one way that I do that regularly for myself, and I highly recommend it to you. I didn't invent it. I steal it, with great pride, from D. Martin Lloyd-Jones. In his wonderful little book, "Preachers and Preaching," which (whether or not you ever preach a sermon in your life) is worth reading. But in that wonderful little book, he spends almost an entire chapter, I think, addressing the need for the Christian to be reading the biographies of the great Christians that have walked the centuries before. Why? ---To remind ourselves that God keeps His Word. ---To see it lived out in their lives; where they failed; and where they trembled; and when they thought they couldn't make it another step; and when they caved in under the pressure; and when the trials and the tribulations thought to wash over their souls. Look back to those that have come before. Why do you think the book of Acts was given to us? So that we could see how the church endured during those ages. Look at the entire record of the Old Testament, and we're told in the New that we are to look back to these men and see them as examples of faith. We're even brought to the picture of Job again. And it says, "Look at him, so that you understand what patience and perseverance is all about." And how many have gone before us in this generation and the generations just before? Remind yourselves of their lives. Go back and read the biographies of Whitefield and of D. Martin Lloyd-Jones. And go back to the Puritans, and read. Just this past week again I was reminded that there are very few biographical materials available on the life of John Owen (of course John Owen being the greatest intellect of the Puritan era; just a brilliant man, and such a godly man). And then I went back to read, and I found just a short biography on his life. I see this man who writes with such great wisdom on the sovereignty and the power of God, a man who knows the depths of sin. Volume six in his works, on sin and the remnants of indwelling sin in the believer, is unbelievable in its depth. His work on the Holy Spirit in volume three, where he begins, saying that, "No man has tread this territory before, but we must proceed in the Word of God and know these things." Such powerful things. I went back to read something about his life, because I knew nothing about him except that he was chaplain to Cromwell. And you all think, "Well that's pretty good stuff. He's chaplain to Cromwell." And then you find out that he was a man who didn't want to serve with Cromwell, and had to be given a charge by Parliament even to go and do it, because he said, "My call is to preach God's Word." And then you find out that he lost eight children in infancy, and that only the ninth survived. And that she grows to be nineteen or twenty years of age and goes off to be married to a preacher in a nearby village. Then, without explanation, two years later [she] returns home to her mother and father, only to die the following year. When this man writes on the sovereignty of God, he knows whereof he speaks. It's good for us to go back and to rehearse those.
But it's also good to go back and rehearse those great things that we've seen God do over the centuries. David did this for himself. I've marked out a Psalm [42] for you there to go back and read when you get an opportunity. He mentions three things. He says how he reminds himself of these things. He remembers God "from the land of Jordan." Why Jordan? Because he goes back an d he says, "I recall that God promised He would bring His people out of Egypt. And He brought them through the Red Sea, but He brought them up to Jordan. Then He parted the water and brought them through." That's how faithful He is to His promise. If He has to part the waters, He'll do it. And he says, "And I remember Him from the land of the Hermanites." Why the Hermanites? Because it was at the land of the Hermanites that the Israelites did battle with Og, king of Bashan, and with Sihon, king of the Amorites and where God defeated the enemies when it looked like they wouldn't be able to go in and to receive their great inheritance. Then he mentions this third one, "And I remember Him from the hill of Mizar." What's the hill of Mizar? You can spend all afternoon reading various opinions on what Mizar is, because they are all conjecture. Nobody knows what in the world he's referring to. I would suggest to you that that's exactly why he included it. Because he includes the remembrance of those things when God met him and nobody else knew it. "I remember when I was with God at Mizar, and He met me." You go back and rehearse for yourselves those times when God has met you ---when He's opened His Word to you; when you've prayed and you've seen the situation turned, and you've come through it and now it's behind you. And now you've clean forgotten that it's God who delivered you, and that you cried out in a moment of such weakness and such inability. But he met you there, and did not let you go. Now you stand where you stand today because He's faithful to His promises. I'll tell you one promise you should all go back and revisit regularly: remember that you called upon Him when you were in your sins, and He came and He redeemed you and made you His own. If He has kept that promise, what else will He do for His own? Don't forget what He's done. Rehearse your life. Remember those things that He's performed by His great hand. Oh, it is such an anchor for the soul ---when trial comes, when tribulation comes--- to be able to go back and say, "I know it's troublous right now, but I remember when..., and Lord, You brought me through. You haven't failed yet. I've seen you ---time after time after time--- answer prayer." That's what it means to trust in the Lord with all your heart: to go back and to remember Him in all of His infinite glory; to go back and remember the promises and the trustworthiness; and then to remember how He has kept His promises. Oh, how that takes the soul and restores it and renews it and gives you an opportunity to breathe again in the midst of trial.
He doesn't end there though. Next, in that following phrase, he gives us a word of warning: "And while you're remembering God in all these things, let me tell you what not to do. Don't lean on your own understanding." There are two reasons for that primarily. Three, I guess. The first is because our understanding is always limited. No matter how good it is, it's always limited. You remember from Isaiah, chapter 46, that we're told that He understands the end from the beginning, because He declares the end from the beginning. He comprehends all of those things, but our understanding is so incredibly limited. So often we're caught with just a few, small facts. (I have sweated the day that this little tidbit about my life would come out. So if I say it, you know, it's okay.) But you know, you wonder about certain things. I was selling restaurant equipment for a living. (That's not the sin. It may be to some of you, but it wasn't in my eyes.)when I got a call from a restaurant in the city and they said, "We need a particular piece of equipment. Can you come down and measure for it, and give us an estimate?" I said, "Sure." I'd never heard of this place before. But I went. I looked it up in the phone book, and I realized it's a strip bar. (Oh, this is not going to be good!) So I said, "I can only come at nine o'clock in the morning." (I know they don't open until two in the afternoon. I figure this will get me through.) I walk through the door at nine o'clock in the morning, of course getting out of the car and looking all around me. Do I recognize anybody else's car in the lots around us? Alright? Is there some Christian who's going to say, "I saw him walk in there"? Because you know somebody's going to! So I got in there, and it's nine o'clock in the morning, and I walk into this pitch black room, and finally my eyes adjust to the light. If you've ever traveled a lot... Those of us that have frequented a lot of hotels, we refer to not-so-nice hotels as sticky-carpet hotels (and someday you'll understand why that's true). This was a sticky-carpet kind of place. So I walked in, only to find out that the bar is full! There's guys bellied up to the bar at nine o'clock in the morning,and they're shootin' 'em down their throats! And I'm thinking, "O-o-o-okay."So I go into the back, and I do my business. I finally leave, and the first thing I did was I called my wife. And I said, "Hear it from me first. I was at a strip bar this morning." But you know as sure as I'm a foot tall, that if somebody had just seen me walk in or had just seen me walk out, that the rumor mill would have been out there in a moment's time.
You see, our knowledge is limited, and we make judgments on that limited knowledge. We do the same thing with God. We see ourselves in the middle of the situation, and we only see one aspect of it. And we judge Him as though He's not hearing prayer, not answering the need, not meeting the situation. And we judge Him wrongly, because our knowledge is limited. And He says, "Don't lean on your own understanding. You don't have the whole picture."
The second reason why we need to "not lean on our own understanding" is because our understanding is defective. Even when we've got all the facts in hand, sometimes we're not getting the truth. I have a great case in point. It was a number of years ago. Is it still called Darien Lake, or have they changed the name now? Six flags? Six Flags. If you go there, there's an attraction that I particularly like. It's a building, and it's kind of like a dome. You go into this building, and it's just nothing but a concrete floor and a series of hand railings. You stand there at these railings, and what they're about to do is show a movie on the screen ---usually a movie of a plane flying through a valley, or a helicopter, or a roller coaster ride. But the thing is, it's tall and it's wide, so that's all you can see while you're in there. Have you ever done this? I have. And then you know... you know the facts. The facts are: you're in a building; you're standing on a concrete floor; you've got your hands on a steel railing that's embedded in the concrete floor. But before five minutes are up, you're [leaning] going like this, and you're [swaying] going like this, or you're maybe even "blowing chunks," because it's really got you flying. You know what's happened. You've got the facts. But at that moment your perception is deceived by what you see. That's the way we are. And there are times when we're in the midst of the thing, and our perception is so completely clouded by the circumstance, because that's what's in front of us, and it's this tall, and it's this wide, and it surrounds us, and it's loud. And we find ourselves knowing that we stand on the rock of Christ, and yet swaying back and forth as though we're really on the roller coaster ride. Folks, we stand on Him! But you see, our thinking is defective. Our understanding is defective.
Lastly, the reason why we need to "not lean on our own understanding," is simply this: it's ours and not His. And ours is always not going to be His ---what He sees, what He knows, what He fully comprehends, and how He has designed for our individual lives. We need to rest on His assessment and not ours. In those lonely moments, we need to remember that His assessment is, "I'll never leave you nor forsake you." In those times when it seems that all is lost, we need to remember that His assessment is that, "There's no temptation that has taken you but such as is common to man." In those moments, we need to remember what His assessment of the truth is --- not ours, His. That's the warning. Don't lean on your own understanding. Or if I might say it as Isaiah did in chapter 55 [v. 8], "'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are my ways higher than your ways And my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.'" We need to trust His assessment and not our own.
Let me take that just a step further. He says that He does all things well. He says that He's in the process of conforming us to the image of His Son. And therefore, no matter what befalls us, it will be useful for His glory and for our benefit. That's His assessment. Take His Word for it, not what you feel, not what you see ---what He says. Because He knows. He knows.
Well there's then a third thing for us here in this passage. We are to trust the Lord with all our hearts, and lean not on our own others.) "Do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows." If He's paying attention to the little sparrows that are flying through the air, if He's paying attention to the state of your being to such a degree that He uses a term like numbering the hairs on your head to explain it, oh Brother, then see Him in everything. See Him everywhere. Don't exclude Him from any circumstance or any situation, but acknowledge Him in it. Because if we don't acknowledge Him in it, we'll start putting together little isolated pockets where God is not God. And He is God everywhere. There's no place where He's not God.
Secondly, we need to confess everything to Him. This is acknowledging Him in everything. This is sometimes painful, but I tell you it's one of the most wonderful practices you will ever get used to. I don't know about you, but for me, I've gone through periods when prayer becomes an exercise in telling God certain things, but hiding the truth from Him in certain other things. (...like He doesn't know!) When I was a little boy, I snuck onto the neighbor's porch and stole the mousetraps and took them home. My dad said, "Where did you get those mousetraps?" I said, "Well, they were giving them away free at the store down the street as samples." (I was not a good liar.) My sister piped up, and said, "I know where he got them." And after the wailing and the weeping and the gnashing of teeth, Dad called the neighbors, and they said, "Oh, we know; he left his boots here." I think Dad spanked me harder for being stupid than for doing the stealing. He walked me down the street, and said, "Now apologize to these people." That was worse than anything. I got home and got another spanking. That was just not a good day. (I actually had a direction I was going in with that story too, but for the life of me, I can't remember where it was!) They knew. But they still needed me to confess my sin. God knows.
Might I encourage you to be wonderfully blatant with God in your prayers? If you're doubting Him, tell Him you're doubting Him. If you're in the midst of fear, tell Him you're afraid. If you don't understand, tell Him you're confused. If you've failed, tell Him you've sinned. What do we think we're hiding from Him? Why do we go to prayer as though we're making "nice-nice"? We need to confess everything to Him. When you've blown it, tell Him you've blown it. And when you're trembling, tell Him you're trembling. And when you're thinking wrong thoughts about Him, tell him, "God, I'm not thinking rightly about you right now." Because in all of this you're casting yourself back upon Him. Acknowledge Him in everything. Don't keep anything back.
I had a gentleman call me the other day. (And because he's not here, and he'll never hear this, it's okay. I'm not going to mention his name, so you'll never know.) And he was just so troubled. He picked up the phone because he was so worried. He said, "I yelled at my wife." He was weeping. I said, "So call her up and tell her. And then tell her you're sorry." He called me back. He said, "That's too easy. I told her I shouldn't have yelled at her and told her I was sorry, and she said, 'Okay.'" (I think he was thinking he was going to go home and get killed ---that she was going to sucker him in by being nice to him.) If we're that way with one another, how much more do you think God is with us? Don't hide it from Him. I don't care how terrible it is, how vile it is, how horrid it is in your own eyes. Take it to Him. And be honest with Him about it. Tell Him every grisly, filthy, lousy detail. Acknowledge Him in everything. You know, the truth is [that] we only have anxiety about the things we don't trust Him with. And the more we start spilling our guts to Him, the less that anxiety builds up. Tell Him. Tell Him the whole nine yards. Don't keep it back. It's of no benefit. In all our ways acknowledge Him. "Trust Him," it says in Psalm 62, "at all times. Oh people; Pour out your heart before Him; for God is a refuge." [v. 8] Is He distant right now? Is your faith cold right now? Are you neglecting your holy duties right now? Tell Him. Go to Him with that. He's the One who gives holy desires. He's the One who restores. He's the One who renews. Go to Him.
Thirdly, we need to lay every plan before Him. As again the psalmist says, so simply and wonderfully in 37:5, "Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He will do it." [Have] you got a plan? Lay it before Him. If it's terrible and horrid, He'll show it to you. But if it's nothing contrary to what you know His written Word to be, do it with clear conscience before Him. But give it to Him. Lay it before Him. Say, "Lord, this is what I've decided to do. It's to the best of my ability. Here it is." He's got an amazing way of taking that and working it through to His own glory and to your good.
Lastly then, cast your whole confidence upon Him. You all know this verse. You know it better than I do. 1 Peter 5:7, "Casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you." I say it sometimes quite tritely. It's entered into my own vocabulary as almost a byword. Sometimes you have to catch those things. They do. Certain things that you say stick in your mind and they become commonplace. But the truth is: He cares for you better than you can. I can't imagine what it must have been like for Moses' mother ---knowing the circumstances in which they lived--- to take that ark and build it, to coat it with pitch inside and out, to put that little baby in that ark, and set him afloat on the water. I cannot fathom that. I thought I felt something like that when my daughter went off to college. As she jumped in the car to drive six hours away, and the panic attack starting coming, I was reminded that she is safer in His care than in mine. My care is an illusion. I can only do so much, [only] so well. But she's better in His hands than mine. Whatever the situation is in your life right now ---that you think is better off if you manipulate it, if you control it, if you run it--- it's better off in His [hands]. Commit it to Him.
Let me go another step. Commit yourself to Him in that way. He knows what you need. He knows what your concerns are. He's such a good God!
Well, that brings us then down to the fourth phrase, the last portion ---this great word of promise that He gives us. And in fact the verse breaks itself up. So you don't have to be a great exegete in order to do it; just work through the words. Here's the first part of the promise:
HE... He will make your paths straight. God is the one who intervenes when we look to Him and trust not on our own understanding, but in all our ways acknowledge Him. He personally intervenes.
Secondly, He WILL ---not He might, not perhaps, not maybe--- He will. If you trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not to your own understanding, and in all your ways acknowledge Him, He WILL make your paths straight. He will! It's an absolute promise. Not only that, He will MAKE your paths straight. It might not be right now. What you see might be pretty hilly, pretty bumpy, pretty lousy, pretty difficult. But He will make it. It isn't what it is now, it's what He will make it to be. When the children of Israel stood on the shore of the Red Sea, they had mountain on one side, wilderness on the other, and an army coming from the back. And there was no way. Then He made a way. That's what He'll do. You say, "Well I don't see it." You don't have to see it until you're ready to cross over. He will make your paths straight.
Next, He will make YOUR paths straight. This isn't a generic thing, it's a personal thing. He deals with you and me individually. As we trust in the Lord with all our heart, and lean not upon our own understanding, and in all our ways acknowledge Him, He deals in our individual circumstances.
But beyond that, He will make your PATHS straight ---not path, singular, but paths, plural. If I trust in the Lord with all my heart, and lean not to my own understanding, and in all my ways acknowledge Him, He will make my various paths straight. He knows the different ways I have to go. The different things that have to be done. The different things that need to be accomplished and in each one of those various things He will make the paths straight. The ends the last one. He will make your paths STRAIGHT.
Now of all the different meanings that that word has in the Hebrew, I think that one fits the bill better than all the rest. He will make your path RIGHT. Right before Him because isn't that what we are after? It doesn't matter the circumstance except that we might do righteously before Him in it. So trusting in the Lord with all my heart and then leaning not to my own understanding but in all my ways acknowledging Him brings me to this place where the sovereign God of the universe promises that He absolutely will by His divine power and providence make the various paths that He sets before us in that we must walk, right before Him so that He is glorified. That's the promise. What a promise that is. And you're saying, "Well, I don't know if I should do this; I don't know if I should do that." Don't worry about that! Trust in Him with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, acknowledge Him in it, and tell you what - in the process He's going to make that path the right path. OK? You leave it in His hands. That's why we serve a sovereign God. That's how we're to live in troublous times. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father I thank you this morning for a different path. You know how badly I needed to hear this word this week and how glorious you were in just opening it to me that my own heart might revel in it. And Father I pray this morning for those here among us that are facing some many varied and difficult situations that they'll find this week again an anchor for their soul in the council of Your word. You don't lie to us. You don't mislead us. You don't tell us that this is simplistic and just flip a switch and it will all happen. But you call us to a certain way of living and thinking before your throne and then You promise that when we commit ourselves to that way, that you will lead and direct and accomplish what needs to be done.
For my brother or sister here, Lord, who's been struggling in you, this past week (and perhaps this has been a season of great struggling), I pray that your Word would just come alive in their hearts by your Spirit. Make this an anchor for their soul in these troublous times. But Father, if there are any here this morning who know not the saving grace of Christ, Father deal with them with the reality that none of the things we've discussed this morning are theirs, because they aren't yours ---that this great glory that you've dumped in our laps is because we belong to you and that none outside the pale of the cross of Christ can live in this. So Father, I pray differently for them this morning. I pray that you would crush their hearts with their sin. I pray that you would reveal their lostness to them ---that they would see the end of their sin, and that they would cry out to Christ who saves lost men. Might they look to you, and cry out to you, and know the saving grace that comes from a heart that trusts only in you. Bless your people with your Word, we pray this morning. In Jesus' precious name we ask. Amen.
Transcribed by Roy and Susan Marriott
Copyright © 2001 Reid A. Ferguson. Permission granted to quote in context.